fectly true that his characters must, in the nature of things, have
more or less of himself in their composition. If I should seek an
exemplification of this in the person of any of my Teacups, I should find
it most readily in the one whom I have called Number Seven, the one with
the squinting brain. I think that not only I, the writer, but many of my
readers, recognize in our own mental constitution an occasional obliquity
of perception, not always detected at the time, but plain enough when
looked back upon. What extravagant fancies you and I have seriously
entertained at one time or another! What superstitious notions have got
into our heads and taken possession of its empty chambers,--or, in the
language of science, seized on the groups of nerve-cells in some of the
idle cerebral convolutions!

The writer, I say, becomes acquainted with his characters as he goes on.
They are at first mere embryos, outlines of distinct personalities. By
and by, if they have any organic cohesion, they begin to assert
themselves. They can say and do such and such things; such and such
other things they cannot and must not say or do. The story-writer's and
play-writer's danger is that they will get their characters mixed, and
make A say what B ought to have said. The stronger his imaginative
faculty, the less liable will the writer be to this fault; but not even
Shakespeare's power of throwing himself into his characters prevents many
of his different personages from talking philosophy in the same strain
and in a style common to them all.

You will often observe that authors fall in love with the imaginary
persons they describe, and that they bestow affectionate epithets upon
them which it may happen the reader does not consider in any way called
for. This is a pleasure to which they have a right. Every author of a
story is surrounded by a little family of ideal children, as dear to him,
it may be, as are flesh-and-blood children to their parents. You may
forget all about the circle of Teacups to which I have introduced
you,--on the supposition that you have followed me with some degree of
interest; but do you suppose that Number Five does not continue as a
presence with me, and that my pretty Delilah has left me forever because
she is going to be married?

No, my dear friend, our circle will break apart, and its different
members will soon be to you as if they had never been. But do you think
that I can forget them? Do you suppose th