An entire unity of
plot would be the infallible result; and the unity of spirit and
interest in a tale truly considered gives it a powerful hold on the
reader, which can scarcely be generated with equal success in any other
way.
I devoted about two or three weeks to the imagining and putting down
hints for my story before I engaged seriously and methodically in its
composition. In these hints I began with my third volume, then proceeded
to my second, and last of all grappled with the first. I filled two or
three sheets of demy writing-paper, folded in octavo, with these
memorandums. They were put down with great brevity, yet explicitly
enough to secure a perfect recollection of their meaning, within the
time necessary for drawing out the story at full, in short paragraphs of
two, three, four, five, or six lines each.
I then sat down to write my story from the beginning. I wrote for the
most part but a short portion in any single day. I wrote only when the
afflatus was upon me. I held it for a maxim that any portion that was
written when I was not fully in the vein told for considerably worse
than nothing.
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