In truth it was so by a set
of lucky accidents; had not Dr. Japp come on his visit, had
not the tale flowed from me with singular case, it must have
been laid aside like its predecessors, and found a circuitous
and unlamented way to the fire. Purists may suggest it would
have been better so. I am not of that mind. The tale seems
to have given much pleasure, and it brought (or, was the
means of bringing) fire and food and wine to a deserving
family in which I took an interest. I need scarcely say I
mean my own.
But the adventures of TREASURE ISLAND are not yet quite at an
end. I had written it up to the map. The map was the chief
part of my plot. For instance, I had called an islet
'Skeleton Island,' not knowing what I meant, seeking only for
the immediate picturesque, and it was to justify this name
that I broke into the gallery of Mr. Poe and stole Flint's
pointer. And in the same way, it was because I had made two
harbours that the HISPANIOLA was sent on her wanderings with
Israel Hands. The time came when it was decided to
republish, and I sent in my manuscript, and the map along
with it, to Messrs. Cassell. The proofs came, they were
corrected, but I heard nothing of the map. I wrote and
asked; was told it had never been received, and sat aghast.
It is one thing to draw a map at random, set a scale in one
corner of it at a venture, and write up a story to the
measurements. It is quite another to have to examine a whole
book, make an inventory of all the allusions contained in it,
and with a pair of compasses, painfully design a map to suit
the data.
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