is: that it is exactly what I myself did. I have still a letter written
to me which was delivered at my door sixteen years ago. I have never
read it, and my reason for not reading it was that I realised, as I
think, what its contents were. I knew that the letter would annoy, and
there it lies. The writer of the letter who was then my enemy is now my
friend. The chief character in the book, Crozier, was an Irishman, with
all the Irishman's cleverness, sensitiveness, audacity, and timidity; for
both those latter qualities are characteristic of the Irish race, and as
I am half Irish I can understand why I suppressed a letter and why
Crozier did. Crozier is the type of man that comes occasionally to the
Dominion of Canada; and Kitty Tynan is the sort of girl that the great
West breeds. She did an immoral thing in opening the letter that Crozier
had suppressed, but she did it in a good cause--for Crozier's sake; she
made his wife write another letter, and she placed it again in the
envelope for Crozier to open and see. Whatever lack of morality there
was in her act was balanced by the good end to the story, though it meant
the sacrifice of Kitty's love for Crozier, and the making of his wife
happy once more.

As for 'Wild Youth' I make no apology for it. It is still fresh in the
minds of the American public, and it is true to the life. Some critics
frankly called it melodramatic. I do not object to the term. I know
nothing more melodramatic than certain of the plots of Shakespeare's
plays. Thomas Hardy is melodramatic; Joseph Conrad is melodramatic;
Balzac was melodramatic, and so were Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and
Sir Walter Scott. The charge of melodrama is not one that should
disturb a writer of fiction. The question is, are the characters
melodramatic. Will anyone suggest to me the marriage of a girl of
seventeen with a man over sixty is melodramatic. It may be, but I think
it tragical, and so it was in this case. As for Orlando Guise, I