A warm wave of what I thought pity and sympathy passed over me as I walked from her.
VIII
It is rather a matter of regret with me now that I never kept a diary. Mine has been upon the whole a somewhat lonely life, and lonely men often do keep diaries. But, in my case, I suppose writing was too much the daily business of life to permit of leisure being given to the same task.
However, the dates of certain volumes of short stories, which appeared long ago with my name upon their covers, are for me evidence that, after the first six months of my stay in Howard Street, my work began to tend more and more towards fiction, and away from newspaper articles. My dealings at this time brought me more closely into touch with magazines than with newspapers. I became more concerned with human emotions and character, but especially with emotions, than with those more abstract or again more matter-of-fact themes which had served me in the writing of newspaper articles.
This may have helped me in some ways, since it meant that my name was fairly frequently seen in print now. But the point I have in mind is, that I take this tendency in my work to have been an indication of the particular phase of character development through which I was passing at the time. It was at this period that I indulged myself in occasional dreams of fame. I do not know that my conceit made me offensive in any way. I hardly think it went so far. But, in my inmost heart, I believe I judged myself to be a creative artist of note. I certainly had a lively imagination, a good deal of fluency--too much, indeed--as a writer, and a considerable amount of emotional capacity and sympathy.
Later in life I often wondered, not without depression, why I no longer seemed able to move people, to influence them in a given direction, or to arouse their enthusiasm, with the same facility which I had known in my twenties. I see now the reasons of this. My emotional capacity spent itself rapidly in writing and living; and with its exhaustion (and the development of my critical faculties) came an attenuation, a drying up, so to say, of the quality of facile emotional sympathy, which in earlier years had made it easy for me to attract, prepossess, or influence people at will.
Given some practical organising qualities which I certainly did not possess, I apprehend that at this period I might have engineered myself into a considerable vogue of popularity as a writer of fiction. A little later I might almost have slid into the same position, even in the absence of the practical qualities aforesaid, but for the trend of circumstances which then became highly antagonistic to that sort of development.
But I note with some interest that the stories I took to writing at this period were highly emotional in tone, and somewhat exotic in their setting. The exotic settings may have been due in part to the fact that I had travelled, and yet more I fancy to revulsion from the material background of my early life in London. And the emotionalism must be attributed, I apprehend, in part to my age and temperament, and in part to my comparative solitude.
I find it extremely difficult justly to appraise or analyse my relations with Fanny. In one mood I see merely youth, folly, vanity, and romantic emotionalism, directing my conduct; and again I fancy I discern some loftier motive, such as sincerely chivalrous generosity, humanity, unselfish desire to help and uplift, etc. Doubtless, in this as in most matters, a variety of motives and influences played their part in shaping one's conduct. Single and entirely unmixed motives are much more rare than most people believe, I fancy. Pride and vanity have a way of dogging generosity's footsteps very closely; steadfast endurance and selfish obstinacy are nearly related; and I dare say real kindness of heart often has a place where we most of us see only reckless self-indulgence.
I remember very well a cold, clear moonlight night in the Hampstead Road, when reaction from solitary reflection made me unbosom myself a good deal to Sidney Heron, in the form of seeking his advice. On previous occasions I had told him something of Fanny and her dismal position, and he had seen her once or twice at my lodging.