‘the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.’
III
Another novel read, another history finished, another biography turned over—enough of them. I am done with them. I prefer to empty another pitcher. Give me my sangaree and my own thoughts in preference to their twaddle. And why twaddle? Well, because each and all of them have a hero—a good man, or a great man, or a successful man, or a man in love with a woman, or a man in love with himself—whereas I am none of them, and I want to hear about myself. I want to hear about a failure. A man who sadly admits that he is a failure. These, then, are the Memoirs of a Failure.
Certainly there have been more failures than heroes, but fiction delights to mock the failures merely to set off the hero. Surely there have been more obscure men than famous men, but history records chiefly the attainments of the leaders. Whereas, the unknown soldier, the insignificant clerk, the patient craftsman, the underpaid writer and teacher—these humble workers had their story, perhaps more touching and perhaps less callous than the career of the noted artist, the famous statesman, the great general.