Novel Notes | Page 3

out into the deep sky, and you will know that
they are not. What a man thinks--really thinks--goes down into him and
grows in silence. What a man writes in books are the thoughts that he
wishes to be thought to think_."
Poor Jephson! he promised so well at one time. But he always had
strange notions.

CHAPTER I
When, on returning home one evening, after a pipe party at my friend
Jephson's, I informed my wife that I was going to write a novel, she
expressed herself as pleased with the idea. She said she had often
wondered I had never thought of doing so before. "Look," she added,
"how silly all the novels are nowadays; I'm sure you could write one."
(Ethelbertha intended to be complimentary, I am convinced; but there
is a looseness about her mode of expression which, at times, renders
her meaning obscure.)
When, however, I told her that my friend Jephson was going to
collaborate with me, she remarked, "Oh," in a doubtful tone; and when
I further went on to explain to her that Selkirk Brown and Derrick
MacShaughnassy were also going to assist, she replied, "Oh," in a tone
which contained no trace of doubtfulness whatever, and from which it
was clear that her interest in the matter, as a practical scheme, had
entirely evaporated.
I fancy that the fact of my three collaborators being all bachelors
diminished somewhat our chances of success, in Ethelbertha's mind.
Against bachelors, as a class, she entertains a strong prejudice. A man's
not having sense enough to want to marry, or, having that, not having
wit enough to do it, argues to her thinking either weakness of intellect
or natural depravity, the former rendering its victim unable, and the
latter unfit, ever to become a really useful novelist.

I tried to make her understand the peculiar advantages our plan
possessed.
"You see," I explained, "in the usual commonplace novel we only get,
as a matter of fact, one person's ideas. Now, in this novel, there will be
four clever men all working together. The public will thus be enabled
to obtain the thoughts and opinions of the whole four of us, at the price
usually asked for merely one author's views. If the British reader knows
his own business, he will order this book early, to avoid disappointment.
Such an opportunity may not occur again for years."
Ethelbertha agreed that this was probable.
"Besides," I continued, my enthusiasm waxing stronger the more I
reflected upon the matter, "this work is going to be a genuine bargain in
another way also. We are not going to put our mere everyday ideas into
it. We are going to crowd into this one novel all the wit and wisdom
that the whole four of us possess, if the book will hold it. We shall not
write another novel after this one. Indeed, we shall not be able to; we
shall have nothing more to write. This work will partake of the nature
of an intellectual clearance sale. We are going to put into this novel
simply all we know."
Ethelbertha shut her lips, and said something inside; and then remarked
aloud that she supposed it would be a one volume affair.
I felt hurt at the implied sneer. I pointed out to her that there already
existed a numerous body of specially-trained men employed to do
nothing else but make disagreeable observations upon authors and their
works--a duty that, so far as I could judge, they seemed capable of
performing without any amateur assistance whatever. And I hinted that,
by his own fireside, a literary man looked to breathe a more
sympathetic atmosphere.
Ethelbertha replied that of course I knew what she meant. She said that
she was not thinking of me, and that Jephson was, no doubt, sensible
enough (Jephson is engaged), but she did not see the object of bringing
half the parish into it. (Nobody suggested bringing "half the parish"

into it. Ethelbertha will talk so wildly.) To suppose that Brown and
MacShaughnassy could be of any use whatever, she considered absurd.
What could a couple of raw bachelors know about life and human
nature? As regarded MacShaughnassy in particular, she was of opinion
that if we only wanted out of him all that he knew, and could keep him
to the subject, we ought to be able to get that into about a page.
My wife's present estimate of MacShaughnassy's knowledge is the
result of reaction. The first time she ever saw him, she and he got on
wonderfully well together; and when I returned to the drawing-room,
after seeing him down to the gate, her first words were, "What a
wonderful man that Mr. MacShaughnassy is. He seems to know so
much about everything."
That