his height
increased three inches. A moment before I thought he was a candidate for
fatty degeneration of the cerebrum, but now his sturdy frame was all
atremble with life.

"Another murder! I knew it. Bill Sykes has killed Nancy at last. There 's
fifty pun for the man who puts the irons on 'im--I must make for the
nearest stishun."

He gave my hand a twist, shot down a narrow courtway--and I was left to
fight the fog, and mayhap this Bill Sykes and all the other wild phantoms
of Dickens' brain, alone.

* * * * *

A certain great general once said that the only good Indian
is a dead Indian. Just why the maxim should be limited to aborigines I
know not, for when one reads obituaries he is discouraged at the thoughts
of competing in virtue with those who have gone hence.

Let us extend the remark--plagiarize a bit--and say that the only perfect
men are those whom we find in books. The receipt for making them is
simple, yet well worth pasting in your scrapbook. Take the virtues of all
the best men you ever knew or heard of, leave out the faults, then mix.

In the hands of "the lady novelist" this composition, well molded, makes
a scarecrow, in the hair of which the birds of the air come and build
their nests. But manipulated by an expert a figure may appear that starts
and moves and seems to feel the thrill of life. It may even take its
place on a pedestal and be exhibited with other waxworks and thus become
confounded with the historic And though these things make the unskilful
laugh, yet the judicious say, "Dickens made it, therefore let it pass for
a man."

Dear old M. Taine, ever glad to score a point against the British, and
willing to take Dickens at his word, says, "We have no such men in France
as Scrooge and Squeers!"

But, God bless you, M. Taine, England has no such men either.

The novelist takes the men and women he has known, and from life, plus
imagination, he creates. If he sticks too close to nature he describes,
not depicts: this is "veritism." If imagination's wing is too strong, it
lifts the luckless writer off from earth and carries him to an unknown
land. You may then fall down and worship his characters, and there is no
violation of the First Commandment.

Nothing can be imagined that has not been seen; but imagination can
assort, omit, sift, select, construct. Given a horse, an eagle, an
elephant, and the "creative artist" can make an animal that is neither