ons, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly
with one set of people in one house?"

Such writing is inexcusably untrue. We cannot believe that any human
being ever asked a direct question so elaborately lengthy. People
do not talk like that. As a contrast, let us notice for a moment the
poignant truthfulness of speech in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's story, "Only
a Subaltern." A fever-stricken private says to Bobby Wick, "Beg y'
pardon, sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min' 'oldin' my
'and, sir?"--and later, when the private becomes convalescent and
Bobby in his turn is stricken down, the private suddenly stares in
horror at his bed, and cries, "Oh, my Gawd! It can't be _'im_!" People
talk like that.

Arbitrary plotting, as a rule, is of no avail in fiction: almost
always, we know when a story is true and when it is not. We seldom
believe in the long-lost will that is discovered at last on the back
of a decaying picture-canvas; or in the chance meeting and mutual
discovery of long-separated relatives; or in such accidental
circumstances as the one, for instance, because of which Romeo fails
to receive the message from Friar Laurence. The incidents of fiction
at its best are not only probable but inevitable: they happen because
in the nature of things they have to happen, and not because the
author wants them to. Similarly, the truest characters of fiction are
so real that even their creator has no power to make them do what
they will not. It has been told of Thackeray that he grew so to love
Colonel Newcome that he wished ardently that the good man might live
happily until the end. Yet, knowing the circumstances in which the
Colonel was enmeshed, and knowing also the nature of the people who
formed the little circle round about him, Thackeray realized that his
last days would of necessity be miserable; and realizing this, the
author told the bitter truth, though it cost him many tears.

The careless reader of fiction usually supposes that, since the
novelist invents his characters and incidents, he can order them
always to suit his own desires: but any honest artist will tell you
that his characters often grow intractable and stubbornly refuse at
certain points to accept the incidents which he has foreordained for
them, and that at other times they take matters into their own hands
and run away with the story. Stevenson has recorded this latter
experience. He said, apropos of "Kidnapped," "In on