But in the course of my attempts to procure the reduction to which I was entitled, I expressed a hope that the said author would live to be seventy, and, further, that he would write four or five volumes as long as his first in the interim. To my thinking, he has been as good (or as bad) as his word, for this present volume is Vol. II.[1] of the fourth story published since then, and the day of its publication will be the author's seventieth birthday; or, if you consider the day of his birth as a birthday, his seventy-first. I see nothing to be ashamed of in the way this author has come to time, and can (so far) look with complacency on the fact that we are each other.
At the risk of more Early Victorianism—I have a heavy score against me!—may I use the rest of this fly-leaf, otherwise blank, to touch on another point? I know that gossiping with one's readers is a disreputable Early Victorian practice, and far from Modern, which everything ought to be. But I will not detain mine long.
I wish to protest against a misinterpretation that readers of fiction will probably continue to make to the end of time, however strongly authors may appeal against it.
I refer to the practice of ascribing views—political, religious, or otherwise—expressed by characters in a book to its author. It is as unreasonable to do so as to impute every opinion spoken in a dream to the dreamer himself. In this foregoing book, as in others, the author has merely put on record what the characters he was dreaming of seemed to him to say.
I repudiate responsibility on his behalf. Hold a writer of pure fiction answerable for the opinions of every one of his dramatis personæ, and he will be limited in the choice of them to folk who are on all fours with everyone else—conformists of a venomous type—good to be read about in bed by persons who suffer from insomnia, but good for nothing else. Take the words of each character for what they are worth, and if a character alleged by the tale to be sane says something you don't agree with, condemn it as ill-drawn, if you like, but don't call the author to account as if he had ventured to question the validity of your own persuasions. Leave him a free hand, and he will verser comme si c'était pour soi, and his books will be infinitely more readable, even if some of his favourite characters utter incorrect opinions.
I may add that if the readers of this novel want anything altered in it, it shall be done in the second edition, provided that they are unanimous and that it will leave the text consecutive.
W. De Morgan.
[1.] The English edition of this book is published in two volumes.