The early life is a blank filled up by imaginative people out of Vivian Grey.

I am feeling my way indirectly with his brother, Ralph D'Israeli, and whether I go on or not will depend on whether he will help me." "THE MOLT, November 12th, 1889, "The difficulty is to find out the real man that lay behind the sphynx-like affectations.

I have come to think that these affectations (natural at first) came to be themselves affected as a useful defensive armour which covered the vital parts.

Anyway, the study of him is extremely amusing.

I had nothing else to do, and I can easily throw what I write into the fire if it turns out unsatisfactory." Although the book was necessarily a short one, it is too characteristic to be lightly dismissed.