Would not the lover be spared time and pain if he knew, as the novelist knows, whether the young lady is dressing for a rejection or an acceptance?  Why does the lady intending suicide always throw on a waterproof when she steals out of the house to drown herself?  The novelist knows the deep significance of every article of toilet, and nature teaches him to array his characters for the summer novel in the airy draperies suitable to the season.  It is only good art that the cover of the novel and the covers of the characters shall be in harmony.  He knows, also, that the characters in the winter novel must be adequately protected.  We speak, of course, of the season stories.  Novels that are to run through a year, or maybe many years, and are to set forth the passions and trials of changing age and varying circumstance, require different treatment and wider millinery knowledge.  They are naturally more expensive.  The wardrobe required in an all-round novel would bankrupt most of us.

But to confine ourselves to the season novel, it is strange that some one has not invented the patent adjustable story that with a slight change would do for summer or winter, following the broad hint of the publishers, who hasten in May to throw whatever fiction they have on hand into summer clothes.  The winter novel, by this invention, could be easily fitted for summer wear.  All the novelist need do would be to change the clothes of his characters.  And in the autumn, if the novel proved popular, he could change again, with the advantage of being in the latest fashion.  It would only be necessary to alter a few sentences in a few of the stereotype pages.  Of course this would make necessary other slight alterations, for no kind-hearted writer would be cruel to his own creations, and expose them to the vicissitudes of the seasons.  He could insert “rain” for “snow,” and “green leaves” for “skeleton branches,” make a few verbal changes of that sort, and regulate the thermometer.  It would cost very little to adjust the novel in this way to any season.  It is worth thinking of.

And this leads to a remark upon the shocking indifference of some novelists to the ordinary comfort of their characters.  In practical life we cannot, but in his realm the novelist can, control the weather.  He can make it generally pleasant.  We do not object to a terrific thunder-shower now and then, as the sign of despair and a lost soul, but perpetual drizzle and grayness and inclemency are tedious to the reader, who has enough bad weather in his private experience.  The English are greater sinners in this respect than we are.  They seem to take a brutal delight in making it as unpleasant as possible for their fictitious people.  There is R—­b—­rt ‘lsm—­r’, for example.  External trouble is piled on to the internal.  The characters are in a perpetual soak.  There is not a dry rag on any of them, from the beginning of the book to the end.  They are sent out in all weathers, and are