By that time I had developed from a lad of inarticulate mind and
unexpressed desires into a sentient and self-conscious being. I was
more or less of a man, not only adventurous but bold in the pursuit of
adventure. I lived for some two or three years in that sorry quarter
of London in complete solitude--"in poverty, total idleness and the
pride of literature," like Doctor Johnson, for though I wrote little I
read much, and though I wrote little I was most conscious that I was
about to write much. It was a period of brooding, of mewing my youth,
and whatever facility of imagination and expression I have since
attained I owe very much to my hermitage in Albert Street.

If I walked in those days it was by night. London at night is a very
different place from the town of business and pleasure of ordinary
acquaintance. During the day I fulfilled my allotted hours at the
desk; but immediately they were over I returned to my lodgings, got
out my books, and sat enthralled until somewhere near midnight. But
then, instead of going to bed, I was called by the night, and forth I
sallied all agog. I walked the city, the embankment, skirted the
parks, unless I were so fortunate as to slip in before gate-shutting.
Often I was able to remain in Kensington Gardens till the opening
hour. Highgate and its woods, Parliament Hill with its splendid
panorama of twinkling beacons and its noble tent of stars, were great
fields for me. Hampstead Heath, Wimbledon, even Richmond and Bushey
have known me at their most secret hour. Such experiences as I have
had of the preternatural will find their place in this book, but not
their chronological place, for the simple reason that, as I kept no
diary, I cannot remember in what order of time they befell me. But it
was on the southern slope of Parliament Hill that I came again upon
the fairy-woman of Gaylord's Rents.