Alexandre Dumas describes himself, when inventing the plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for two whole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterranean port.At the end of the two days he arose and called for dinner.In those two days he had built his plot.He had moulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in perennial brass.The chapters, the characters, the incidents, the combinations were all arranged in the artist's brain ere he set a pen to paper.My Pegasus won't fly, so as to let me survey the field below me.He has no wings, he is blind of one eye certainly, he is restive, stubborn, slow; crops a hedge when he ought to be galloping, or gallops when he ought to be quiet.He never will show off when I want him.Sometimes he goes at a pace which surprises me.Sometimes, when I most wish him to make the running, the brute turns restive, and I am obliged to let him take his own time.Iwonder do other novel-writers experience this fatalism? They MUSTgo a certain way, in spite of themselves.I have been surprised at the observations made by some of my characters.It seems as if an occult Power was moving the pen.The personage does or says something, and I ask, how the dickens did he come to think of that?
Every man has remarked in dreams, the vast dramatic power which is sometimes evinced; I won't say the surprising power, for nothing does surprise you in dreams.But those strange characters you meet make instant observations of which you never can have thought previously.In like manner, the imagination foretells things.We spake anon of the inflated style of some writers.What also if there is an AFFLATED style,--when a writer is like a Pythoness on her oracle tripod, and mighty words, words which he cannot help, come blowing, and bellowing, and whistling, and moaning through the speaking pipes of his bodily organ? I have told you it was a very queer shock to me the other day when, with a letter of introduction in his hand, the artist's (not my) Philip Firmin walked into this room, and sat down in the chair opposite.In the novel of "Pendennis," written ten years ago, there is an account of a certain Costigan, whom I had invented (as I suppose authors invent their personages out of scraps, heel-taps, odds and ends of characters).
I was smoking in a tavern parlor one night--and this Costigan came into the room alive--the very man:--the most remarkable resemblance of the printed sketches of the man, of the rude drawings in which Ihad depicted him.He had the same little coat, the same battered hat, cocked on one eye, the same twinkle in that eye."Sir," said I, knowing him to be an old friend whom I had met in unknown regions, "sir," I said, "may I offer you a glass of brandy-and-water?" "Bedad, ye may," says he, "and I'll sing ye a song tu." Of course he spoke with an Irish brogue.Of course he had been in the army.In ten minutes he pulled out an Army Agent's account, whereon his name was written.A few months after we read of him in a police court.How had I come to know him, to divine him? Nothing shall convince me that I have not seen that man in the world of spirits.
In the world of spirits and water I know I did: but that is a mere quibble of words.I was not surprised when he spoke in an Irish brogue.I had had cognizance of him before somehow.Who has not felt that little shock which arises when a person, a place, some words in a book (there is always a collocation) present themselves to you, and you know that you have before met the same person, words, scene, and so forth?
They used to call the good Sir Walter the "Wizard of the North."What if some writer should appear who can write so ENCHANTINGLY that he shall be able to call into actual life the people whom he invents? What if Mignon, and Margaret, and Goetz von Berlichingen are alive now (though I don't say they are visible), and Dugald Dalgetty and Ivanhoe were to step in at that open window by the little garden yonder? Suppose Uncas and our noble old Leather Stocking were to glide silent in? Suppose Athos, Porthos, and Aramis should enter with a noiseless swagger, curling their moustaches? And dearest Amelia Booth, on Uncle Toby's arm; and Tittlebat Titmouse, with his hair dyed green; and all the Crummles company of comedians, with the Gil Blas troop; and Sir Roger de Coverley; and the greatest of all crazy gentlemen, the Knight of La Mancha, with his blessed squire? I say to you, I look rather wistfully towards the window, musing upon these people.Were any of them to enter, I think I should not be very much frightened.Dear old friends, what pleasant hours I have had with them! We do not see each other very often, but when we do, we are ever happy to meet.I had a capital half-hour with Jacob Faithful last night;when the last sheet was corrected, when "Finis" had been written, and the printer's boy, with the copy, was safe in Green Arbor Court.
So you are gone, little printer's boy, with the last scratches and corrections on the proof, and a fine flourish by way of Finis at the story's end.The last corrections? I say those last corrections seem never to be finished.A plague upon the weeds! Every day, when I walk in my own little literary garden-plot, I spy some, and should like to have a spud, and root them out.Those idle words, neighbor, are past remedy.That turning back to the old pages produces anything but elation of mind.Would you not pay a pretty fine to be able to cancel some of them? Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages! Oh, the cares, the ennui, the squabbles, the repetitions, the old conversations over and over again! But now and again a kind thought is recalled, and now and again a dear memory.
Yet a few chapters more, and then the last: after which, behold Finis itself come to an end, and the Infinite begun.