Soon after my return from the West Indies I was enabled to change
my district in Ireland for one in England. For some time past my
official work had been of a special nature, taking me out of my
own district; but through all that, Dublin had been my home, and
there my wife and children had lived. I had often sighed to return
to England,--with a silly longing. My life in England for twenty-six
years from the time of my birth to the day on which I left it, had
been wretched. I had been poor, friendless, and joyless. In Ireland
it had constantly been happy. I had achieved the respect of all
with whom I was concerned, I had made for myself a comfortable
home, and I had enjoyed many pleasures. Hunting itself was a great
delight to me; and now, as I contemplated a move to England, and a
house in the neighbourhood of London, I felt that hunting must be
abandoned. [Footnote: It was not abandoned till sixteen more years
had passed away.] Nevertheless I thought that a man who could
write books ought not to live in Ireland,--ought to live within
the reach of the publishers, the clubs, and the dinner-parties of
the metropolis. So I made my request at headquarters, and with some
little difficulty got myself appointed to the Eastern District of
England,--which comprised Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire,
Huntingdonshire, and the greater part of Hertfordshire.
At this time I did not stand very well with the dominant interest
at the General Post Office. My old friend Colonel Maberly had
been, some time since, squeezed into, and his place was filled by
Mr. Rowland Hill, the originator of the penny post. With him I never
had any sympathy, nor he with me. In figures and facts he was most
accurate, but I never came across any one who so little understood
the ways of men,--unless it was his brother Frederic. To the two
brothers the servants of the Post Office,--men numerous enough to
have formed a large army in old days,--were so many machines who
could be counted on for their exact work without deviation, as
wheels may be counted on, which are kept going always at the same
pace and always by the same power. Rowland Hill was an industrious
public servant, anxious for the good of his country; but he was
a hard taskmaster, and one who would, I think, have put the great
department with which he was concerned altogether out of gear by
his hardness, had he not been at last controlled. He was the Chief
Secretary, my brother-in-law--who afterwards succeeded him--came
next to him, and Mr. Hill's brother was the Junior Secretary. In
the natural course of things, I had not, from my position, anything
to do with the management of affairs;--but from time to time I found
myself more or less mixed up in it. I was known to be a thoroughly
efficient public servant; I am sure I may say so much of myself
without fear of contradiction from any one who has known the Post
Office;--I was very fond of the department, and when matters came
to be considered, I generally had an opinion of my own. I have
no doubt that I often made myself very disagreeable. I know that I
sometimes tried to do so. But I could hold my own because I knew
my business and was useful. I had given official offence by the
publication of The Three Clerks. I afterwards gave greater offence
by a lecture on The Civil Service which I delivered in one of the
large rooms at the General Post Office to the clerks there. On this
occasion, the Postmaster-General, with whom personally I enjoyed
friendly terms, sent for me and told me that Mr. Hill had told him
that I ought to be dismissed. When I asked his lordship whether
he was prepared to dismiss me, he only laughed. The threat was
no threat to me, as I knew myself to be too good to be treated in
that fashion. The lecture had been permitted, and I had disobeyed
no order. In the lecture which I delivered, there was nothing
to bring me to shame,--but it advocated the doctrine that a civil
servant is only a servant as far as his contract goes, and that he
is beyond that entitled to be as free a man in politics, as free in
his general pursuits, and as free in opinion, as those who are in
open professions and open trades. All this is very nearly admitted
now, but it certainly was not admitted then. At that time no one
in the Post Office could even vote for a Member of Parliament.
Through my whole official life I did my best to improve the style
of official writing. I have written, I should think, some thousands
of reports,--many of them necessarily very long; some of them
dealing with subjects so absurd as to allow a touch of burlesque;
some few in which a spark of indignation or a slight glow of pathos
might find an entrance. I have taken infinite pains with these
reports, habituating myself always to write them in the form in
which they should be sent,--without a copy. It is by writing thus
that a man can throw on to his paper the exact feeling with which
his mind is impressed at the moment. A rough copy, or that which
is called a draft, is written in order that it may be touched and
altered and put upon stilts. The waste of time, moreover, in such
an operation, is terrible. If a man knows his craft with his pen,
he will have learned to write without the necessity of changing
his words or the form of his sentences. I had learned so to write
my reports that they who read them should know what it was that I
meant them to understand. But I do not think that they were regarded
with favour. I have heard horror expressed because the old forms
were disregarded and language used which had no savour of red-tape.
