it from time to time with a distinct feeling of satisfaction till, one
day, I perceived with horror that there were two old pens in there. How
the other pen found its way into the bowl instead of the fireplace or
wastepaper basket I can't imagine, but there the two were, lying side by
side, both encrusted with ink and completely undistinguishable from each
other. It was very distressing, but being determined not to share my
sentiment between two pens or run the risk of sentimentalising over
a mere stranger, I threw them both out of the window into a flower
bed--which strikes me now as a poetical grave for the remnants of one's
past.

But the tale remained. It was first fixed in print in the "Cornhill
Magazine", being my first appearance in a serial of any kind; and I have
lived long enough to see it guyed most agreeably by Mr. Max Beerbohm
in a volume of parodies entitled "A Christmas Garland," where I found
myself in very good company. I was immensely gratified. I began to
believe in my public existence. I have much to thank "The Lagoon" for.

My next effort in short-story writing was a departure--I mean a
departure from the Malay Archipelago. Without premeditation, without
sorrow, without rejoicing, and almost without noticing it, I stepped
into the very different atmosphere of "An Outpost of Progress." I
found there a different moral attitude. I seemed able to capture new
reactions, new suggestions, and even new rhythms for my paragraphs. For
a moment I fancied myself a new man--a most exciting illusion. It clung
to me for some time, monstrous, half conviction and half hope as to its
body, with an iridescent tail of dreams and with a changeable head like
a plastic mask. It was only later that I perceived that in common with
the rest of men nothing could deliver me from my fatal consistency. We
cannot escape from ourselves.