how to
write a fashionable novel, it will be hard, indeed, if I cannot send you
up the Rhine. One little expense must be incurred--you must subscribe a
quarter to a circulating library, for I wish that what you do should be
well done.

_A._ Barnstaple, I will subscribe to--anything.

_B._ Well, then, since you are so reasonable, I will proceed. You must
wade through all the various "Journies on the Rhine," "Two Months on the
Rhine," "Autumns on the Rhine," &c., which you can collect. This you
will find the most tiresome part of your task. Select one as your guide,
one who has a reputation; follow his course, not exactly--that I will
explain afterwards--and agree with him in everything, generally
speaking. Praise his exactitude and fidelity, and occasionally quote
him; this is but fair: after you rob a man (and I intend you shall rifle
him most completely), it is but decent to give him kind words. All
others you must abuse, contradict, and depreciate. Now, there is a great
advantage in so doing: in the first place, you make the best writer your
friend--he forgets your larcenies in your commendation of him, and in
your abuse of others. If his work be correct, so must yours be; he
praises it everywhere--perhaps finds you out, and asks you to dine with
him.

_A._ How should I ever look at his injured face?

_B._ On the contrary, he is the obliged party--your travels are a puff
to his own.

_A._ But, Barnstaple, allowing that I follow this part of your advice,
which I grant to be very excellent, how can I contradict others, when
they may be, and probably are, perfectly correct in their assertions?

_B._ If they are so, virtue must be its own reward. It is necessary that
you write a book of travels, and all travellers contradict each
other--_ergo_, you must contradict, or nobody will believe that you
have travelled. Not only contradict, but sneer at them.

_A._ Well, now do explain how that is to be done.

_B._ Nothing more simple: for instance, a man measures a certain
remarkable piece of antiquity--its length is 747 feet. You must measure
it over again, and declare that he is in error, that it is only 727. To
be sure of your being correct, measure it _twice_ over, and then convict
him.

_A._ But surely, Barnstaple, one who has measured it, is more likely to
be correct than one who has not.

_B._ I'll grant you that he is correct to half an inch--that's no
matter. The public will, in all probability, believe you