While books were
still being read to him, there had already come into his mind,
unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so
splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a
soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have
its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your
name in gilt letters outside, was real romance.
At that early day, and for a long while after, the boy had no preference
for any particular kind of book. It was an entirely abstract passion for
print and paper. To have been the author of "The Iliad" or of Beeton's
"Book of Household Recipes" would have given him almost the same
exaltation of authorship; and the thrill of worship which came over him
when, one early day, a man who had actually had an article on the sugar
bounties accepted by a commercial magazine was pointed out to him in the
street, was one he never forgot; nor in after years did he ever
encounter that transfigured contributor without an involuntary
recurrence of that old feeling of awe.
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