ss.

He attributes his success in part to the fact that he has always been
a great reader of the Bible.

"I think," he says, "that I know my Bible as few literary men know it.
There is no book in the world like it, and the finest novels ever
written fall far short in interest of the stories it tells. Whatever
strong situations I have in my books are not of my creation, but are
taken from the Bible. 'The Deemster' is the story of the prodigal son.
'The Bondman' is the story of Esau and Jacob, though in my version
sympathy attaches to Esau. 'The Scapegoat' is the story of Eli and his
sons, but with Samuel as a little girl. 'The Manxman' is the story of
David and Uriah. My new book also comes out of the Bible, from a
perfectly startling source."

Hall Caine does not begin his books with a character or group of
characters, like Dickens or Scott, nor with a plot, like Wilkie
Collins, nor with a scene, like Black, but with an idea, a spiritual
intent. In all his books the central motive is always the same. "It
is," he says, "the idea of justice, the idea of a Divine Justice, the
idea that righteousness always works itself out, that out of hatred
and malice comes Love. My theory is that a novel, a piece of
imaginative writing, must end with a sense of justice, must leave the
impression that justice is inevitable. My theory is also--on the
matters which divide novelists into realists and idealists--that the
highest form of art is produced by the artist who is so far an
idealist that he wants to say something and so far a realist that he
copies nature as closely as he can in saying it."

His methods of work are particular to himself. It is difficult for a
visitor in Hall Caine's house to find pens or ink. As a matter of
fact, his writing is done with a stylograph pen, which he always
carries in his pocket.

"I don't think," he says, "that I have sat down to a desk to write for
years. I write in my head to begin with, and the actual writing, which
is from memory, is done on any scrap of paper that may come to hand;
and I always write on my knee. My work is as follows: I first get my
idea, my central moral; and this usually takes me a very long time.
The incidents come very quickly, for the invention of incidents is a
very easy matter to me. I then labor like mad in getting knowledge. I
visit the places I propose to describe. I read every book I can get
bearing on my subject. It is elaborate, laborious, but very
delightful.