I realised this on an occasion when he
once entrusted me with a MS., and asked me if I would give him an
opinion, as it was an experiment, and he did not feel sure of his
ground; he added that there was no hurry about it. I put the MS.
away in a despatch-box, and having at the time a press of work, I
forgot about it. He never asked me for it, and I did not happen to
open the box where it lay. Some months after I came upon it. I read
it through, and thought it a fine and delicate piece of work. I
wrote to him, apologising for my delay and speaking warmly of the
piece, which was one of those rather uncomfortable stories, which
is not quite long enough to make a book, and yet rather too long to
put in a volume with other pieces. He wrote at once, thanking me
for my opinion, and it was only by accident at a later date, when I
happened to ask him what he was doing with the story, that he told
me he had destroyed it. I expressed deep regret that he had done
so; and he said with a smile that it was probably rather a foolish
impulse that had decided him to make away with it. "The fact is,"
he said, "that you wrote very kindly about it, but you had had it
in your hands so long, that I felt somehow that it could not have
interested you--it really doesn't matter," he added, "I don't think
it was at all successful.
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