is heard. Am I telling Club
secrets? Of afternoons, after lunch, I say, scores of sensible fogies
have a doze. Perhaps I have fallen asleep over that very book to which
"Finis" has just been written. "And if the writer sleeps, what happens
to the readers?" says Jones, coming down upon me with his lightning wit.
What? You DID sleep over it? And a very good thing too. These eyes
have more than once seen a friend dozing over pages which this hand has
written. There is a vignette somewhere in one of my books of a friend so
caught napping with "Pendennis," or the "Newcomes," in his lap and if
a writer can give you a sweet soothing, harmless sleep, has he not done
you a kindness? So is the author who excites and interests you worthy
of your thanks and benedictions. I am troubled with fever and ague, that
seizes me at odd intervals and prostrates me for a day. There is
cold fit, for which, I am thankful to say, hot brandy-and-water is
prescribed, and this induces hot fit, and so on. In one or two of these
fits I have read novels with the most fearful contentment of mind. Once,
on the Mississippi, it was my dearly beloved "Jacob Faithful:" once at
Frankfort O. M., the delightful "Vingt Ans Apres" of Monsieur Dumas:
once at Tunbridge wells, the thrilling "Woman in White:" and these books
gave me amusement from morning till sunset. I remember those ague fits
with a great deal of pleasure and gratitude. Think of a whole day
in bed, and a good novel for a companion! No cares: no remorse
about idleness: no visitors: and the Woman in White or the Chevalier
d'Artagnan to tell me stories from dawn to night! "Please, ma'am, my
master's compliments, and can he have the third volume?" (This message
was sent to an astonished friend and neighbor who lent me, volume by
volume, the W. in W.) How do you like your novels? I like mine strong,
"hot with," and no mistake: no love-making: no observations about
society: little dialogue, except where the characters are bullying each
other: plenty of fighting: and a villain in the cupboard, who is to
suffer tortures just before Finis. I don't like your melancholy Finis. I
never read the history of a consumptive heroine twice. If I might give
a short hint to an impartial writer (as the Examiner used to say in old
days), it would be to act, NOT a la mode le pays de Pole (I think
that was the phraseology), but ALWAYS to give quarter. In the story
of Philip, just come to an end, I have the permission of the