brightening it may be, but less like the white of egg in
coffee, than like stove-lustre on a stove--black, brightening seriously,
I repent calling for the champagne. To a temperament like yours,
champagne is not to be recommended. Pray, my dear sir, do you feel quite
yourself again? Confidence restored?"

"I hope so; I think I may say it is so. But we have had a long talk, and
I think I must retire now."

So saying, the merchant rose, and making his adieus, left the table with
the air of one, mortified at having been tempted by his own honest
goodness, accidentally stimulated into making mad disclosures--to
himself as to another--of the queer, unaccountable caprices of his
natural heart.

CHAPTER XIV.

WORTH THE CONSIDERATION OF THOSE TO WHOM IT MAY PROVE WORTH CONSIDERING.

As the last chapter was begun with a reminder looking forwards, so the
present must consist of one glancing backwards.

To some, it may raise a degree of surprise that one so full of
confidence, as the merchant has throughout shown himself, up to the
moment of his late sudden impulsiveness, should, in that instance, have
betrayed such a depth of discontent. He may be thought inconsistent, and
even so he is. But for this, is the author to be blamed? True, it may be
urged that there is nothing a writer of fiction should more carefully
see to, as there is nothing a sensible reader will more carefully look
for, than that, in the depiction of any character, its consistency
should be preserved. But this, though at first blush, seeming reasonable
enough, may, upon a closer view, prove not so much so. For how does it
couple with another requirement--equally insisted upon, perhaps--that,
while to all fiction is allowed some play of invention, yet, fiction
based on fact should never be contradictory to it; and is it not a fact,
that, in real life, a consistent character is a _rara avis_? Which
being so, the distaste of readers to the contrary sort in books, can
hardly arise from any sense of their untrueness. It may rather be from
perplexity as to understanding them. But if the acutest sage be often at
his wits' ends to understand living character, shall those who are not
sages expect to run and read character in those mere phantoms which flit
along a page, like shadows along a wall? That fiction, where every
character can, by reason of its consistency, be comprehended at a
glance, either exhibits but sections of character, making them appear