Then again, _The Times_, that great bulwark of the British Constitution, receives from fifty to a hundred letters a day for insertion, out of which only six or eight of the most public interest can be printed. _The Times_ is a great asset of the country, and proud, indeed, should be John Walter, the fifth generation. He is Chairman of the journal founded and maintained by his family at such a high standard for so many years. He ought to write the true history of _The Times_, as he alone can. But there are many and puzzling questions as to the journalism of the present day. Why are modern writers so destructive in their ideas? Why are they so seldom constructive? Why in politics is everything for pulling down, and nothing for building up? Is this the craze of the age? The hypercritical, hypersensitive desire to destroy everybody and everything, and why, oh why, must we have veiled advertisements in nearly every column of our minor newspapers? CHAPTER IX ON THE MAKING OF BOOKS Once I thought the grandest thing in the world would be to write a book. It appeared the acme of desire. To see one’s name on a cover, oh, the joy of it! I trembled with fear and pride when that wondrous end was attained. I almost took that first book to bed with me. I wasn’t very old or very sedate, and so that little volume made me childish with glee. Well, I thought to myself, “I’ll never give away a single copy. If anyone wants it they must get it from a library or spend three-and-sixpence on it themselves.” I kept to my resolve, because honestly afraid that if an utterly unknown young writer made presents of her little venture, kind folk (!) would say she could not sell the work, so distributed it amongst friends. A year or two afterwards, when _A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_ had gone through two or three editions, and appeared on the bookstalls at a shilling, then—but not till then—did its author feel justified in sending presentation copies, with some words and her name inscribed on the fly-leaf. This was not churlish, but reasoned out. Cheap sales of goods mean deterioration; but cheap editions of books denote the popularity of the originals. On that first venture I received a ten per cent royalty. And now after years of labour and experience, so many and great to me are the hardships, the struggles, the worries, the endless detail and annoyances of producing a book, that I always feel inclined to take off my hat figuratively, or drop a curtsey, to every fellow-author. Strange as it may seem, every volume of mine has caused me sleepless nights of ever-increasing anxiety. _Hyde Park_, for instance, was written twice over from cover to cover—a little matter of about a hundred thousand words, re-arranged and practically rewritten.