It was practically my only experience of dictation of fiction.
I had never been able to do it, and have not been able to do it since, and I am glad that it is so, for I should have a fear of being led into mere rhetoric.

It did not, however, seem to matter with this book.

It wrote itself anywhere.

The proofs of the first quarter of the book were in my hands before I had finished writing the last quarter.
It took me a long time to recover from the great effort of that five weeks, but I never regretted those consuming fires which burned up sleep and energy and ravaged the vitality of my imagination.

The story was founded on the incident described in the first pages of the book, which was practically as I experienced it when I was a little child.