Pisistratus.—­“Trash, sir?”

Mr. Caxton.—­“No—­that is not necessarily trash—­but a book of that class which, whether trash or not, people can’t help reading.  Novels have become the necessity of the age.  You must write a novel.”

Pisistratus, flattered, but dubious.—­“A novel!  But every subject on which novels can be written is preoccupied.  There are novels on low life, novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical, novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids.  From what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I

  “‘Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy’s wing!’”

Mr. Caxton, after a little thought.—­“You remember the story which Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night.  That gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot—­puts you chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you with characters which have been sparingly dealt with since the time of Fielding.  You can give us the country squire, as you remember him in your youth:  it is a specimen of a race worth preserving—­the old idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London.  You can give us the old-fashioned parson, as in all essentials he may yet be found—­but before you had to drag him out of the great Puseyite sectarian bog; and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something useful might be done by a few good-humored sketches of those innocent criminals a little better off than their neighbors, whom, however we dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the whole, as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice box of society how we will.”

Pisistratus.—­“Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman life is not so new as you think.  There’s Washington Irving—­”

Mr. Caxton.—­“Charming—­but rather the manners of the last century than this.  You may as well cite Addison and Sir Roger de Coverley.”

Pisistratus.—­“Tremaine and De Vere.”

Mr. Caxton.—­“Nothing can be more graceful, nor more unlike what I mean.  The Pales and Terminus I wish you to put up in the fields are familiar images, that you may cut out of an oak tree—­not beautiful marble statues on porphyry pedestals twenty feet high.”

Pisistratus.—­“Miss Austin; Mrs. Gore in her masterpiece of Mrs. Armytage; Mrs. Marsh, too; and then (for Scottish manners) Miss Ferrier!”