During the whole of this work in the Post Office it was my principle
always to obey authority in everything instantly, but never to allow
my mouth to be closed as to the expression of my opinion. They who
had the ordering of me very often did not know the work as I knew
it,--could not tell as I could what would be the effect of this
or that change. When carrying out instructions which I knew should
not have been given, I never scrupled to point out the fatuity of
the improper order in the strongest language that I could decently
employ. I have revelled in these official correspondences, and look
back to some of them as the greatest delights of my life. But I am
not sure that they were so delightful to others.
I succeeded, however, in getting the English district,--which
could hardly have been refused to me,--and prepared to change our
residence towards the end of 1859. At the time I was writing Castle
Richmond, the novel which I had sold to Messrs. Chapman & Hall
for (pounds)600. But there arose at this time a certain literary project
which probably had a great effect upon my career. Whilst travelling
on postal service abroad or riding over the rural districts
in England, or arranging the mails in Ireland,--and such for the
last eighteen years had now been my life,--I had no opportunity
of becoming acquainted with the literary life in London. It was
probably some feeling of this which had made me anxious to move
my penates back to England. But even in Ireland, where I was still
living in October, 1859, I had heard of the Cornhill Magazine, which
was to come out on the 1st of January, 1860, under the editorship
of Thackeray.
I had at this time written from time to time certain short stories,
which had been published in different periodicals, and which in due
time were republished under the name of Tales of All Countries. On
the 23d of October, 1859, I wrote to Thackeray, whom I had, I think,
never then seen, offering to send him for the magazine certain of
these stories. In reply to this I received two letters,--one from
Messrs. Smith & Elder, the proprietors of the Cornhill, dated 26th
of October, and the other from the editor, written two days later.
That from Mr. Thackeray was as follows:--
"36 ONSLOW SQUARE, S. W.
October 28th.
"MY DEAR MR. TROLLOPE,--Smith & Elder have sent you their proposals;
and the business part done, let me come to the pleasure, and say
how very glad indeed I shall be to have you as a co-operator in
our new magazine. And looking over the annexed programme, you will
see whether you can't help us in many other ways besides tale-telling.
Whatever a man knows about life and its doings, that let us hear
about. You must have tossed a good deal about the world, and have
countless sketches in your memory and your portfolio. Please
to think if you can furbish up any of these besides a novel. When
events occur, and you have a good lively tale, bear us in mind. One
of our chief objects in this magazine is the getting out of novel
spinning, and back into the world. Don't understand me to disparage
our craft, especially YOUR wares. I often say I am like the
pastrycook, and don't care for tarts, but prefer bread and cheese;
but the public love the tarts (luckily for us), and we must bake and
sell them. There was quite an excitement in my family one evening
when Paterfamilias (who goes to sleep on a novel almost always
when he tries it after dinner) came up-stairs into the drawing-room
wide awake and calling for the second volume of The Three Clerks.
I hope the Cornhill Magazine will have as pleasant a story. And
the Chapmans, if they are the honest men I take them to be, I've no
doubt have told you with what sincere liking your works have been
read by yours very faithfully,
"W. M. THACKERAY."
This was very pleasant, and so was the letter from Smith & Elder
offering me (pounds)1000 for the copyright of a three-volume novel, to
come out in the new magazine,--on condition that the first portion
of it should be in their hands by December 12th. There was much in
all this that astonished me;--in the first place the price, which
was more than double what I had yet received, and nearly double
that which I was about to receive from Messrs. Chapman & Hall.
Then there was the suddenness of the call. It was already the end
of October, and a portion of the work was required to be in the
printer's hands within six weeks. Castle Richmond was indeed half
written, but that was sold to Chapman. And it had already been
a principle with me in my art, that no part of a novel should
be published till the entire story was completed. I knew, from
what I read from month to month, that this hurried publication of
incompleted work was frequently, I might perhaps say always, adopted
by the leading novelists of the day. That such has been the case,
is proved by the fact that Dickens, Thackeray, and Mrs. Gaskell
died with unfinished novels, of which portions had been already
published. I had not yet entered upon the system of publishing
novels in parts, and therefore had never been tempted. But I was
aware that an artist should keep in his hand the power of fitting
the beginning of his work to the end. No doubt it is his first
duty to fit the end to the beginning, and he will endeavour to do
so. But he should still keep in his hands the power of remedying
any defect in this respect.
"Servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerit,"
should be kept in view as to every character and every string of
action. Your Achilles should all through, from beginning to end,
be "impatient, fiery, ruthless, keen." Your Achilles, such as he
is, will probably keep up his character. But your Davus also should
be always Davus, and that is more difficult. The rustic driving his
pigs to market cannot always make them travel by the exact path
which he has intended for them. When some young lady at the end
of a story cannot be made quite perfect in her conduct, that vivid
description of angelic purity with which you laid the first lines
of her portrait should be slightly toned down. I had felt that the
rushing mode of publication to which the system of serial stories
had given rise, and by which small parts as they were written were
sent hot to the press, was injurious to the work done. If I now
complied with the proposition made to me, I must act against my
own principle. But such a principle becomes a tyrant if it cannot
be superseded on a just occasion. If the reason be "tanti," the
principle should for the occasion be put in abeyance. I sat as
judge, and decreed that the present reason was "tanti." On this my
first attempt at a serial story, I thought it fit to break my own
rule. I can say, however, that I have never broken it since.
But what astonished me most was the fact that at so late a day
this new Cornhill Magazine should be in want of a novel. Perhaps
some of my future readers will he able to remember the great
expectations which were raised as to this periodical. Thackeray's
was a good name with which to conjure. The proprietors, Messrs.
Smith & Elder, were most liberal in their manner of initiating the
work, and were able to make an expectant world of readers believe
that something was to be given them for a shilling very much in
excess of anything they had ever received for that or double the
money. Whether these hopes were or were not fulfilled it is not for
me to say, as, for the first few years of the magazine's existence,
I wrote for it more than any other one person. But such was certainly
the prospect;--and how had it come to pass that, with such promises
made, the editor and the proprietors were, at the end of October,
without anything fixed as to what must be regarded as the chief
dish in the banquet to be provided?
I fear that the answer to this question must be found in the habits
of procrastination which had at that time grown upon the editor.
He had, I imagine, undertaken the work himself, and had postponed
its commencement till there was left to him no time for commencing.
There was still, it may be said, as much time for him as for me.
I think there was,--for though he had his magazine to look after,
I had the Post Office. But he thought, when unable to trust his
own energy, that he might rely upon that of a new recruit. He was
but four years my senior in life but he was at the top of the tree,
while I was still at the bottom.
Having made up my mind to break my principle, I started at once from
Dublin to London. I arrived there on the morning of Thursday, 3d
of November, and left it on the evening of Friday. In the meantime
I had made my agreement with Messrs. Smith & Elder, and had arranged
my plot. But when in London, I first went to Edward Chapman, at 193
Piccadilly. If the novel I was then writing for him would suit
the Cornhill, might I consider my arrangement with him to be at an
end? Yes; I might. But if that story would not suit the Cornhill,
was I to consider my arrangement with him as still standing,--that
agreement requiring that my MS. should be in his hands in the
following March? As to that, I might do as I pleased. In our dealings
together Mr. Edward Chapman always acceded to every suggestion made
to him. He never refused a book, and never haggled at a price. Then
I hurried into the City, and had my first interview with Mr. George
Smith. When he heard that Castle Richmond was an Irish story, he
begged that I would endeavour to frame some other for his magazine.
He was sure that an Irish story would not do for a commencement;--and
he suggested the Church, as though it were my peculiar subject. I
told him that Castle Richmond would have to "come out" while any
other novel that I might write for him would be running through the
magazine;--but to that he expressed himself altogether indifferent.
He wanted an English tale, on English life, with a clerical flavour.
On these orders I went to work, and framed what I suppose I must
call the plot of Framley Parsonage.
On my journey back to Ireland, in the railway carriage, I wrote the
first few pages of that story. I had got into my head an idea of
what I meant to write,--a morsel of the biography of an English
clergyman who should not be a bad man, but one led into temptation
by his own youth and by the unclerical accidents of the life of
those around him. The love of his sister for the young lord was
an adjunct necessary, because there must be love in a novel. And
then by placing Framley Parsonage near Barchester, I was able to
fall back upon my old friends Mrs. Proudie and the archdeacon. Out
of these slight elements I fabricated a hodge-podge in which the
real plot consisted at last simply of a girl refusing to marry the
man she loved till the man's friends agreed to accept her lovingly.
