Florence Barclay. In order to do this I
had to study the works of these famous authors, and for many
week-ends in succession I might have been seen travelling to, or
returning from, the country with a couple of their books under my
arm. To keep one book beneath the arm is comparatively easy; to
keep two is much more difficult. Many was the time, while waiting
for my train to come in, that one of those books slipped from me.
Indeed, there is hardly a junction in the railway system of the
southern counties at which I have not dropped on some Saturday or
other a Caine or a Barclay; to have it restored to me a moment
later by a courteous fellow-passenger--courteous, but with a
smile of gentle pity in his eye as he glimpsed the author's name.
"Thanks very much," I would stammer, blushing guiltily, and
perhaps I would babble about a sick friend to whom I was taking
them, or that I was running out of paper-weights. But he never
believed me. He knew that he would have said something like that
himself.
Nothing is easier than to assume that other people share one's
weaknesses. No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the
ground that it was human nature; possibly, indeed, he wrote an
essay like this, in which he speculated mildly as to the reasons
which made stabbing so attractive to us all. So I realize that I
may be doing you an injustice in suggesting that you who read may
also have your little snobberies.
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