It was winter;
the night was very dark; the air extraordinary clear and
cold, and sweet with the purity of forests. From a good way
below, the river was to be heard contending with ice and
boulders: a few lights appeared, scattered unevenly among
the darkness, but so far away as not to lessen the sense of
isolation. For the making of a story here were fine
conditions. I was besides moved with the spirit of
emulation, for I had just finished my third or fourth perusal
of THE PHANTOM SHIP. 'Come,' said I to my engine, 'let us
make a tale, a story of many years and countries, of the sea
and the land, savagery and civilisation; a story that shall
have the same large features, and may be treated in the same
summary elliptic method as the book you have been reading and
admiring.' I was here brought up with a reflection
exceedingly just in itself, but which, as the sequel shows, I
failed to profit by. I saw that Marryat, not less than
Homer, Milton, and Virgil, profited by the choice of a
familiar and legendary subject; so that he prepared his
readers on the very title-page; and this set me cudgelling my
brains, if by any chance I could hit upon some similar belief
to be the centre-piece of my own meditated fiction. In the
course of this vain search there cropped up in my memory a
singular case of a buried and resuscitated fakir, which I had
been often told by an uncle of mine, then lately dead,
Inspector-General John Balfour.
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