* * * * *

I remember wondering, in 1871, how anybody could write novels. I had
produced two or three short stories; but to expand such a thing until it
should cover two or three hundred pages seemed an enterprise far beyond my
capacity. Since then, I have accomplished the feat only too often; but I
doubt whether I have a much clearer idea than before of the way it is
done; and I am certain of never having done it twice in the same way. The
manner in which the plant arrives at maturity varies according to the
circumstances in which the seed is planted and cultivated; and the
cultivator, in this instance at least, is content to adapt his action to
whatever conditions happen to exist.

While, therefore, it might be easy to formulate a cut-and-dried method of
procedure, which should be calculated to produce the best results by the
most efficient means, no such formula would truly represent the present
writer's actual practice. If I ever attempted to map out my successive
steps beforehand, I never adhered to the forecast or reached the
anticipated goal. The characters develop unexpected traits, and these
traits become the parents of incidents that had not been contemplated. The
characters themselves, on the other hand, cannot be kept to any
preconceived characteristics; they are, in their turn, modified by the
exigencies of the plot.

In two or three cases I have tried to make portraits of real persons whom
I have known; but these persons have always been more lifeless than the
others, and most lifeless in precisely those features that most nearly
reproduced life. The best results in this direction are realized by those
characters that come to their birth simultaneously with the general scheme