第36章 THE PANSOPHIAN SOCIETY(7)

I thought of shifting the lameness to the right lower limb,but even that would be seen through.So I gave the young woman that stood for her in my story a lame elbow,and put her arm in a sling,and made her such a model of uncomplaining endurance that my grandmother cried over her as if her poor old heart would break.She cried very easily,my grandmother;in fact,she had such a gift for tears that Iavailed myself of it,and if you remember old Judy,in my novel "Honi Soit "(Honey Sweet,the booksellers called it),--old Judy,the black-nurse,--that was my grandmother.She had various other peculiarities,which I brought out one by one,and saddled on to different characters.You see she was a perfect mine of singularities and idiosyncrasies.After I had used her up pretty well,I came dawn upon my poor relations.They were perfectly fair game;what better use could I put them to?I studied them up very carefully,and as there were a good many of them I helped myself freely.They lasted me,with occasional intermissions,I should say,three or four years.I had to be very careful with my poor relations,--they were as touchy as they could be;and as I felt bound to send a copy of my novel,whatever it might be,to each one of them,--there were as many as a dozen,--I took care to mix their characteristic features,so that,though each might suspect I meant the other,no one should think I meant him or her.I got through all my relations at last except my father and mother.I had treated my brothers and sisters pretty fairly,all except Elisha and Joanna.

The truth is they both had lots of odd ways,--family traits,Isuppose,but were just different enough from each other to figure separately in two different stories.These two novels made me some little trouble;for Elisha said he felt sure that I meant Joanna in one of them,and quarrelled with me about it;and Joanna vowed and declared that Elnathan,in the other,stood for brother 'Lisha,and that it was a real mean thing to make fun of folks'own flesh and blood,and treated me to one of her cries.She was n't handsome when she cried,poor,dear Joanna;in fact,that was one of the personal traits I had made use of in the story that Elisha found fault with.

"So as there was nobody left but my father and mother,you see for yourself I had no choice.There was one great advantage in dealing with them,--I knew them so thoroughly.One naturally feels a certain delicacy it handling from a purely artistic point of view persons who have been so near to him.One's mother,for instance:suppose some of her little ways were so peculiar that the accurate delineation of them would furnish amusement to great numbers of readers;it would not be without hesitation that a writer of delicate sensibility would draw her portrait,with all its whimsicalities,so plainly that it should be generally recognized.One's father is commonly of tougher fibre than one's mother,and one would not feel the same scruples,perhaps,in using him professionally as material in a novel;still,while you are employing him as bait,--you see I am honest and plain-spoken,for your characters are baits to catch readers with,--I would follow kind Izaak Walton's humane counsel about the frog you are fastening to your fish-hook:fix him artistically,as he directs,but in so doing I use him as though you loved him.'

"I have at length shown up,in one form and another,all my townsmen who have anything effective in their bodily or mental make-up,all my friends,all my relatives;that is,all my blood relatives.It has occurred to me that I might open a new field in the family connection of my father-in-law and mother-in-law.We have been thinking of paying them a visit,and I shall have an admirable opportunity of studying them and their relatives and visitors.I have long wanted a good chance for getting acquainted with the social sphere several grades below that to which I am accustomed,and I have no doubt that I shall find matter for half a dozen new stories among those connections of mine.Besides,they live in a Western city,and one doesn't mind much how he cuts up the people of places he does n't himself live in.I suppose there is not really so much difference in people's feelings,whether they live in Bangor or Omaha,but one's nerves can't be expected to stretch across the continent.It is all a matter of greater or less distance.I read this morning that a Chinese fleet was sunk,but I did n't think half so much about it as I did about losing my sleeve button,confound it!People have accused me of want of feeling;they misunderstand the artist-nature,--that is all.I obey that implicitly;I am sorry if people don't like my descriptions,but I have done my best.I have pulled to pieces all the persons I am acquainted with,and put them together again in my characters.The quills I write with come from live geese,I would have you know.I expect to get some first-rate pluckings from those people I was speaking of,and I mean to begin my thirty-ninth novel as soon as I have got through my visit."IXTHE SOCIETY AND ITS NEW SECRETARY.

There is no use in trying to hurry the natural course of events,in a narrative like this.June passed away,and July,and August had come,and as yet the enigma which had completely puzzled Arrowhead Village and its visitors remained unsolved.The white canoe still wandered over the lake,alone,ghostly,always avoiding the near approach of the boats which seemed to be coming in its direction.