Caleb Williams | Page 5

the first volume was still to be invented. To account for
the fearful events of the third, it was necessary that the pursuer should
be invested with every advantage of fortune, with a resolution that
nothing could defeat or baffle, and with extraordinary resources of
intellect. Nor could my purpose of giving an overpowering interest to
my tale be answered without his appearing to have been originally
endowed with a mighty store of amiable dispositions and virtues, so
that his being driven to the first act of murder should be judged worthy
of the deepest regret, and should be seen in some measure to have
arisen out of his virtues themselves. It was necessary to make him, so
to speak, the tenant of an atmosphere of romance, so that every reader
should feel prompted almost to worship him for his high qualities. Here
were ample materials for a first volume.
I felt that I had a great advantage in thus carrying back my invention
from the ultimate conclusion to the first commencement of the train of
adventures upon which I purposed to employ my pen. An entire unity
of plot would be the infallible result; and the unity of spirit and interest
in a tale truly considered gives it a powerful hold on the reader, which
can scarcely be generated with equal success in any other way.
I devoted about two or three weeks to the imagining and putting down
hints for my story before I engaged seriously and methodically in its
composition. In these hints I began with my third volume, then
proceeded to my second, and last of all grappled with the first. I filled
two or three sheets of demy writing-paper, folded in octavo, with these
memorandums. They were put down with great brevity, yet explicitly
enough to secure a perfect recollection of their meaning, within the
time necessary for drawing out the story at full, in short paragraphs of
two, three, four, five, or six lines each.
I then sat down to write my story from the beginning. I wrote for the

most part but a short portion in any single day. I wrote only when the
afflatus was upon me. I held it for a maxim that any portion that was
written when I was not fully in the vein told for considerably worse
than nothing. Idleness was a thousand times better in this case than
industry against the grain. Idleness was only time lost; and the next day,
it may be, was as promising as ever. It was merely a day perished from
the calendar. But a passage written feebly, flatly, and in a wrong spirit,
constituted an obstacle that it was next to impossible to correct and set
right again. I wrote therefore by starts; sometimes for a week or ten
days not a line. Yet all came to the same thing in the sequel. On an
average, a volume of "Caleb Williams" cost me four months, neither
less nor more.
It must be admitted, however, that during the whole period, bating a
few intervals, my mind was in a high state of excitement. I said to
myself a thousand times, "I will write a tale that shall constitute an
epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it, shall
ever be exactly the same man that he was before."--I put these things
down just as they happened, and with the most entire frankness. I know
that it will sound like the most pitiable degree of self-conceit. But such
perhaps ought to be the state of mind of an author when he does his
best. At any rate, I have said nothing of my vainglorious impulse for
nearly forty years.
When I had written about seven-tenths of the first volume, I was
prevailed upon by the extreme importunity of an old and intimate
friend to allow him the perusal of my manuscript. On the second day he
returned it with a note to this purpose: "I return you your manuscript,
because I promised to do so. If I had obeyed the impulse of my own
mind, I should have thrust it in the fire. If you persist, the book will
infallibly prove the grave of your literary fame."
I doubtless felt no implicit deference for the judgment of my friendly
critic. Yet it cost me at least two days of deep anxiety before I
recovered the shock. Let the reader picture to himself my situation. I
felt no implicit deference for the judgment of my friendly critic. But it
was all I had for it. This was my first experiment of an unbiassed

decision. It stood in the place of all the world to me. I could not, and I
did not feel disposed to, appeal any further. If