I had told the tale in a railway train, and he had carried me off at once
to Henry M. Alden, to whom I also told it, with the result that Harper's
Magazine was wide open to it, and there in Quebec, soon after my
interview with Mr. Alden and Mr. Doubleday, the book was begun.

The first of the letters published in The House of Harper, however, was
apparently written immediately after my return to London when the novel
was well on its way. Evidently the first paragraph of the letter was an
apology for having suddenly announced the development of the book from a
long short story to a long novel; for I used these words:

"Yet if you really take an interest in the working of the human mind in
its relation to the vicissitudes of life, you will appreciate what I am
going to tell you, and will recognise that there is only stability in
evolution which the vulgar call chance. . . . Now, sir, perpend.
Charley Steele is going to be a novel of one hundred thousand words or
one hundred and twenty thousand--a real bang-up heartful of a novel."

Then there follows the confidence of a friend to a friend. As I look
at the words I am not sorry that I wrote them. They were a part of me.
They were the inveterate truth, but I would not willingly have uncovered
my inner self to any except the man to whom the words were written. But
here is what I wrote:

"I am a bit of a fool over this book. It catches me at every tender
corner of my nature. It has aroused all the old ardent dreams of youth
and springtime puissance. I cannot lay it down, and I cannot shorten it,
for story, character, soul and reflection, imagination, observation are
dragging me along after them. . . . This novel will make me or break
me--prove me human and an artist, or an affected literary bore. If you