ll
that you say in your very comprehensive letter of five
lines. The first four lines I have answered. There will be
no such Mrs. Frank Houston as that suggested. And then, as
to the last line. Of course, you will see me again, and
that very speedily. So it would seem that the whole letter
is answered.

But yet it is not answered. There is so much in it that
whole sheets would not answer it. A quire of note-paper
stuffed full would hardly contain all that I might find
to say in answer to it,--on one side and the other. Nay,
I might fill as many reams of folio as are required for a
three-volume novel. And then I might call it by one of two
names, "The Doubts of Frank Houston," or "The Constancy of
Imogene Docimer,"--as I should at last bring my story to
one ending or the other. But the novel would contain that
fault which is so prevalent in the novels of the present
day. The hero would be a very namby-mamby sort of a
fellow, whereas the heroine would be too perfect for human
nature.

The hero would be always repeating to himself a certain
line out of a Latin poet, which, of all lines, is the most
heart-breaking;--

The better course I see and know;--
The worser one is where I go.

But then in novels the most indifferent hero comes out
right at last. Some god comes out of a theatrical cloud
and leaves the poor devil ten thousand a-year and a title.
He isn't much of a hero when he does go right under such
inducements, but he suffices for the plot, and everything
is rose-coloured. I would be virtuous at a much cheaper
rate;--if only a young man with his family might have
enough to eat and drink. What is your idea of the lowest
income at which a prudent,--say not idiotically-quixotic
hero,--might safely venture to be heroic?

Now I have written to you a long letter, and think
that I have indicated to you the true state of my
feelings. Whatever may turn up I do not think I shall go
fortune-hunting again. If half-a-million in female hands
were to throw itself at my head, there is no saying
whether I might not yield. But I do not think that I shall
again make inquiry as to the amount of booty supposed
to be within the walls of a city, and then sit down to
besiege the city with regular lines of approach. It is a
disgusting piece of work. I do not say but what I can lie,
and did