at hide-and-seek; and so on throughout the circle to which I have
incautiously given myself up for plunder and subdivision. The L100 which
I represented in my study is now parcelled out; I am worth L40 or L50 to
Kitty, L20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 30s. to the children. This is
life fractional. And I cease to be an integral till once more returning
to my study, and again closing the door on all existence but my own.
Meanwhile, it is perfectly clear that to those who, whether I am in the
study or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get nothing at all out
of me, I am not worth a farthing. It must be wholly indifferent to a
native of Kamschatka whether Austin Caxton be or be not razed out of the
great account-book of human beings.

"Hence," continued my father,--"hence it follows that the more fractional
a life be--that is, the greater the number of persons among whom it can
be subdivided--why, the more there are to say, 'A very valuable life
that!' Thus the leader of a political party, a conqueror, a king, an
author, who is amusing hundreds or thousands or millions, has a greater
number of persons whom his worth interests and affects than a Saint
Simeon Stylites could have when he perched himself at the top of a
column; although, regarded each in himself, Saint Simeon, in his grand
mortification of flesh, in the idea that he thereby pleased his Divine
Benefactor, might represent a larger sum of moral value per se than
Bonaparte or Voltaire."

PISISTRATUS.--"Perfectly clear, sir; but I don't see what it has to do
with 'My Novel.'"

MR. CAXTON.--"Everything. Your novel, if it is to be a full and
comprehensive survey of the 'Quicquid agunt homines' (which it ought to
be, considering the length and breadth to which I foresee, from the slow