he innocent cause of the misfortune, "you
would never do for treasons and stratagems!"

The late John Blackwood corresponded with George Eliot for some time
before he knew that she was a woman. He called her "Dear George," he
says, and often used expressions which a man commonly uses only to a
man. After he found out who "Dear George" was, he was naturally a little
anxious to recall some of the expressions he had used. Charles Dickens,
however, detected what escaped the observation of most people. Writing
to a correspondent in January, 1858, he said: "Will you, by such
roundabout ways and methods as may present themselves, convey this note
of thanks to the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' whose two first
stories I can never say enough of, I think them so truly admirable. But,
if those two volumes, or a part of them, were not written by a woman,
then shall I begin to believe that I am a woman myself."

XI.

System in Novel Writing.

Anthony Trollope was the most systematic of all the English novelists.
Sitting down at his desk, he would take out his watch and time himself.
His system is well known, but a singular explanation of his fertility
may be quoted: "When I have commenced a new book," he says, "I have
always prepared a diary divided into weeks, and carried it on for the
period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In
this I have entered day by day the number of pages I have written, so
that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the
record of that idleness has been there staring me in the face and
demanding of me increased labor, so that the deficiency might be
supplied. According to the circumstances of the time, whether any other
business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was
writing was or was not wanted with speed, I have allotted myself so many
pages a week. The average number has been about forty. It has been
placed as low as twenty and has risen to one hundred and twelve. And as
a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain two
hundred and fifty words, and as words, if not watched, will have a
tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went."

Under the title of "A Walk in a Wood," Anthony Trollope thus describes
his method of plot-making and the difficulty the novelist experiences in
making the "tricksy Ariel" of the imagination do his bidding: "I have to
confess that my incidents are fabrica