his characters must, in the nature of things,
have more or less of himself in their composition. If I should seek an
exemplification of this in the person of any of my Teacups, I should
find it most readily in the one whom I have called Number Seven, the one
with the squinting brain. I think that not only I, the writer, but many
of my readers, recognize in our own mental constitution an occasional
obliquity of perception, not always detected at the time, but plain
enough when looked back upon. What extravagant fancies you and I have
seriously entertained at one time or another! What superstitious notions
have got into our heads and taken possession of its empty chambers,--or,
in the language of science, seized on the groups of nerve-cells in some
of the idle cerebral convolutions!

The writer, I say, becomes acquainted with his characters as he goes on.
They are at first mere embryos, outlines of distinct personalities.
By and by, if they have any organic cohesion, they begin to assert
themselves. They can say and do such and such things; such and such
other things they cannot and must not say or do. The story-writer's and
play-writer's danger is that they will get their characters mixed,
and make A say what B ought to have said. The stronger his imaginative
faculty, the less liable will the writer be to this fault; but not even
Shakespeare's power of throwing himself into his characters prevents
many of his different personages from talking philosophy in the same
strain and in a style common to them all.

You will often observe that authors fall in love with the imaginary
persons they describe, and that they bestow affectionate epithets upon
them which it may happen the reader does not consider in any way called
for. This is a pleasure to which they have a right. Every author of a
story is surrounded by a little family of ideal children, as dear to
him, it may be, as are flesh-and-blood children to their parents. You
may forget all about the circle of Teacups to which I have introduced
you,--on the supposition that you have followed me with some degree of
interest; but do you suppose that Number Five does not continue as a
presence with me, and that my pretty Delilah has left me forever because
she is going to be married?

No, my dear friend, our circle will break apart, and its different
members will soon be to you as if they had never been. But do you think
that I can forget them? Do you suppose that I shall cease