“Ah!” said the mother; “but that is like you, Count WAllington. You mean that she is to be a maid in your father’s house? Ah! what prosperity!”
“Ah! do not insult the most beautiful being who ever went about in a London fog. She a servant? Never! I will make her my wife. She shall be Miledi Comptesse _E_rnold CIcil Judas GeorgeS HErold WAllington!”
In Southwark-on-Trent, a suburb of London, is the hospital for those about to commit suicide. Ring the bell at the gate, and you will be admitted by sixteen flaxen-haired ones who will conduct you to the governor and matron. Need I say who they are, or whose money built the institution?
And when you read in London _POnch_, among the court news, that a great beauty has been presented to the Queen of England, London, and Ireland, you will know that it is the Comptesse WAllington. She is presented at all the levees, and, with her husband, the handsome and philanthropic Lord WAllington, is the cynosure of all English eyes.
My dear young reader, if you are thinking of launching a little craft upon the troublous sea of literature, see that it is well ballasted with dogmatic assertions. (I should like to continue this nautical metaphor further, but I am such a landlubber that I doubt if I should be able to mix it properly, and what interest has a metaphor if it be not well mixed?) But to continue in plain English: A dogmatic assertion carries conviction to the minds of most unthinking people--in other words, to most people. (You and I don’t think, dear reader, and is it likely that we are worse than the rest of mankind?)
If you purpose becoming a novelist of character, follow my directions, and your first book will nail your reputation to the mast of public opinion. Fill your story full of such utterances as these: “Chaplain Dole always nodded his head a great many times to express affirmation. This is a common practice with persons who are a little hard of hearing.” (It isn’t, and yet it may be, for all I know to the contrary; but it will carry weight. Nine persons out of ten will say, “Why, that’s so, isn’t it? Haven’t you noticed it?”)
It doesn’t matter what you say; if you say it dogmatically it will go. Thus: “She walked with the slow, timid step that is so characteristic of English spinsters.” That’s a fine one, for it may excite contradiction, and contradiction is advertisement. Here are half a dozen examples: “He tapped his forehead with his left little finger, a gesture peculiar to people who have great concentration of mind.” “His half-closed eyes proclaimed him a shrewd business man. Why is it that your keen man of affairs should always look out at the world through a slit?” “The child spoke in that raucous tone of voice that always presages cerebral trouble.” “Miss de Mure waved her fan languidly, with a scarcely perceptible wrist motion, a sure indication that she was about to capitulate, but Mr. Wroxhaemme, not being a keen observer, took no note of it.” And, “He spoke but three words, yet you sensed that he was an advocate. Why is it that a lawyer cannot conceal his profession? A doctor may talk all day, and if he bar shop his vocation will not be detected; but a lawyer tunes up his vocal chords, as it were, and the secret is out.”