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THE GENESIS OF 'THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE'
I was walking one night in the verandah of a small house in which I
lived, outside the hamlet of Saranac. It was winter; the night was
very dark; the air extraordinary clear and cold, and sweet with the
purity of forests. From a good way below, the river was to be
heard contending with ice and boulders: a few lights appeared,
scattered unevenly among the darkness, but so far away as not to
lessen the sense of isolation. For the making of a story here were
fine conditions. I was besides moved with the spirit of emulation,
for I had just finished my third or fourth perusal of The Phantom
Ship. 'Come,' said I to my engine, 'let us make a tale, a story of
many years and countries, of the sea and the land, savagery and
civilisation; a story that shall have the same large features, and
may be treated in the same summary elliptic method as the book you
have been reading and admiring.' I was here brought up with a
reflection exceedingly just in itself, but which, as the sequel
shows, I failed to profit by. I saw that Marryat, not less than
Homer, Milton, and Virgil, profited by the choice of a familiar and
legendary subject; so that he prepared his readers on the very
title-page; and this set me cudgelling my brains, if by any chance
I could hit upon some similar belief to be the centre-piece of my
own meditated fiction. In the course of this vain search there
cropped up in my memory a singular case of a buried and
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