“After that I grew more careful.  I studied my disguises much more diligently.  But after all, what could I do?  Here I was, writing stories for my living and my reputation.  I made a pretty sum enough, and worked hard enough to earn it.  No tale, no money.  Then every story that went from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, and there was a set of critics,—­there is a set of critics now and everywhere,—­that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man’s reputation as ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watched for the falling of the waters.  The fame I had won, such as it was, seemed to attend me,—­not going before me in the shape of a woman with a trumpet, but rather following me like one of Actaeon’s hounds, his throat open, ready to pull me down and tear me.  What a fierce enemy is that which bays behind us in the voice of our proudest bygone achievement!

“But, as I said above, what could I do?  I must write novels, and I must have characters.  ‘Then why not invent them?’ asks some novice.  Oh, yes!  Invent them!  You can invent a human being that in certain aspects of humanity will answer every purpose for which your invention was intended.  A basket of straw, an old coat and pair of breeches, a hat which has been soaked, sat upon, stuffed a broken window, and had a brood of chickens raised in it,—­these elements, duly adjusted to each other, will represent humanity so truthfully that the crows will avoid the cornfield when your scarecrow displays his personality.  Do you think you can make your heroes and heroines,—­nay, even your scrappy supernumeraries,—­out of refuse material, as you made your scarecrow?  You can’t do it.  You must study living people and reproduce them.  And whom do you know so well as your friends?  You will show up your friends, then, one after another.  When your friends give out, who is left for you?  Why, nobody but your own family, of course.  When you have used up your family, there is nothing left for you but to write your autobiography.

“After my experience with my grand-aunt, I be came more cautious, very naturally.  I kept traits of character, but I mixed ages as well as sexes.  In this way I continued to use up a large amount of material, which looked as if it were as dangerous as dynamite to meddle with.  Who would have expected to meet my maternal uncle in the guise of a schoolboy?  Yet I managed to decant his characteristics as nicely as the old gentleman would have decanted a bottle of Juno Madeira through that long siphon which he always used when the most sacred vintages were summoned from their crypts to render an account of themselves on his hospitable board.  It was a nice business, I confess, but I did it, and I drink cheerfully to that good uncle’s memory in a glass of wine from his own cellar, which, with many other more important tokens of his good will, I call my own since his lamented demise.