I promise that you shall have every shilling of profit."
MR. SQUILLS (hastily retreating behind the "Times")- "I don't think the Great Western can fall any lower, though it is hazardous; I can but venture a few hundreds--"
PISISTRATUS.--"On our land, Squills?---Thank you."
MR. SQUILLS.--"No, no,--anything but that; on the Great Western."
Pisistratus relaxes into gloom. Blanche steals up coaxingly, and gets snubbed for her pains.
A pause.
MR. CAXTON.--"There are two golden rules of life; one relates to the mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is, If our thoughts get into a low, nervous, aguish condition, we should make them change the air; the second is comprised in the proverb, 'It is good to have two strings to one's bow.' Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must do,--Write a book!"
PISISTRATUS.--"Write a book! Against the abolition of the Corn Laws? Faith, sir, the mischief's done! It takes a much better pen than mine to write down an act of parliament."
MR. CAXTON.--"I only said, 'Write a book.' All the rest is the addition of your own headlong imagination."
PISISTRATUS (with the recollection of The Great Book rising before him). --"Indeed, sir, I should think that that would just finish us!"
MR. CAXTON (not seeming to heed the interruption).---"A book that will sell; a book that will prop up the fall of prices; a book that will distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your affection to your species and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of sound principles--by the sight of a favourable balance at the end of the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left L1000 broke, one remarkably healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you see now, when, thanks to a long succession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk in the Great Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was never in so prosperous a condition."
MR. SQUILLS (rather sullenly).--"Pooh, pooh."
MR. CAXTON.--"Write a book, my son,--write a book. Need I tell you that Money or Moneta, according to Hyginus, was the mother of the Muses? Write a book."
BLANCHE and my MOTHER (in full chorus).--"O yes, Sisty, a book! a book! you must write a book."
"I am sure," quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down the volume he had just concluded, "he could write a devilish deal better book than this; and how I come to read such trash night after night is more than I could possibly explain to the satisfaction of any intelligent jury, if I were put into a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by my own counsel."
MR. CAXTON.--"You see that Roland tells us exactly what sort of a book it shall be."
PISISTRATUS.---"Trash, sir?"
MR. CAXTON.--"No,--that is, not necessarily trash; but a book of that class which, whether trash or not, people can't help reading. Novels have become a necessity of the age. You must write a novel."
PISISTRATUS (flattered, but dubious).-"A novel! But every subject on which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels of low life, novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical, novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I
"'Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing?'"
MR. CAXTON (after a little thought).--"You remember the story which Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night? That gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot, puts you chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you with characters which have been very sparingly dealt with since the time of Fielding. You can give us the country Squire, as you remember him in your youth; it is a specimen of a race worth preserving, the old idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. You can give us the old-fashioned Parson, as in all essentials he may yet be found--but before you had to drag him out of the great Tractarian bog; and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something useful might be done by a few good-humoured sketches of those innocent criminals a little better off than their neighbours, whom, however we dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the whole, as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice- box of society how we will."
PISISTRATUS.--"Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman life is not so new as you think.