Authorship seemed, like her bannock-baking, to consist of running between two points.

They were all tales of adventure (happiest is he who writes of adventure), no characters were allowed within if I knew their like in the flesh, the scene lay in unknown parts, desert islands, enchanted gardens, with knights (none of your nights) on black chargers, and round the first corner a lady selling water-cress.
At twelve or thereabout I put the literary calling to bed for a time, having gone to a school where cricket and football were more esteemed, but during the year before I went to the university, it woke up and I wrote great part of a three-volume novel.

The publisher replied that the sum for which he would print it was a hundred and--however, that was not the important point (I had sixpence): where he stabbed us both was in writing that he considered me a 'clever lady.' I replied stiffly that I was a gentleman, and since then I have kept that manuscript concealed.

I looked through it lately, and, oh, but it is dull! I defy any one to read it.
The malignancy of publishers, however, could not turn me back.

From the day on which I first tasted blood in the garret my mind was made up; there could be no hum-dreadful-drum profession for me; literature was my game.