Indeed, it is not a 'story' at all, in the commonly accepted
meaning of the word: it is a report. It is, I feel, almost out of
place in a book of this kind. It is more suitable to a biography,
or an English history.

There is another thing that makes it difficult for me to tell you
this story, and that is, that it is all about myself. In telling
you this story, I shall have to keep on talking about myself; and
talking about ourselves is what we modern-day authors have a strong
objection to doing. If we literary men of the new school have one
praiseworthy yearning more ever present to our minds than another
it is the yearning never to appear in the slightest degree
egotistical.

I myself, so I am told, carry this coyness--this shrinking
reticence concerning anything connected with my own personality,
almost too far; and people grumble at me because of it. People
come to me and say -

"Well, now, why don't you talk about yourself a bit? That's what
we want to read about. Tell us something about yourself."

But I have always replied, "No." It is not that I do not think the
subject an interesting one. I cannot myself conceive of any topic
more likely to prove fascinating to the world as a whole, or at all
events to the cultured portion of it. But I will not do it, on
principle. It is inartistic, and it sets a bad example to the
younger men. Other writers (a few of them) do it, I know; but I
will not--not as a rule.