Whereupon I began to calculate the trifling progress my
reading companion could have made in his book during our rapid journey,
and to devise plans for the gratification of persons similarly situated as
my fellow-traveller. "Why," thought I, "should literature alone lag in the
age of steam? Is there no way by which a man could be made to swallow
Scott or bolt Bulwer, in as short a time as it now takes him to read an
auction bill?" Suddenly a happy thought struck me: it was to write a
novel, in which only the actual spirit of the narration should be
retained, rejecting all expletives, flourishes, and ornamental figures of
speech; to be terse and abrupt in style--use monosyllables always in
preference to polysyllables--and to eschew all heroes and heroines whose
names contain more than four letters. Full of this idea, on my returning
home in the evening, I sat to my desk, and before I retired to rest, had
written a novel of three neat, portable volumes; which, I assert, any lady
or gentlemen, who has had the advantage of a liberal education, may get
through with tolerable ease, in the time occupied by the railroad train
running from London to Birmingham.
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