say in a general fashion about the utter absurdities of most of these
pictures of disease and death-beds. In older times the sickness of a
novel was merely a feint to gain time in the story or account for a
non-appearance, and the doctor made very brief show upon the stage.
Since, however, the growth of realism in literary art, the temptation to
delineate exactly the absolute facts of disease has led authors to dwell
too freely on the details of sickness. So long as they dealt in
generalities their way was clear enough. Of old a man was poisoned and
done for. Today we deal in symptoms, and follow science closely in our
use of poisons. Mr. Trollope's "Gemma" is an instance in point, where
every one will feel that the spectacle of the heroine going seasick to
death, owing to the administration of tartar emetic, is as disgusting
and inartistic a method as fiction presents. Why not have made it croton
oil? More and worse of this hideous realism is to be found in About's
books, such, for instance, as "Germaine"; but from which censure I like
to exclude the rollicking fun of "Le Nez d'un Notaire." As to the recent
realistic atrocities of Zola, and even of Tolstoi, a more rare sinner,
if we exclude his disgusting drama of peasant life, I prefer to say
little.

As to blunders in the science of poisons I say little. The novelist is a
free lance, and chooses his own weapons; but I cannot help remarking
that, if recent investigators are to be trusted, one unlucky female, at
least, must be still alive, for a novelist relates that she was done to
death by the internal taking of a dose of rattlesnake venom. I hope when
I am to be poisoned this mode may be employed. She might as well have
drunk a glass of milk. That book was a queer one to me after this
catastrophe: the woman ought to be dead and could not be.

The difficulty of the modern novelist in giving symptoms and preserving