Things We Should Like to Meet in Fiction.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIX, Issue XX, 15 November 1902, Page 1244

Things We Should Like to Meet in Fiction.

(BUT NEVER SHALL.) A hero who is not a blithering' idiot. A house that is not Elizabethan, and does not stand on the summit of a hill which commands a magnificent \ iew of the surrounding country. A hall which is anything but ancestral.

A brook that is not purling. An old maid who is not starchy and soured and continually poking her nose where it is not required. An indignant father who is not Spartan; mother who! is not brimming over with love for her offspring, and who swoons when she learns that her brat has received a well deserved drubbing; and an invalid brother or sister who is not patientlypining away with a non-alcoholic consumption. A lovers' quarrel which is not bit-

ter and uncompromising, and ie not made up (like the heroine) in the next chapter. A villain who is not a member of the peerage ami all the swagger < tubs, and who is not on the verge of bankruptcy. A rain that does not dash in torrents against the window panes, and a wind that does not sweep in heavy and fitful gusts along the dreary and deserted streets. A natural sequence of events which is not described as a Nemesis.

A young widow who is not pretty ami dashing and dangerous. A feeling of awe which, after |sigeof explanation, is still inexplicable. A pair of eyes which do not Hash fire or anything else. A struggling artist who is not engaged on a masterpiece; an author who is not domiciled iti a garret; and a dramatist who has not always got a flower in the lapel of his dress coat. There are others, of course, bn. space forbids.