which I am indebted. But my memory is not equal to such a feat. I can
only say that I rarely write a novel without milking about two hundred
heterogeneous cows into my pail, and that "A Simpleton" is no exception
to my general method; that method is the true method, and the best, and
if on that method I do not write prime novels, it is the fault of the
man, and not of the method.

I give the following particulars as an illustration of my method:

In "A Simpleton," the whole business of the girl spitting blood, the
surgeon ascribing it to the liver, the consultation, the final solution
of the mystery, is a matter of personal experience accurately recorded.
But the rest of the medical truths, both fact and argument, are all from
medical books far too numerous to specify. This includes the strange
fluctuations of memory in a man recovering his reason by degrees. The
behavior of the doctor's first two patients I had from a surgeon's
daughter in Pimlico. The servant-girl and her box; the purple-faced,
pig-faced Beak and his justice, are personal experience. The business of
house-renting, and the auction-room, is also personal experience.

In the nautical business I had the assistance of two practical seamen:
my brother, William Barrington Reade, and Commander Charles Edward
Reade, R.N.

In the South African business I gleaned from Mr. Day's recent handbooks;
the old handbooks; Galton's "Vacation Tourist;" "Philip Mavor; or, Life
among the Caffres;" "Fossor;" "Notes on the Cape of Good Hope," 1821;
"Scenes and Occurrences in Albany and Caffre-land," 1827; Bowler's
"South African Sketches;" "A Campaign in South Africa," Lucas; "Five
Years in Caffre-land," Mrs. Ward; etc., etc., etc. But my principal