I have no “vast magazine of a commonplace book.” In my whole life, since I began to write--which is now, I am concerned to state, upwards of forty years--I have had only about half a dozen little note-books, strangely and irregularly kept, sometimes with only words of reference to some book or fact I could not bring accurately to mind. At first I was much urged by my father to note down remarkable traits of character, or incidents, which he thought might be introduced in stories. But I was averse to noting down, because I was conscious that it did better for me to keep the things in my head if they suited my purpose; and if they did not, they would only encumber me. I knew that when I wrote down, I put the thing out of my care, out of my head; and that, though it might be put by very safe, I should not know where to look for it; that the labor of looking over a note-book would never do when I was in the warmth and pleasure of inventing. In short, the process of combination, generalization, invention, was carried on always in my head best.... I never could use notes in writing dialogues. It would have been as impossible to me to get in the prepared good things at the right moment, in the warmth of writing conversation, as it would be to lay them in in real conversation; perhaps more so, for I could not write dialogues at all without being at the time fully impressed with the characters, imagining myself each speaker; and that too fully engrossed the imagination to leave time for consulting note-books: the whole fairy vision would melt away. [Sidenote: “Castle Rackrent” not corrected or copied.] A curious fact, that where I least aimed at drawing characters, I succeeded best. As far as I have heard, the characters in ‘Castle Rackrent’ were in their day considered as better classes of Irish characters than any I ever drew; they cost me no trouble, and were made by no _receipt_, or thought of “philosophical classification”; there was literally not a correction, not an alteration, made in the first writing, no copy, and, as I recollect, no interlineation; it went to the press just as it was written. Other stories I have corrected with the greatest care, and re-modelled and re-written.... In every story (except ‘Rackrent’) which I ever wrote, I have always drawn out a sketch, a frame-work. All these are in existence; and I have lately compared many of the printed stories with them, some strangely altered, by the way. MARIA EDGEWORTH: _Letter to Mrs. Stark_, quoted in ‘A Study of Maria Edgeworth.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Detestation of fine writing.]