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The Adventure of Living
The Adventure of Living
A Subjective Autobiography (1860-1922)
Book Excerpt
a man of straw, call him the Public, and then try to play down to him or up to him and his alleged and purely hypothetical opinions and tastes. Those who attempt to fawn upon the puppet of their own creation are as likely as not to end by interesting nobody. At any rate, try and please yourself, then at least one person's liking is engaged. That is the autobiographer's simple secret.
All the same there is a better reason than that. Pleasure is contagious. He who writes with zest will infect his readers. The man who argues, "This seems stupid and tedious to me, but I expect it is what the public likes," is certain to make shipwreck of his endeavour.
The pivot of my life has been _The Spectator_, and so The Spectator must be the pivot of my book--the point upon which it and I and all that is mine turn. I therefore make no apology for beginning this book with the story of how I came to The Spectator.
My father, a friend of both the joint editors, Mr. Hutton and Mr. Townsend
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The title of this book caught my attention. When I realized it was an autobiography I settled down for a nice pleasant read. However I was really disappointed. He spends much more time especially mid-book, discussing others rather than himself. I was left with very little sense of who he actually was. I found a few sections fascinating, however they were interspersed with hugely boring slow moving descriptions of others. I ended up bailing out 3/4 of the way through. I do not recommend this book.
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