the novel Mrs. Falchion, had, during that time, issued from my pen. It
looked as though I should be writing of the Far North all my life.
Editors had begun to take that view; but from the start it had never been
my view. Even when writing Pierre and His People I was determined that I
should not be cabined, cribbed, and confined in one field; that I should
not, as some other men have done, wind in upon myself, until at last each
succeeding book would be but a variation of some previous book, and I
should end by imitating myself, become the sacrifice to the god of the
pin-hole.

I was warned not to break away from Canada; but all my life I had been
warned, and all my life I had followed my own convictions. I would
rather not have written another word than be corralled, bitted, saddled,
and ridden by that heartless broncho-buster, the public, which wants a
man who has once pleased it, to do the same thing under the fret of whip
and spur for ever. When I went to the Island of Jersey, in 1897, it was
to shake myself free of what might become a mere obsession. I determined
that, as wide as my experiences had been in life, so would my writing be,
whether it pleased the public or not. I was determined to fulfil myself;
and in doing so to take no instructions except those of my own
conscience, impulse, and conviction. Even then I saw fields of work
which would occupy my mind, and such skill as I had, for many a year to
come. I saw the Channel Islands, Egypt, South Africa, and India. In all
these fields save India, I have given my Pegasus its bridle-rein, and, so
far, I have no reason to feel that my convictions were false. I write of
Canada still, but I have written of the Channel Islands, I have written
of Egypt, I have written of England and South Africa, and my public--that
is, those who read my books--have accepted me in all these fields without
demur. I believe I have justified myself in not accepting imprisonment
in the field where I first essayed to turn my observation of life to