Perhaps, because everything is clear and easy for us now, I am
gradually losing a proper appreciation of his struggle. That should
never be. He did not win. But he did not lose; which means nearly as
much. For it is almost less difficult to win than not to lose, so my
mother has told me, in modern journalistic London. And I know that he
would have won. The fact that he continued the fight as he did was in
itself a pledge of ultimate victory. What he went through while trying
with his pen to make a living for himself and me I learned from his
letters.

"London," he wrote, "is not paved with gold; but in literary fields
there are nuggets to be had by the lightest scratching. And those
nuggets are plays. A successful play gives you money and a name
automatically. What the ordinary writer makes in a year the successful
dramatist receives, without labour, in a fortnight." He went on to
deplore his total lack of dramatic intuition. "Some men," he said,
"have some of the qualifications while falling short of the others.
They have a sense of situation without the necessary tricks of
technique. Or they sacrifice plot to atmosphere, or atmosphere to plot.
I, worse luck, have not one single qualification. The nursing of a
climax, the tremendous omissions in the dialogue, the knack of stage
characterisation--all these things are, in some inexplicable way,
outside me."

It was this letter that set me thinking. Ever since James had left the
island, I had been chafing at the helplessness of my position. While he
toiled in London, what was I doing? Nothing. I suppose I helped him in
a way. The thought of me would be with him always, spurring him on to
work, that the time of our separation might be less. But it was not
enough. I wanted to be _doing_ something.... And it was during