An Autobiography by Catherine Helen Spence

In reviewing books I took the keenest Interest in the "Carlyle Biographies and Letters," because my mother recollected Jeanie Welch as a child, and her father was called in always for my grandfather Brodie's illnesses. I was also absorbed in the "Life and Letters of George Eliot. " The Barr Smiths gave me the "Life and Letters of Balzac," and many of his books in French, which led me to write both for The Register and for The Melbourne Review. I also wrote "A last word," which was lost by The Centennial in Sydney when it died out. It was also from Mrs. Barr Smith that I got so many of the works of Alphonse Daudet in French, which enabled me to give a rejoinder to Marcus Clark's assertion that Balzac was a French Dickens. Indeed, looking through my shelves, I see so many books which suggested articles and criticisms which were her gifts that I always connect her with my journalistic career.

Many people have consulted me about publishing poems, novels, and essays. As I was known to have actually got books published in England, and to be a professional journalist and reviewer, I dare say some of those who applied to me for encouragement thought I was actuated by literary jealousy; but people are apt to think they have a plot when they have only an incident, or two or three incidents; and many who can write clever and even brilliant letters have no idea of the construction of a story that will arrest and sustain the reader's attention. The people who consulted me all wanted money for their work. They had such excellent uses for money. They had too little. They were neither willing nor able to bear the cost of publication, and it was absolutely necessary that their work should be good enough for a business man to undertake it. I am often surprised that I found English publishers myself, and the handicap of distance and other things is even greater now.