'When I was a very little child, I used to amuse myself and my
brothers with inventing stories, such as I read. Having, as I
suppose, naturally a restless mind and busy imagination, this
soon became the chief pleasure of my life. Unfortunately, my
brothers were always fond of encouraging this propensity, and I
found in Taylor, my maid, a still greater tempter. I had not
known there was any harm in it, until Miss Shore [a Calvinist
governess], finding it out, lectured me severely, and told me it
was wicked. From that time forth I considered that to invent a
story of any kind was a sin. But the desire to do so was too
deeply rooted in my affections to be resisted in my own strength
[she was at that time nine years of age], and unfortunately I knew
neither my corruption nor my weakness, nor did I know where to
gain strength. The longing to invent stories grew with violence;
everything I heard or read became food for my distemper. The
simplicity of truth was not sufficient for me; I must needs
embroider imagination upon it, and the folly, vanity and
wickedness which disgraced my heart are more than I am able to
express. Even now [at the age of twenty-nine], tho' watched,
prayed and striven against, this is still the sin that most
easily besets me. It has hindered my prayers and prevented my
improvement, and therefore, has humbled me very much.'

This is, surely, a very painful instance of the repression of an
instinct. There seems to have been, in this case, a vocation such
as is rarely heard, and still less often wilfully disregarded and
silenced. Was my Mother intended by nature to be a novelist? I
have often thought so, and her talents and vigour of purpose,
directed along the line which was ready to form 'the chief
pleasure of her life', could hardly have failed to conduct her to