With the map before him, he will scarce allow the
sun to set in the east, as it does in THE ANTIQUARY. With
the almanack at hand, he will scarce allow two horsemen,
journeying on the most urgent affair, to employ six days,
from three of the Monday morning till late in the Saturday
night, upon a journey of, say, ninety or a hundred miles, and
before the week is out, and still on the same nags, to cover
fifty in one day, as may be read at length in the inimitable
novel of ROB ROY. And it is certainly well, though far from
necessary, to avoid such 'croppers.' But it is my contention
- my superstition, if you like - that who is faithful to his
map, and consults it, and draws from it his inspiration,
daily and hourly, gains positive support, and not mere
negative immunity from accident. The tale has a root there;
it grows in that soil; it has a spine of its own behind the
words. Better if the country be real, and he has walked
every foot of it and knows every milestone. But even with
imaginary places, he will do well in the beginning to provide
a map; as he studies it, relations will appear that he had
not thought upon; he will discover obvious, though
unsuspected, short-cuts and footprints for his messengers;
and even when a map is not all the plot, as it was in
TREASURE ISLAND, it will be found to be a mine of suggestion.
CHAPTER VI - 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.
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