ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watched
for the falling of the waters. The fame I had won, such as it was,
seemed to attend me,--not going before me in the shape of a woman with
a trumpet, but rather following me like one of Actaeon's hounds, his
throat open, ready to pull me down and tear me. What a fierce enemy
is that which bays behind us in the voice of our proudest bygone
achievement!

"But, as I said above, what could I do? I must write novels, and I must
have characters. 'Then why not invent them?' asks some novice. Oh, yes!
Invent them! You can invent a human being that in certain aspects
of humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention was
intended. A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat
which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a
brood of chickens raised in it,--these elements, duly adjusted to each
other, will represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid
the cornfield when your scarecrow displays his personality. Do you
think you can make your heroes and heroines,--nay, even your scrappy
supernumeraries,--out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow?
You can't do it. You must study living people and reproduce them. And
whom do you know so well as your friends? You will show up your friends,
then, one after another. When your friends give out, who is left for
you? Why, nobody but your own family, of course. When you have used
up your family, there is nothing left for you but to write your
autobiography.

"After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, very
naturally. I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well as
sexes. In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material,
which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with.
Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of a
schoolboy? Yet I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as the
old gentleman would have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through that
long siphon which he always used when the most sacred vintages were
summoned from their crypts to render an account of themselves on his
hospitable board. It was a nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I
drink cheerfully to that good uncle's memory in a glass of wine from
his own cellar, which, with many other more important tokens of his good
will, I call my own since his lamented demise.

"I succeeded so well with my uncle that