Nothing could be less efficient or artistic. But the characters
were so well handled, that the work from the first to the last
was popular,--and was received as it went on with still increasing
favour by both editor and proprietor of the magazine. The story was
thoroughly English. There was a little fox-hunting and a little
tuft-hunting, some Christian virtue and some Christian cant. There
was no heroism and no villainy. There was much Church, but more
love-making. And it was downright honest love,--in which there was
no pretence on the part of the lady that she was too ethereal to
be fond of a man, no half-and-half inclination on the part of the
man to pay a certain price and no more for a pretty toy. Each of
them longed for the other, and they were not ashamed to say so.
Consequently they in England who were living, or had lived, the
same sort of life, liked Framley Parsonage. I think myself that
Lucy Robarts is perhaps the most natural English girl that I ever
drew,--the most natural, at any rate, of those who have been good
girls. She was not as dear to me as Kate Woodward in The Three
Clerks, but I think she is more like real human life. Indeed
I doubt whether such a character could be made more lifelike than
Lucy Robarts.
And I will say also that in this novel there is no very weak part,--no
long succession of dull pages. The production of novels in serial
form forces upon the author the conviction that he should not allow
himself to be tedious in any single part. I hope no reader will
misunderstand me. In spite of that conviction, the writer of stories
in parts will often be tedious. That I have been so myself is a
fault that will lie heavy on my tombstone. But the writer when he
embarks in such a business should feel that he cannot afford to have
many pages skipped out of the few which are to meet the reader's
eye at the same time. Who can imagine the first half of the first
volume of Waverley coming out in shilling numbers? I had realised
this when I was writing Framley Parsonage; and working on the
conviction which had thus come home to me, I fell into no bathos
of dulness.
I subsequently came across a piece of criticism which was written
on me as a novelist by a brother novelist very much greater than
myself, and whose brilliant intellect and warm imagination led him
to a kind of work the very opposite of mine. This was Nathaniel
Hawthorne, the American, whom I did not then know, but whose works
I knew. Though it praises myself highly, I will insert it here,
because it certainly is true in its nature: "It is odd enough," he
says, "that my own individual taste is for quite another class of
works than those which I myself am able to write. If I were to meet
with such books as mine by another writer, I don't believe I should
be able to get through them. Have you ever read the novels of Anthony
Trollope? They precisely suit my taste,--solid and substantial,
written on the strength of beef and through the inspiration of
ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of
the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants
going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they
were being made a show of. And these books are just as English as
a beef-steak. Have they ever been tried in America? It needs an
English residence to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but still
I should think that human nature would give them success anywhere."
This was dated early in 1860, and could have had no reference to
Framley Parsonage; but it was as true of that work as of any that
I have written. And the criticism, whether just or unjust, describes
with wonderful accuracy the purport that I have ever had in view
in my writing. I have always desired to "hew out some lump of the
earth," and to make men and women walk upon it just as they do walk
here among us,--with not more of excellence, nor with exaggerated
baseness,--so that my readers might recognise human beings like to
themselves, and not feel themselves to be carried away among gods
or demons. If I could do this, then I thought I might succeed
in impregnating the mind of the novel-reader with a feeling that
honesty is the best policy; that truth prevails while falsehood
fails; that a girl will be loved as she is pure; and sweet, and
unselfish; that a man will be honoured as he is true, and honest,
and brave of heart; that things meanly done are ugly and odious,
and things nobly done beautiful and gracious. I do not say that
lessons such as these may not be more grandly taught by higher
flights than mine. Such lessons come to us from our greatest poets.
But there are so many who will read novels and understand them, who
either do not read the works of our great poets, or reading them
miss the lesson! And even in prose fiction the character whom
the fervid imagination of the writer has lifted somewhat into the
clouds, will hardly give so plain an example to the hasty normal
reader as the humbler personage whom that reader unconsciously feels
to resemble himself or herself. I do think that a girl would more
probably dress her own mind after Lucy Robarts than after Flora
Macdonald.
