I published a book a year, after that, for ten years--ten years ten books, and then awoke to the fact that I was nothing at all and would never be anything--that I would never write like Shakespeare, and, a matter of equal importance, would never sell like Mrs.Henry Wood.

Not that I wished to write like any one else.

I had a great idea of keeping to my own individuality, but I saw quite clearly that what I had in myself--all of it--was no real importance to any one.

I might so well have been a butcher or baker for all that it mattered.

I saw that I was one of those unfortunate people--there are many of them--just in between the artists and the shopkeepers.