"I must have been utterly mad at the time, or intoxicated with my own belief in myself, for I even went further, and said I was going away without any further help of any sort, and that I would make a name, and not come back until I had done so. I refused all assistance; I only wanted their good-will and belief in me, and this I knew neither of them could honestly give me. The Dad implored me to let him assist me; they both begged me to live at home until I could rely upon myself, feel my own feet, or lastly, the most fatal sentence they could have uttered in my state of pride, to remain at home until I realised the _failure_ I was about to make and alter my mind. "What a hopeless and silly thing is pride. It must be a dangerous thing, too, if it can suddenly choke years of love and devotion. "Pride was uppermost then when I left the house where we had all been so happy, and went out into the world, and I told them both I would only return when I had made myself famous, and not before. I believe they both broke down when I left, but I was a selfish young brute, and I never saw their view of things, nor how bitterly it must have hurt them. Retribution was not long in coming; I found as time went on that there were dozens of men, and women too, who could write better than I could. I found a living was not easy to get. I went even further still, and found at last that it was impossible to get any living at all. Education--there were hundreds of men, highly educated men, too, without any means of earning a living. Inspiration--and I had prated about inspiration often enough; inspiration only became inspiration when it was recognised as such. Luck, chance--I found there were no such things, save as words. Money--I never made any now, and gradually I went down and down, grew shabby, was passed hurriedly by friends of my own choosing; then followed shabby rooms and little food, only to give place in turn to an attic and no food at all. Pride must have been still at work with a vengeance, for whatever I suffered there was not a single day or night that I could not have rushed home and been welcomed like the Prodigal of old, and been rejoiced over. But the very idea of this gave me a chill feeling of horror. How could I go home with all my boasts unfulfilled? Was I to creep home a self-confessed failure, with the alternative of acknowledging it and mending my ways and becoming the head of a business firm with a heart embittered for life? I felt I would never do this. I would prefer to starve upon the Embankment, and when I made that resolution I knew only too well what I was in for. I had done the same thing in my earlier life, only it needed a far greater courage to face that life now than it required then. Things were at their very worst when one day, as I was wending my way through the poverty-stricken locality in which I lived, I was hailed by my name. The man was shabbily dressed, but