of the man under observation are sure to be worth recording.

The autobiographer who is going to succeed with his task must set down
whatever he believes went to the making of his mind and soul, and of
that highly composite product which constitutes a human being. Nothing
is too small or too unimportant to be worthy of record. But people to
whom criticism is a passion and who love it even more than life, and
they are often very valuable people, will say, "Are we not, then, to be
allowed to dub your book trivial, if we think so?" Of course they must
have that license, but they must make good the plea of triviality, not
in the facts but in the exposition. _There_ no man has a right to
be trivial, or empty, or commonplace. Whatever is recorded must be
recorded worthily.

Take a plain example. If I set forth to describe my crossing Waterloo
Bridge on a particular day in a particular year, I must not merely on
that ground be attacked for triviality. I may be able to show, in the
first place, that the crossing by that bridge and not, let us say, by
using Hungerford Bridge or Blackfriars Bridge, affected my life. I may
also be able to describe my walk or drive in such a way that it will
make a deep impress upon the reader's mind. In a word, to get judgment
against me, the critic must demur, not on my facts but on a point of
literature, that is, on my method of presentation.

In considering the multitude of things which have gone to make me what I
am, which have drawn into a single strand the innumerable threads that
the Fates have been spinning for me ever since they began their dread
business, what strikes me most of all and first of all is my good
fortune. I may, on a future occasion, complain that in middle life and
in later life I did not have good luck, but bad luck, but I should be an