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There is one malady dear to the heart of modern novel-writers. It is helpful, pleasantly dangerous, and yet to be vanquished. Of course I allude to brain fever. Once get your hero into some scrape from which there is no outlet, and you are forced to call upon brain-fever for help. He lies dangerously ill for weeks, months; makes, several delirious confessions; arises once more the ghost of his former self, and in the meantime, what? All difficulties have been smoothed away, and the eager interest of the unsuspecting reader has been relieved of its keen edge. Brain fever is a boon to the novel writer, and like all cheap boons it has been wofully abused.

Brain fever, however, is not nearly as frequent in real life as it is in novels. It is fiction's way out of a climax.

I have jotted down these thoughts because I remember they occurred to me during the days