Excerpt from My Story Knowing well, however, that there is much in the life of nearly every man of letters, and in my Own life in particular, that can be Of little interest to the public, I made no attempt what ever to tell a detailed story of my early days, but confined my autobiographical fragment to an account of my literary relations, sometimes very intimate, sometimes very slight, always very im portant to me, with John Ruskin, R. D. Black more, Wilkie Collins, Robert Buchanan, T. E. Brown, Henry Irving, Tennyson and Gladstone, as well as the great and unhappy poet whose sad comradeship during his last dark days gave me an excuse for the majority Of these pages. Nevertheless in eliminating my personal narra tive except so far as it concerned these large and lasting figures, I thought I might be pardoned if I began my book with a sketch Of my childhood and youth in the Isle of Man, partly for the sake Of the picture it must needs present of a curiously self-centred little community that was strangely out of touch and harmony with the rest Of our kingdom as recently as half a century ago, and partly perhaps for such interest as it might pos sibly possess for some of the readers Of the novels with which my name is associated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.