From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that
when I grew I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and (53)______
twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the conscience (54)______
that I was outraging my true nature and that soon or later I should have to (55)______
settle down and write books.
I was the child of three, but there was a gap of five years on the either (56)______
side, and I barely saw my father before I was eight. For this and other
reasons I was somewhat lonely, and I soon developed disagreeing mannerisms (57)______
which made me unpopular throughout my schooldays. I had the lonely
child’s habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginative (58)______
persons, and I think from the very start my literal ambitions were mixed up (59)______
with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility
with words and a power of facing in unpleasant facts, and I felt that this (60)______
created a sort of private world which I could get my own back for my failure (61)______
in everyday life. Therefore, the volume of serious -- i. e. seriously intended (62)______
— writing which I produced all through my childhood and boyhood would
not amount to half a dozen pages. I wrote my first poem at the age of five,
my mother taking it down to dictation.