after which one hears no more from them regarding the middle-classes.
At once they set to work to describe the mental sufferings of Grooms
of the Bed-chamber, the hidden emotions of Ladies in their own right,
the religious doubts of Marquises. I want to know how they do it--
"how the devil they get there." They refuse to tell me.

Meanwhile, I see nothing before me but the workhouse. Year by year
the public grows more impatient of literature dealing merely with the
middle-classes. I know nothing about any other class. What am I to
do?

Commonplace people--friends of mine without conscience, counsel me in
flippant phrase to "have a shot at it."

"I expect, old fellow, you know just as much about it as these other
Johnnies do." (I am not defending their conversation either as
regards style or matter: I am merely quoting.) "And even if you
don't, what does it matter? The average reader knows less. How is
he to find you out?"

But, as I explain to them, it is the law of literature never to write
except about what you really know. I want to mix with the
aristocracy, study them, understand them; so that I may earn my
living in the only way a literary man nowadays can earn his living,
namely, by writing about the upper circles.

I want to know how to get there.