“In fact, take the blue ribbon and become an example for temperance speeches.”
“Why not?” replied Elijah stoutly; “it might have done good.”
“Mr. Higginbotham,” I said with much solemnity, “be thankful that in your busy and blameless life you have never meddled with fiction, save, I fancy, in commercial transactions; for you have escaped trials of anxiety and disappointment beyond anything in the markets. You suppose, I notice, that because a story-teller creates certain characters, he can do with them as he pleases, putting words into their mouths and dictating their marriages.”
“Well, naturally I do.”
“Nothing of the kind, sir. Once these characters are fairly started on their career, and come of age, as it were, they go their own way, and the whole of their author's time is taken up following them, remonstrating with them, and trying, generally in vain, to get them to work out his plan. Now you would say, I fancy, that the poor author could at least settle their marriages.”
“I would do so,” said Elijah grimly, “if I were writing.”
“Unfortunately that is one of the most difficult and delicate parts of a poor novelist's work, and he fails as often as he succeeds. The man marries the wrong woman, and vice versâ, till the author is in despair, and sometimes wishes he had never called such a set of rebels into existence.”
Elijah looked incredulous.
“I can assure you, you never know what secret they may have in their past lives, or what love affairs are going on behind your back. I'll give you an illustration, if I may quote from very simple fiction. A lady wrote me, after the publication of the Brier Bush, that she believed Drumsheugh was in love with Marget Howe, and wished to know whether this was the case? I replied that this suspicion had crossed my own mind, and that I was watching events. And as you have done me the honour of reading Auld Lang Syne, you will remember that Drumsheugh had been a faithful, although undeclared lover of Marget since early manhood. Yet it came on me as a surprise; and if any one had said, Why did not you tell this sooner? my answer would have been, I did not know. If I am not wearying you, Mr. Higginbotham—I am on my defence, and I should like to have your good opinion—I may confess that I tried to arrange, in a book, a girl's love affairs, and she married the wrong man, one quite unsuited for her, and the result was—although this is again a secret—they have had many unnecessary trials. No, no, we are helpless creatures, we so-called authors; poor mother hens, beseeching from the edge of the pond and lamenting, while the brood of ducklings swim away in all directions.”
“That's all very well; and, as writing is not in my line, you may be right; but I have not come to my most serious ground of complaint, and that is the Postman's—er—judgment and future lot.”