As the day waxed there came a faint, yellow, and almost menacing gleam of sunshine, and as it waned the leaden-grey grew black, and night came silently over the landscape until at last she opened her great funereal black fan.
They brought me lamps and set them on my table. Those who love me and look after me came noiselessly up the stairs, silently into the room and put logs upon the study fire and left me alone once more.
It is nearly midnight, and the winter wind pipes sadly outside this old Kentish house, so remote from other habitations, so renowned in the annals of the Channel cliffs. With all its faults, all its egoisms, take this last essay in my first book of essays, and do not think hardly of me. Forgive what you discern here of petulance, of arrogance, and of conceit. I have done my day’s labour, and I have tried to be sincere. I have done my day’s labour, and now I am going to descend to an old room, with its oaken beams and aroma of the past, to take the supper of a man who has toiled. The dear people, and unfortunate ones! who wait upon the erratic hours of an author are waiting for me there.
And then to bed, and may the humble supplication I shall send up to Almighty God for myself and those I love, for those who read what I have written, have its hearing in the place where “hearts and wills are weighed.” May I become a better and worthier man because I have the opportunity of addressing you who read. And may God grant me to mend a faulty life.
Good-night and Amen.
Wanstone Court,
December, 1906.
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.