Though he had suffered, and though suffering is a sovereign
preparation for great work, I did not at the outset foresee that
Aylmer Deane was destined to wear the laurel. In real life I have
rather a flair for future eminence. In novels I am apt to be wise only
after the event. There the young men who do in due course take the
town by storm have seldom shown (to my dull eyes) promise. Their
spoken thoughts have seemed to me no more profound or pungent than my
own. All that is best in these authors goes into their work. But,
though I complain of them on this count, I admit that the thrill for
me of their triumphs is the more rapturous because every time it
catches me unawares. One of the greatest emotions I ever had was from
the triumph of THE GIFT OF GIFTS. Of this novel within a novel the
author was not a young man at all, but an elderly clergyman whose life
had been spent in a little rural parish. He was a dear, simple old
man, a widower. He had a large family, a small stipend. Judge, then,
of his horror when he found that his eldest son, `a scholar at
Christminster College, Oxbridge,' had run into debt for many hundreds
of pounds. Where to turn? The father was too proud to borrow of the
neighbourly nobleman who in Oxbridge days had been his `chum.' Nor had
the father ever practised the art of writing. (We are told that `his
sermons were always extempore.') But, years ago, `he had once thought
of writing a novel based on an experience which happened to a friend
of his.' This novel, in the fullness of time, he now proceeded to
write, though `without much hope of success.' He knew that he was
suffering from heart-disease. But he worked `feverishly, night after
night,' we are told, `in his old faded dressing-gown, till the dawn
mingled with the light of his candle and warned him to snatch a few
hours' rest, failing which he would be little able to perform the
round of parish duties that awaited him in the daytime.' No wonder he
had `not much hope.' No wonder I had no spark of hope for him. But