Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

“How does the thing read, Susy?”

“How does it read?” cried Susy. “Oh, Fanny, it reads exactly like a book—exactly. There is no difference between this and a real book. Oh, 'tis a thousand times nicer to read in print than it was as you wrote it. It is so good, too!—the best story I ever read! I can't understand how you ever came to write it. You who have seen nothing of life—how did such a story ever come to you?”

“I wish I knew,” replied Fanny. “And do you think that anyone else will read it now that it is printed?” she asked (she was rapidly acquiring the most prominent traits of the complete novel writer).

“Anyone else? Nay, everyone—everyone will read it, and everyone will love it. How could anyone help—even daddy and mamma? Now please don't interrupt me again.”

Down went Susy's face once more among the printed sheets, and Fanny watched her with delight. She had been quite ready a short time before to accept the verdict of Cousin Edward as equivalent to that of the public upon her book; and now she was prepared to accept Susy as the representative of all readers of taste and discrimination.

“Edward—psha! What could he know about it?” she was ready to exclaim: every moment was bringing her nearer to the complete novelist.

“Surely,” she thought, “there can be no dearer pleasure in life than to watch the effect of one's own book upon an appreciative reader!”

(The appreciative reader is always the one who is favourably impressed; the other sort knows nothing about what constitutes an interesting book.)

It was the first draught of which she had ever partaken of this particular cup of happiness, and it was a bombard. She was draining it to the very dregs: it was making her intoxicated, even though it was only offered to her by her younger sister, who had never read half a dozen novels in all her life, and these surreptitiously. She could know by the varying changes in expression on Susy's face what place she had come to in the book: the turning over of the pages was no guide to her, for she had no idea of the quantity of her writing the printers had put into a page, but she had no trouble in finding Susy's place, so exquisitely reflective was the girl's face of the incidents among which she was wandering. Surely little Susy had always been her favourite sister (she was smiling at one of the drolleries of characterization upon which she had come); oh, there could be no doubt that she had never loved any of her sisters as she loved Susy (Susy's eyes were now becoming watery, and Fanny knew that she had-reached the first of Evelina's troubles).

It was the happiest hour of Fanny's life, and she gave herself up to it. She did not feel any irresistible desire to judge for herself if the opinion expressed by Susy respecting the story was correct or otherwise. She had no impulse to see how her ideas “looked in print.” She was content to observe the impression they were making upon her first lay reader. She had a vague suspicion that her own pleasure in reading the book would be infinitely less than the pleasure she derived from following the course of the story in her sister's face.