A literary frenzy took possession of me for a while. I bought second-hand books on every subject, and studied all things from the infinitely great to the infinitesimally little. Microbes and mammoths, atoms and solar systems--I learned a little of all and everything of none. I wrote, not for the love of writing as much as to drown my own introspective humours, but in no external thing was I interested enough to forget my own thoughts.
I studied literary style, and but for that I might have by this time cultivated a style of my own; I read so much that now I have hardly an original idea left. Only lately have I come to the conclusion that true art, the only true art, is that which appeals to the simple people. When writing this book I have been governed by this conclusion, and have endeavoured to tell of things which all people may understand.
Most of my articles and stories came back with the precision of boomerangs, weapons of which I have heard much talk, and which are said to come back to the hand of the man who throws them away; some were published and never paid for, and some never came back at all.
Suddenly it occurred to me that editors might like to publish articles on subjects which were seldom written about. I wrote about the navvies' lives again; the hopes and sorrows and aspirations of the men of the hovel, model, and road. Several papers took my articles, and for a while I drew in a decent penny for my literary work. Indeed, I had serious intentions of giving up manual labour and taking to the pen for good. Some of my stories again appeared in the _Dawn_, the London daily paper which had published my Kinlochleven stories, and on one fine morning I received a letter from the editor asking me to come and take a job on the staff of his paper. He offered me two pounds a week as salary, and added that I was certain to attain eminence in the position which was now open to me. I decided to go, not because I had any great desire for the job, but because I wanted to get rid of old Rudor and his gang, and I also wanted to see London. Being wise enough to throw most of the responsibility on the person who suggested such a change in my life and work, I answered the editor, saying that though I was a writer among navvies I might merely be a navvy among writers, and that journalistic work was somewhat out of my line. Still the editor persisted and enclosed the cost of my railway fare to London. To go I was not reluctant, to leave I was not eager. I accepted because the change promised new adventures, but there was no excitement in my heart, for now I took things almost as they came, unmoved and uncaring. Norah had gone out of my life, which, full of sorrow for losing her, was empty without her. The enthusiasm which once winged my way along the leading road to Strabane was now dead within me.