th your hero: stop, Ansard, or you'll kill me
too--but not without a groan.

_A._ Don't you think it would act well?

_B._ Quite as well as it reads; pray is it all like this?

_A._ You shall judge for yourself. I have half killed myself with
writing it, for I chew opium every night to obtain ideas. Now again----

_B._ Spare me, Ansard, spare me; my nerves are rather delicate; for the
remainder I will take your word.

_A._ I wish my duns would do the same, even if it were only my
washerwoman; but there's no more tick for me here, except this old watch
of my father's, which serves to remind me of what I cannot obtain from
others--time; but, however, there is a time for all things, and when the
time comes that my romance is ready, my creditors will obtain the
_ready_.

_B._ Your only excuse, Ansard.

_A._ I beg your pardon. The public require strong writing now-a-days. We
have thousands who write well, and the public are nauseated with what is
called _good writing_.

_B._ And so they want something bad, eh? Well, Ansard, you certainly can
supply them.

_A._ My dear Barnstaple, you must not disparage this style of
writing--it is not bad--there is a great art in it. It may be termed
writing intellectual and ethereal. You observe, that it never allows
probabilities or even possibilities to stand in its way. The dross of
humanity is rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our
natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion.
Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they
would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile,
or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold
is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for
my men, you will observe when you read my work----

_B._ When I do!

_A._ Which, of course, you will--that they also have their appetites in
abeyance; they never want to eat, or drink, or sleep--are always at hand
when required, without regard to time or space. Now there is a great
beauty in this description of writing. The women adore it because they
find their sex divested of those human necessities, without which they
would indeed be angels! the mirror is held up to them, and they find
themselves perfect--no wonder they are pleased. The other sex are also
very glad to dwell upon female perfectability, which they can only find
in a romance, although they have often dreamt of