The house of souls

It was somewhere, I think, towards the autumn of the year 1889 that thethought occurred to me that I might perhaps try to write a little in the modernway. For, hitherto, I had been, as it were, wearing costume in literature. Therich, figured English of the earlier part of the seventeenth century had alwayshad a peculiar attraction for me. I accustomed myself to write in it, to think init; I kept a diary in that manner, and half-unconsciously dressed up my everyday thoughts and common experiences in the habit of the Cavalier or of theCaroline Divine. Thus, when in 1884 I got a commission to translate theHeptameron, I wrote quite naturally in the language of my favourite period, and, as some critics declare, made my English version somewhat moreantique and stiff than the original. And so "The Anatomy of Tobacco" was anexercise in the antique of a different kind; and "The Chronicle of Clemendy"was a volume of tales that tried their hardest to be mediæval; and thetranslation of the "Moyen de Parvenir" was still a thing in the ancient mode.