You know at once that twenty summers will have passed o'er her head, and that he is just round the corner waiting to come upon her all unawares, so soon as the author can quit cataloguing nature's beauties.
And have you ever read a story that opened with "A dripping November fog enveloped the city"? Of course you have; and you know at once, before you get to the next line, which describes its denseness and the slippery pavements, and a host of other discomforts, that you are going to be ushered into an equally dismal city boarding-house, and introduced to a lovely-complexioned girl whose frail appearance is only enhanced by her deep mourning, and hear the sad story of the pecuniary straits that necessitated her bringing her widowed mother (often fractious), or it may be a younger sister (always sunny and the lodestar of her life), from their lovely old home in the country, while she earned a living in town. And, without fail, she has always imagined that they were well provided for, till the family lawyer (always old) broke the news after the funeral that the place was mortgaged up to the hilt, and even her father's life insurance had been allowed to lapse.
You know all the rest—the dreary tramp round in search of work, and the way she irons out her threadbare garments to make them last as long as they can (irrespective of the fact that the mourning was new only a few weeks before, and she presumably had a good stock of underwear in her prosperous days), and a host of other harrowing experiences until—it comes right in the end.
And all because the story opened with a dripping November fog! Why, I believe the average amateur would consider it almost improper to start a desolate orphan on a quest for work in the metropolis in anything other than a dense November fog!
And yet—how much more cheerful for her, poor dear, could she but begin her career on a dry day—and some November days in London are quite sunny and bright—so much better for her in the thin jacket she always wears on such occasion, and her worn-out shoes!
It would be such a blessed thing if we need not start with the weather, nor the number of summers that had floated over the sweet young heroine's head (or winters, if the central figure be an old man). But the amateur clings to these openings.
Then take "the boudoir." After the weather I don't think anything haunts me more persistently than the boudoir. "Lady Gwennyth was sitting reading a letter in her luxurious (or cosy, or dainty) boudoir, when——" etc.
Now why is it that the girl who starts out to write fiction loves to introduce her heroine in this wise? It is most unlikely that the amateur knows much about a boudoir—few of us do. It is a room that appertains solely to the rich, and to only a small proportion of the rich at that. I know many wealthy women and many well-born women who haven't a boudoir, simply because the cramped conditions of modern living seldom leave them a room to spare for this purpose. The fact is the boudoir proper does not really belong to this purposeful age. It is a relic of the more leisurely Victorian times and the ease-loving, well-to-do Frenchwoman of pre-war days. Most modern women have very little time to spend in a boudoir if even they need one; nevertheless it appears with unfailing regularity in stories dealing with the richer ranks of life, till you would think it was as necessary to a woman's entourage as—an umbrella!
Why is it that the heroine has usually refused a couple (if not more) offers of marriage, before she is brought to our notice, with yet another offer looming on the horizon? In real life, as we know it in this twentieth century, it is most unusual for a girl to be constantly turning down offers of marriage like applications for charity subscriptions though there are exceptions here and there, certainly.
Yet I scarcely open a love-story that does not state that the heroine had already refused "every eligible man in her circle"; though the reader can seldom see why one man should have proposed to the damsel, much less a crowd!