"The original plan I have to propose to you, then, is taken from the
French, just like the original dramas above mentioned; and, indeed,
I found it in the law report of the National newspaper, and a French
literary gentleman, M. Emanuel Gonzales, has the credit of the
invention. He and an advertisement agent fell out about a question of
money, the affair was brought before the courts, and the little plot so
got wind. But there is no reason why you should not take the plot and
act on it yourself. You are a known man; the public relishes your works;
anything bearing the name of Snooks is eagerly read by the masses; and
though Messrs. Hookey, of Holywell Street, pay you handsomely, I make no
doubt you would like to be rewarded at a still higher figure.
"Unless he writes with a purpose, you know, a novelist in our days is
good for nothing. This one writes with a socialist purpose; that with
a conservative purpose: this author or authoress with the most delicate
skill insinuates Catholicism into you, and you find yourself all but a
Papist in the third volume: another doctors you with Low Church remedies
to work inwardly upon you, and which you swallow down unsuspiciously, as
children do calomel in jelly. Fiction advocates all sorts of truth
and causes--doesn't the delightful bard of the Minories find Moses in
everything? M.
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