Not George Washington — an Autobiographical Novel

It is just three years since I first met James. We made each other’s acquaintance at half-past seven on the morning of the 28th of July in the middle of Fermain Bay, about fifty...

The island was crammed with trippers. They streamed in by every boat. But James and I were infinitely alone. I loved him from the first, from the moment when he had rowed out of...

Three years had passed, and James was still haggling with those who buy men’s brains. His earnings were enough just to keep his head above water, but not enough to make us two one.

It is curious to reflect that my marriage (which takes place today week) destroys once and for all my life’s ambition. I have never won through to the goal I longed for, and now...

The three weeks which I spent at No. 93A mark an epoch in my life. It was during that period that I came nearest to realising my ambition to be a Bohemian; and at the end of the...

The problem of lodgings in London is an easy one to a man with an adequate supply of money in his pocket. The only difficulty is to select the most suitable, to single out from...

I determined to celebrate the occasion by dining out, going to a theatre, and having supper afterwards, none of which things were ordinarily within my means. I had not been to a...

After the first week “On Your Way,” on the _Orb_, offered hardly any difficulty. The source of material was the morning papers, which were placed in a pile on our table at nine...

The morning of New Year’s Eve was a memorable one for me. My first novel was accepted. Not an ambitious volume. It was rather short, and the plot was not obtrusive. The sporting...

Someone had told me that, the glory of Covent Garden Ball had departed. It may be so. Yet the floor, with its strange conglomeration of music-hall artists, callow university men...

I saw a great deal of Malim after that. He and Julian became my two chief mainstays when I felt in need of society. Malim was a man of delicate literary skill, a genuine lover o...

A difficulty in the life of a literary man in London is the question of getting systematic exercise. At school and college I had been accustomed to play games every day, and now...

Hatton’s Club boys took kindly to my course of instruction. For a couple of months, indeed, it seemed that another golden age of the noble art was approaching, and that the reju...

I had been relating, on the morning after the Blake affair, the stirring episode of the previous night to Julian. He agreed with me that it was curious that our potato-thrower o...

It is not everybody who, in a moment of emergency, can put his hand on three men of his acquaintance capable of carrying through a more or less delicate business for him. Certai...

The reasons which had led me to select Sidney Price as the sponsor of my Society dialogues will be immediately apparent to those who have read them. They were just the sort of t...

There only remained now my serious verse, of which I turned out an enormous quantity. It won a ready acceptance in many quarters, notably the _St. Stephen’s Gazette_. Already I...

With my system thus in full swing I experienced the intoxication of assured freedom. To say I was elated does not describe it. I walked on air. This was my state of mind when I...

Is any man really honourable? I wonder. Hundreds, thousands go triumphantly through life with that reputation. But how far is this due to absence of temptation? Life, which is l...

Norah Perkins is a peach, and I don’t care who knows it; but, all the same, there’s no need to tell her every little detail of a man’s past life. Not that I’ve been a Don What’s...

“Seemed to me that if one of the three gave the show away to the other two, the compact made by each of the other two came to an end automatically,” from myself.

They give you a small bonus at the “Moon” if you get through a quarter without being late, which just shows the sort of scale on which the “Moon” does things. Cookson, down at t...

My signed work had run out. For two weeks nothing had been printed over my signature. So far no comment had been raised. But it was only a question of days. But then one afterno...

And if anybody can tell me what that means (if it means anything—which I doubt) I shall be grateful. As I said before, my brain is not working properly.

When I woke, it was getting on for two o’clock. I breakfasted, with that magnificent telegram propped up against the teapot; had a bath, dressed, and shortly before five was wel...

I collected my evening clothes from a man of the name of Attenborough, whom I employ to take care of them when they are not likely to be wanted; found a white shirt, which looke...

But it was not the loss of Eva that troubled me most. It should have outweighed all my other misfortunes and made them seem of no account, but it did not. Man is essentially a m...

I finished the last page, and I laid down the typescript reverently. The thing amazed me. Unable as I was to turn out a good acting play of my own, I was, nevertheless, sufficie...

On the morning of the day for which the production had been fixed, it dawned upon me that I had to meet Mrs. Goodwin and Margaret at Waterloo. All through the busy days of rehea...