land_ to
me.

I have said the map was the most of the plot. I might almost say it was
the whole. A few reminiscences of Poe, Defoe, and Washington Irving, a
copy of Johnson's "Buccaneers," the name of the Dead Man's Chest from
Kingsley's "At Last," some recollections of canoeing on the high seas,
and the map itself, with its infinite, eloquent suggestion, made up the
whole of my materials. It is, perhaps, not often that a map figures so
largely in a tale, yet it is always important. The author must know his
countryside, whether real or imaginary, like his hand; the distances,
the points of the compass, the place of the sun's rising, the behaviour
of the moon, should all be beyond cavil. And how troublesome the moon
is! I have come to grief over the moon in "Prince Otto," and, so soon as
that was pointed out to me, adopted a precaution which I recommend to
other men--I never write now without an almanac. With an almanac and the
map of the country, and the plan of every house, either actually plotted
on paper or already and immediately apprehended in the mind, a man may
hope to avoid some of the grossest possible blunders. With the map
before him, he will scarce allow the sun to set in the east, as it does
in "The Antiquary." With the almanac at hand, he will scarce allow two
horsemen, journeying on the most urgent affair, to employ six days, from
three of the Monday morning till late in the Saturday night, upon a
journey of, say, ninety or a hundred miles, and before the week is out,
and still on the same nags, to cover fifty in one day, as may be read at
length in the inimitable novel of "Rob Roy." And it is certainly well,
though far from necessary, to avoid such "croppers." But it is my
contention--my superstition, if you like--that who is faithful to his
map, and consults it, and draws from it his inspiration, daily and
hourly, gains positive support, and not mere negative immunity from
accident. The tale has a root there; it grows in that soil; it has a
spine of its own behind the words. Better if the country be real, and he
has walked every foot of it and knows every milestone. But even with
imaginary places, he will do well in the beginning to provide a map; as
he studies it, relations will appear that he had not thought upon; he
will discover obvious, though unsuspected, shortcuts and footprints for
his messengers; and even when a map is not all the plot, as it was in
"Treasure Island," it will be found to be a m