Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 28, 1898 - Appendix

REFLECTIONS AND REMARKS
III. DIALOGUE ON CHARACTER AND DESTINY
BETWEEN TWO PUPPETS.— At the end of Chapter xxxm.
Count Spada and the General of the Jesuits were left alone
in the pavilion, while the course of the story was turned upon
the doings of the virtuous hero. Profiting by this moment
of privacy, the Jesuit turned with a very warning countenance
upon the peer.
' Have a care, my lord,' said he, raising a finger. ' You
are already no favourite with the author ; and for my part,
I begin to perceive from a thousand evidences that the narra-
tive is drawing near a close. Yet a chapter or two at most,
and you will be overtaken by some sudden and appalling
judgment.'
'I despise your womanish presentiments, 1 replied Spada,
' and count firmly upon another volume ; I see a variety of
reasons why my life should be prolonged to within a few
pages of the end ; indeed, I permit myself to expect resurrec-
tion in a sequel, or second part. You will scarce suggest
that there can be any end to the newspaper; and you will
certainly never convince me that the author, who cannot be
entirely without sense, would have been at so great pains
with my intelligence, gallant exterior, and happy and natural
speech, merely to kick me hither and thither for two or three
paltry chapters and then drop me at the end like a dumb
personage. I know you priests are often infidels in secret.
Pray, do you believe in an author at all ? '
'Many do not, I am aware, 1 replied the General softly;
' even in the last chapter we encountered one, the self-righteous
David Hume, who goes so far as to doubt the existence of
the newspaper in which our adventures are now appearing;
but it would neither become my cloth, nor do credit to my
great experience, were I to meddle with these dangerous
opinions. My alarm for you is not metaphysical, it is moral
in its origin : You must be aware, my poor friend, that you
are a very bad character — the worst indeed that I have met
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