printed collection of official documents, and there my research
ended.

It has been asserted that unless I had actually been present at a
public execution, I could not have written the chapter in which
Sophia was at the Auxerre solemnity. I have not been present at a
public execution, as the whole of my information about public
executions was derived from a series of articles on them which I
read in the Paris Matin. Mr. Frank Harris, discussing my book in
"Vanity Fair," said it was clear that I had not seen an execution,
(or words to that effect), and he proceeded to give his own
description of an execution. It was a brief but terribly
convincing bit of writing, quite characteristic and quite worthy
of the author of "Montes the Matador" and of a man who has been
almost everywhere and seen almost everything. I comprehended how
far short I had fallen of the truth! I wrote to Mr. Frank Harris,
regretting that his description had not been printed before I
wrote mine, as I should assuredly have utilized it, and, of
course, I admitted that I had never witnessed an execution. He
simply replied: "Neither have I." This detail is worth preserving,
for it is a reproof to that large body of readers, who, when a
novelist has really carried conviction to them, assert off hand:
"O, that must be autobiography!"

ARNOLD BENNETT.