FICTION AND FACT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 2 April 1891, Page 4

FICTION AND FACT.

Op modern authors Wilkie Collins decidedly had the most remarkable series ol encounters with the class of people who identify themselves with purely imaginary personages. " A bourgeois of Paris." he himself ha« told us, " reading ' The Woman in White, 1 in a French translation, wrote to say that he had flung the book to the other end ol the room on discovering that Fosco was an absolutely perfect likeness of himself. He naturally insisted on receiving satisfaction for the insult, leaving the choice of swords ■* or pistols to me, as the challenged person. Information on which he could rely had assured him that I meditated a journey to Paris early in the ensuing week. A hostile meeting might, in such circumstances, be easily arranged." ... Arrived in Paris. Wilkie Collins looked for his honourable opponent in vain. Again, Mr Collins invented a character who was so careful about the quality of his food that he weighed it in little scales at table. Shortly after the publication of this nov r l a ' en:!eman called upon the author. •"Ycu h.ive no right, sir, to caricature tt.c !" exclalr. ~ed the caller to the astonished novelist. ■■ I weigh my food in little scales, sir. Mere they are, sir. I always carry them about with me by the advice of my „ physician, but is that any reason why I should be held up to ridicule, sir ?" And the gentleman refused to be pacified, though Mr Collins protested that he had never before heard of such a habit. On another occasion a reader of " Armadale" called upon him and upbraided him for putting his house into print. The description, it is said, was exact, although the popular writer had never seen the place.