There are many who would laugh at the idea of a novelist teaching
either virtue or nobility,--those, for instance, who regard
the reading of novels as a sin, and those also who think it to be
simply an idle pastime. They look upon the tellers of stories as
among the tribe of those who pander to the wicked pleasures of a
wicked world. I have regarded my art from so different a point of
view that I have ever thought of myself as a preacher of sermons,
and my pulpit as one which I could make both salutary and agreeable
to my audience. I do believe that no girl has risen from the reading
of my pages less modest than she was before, and that some may have
learned from them that modesty is a charm well worth preserving. I
think that no youth has been taught that in falseness and flashness
is to be found the road to manliness; but some may perhaps have
learned from me that it is to be found in truth and a high but
gentle spirit. Such are the lessons I have striven to teach; and
I have thought it might best be done by representing to my readers
characters like themselves,--or to which they might liken themselves.
Framley Parsonage--or, rather, my connection with the Cornhill--was
the means of introducing me very quickly to that literary world
from which I had hitherto been severed by the fact of my residence
in Ireland. In December, 1859, while I was still very hard at work
on my novel, I came over to take charge of the Eastern District,
and settled myself at a residence about twelve miles from London,
in Hertfordshire, but on the borders both of Essex and Middlesex,--which
was somewhat too grandly called Waltham House. This I took on
lease, and subsequently bought after I had spent about (pounds)1000 on
improvements. From hence I was able to make myself frequent both
in Cornhill and Piccadilly, and to live, when the opportunity came,
among men of my own pursuit.
It was in January, 1860, that Mr. George Smith--to whose enterprise
we owe not only the Cornhill Magazine but the Pall Mall Gazette--gave
a sumptuous dinner to his contributors. It was a memorable banquet
in many ways, but chiefly so to me because on that occasion I first
met many men who afterwards became my most intimate associates.
It can rarely happen that one such occasion can be the first
starting-point of so many friendships. It was at that table, and
on that day, that I first saw Thackeray, Charles Taylor (Sir)--than
whom in latter life I have loved no man better,--Robert Bell, G. H.
Lewes, and John Everett Millais. With all these men I afterwards
lived on affectionate terms;--but I will here speak specially of
the last, because from that time he was joined with me in so much
of the work that I did.
Mr. Millais was engaged to illustrate Framley Parsonage, but this
was not the first work he did for the magazine. In the second number
there is a picture of his accompanying Monckton Milne's Unspoken
Dialogue. The first drawing he did for Framley Parsonage did not
appear till after the dinner of which I have spoken, and I do not
think that I knew at the time that he was engaged on my novel. When
I did know it, it made me very proud. He afterwards illustrated
Orley Farm, The Small House of Allington, Rachel Ray, and Phineas
Finn. Altogether he drew from my tales eighty-seven drawings, and
I do not think that more conscientious work was ever done by man.
Writers of novels know well--and so ought readers of novels to
have learned--that there are two modes of illustrating, either of
which may be adopted equally by a bad and by a good artist. To
which class Mr. Millais belongs I need not say; but, as a good
artist, it was open to him simply to make a pretty picture, or to
study the work of the author from whose writing he was bound to take
his subject. I have too often found that the former alternative
has been thought to be the better, as it certainly is the easier
method. An artist will frequently dislike to subordinate his ideas
to those of an author, and will sometimes be too idle to find out
what those ideas are. But this artist was neither proud nor idle.
In every figure that he drew it was his object to promote the
views of the writer whose work he had undertaken to illustrate, and
he never spared himself any pains in studying that work, so as to
enable him to do so. I have carried on some of those characters from
book to book, and have had my own early ideas impressed indelibly
on my memory by the excellence of his delineations. Those illustrations
were commenced fifteen years ago, and from that time up to this
day my affection for the man of whom I am speaking has increased.
To see him has always been a pleasure. His voice has been a sweet
sound in my ears. Behind his back I have never heard him praised
without joining the eulogist; I have never heard a word spoken
against him without opposing the censurer. These words, should he
ever see them, will come to him from the grave, and will tell him
of my regard,--as one living man never tells another.
