This constituted the outline of my second
volume... To account for the fearful events of the
third it was necessary that the pursuer should be
invested with every advantage of fortune, with a
resolution that nothing could defeat or baffle and with
extraordinary resources of intellect. Nor could my
purpose of giving an overpowering interest to my tale
be answered without his appearing to have been
originally endowed with a mighty store of amiable
dispositions and virtues, so that his being driven to
the first act of murder should be judged worthy of the
deepest regret, and should be seen in some measure to
have arisen out of his virtues themselves. It was
necessary to make him ... the tenant of an atmosphere
of romance, so that every reader should feel prompted
almost to worship him for his high qualities. Here were
ample materials for a first volume."[77]
Godwin hoped that an "entire unity of plot" would be the
infallible result of this ingenious method of constructing his
story, and only wrote in a high state of excitement when the
"afflatus" was upon him. So far as we may judge from his
description, he seems to have realised his story first as a
complex psychological situation, not as a series of disconnected
pictures.
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