what seemed to us a longer five minutes than usual in the middle of
some story she was telling, to think what the next incident should be!

It amazes me now to realize how unreasonable we were in our
impatience, and how her powers of invention ever kept pace with our
demands. These early stories were influenced to some extent by the
books that she then liked best to read--Grimm, Andersen, and
Bechstein's fairy tales; to the last writer I believe we owed her
story about a Wizard, which was one of our chief favourites. Not that
she copied Bechstein in any way, for we read his tales too, and would
not have submitted to anything approaching a recapitulation; but the
character of the little Wizard was one which fascinated her, and even
more so, perhaps, the quaint picture of him, which stood at the head
of the tale; and she wove round this skeleton idea a rambling romance
from her own fertile imagination.

I have specially alluded to the picture, because my sister's artistic
as well as literary powers were so strong that through all her life
the two ever ran side by side, each aiding and developing the other,
so that it is difficult to speak of them apart.[2]

[Footnote 2: Letter, May 14, 1876.]

Many of the stories she told us in childhood were inspired by some fine
woodcuts in a German "A B C book," that we could none of us then read, and
in later years some of her best efforts were suggested by illustrations,
and written to fit them. I know, too, that in arranging the plots and
wording of her stories she followed the rules that are pursued by artists
in composing their pictures. She found great difficulty in preventing
herself from "overcrowding her canvas" with minor characters, owing to her