The pivot of my life has been _The Spectator_, and so _The
Spectator_ must be the pivot of my book--the point upon which it and
I and all that is mine turn. I therefore make no apology for beginning
this book with the story of how I came to _The Spectator_.
My father, a friend of both the joint editors, Mr. Hutton and Mr.
Townsend, was a frequent contributor to the paper. In a sense,
therefore, I was brought up in a "Spectator" atmosphere. Indeed, the
first contributions ever made by me to the press were two sonnets which
appeared in its pages, one in the year 1875 and the other in 1876. I did
not, however, begin serious journalistic work in _The Spectator_,
but, curiously enough, in its rival, _The Saturday Review_. While I
was at Oxford I sent several middle articles to _The Saturday_, got
them accepted, and later, to my great delight, received novels and poems
for review. I also wrote occasionally in _The Pall Mall_, in the
days in which it was edited by Lord Morley, and in _The Academy_.
It was not until I settled down in London to read for the Bar, a year
and a half after I had left Oxford, that I made any attempt to write for
_The Spectator_. In the last few days of 1885 I got my father to
give me a formal introduction to the editors, and went to see them in
Wellington Street.
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