Village books

Of these I am. When I have corrected the proofs of a book, I
have finished with it for good and all. I am impatient when people insist
on talking to me about it; I am glad if they like it, but do not much
care if they don't. I am no more interested in it than in a worn-out
suit of clothes that I have given away. It was thus with disinclination
that I began to read _The Magician_. It held my interest, as two of my
early novels, which for the same reason I have been obliged to read, did
not. One, indeed, I simply could not get through. Another had to my mind
some good dramatic scenes, but the humour filled me with mortification,
and I should have been ashamed to see it republished. As I read _The
Magician_, I wondered how on earth I could have come by all the material
concerning the black arts which I wrote of. I must have spent days and
days reading in the library of the British Museum. The style is lush and
turgid, not at all the sort of style I approve of now, but perhaps not
unsuited to the subject; and there are a great many more adverbs and
adjectives than I should use today.


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