I had to sit in Maud Tree’s dressing-room at the Haymarket Theatre during a performance of Julius Cæsar to get her article out of her at all. Not that she does not know how to write, for she is particularly clever with her pen, as in many other things; but she has a little trick of procrastination, so it was only by sitting beside her during the “waits” and taking her ideas down on pieces of paper that we managed the article. I know nothing of shorthand, unfortunately, so the notes were somewhat scratchy and interlarded with remarks to her dresser: “Give me my cloak,” “A little more rouge,” “Has the call-boy been?” and so on.
There are two classes of successful people: those who buy a reputation, and those who make one.
Each despises the other and nurses his own illusions. But, after all, life would be deadly were it not for its illusions.
CHAPTER VII
WRITERS: SIR WALTER BESANT, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, MRS. RIDDELL, MRS. LYNN LINTON
NEW! Why, there is nothing new. The only luck is to pitch on something old enough to be forgotten.
The writing profession is a hard and often underpaid one, but one thing may be said, that writers are ever ready and willing to help each other.
We can most of us testify to this by kindnesses received.
Sir Walter Besant was the very embodiment of this spirit of helpfulness, not only to me personally, but also to the literary world at large, and it was he who conceived the idea of bringing this same friendliness into a common centre by establishing the Incorporated Society of Authors.