seizes one and after the fashion of one's own mind. This at least can be
said of all my books, that not a page of them has ever been written to
order, and there is not a story published in all the pages bearing my
name which does not represent one or two other stories rejected by
myself. The art of rejection is the hardest art which an author has to
learn; but I have never had a doubt as to my being justified in
publishing these little symbolic things.

Eventually the whole series was published in England. W. E. Henley gave
'There Was a Little City' a home in 'The New Review', and expressed
himself as happy in having it. 'The Forge in the Valley' was published
by Sir Wemyss Reid in the weekly paper called 'The Speaker', now known as
'The Nation', in which 'Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch' made his name and
helped the fame of others. 'There Was a Little City' was published in
'The Chap Book' in the United States, but 'The Forge in the Valley' had
(I think) no American public until it appeared within the pages of 'The
Lane That Had No Turning'. The rest of the series were published in the
'English Illustrated Magazine', which was such a good friend to my work
at the start. As was perhaps natural, there was some criticism, but very
little, in French Canada itself, upon the stories in this volume. It
soon died away, however, and almost as I write these words there has come
to me an appreciation which I value as much as anything that has befallen
me in my career, and that is, the degree of Doctor of Letters from the
French Catholic University of Laval at Quebec. It is the seal of French
Canada upon the work which I have tried to do for her and for the whole
Dominion.