rominent and dignified type, which when viewed in oblique perspective
ranged as regularly as bow-windows at a watering place. Ethelberta's
plan was to tell her pretended history and adventures while sitting in a
chair--as if she were at her own fireside, surrounded by a circle of
friends. By this touch of domesticity a great appearance of truth and
naturalness was given, though really the attitude was at first more
difficult to maintain satisfactorily than any one wherein stricter
formality should be observed. She gently began her subject, as if
scarcely knowing whether a throng were near her or not, and, in her fear
of seeming artificial, spoke too low. This defect, however, she soon
corrected, and ultimately went on in a charmingly colloquial manner. What
Ethelberta relied upon soon became evident. It was not upon the
intrinsic merits of her story as a piece of construction, but upon her
method of telling it. Whatever defects the tale possessed--and they were
not a few--it had, as delivered by her, the one pre-eminent merit of
seeming like truth. A modern critic has well observed of De Foe that he
had the most amazing talent on record for telling lies; and Ethelberta,
in wishing her fiction to appear like a real narrative of personal
adventure, did wisely to make De Foe her model. His is a style even
better adapted for speaking than for writing, and the peculiarities of
diction which he adopts to give verisimilitude to his narratives acquired
enormous additional force when exhibited as viva-voce mannerisms. And
although these artifices were not, perhaps, slavishly copied from that
master of feigning, they would undoubtedly have reminded her hearers of
him, had they not mostly been drawn from an easeful section in society
which is especially characterized by the mental condition of knowing
nothing about any author a week after they have read him. The few there
who did remember De Foe were impressed by a fancy that his words greeted
them anew in a winged auricular form, instead of by the weaker channels
of print and eyesight. The reader may imagine what an effect this well-
studied method must have produced when intensified by a clear, living
voice, animated action, and the brilliant and expressive eye of a
handsome woman--attributes which of themselves almost compelled belief.
When she reached the most telling passages, instead of adding exaggerated
action and sound, Ethelberta would lapse to a whisper and a s