One would really think that this individual imagined story-telling to be a sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and that all that is necessary to the attainment of the art is to learn ‘how it’s done.’  I should not like to say that I have known any members of my own profession who are ’no conjurors,’ but it is certainly not by conjuring that they have succeeded in it.

‘You talk of the art of composition,’ writes, on the other hand, another angry correspondent, ’as though it were one of the exact sciences; you might just as well advise your “clever Jack” to study the art of playing the violin.’  So that one portion of the public appears to consider the calling of literature mechanical, while another holds it to be a soft of divine instinct!

Since the interest in this subject proves to be so wide-spread, I trust it will not be thought presumptuous in me to offer my own humble experience in this matter for what it is worth.  To the public at large a card of admission to my poor manufactory of fiction—­a ’very one-horse affair,’ as an American gentleman, with whom I had a little difficulty concerning copyright, once described it—­may not afford the same satisfaction as a ticket for the private view of the Royal Academy; but the stings of conscience urge me to make to Paterfamilias what amends in the way of ‘practical hints’ lie in my power, for the wrong I have done to his offspring; and I therefore venture to address to those whom it may concern, and to those only, a few words on the Art of Story-telling.

The chief essential for this line of business, yet one that is much disregarded by many young writers, is the having a story to tell.  It is a common supposition that the story will come if you only sit down with a pen in your hand and wait long enough—­a parallel case to that which assigns one cow’s tail as the measure of distance between this planet and the moon.  It is no use ‘throwing off’ a few brilliant ideas at the commencement, if they are only to be ‘passages that lead to nothing;’ you must have distinctly in your mind at first what you intend to say at last.  ‘Let it be granted,’ says a great writer (though not one distinguished in fiction), ’that a straight line be drawn from any one point to any other point;’ only you must have the ‘other point’ to begin with, or you can’t draw the line.  So far from being ‘straight,’ it goes wabbling aimlessly about like a wire fastened at one end and not at the other, which may dazzle, but cannot sustain; or rather what it does sustain is so exceedingly minute, that it reminds one of the minnow which the inexperienced angler flatters himself he has caught, but which the fisherman has in fact previously put on his hook for bait.