_Captain._ You abandon, then, in the present work--(looking, in my
turn, towards the proof-sheet)--the mystic, and the magical, and the
whole system of signs, wonders, and omens? There are no dreams, or
presages, or obscure allusions to future events?
_Author._ Not a Cock-lane scratch, my son--not one bounce on the drum
of Tedworth--not so much as the poor tick of a solitary death-watch in
the wainscot. All is clear and above board--a Scots metaphysician
might believe every word of it.
_Captain._ And the story is, I hope, natural and probable; commencing
strikingly, proceeding naturally, ending happily--like the course of a
famed river, which gushes from the mouth of some obscure and romantic
grotto--then gliding on, never pausing, never precipitating its
course, visiting, as it were, by natural instinct, whatever worthy
subjects of interest are presented by the country through which it
passes--widening and deepening in interest as it flows on; and at
length arriving at the final catastrophe as at some mighty haven,
where ships of all kinds strike sail and yard?
_Author._ Hey! hey! what the deuce is all this? Why,'tis Ercles' vein,
and it would require some one much more like Hercules than I, to
produce a story which should gush, and glide, and never pause, and
visit, and widen, and deepen, and all the rest on't. I should be chin-
deep in the grave, man, before I had done with my task; and, in the
meanwhile, all the quirks and quiddities which I might have devised
for my reader's amusement, would lie rotting in my gizzard, like
Sancho's suppressed witticisms, when he was under his master's
displeasure.
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