this: some years ago I read a great deal about shipwrecks—a subject which always interests me—some accounts in the daily papers and some sea stories, such as those of Clark Russell, who is my favorite marine author, and the question came into my mind: “Is it possible that there should be any kind of shipwreck which has not been already discovered?” For days and days I exposed my mind to the influence of ideas about shipwrecks. At last a novel notion floated in upon me, and I wrote “The Remarkable Wreck of the Thomas Hyke.” I have since had another idea of an out-of-the-way shipwreck, which I think is another example of a wreck that has never occurred; but this is a variation and amplification of a wreck about which I read.

Guest. Has it ever happened that any of your fancies turned out to be actual fact? Truth is said to be stranger than fiction.

Host. In some instances just that thing has happened. In one story I had a character whose occupation was that of an analyzer of lava, specimens being sent to him from all parts of the world. In this connection a foreigner inquired of him if there were any volcanoes near Boston, to which city he was on his way. This preposterous idea was, of course, quickly dismissed in the story. But I received a letter from a scientific man in New England who thought I would like to know that, not far from Boston, but in a spot now covered by the ocean, there existed in prehistoric times an active volcano. As to the practical application of some of my fanciful inventions, I may say that two young ladies on Cape Cod imitated the example of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine, and having put on life preservers, and each taking an oar, found no difficulty in sweeping themselves through the water, after the fashion of the two good women in the story. I will also say that the Negative Gravity machine is nothing but a condensed balloon. As soon as a man can make a balloon which can bear his weight and can also be put in a money belt, he can do all the things that the man in the story did. I may also say that naval men have written to me stating that it is not impossible that some of the contrivances mentioned in “The Great War Syndicate” may some day be used in marine warfare. I myself have no doubt of this, for there is no reason why a turtle-backed little ironclad, almost submerged, should not steam under the stern of a great man-of-war like the “Camperdown,” and having disabled her propeller blades, tow her nolens volens into an American port, where she could be detained until peace should be declared.

Guest. I would not like to live in the port in whose harbor the captive vessel was detained.

Host. It might be disagreeable; perhaps it would be better to keep the captured vessel continually on the tow-path through unfrequented waters.

Guest. But we were speaking of the necessity of having a definite purpose at the outset of a piece of work.

Host. It amounts to a necessity, almost. For instance, if I am about to write a fairy tale, I must get my mind in an entirely different condition from what it would be were I planning a story of country life of the present day. With me the proper condition often requires hard work. The fairy tale will come when the other kind is wanted. But the ideas of one class must be kept back and those of the other encouraged until at last the proper condition exists and the story begins. But I suppose you poets do not set out in this way.

Guest. It would be a revelation to the public to be let into the secret of some of our “motives,” and the various ways we have of mingling “poetic-honey” and “trade-wax,” as Tom Hood calls it. The spur of necessity, real or fancied, is often a capital provocation to eloquence. I know a woman who writes verses, who is not only unnecessarily neglectful of worldly interests, but is careless in detail, and self-indulgent and absent-minded. On one occasion, losing quite a sum of money from her pocket-book, and wishing to give herself a lesson to be remembered, she set herself the task of writing certain verses to defray the expenses of her carelessness, as it were. Involuntarily, and yet with a kind of grim fitness in things, the subject that came to hand was, “Losses.” The poem was written and disposed of, and the writer was square with her conscience once more; and the poem was not manifestly worse for having a prosaic prompting behind it. It is well, I think, that the public doesn’t always fathom these little hidden sequences in our logic.

Host. Speaking of “hidden sequences in logic,” as you call them, reminds me of a story a little girl told me. There was a nest in a tree, and the nest was full of young birds. One very forward one always would sit on the edge of the nest, and had several falls in this way. The old birds picked it up repeatedly, and told it that it would most certainly be caught by cats. After they found that it would not reform, the mother-bird took it by one wing and the father-bird took it by the other, and together they carried it to London, where they left it. I could not imagine why they carried it to London; but a day or two later I discovered that the little girl had been reading the story of Dick Whittington, which was founded on the fact that there were no cats in London.

Guest. I am constantly surprised at the adroitness children manifest in their little stories. Where does it vanish when they grow older? If almost any child kept up the promise of its story-telling infancy, every grown person would be a clever novelist. But there was a question I had in mind to ask you while we were on the subject of suggestion and plot. Do you ever receive any available ideas from other people?

Host. Yes, a great many excellent suggestions have come to me from others. But the better they are the less I like to use them, for a good idea deserves hard work, and when the work were done I would not feel that the story were really mine. In a few cases I have used suggestions from other people. For instance, there have been publishers who desired a story written upon a certain incident or idea.

Guest. The sense of ideal property is strong. One feels an honest indignation at taking what belongs to another, even though but a thought, and that of no account to the thinker, in his own opinion of it. Nevertheless, you feel how easily this ideal property of his might be “realized” with just a touch of art. Somehow, that touch of art, contributed by you, you feel would not quite make the material yours.

Host. I have been thinking why it is that very often the work of an author of fiction is not as true as the work of an artist, and I have concluded that the artist has one great advantage over the author of fiction, and over the poet, even. The artist has his models for his characters—models which he selects to come as near as possible to what his creations are going to be. The unfortunate author has no such models. He must rely entirely upon the characters he has casually seen, upon reading, upon imagination. How I envy my friend Frost! Last summer, when he wished to sketch a winter scene in Canada, he had a model sitting with two overcoats on, and the day was hot. Now, I couldn’t have any such models. I should have to describe my cold man just by thinking of him.

Guest. Or learn to shiver, yourself,