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sensations--they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet. If you
wish to write forcibly, Miss Zenobia, pay minute attention to the
sensations."

"That I certainly will, Mr. Blackwood," said I.

"Good!" he replied. "I see you are a pupil after my own heart. But I
must put you au fait to the details necessary in composing what may be
denominated a genuine Blackwood article of the sensation stamp--the
kind which you will understand me to say I consider the best for all
purposes.

"The first thing requisite is to get yourself into such a scrape as no
one ever got into before. The oven, for instance,--that was a good
hit. But if you have no oven or big bell, at hand, and if you cannot
conveniently tumble out of a balloon, or be swallowed up in an
earthquake, or get stuck fast in a chimney, you will have to be
contented with simply imagining some similar misadventure. I should
prefer, however, that you have the actual fact to bear you out. Nothing
so well assists the fancy, as an experimental knowledge of the matter
in hand. 'Truth is strange,' you know, 'stranger than fiction'--besides
being more to the purpose."

Here I assured him I had an excellent pair of garters, and would go and
hang myself forthwith.

"Good!" he replied, "do so;--although hanging is somewhat hacknied.
Perhaps you might do better. Take a dose of Brandreth's pills, and then
give us your sensations. However, my instructions will apply equally
well to any variety of misadventure, and in your way home you may easily
get knocked in the head, or run over by an omnibus, or bitten by a mad
dog, or drowned in a gutter. But to proceed.

"Having determined upon your subject, you must next consider the tone,
or manner, of your narration. There is the tone didactic, the tone
enthusiastic, the tone natural--all common--place enough. But then there
is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come much into use. It
consists in short sentences. Somehow thus: Can't be too brief. Can't be
too snappish. Always a full stop. And never a paragraph.

"Then there is the tone elevated, diffusive, and interjectional. Some
of our best novelists patronize this tone. The words must be all in a
whirl, like a humming-top, and make a noise very similar, which answers
remarkably well instead of meaning. This is the best of all possible
styles where the writer is in too great a hurry to think.

"The tone metaphysical is also a good one. If you know any big words
this i