At the time of which I write, Stoke Newington still retained a village atmosphere. The houses, for the most part, were old, bow-windowed, and quaint. Many of them were occupied by leisured people--retired city-merchants, maiden-ladies, and widows, who came there because it was reasonable in price without being shabby. It was a backwater of the surging stream of London life where one found time to grow flowers, read books, and be kindly. Its red, tree-shaded streets witnessed many an old-fashioned love-affair. The early morning was filled with country sounds--singing of birds, creaking of wooden-gates, and cock-crowing. Our house was situated in Pope Lane, a blind alley overgrown with limes. It had posts set up at the entrance to prevent wheel-traffic. You could not see the houses from the lane, so steeply did the walls rise up on either side. It led nowhere and was a mere tunnel dotted with doors. Did the doors open by chance as you were passing, you caught glimpses of kitchen-gardens, shrubberies, and well-kept lawns. We rarely saw our neighbors. Each door hid a mystery, on which a child could exercise his fancy. My father was too strenuously engaged in wringing an income out of reluctant editors to pay much attention to my upbringing. In moving to Pope Lane, he had made an increase in his expenditure which, as events proved, his prospects did not warrant. The keeping up of appearances was a continuous and unrelenting fight. Early in the morning he was at his desk; the last thing in the evening, when I ventured into his study to bid him good-night, his pen was still toiling industriously across the page. His mornings were spent in hack-work, preparing special articles on contemporary economics for a group of daily papers. His evenings were given over to the writing of books which he hoped would bring him fame, many of which are still unpublished. He coveted fame and despised it. He wrote to please himself and expected praise. He was an unpractical idealist, always planning huge undertakings for which there was no market. His most important work, which occupied twenty years of his life, was _The History of Human Progress_. It was really a history of human selfishness, written to prove that every act which has dug man out of the mire, however seemingly sacrificial and noble, had for its initial motive an enlightened self-interest. He never managed to get it before the public. It was disillusionizing. We all know that we are selfish, but we all hope that with luck we could be heroes.