Sir Charles Taylor, who carried me home in his brougham that
evening, and thus commenced an intimacy which has since been very
close, was born to wealth, and was therefore not compelled by the
necessities of a profession to enter the lists as an author. But
he lived much with those who did so,--and could have done it himself
had want or ambition stirred him. He was our king at the Garrick
Club, to which, however, I did not yet belong. He gave the best
dinners of my time, and was,--happily I may say is, [Footnote:
Alas! within a year of the writing of this he went from us.]--the
best giver of dinners. A man rough of tongue, brusque in his manners,
odious to those who dislike him, somewhat inclined to tyranny, he
is the prince of friends, honest as the sun, and as openhanded as
Charity itself.
Robert Bell has now been dead nearly ten years. As I look back
over the interval and remember how intimate we were, it seems odd
to me that we should have known each other for no more than six
years. He was a man who had lived by his pen from his very youth;
and was so far successful that I do not think that want ever came
near him. But he never made that mark which his industry and talents
would have seemed to ensure. He was a man well known to literary
men, but not known to readers. As a journalist he was useful
and conscientious, but his plays and novels never made themselves
popular. He wrote a life of Canning, and he brought out an annotated
edition of the British poets; but he achieved no great success.
I have known no man better read in English literature. Hence his
conversation had a peculiar charm, but he was not equally happy
with his pen. He will long be remembered at the Literary Fund
Committees, of which he was a staunch and most trusted supporter.
I think it was he who first introduced me to that board. It has
often been said that literary men are peculiarly apt to think that
they are slighted and unappreciated. Robert Bell certainly never
achieved the position in literature which he once aspired to fill,
and which he was justified in thinking that he could earn for
himself. I have frequently discussed these subjects with him, but
I never heard from his mouth a word of complaint as to his own
literary fate. He liked to hear the chimes go at midnight, and he
loved to have ginger hot in his mouth. On such occasions no sound
ever came out of a man's lips sweeter than his wit and gentle
revelry.
George Lewes,--with his wife, whom all the world knows as George
Eliot,--has also been and still is one of my dearest friends.
He is, I think, the acutest critic I know,--and the severest. His
severity, however, is a fault. His intention to be honest, even when
honesty may give pain, has caused him to give pain when honesty has
not required it. He is essentially a doubter, and has encouraged
himself to doubt till the faculty of trusting has almost left him.
I am not speaking of the personal trust which one man feels in
another, but of that confidence in literary excellence, which is,
I think, necessary for the full enjoyment of literature. In one
modern writer he did believe thoroughly. Nothing can be more charming
than the unstinted admiration which he has accorded to everything
that comes from the pen of the wonderful woman to whom his lot has
been united. To her name I shall recur again when speaking of the
novelists of the present day.
Of "Billy Russell," as we always used to call him, I may say
that I never knew but one man equal to him in the quickness and
continuance of witty speech. That one man was Charles Lever--also
an Irishman--whom I had known from an earlier date, and also with
close intimacy. Of the two, I think that Lever was perhaps the
more astounding producer of good things. His manner was perhaps a
little the happier, and his turns more sharp and unexpected. But
"Billy" also was marvellous. Whether abroad as special correspondent,
or at home amidst the flurry of his newspaper work, he was a charming
companion; his ready wit always gave him the last word.
Of Thackeray I will speak again when I record his death.
There were many others whom I met for the first time at George
Smith's table. Albert Smith, for the first, and indeed for the last
time, as he died soon after; Higgins, whom all the world knew as
Jacob Omnium, a man I greatly regarded; Dallas, who for a time was
literary critic to the Times, and who certainly in that capacity
did better work than has appeared since in the same department;
George Augustus Sala, who, had he given himself fair play, would
have risen to higher eminence than that of being the best writer
in his day of sensational leading articles; and Fitz-James Stephen,
a man of very different calibre, who had not yet culminated, but
who, no doubt, will culminate among our judges. There were many
others;--but I cannot now recall their various names as identified
with those banquets.
Of Framley Parsonage I need only further say, that as I wrote it I
became more closely than ever acquainted with the new shire which
I had added to the English counties. I had it all in my mind,--its
roads and railroads, its towns and parishes, its members of Parliament,
and the different hunts which rode over it. I knew all the great
lords and their castles, the squires and their parks, the rectors
and their churches. This was the fourth novel of which I had placed
the scene in Barsetshire, and as I wrote it I made a map of the
dear county. Throughout these stories there has been no name given
to a fictitious site which does not represent to me a spot of which I
know all the accessories, as though I had lived and wandered there.