第60章

We were saying, my Muse, before we dropped and perched on earth for a couple of sentences, that our unsaid words were in some limbo or other, as real as those we have uttered; that the thoughts which have passed through our brains are as actual as any to which our tongues and pens have given currency.For instance, besides what is here hinted at, I have thought ever so much more about Verona: about an early Christian church I saw there; about a great dish of rice we had at the inn; about the bugs there; about ever so many more details of that day's journey from Milan to Venice; about Lake Garda, which lay on the way from Milan, and so forth.I say what fine things we have thought of, haven't we, all of us? Ah, what a fine tragedy that was I thought of, and never wrote! On the day of the dinner of the Oystermongers' Company, what a noble speech Ithought of in the cab, and broke down--I don't mean the cab, but the speech.Ah, if you could but read some of the unwritten Roundabout Papers, how you would be amused! Aha! my friend, I catch you saying, "Well, then, I wish THIS was unwritten with all my heart."Very good.I owe you one.I do confess a hit, a palpable hit.

One day in the past month, as I was reclining on the bench of thought, with that ocean The Times newspaper spread before me, the ocean cast up on the shore at my feet two famous subjects for Roundabout Papers, and I picked up those waifs, and treasured them away until I could polish them and bring them to market.That scheme is not to be carried out.I can't write about those subjects.And though I cannot write about them, I may surely tell what are the subjects I am going NOT to write about.

The first was that Northumberland Street encounter, which all the papers have narrated.Have any novelists of our days a scene and catastrophe more strange and terrible than this which occurs at noonday within a few yards of the greatest thoroughfare in Europe?

At the theatres they have a new name for their melodramatic pieces, and call them "Sensation Dramas." What a sensation Drama this is!

What have people been flocking to see at the Adelphi Theatre for the last hundred and fifty nights? A woman pitched overboard out of a boat, and a certain Miles taking a tremendous "header," and bringing her to shore? Bagatelle! What is this compared to the real life-drama, of which a midday representation takes place just opposite the Adelphi in Northumberland Street? The brave Dumas, the intrepid Ainsworth, the terrible Eugene Sue, the cold-shudder-inspiring "Woman in White," the astounding author of the "Mysteries of the Court of London," never invented anything more tremendous than this.

It might have happened to you and me.We want to borrow a little money.We are directed to an agent.We propose a pecuniary transaction at a short date.He goes into the next room, as we fancy, to get the bank-notes, and returns with "two very pretty, delicate little ivory-handled pistols," and blows a portion of our heads off.After this, what is the use of being squeamish about the probabilities and possibilities in the writing of fiction? Years ago I remember making merry over a play of Dumas, called Kean, in which the "Coal-Hole Tavern" was represented on the Thames, with a fleet of pirate-ships moored alongside.Pirate-ships? Why not?

What a cavern of terror was this in Northumberland Street, with its splendid furniture covered with dust, its empty bottles, in the midst of which sits a grim "agent," amusing himself by firing pistols, aiming at the unconscious mantel-piece, or at the heads of his customers!

After this, what is not possible? It is possible Hungerford Market is mined, and will explode some day.Mind how you go in for a penny ice unawares."Pray, step this way," says a quiet person at the door.You enter--into a back room:--a quiet room; rather a dark room."Pray, take your place in a chair." And she goes to fetch the penny ice.Malheureux! The chair sinks down with you--sinks, and sinks, and sinks--a large wet flannel suddenly envelopes your face and throttles you.Need we say any more? After Northumberland Street, what is improbable? Surely there is no difficulty in crediting Bluebeard.I withdraw my last month's opinions about ogres.Ogres? Why not? I protest I have seldom contemplated anything more terribly ludicrous than this "agent" in the dingy splendor of his den, surrounded by dusty ormolu and piles of empty bottles, firing pistols for his diversion at the mantel-piece until his clients come in! Is pistol-practice so common in Northumberland Street, that it passes without notice in the lodging-houses there?

We spake anon of good thoughts.About bad thoughts? Is there some Northumberland Street chamber in your heart and mine, friend: close to the every-day street of life visited by daily friends: visited by people on business; in which affairs are transacted; jokes are uttered; wine is drunk; through which people come and go; wives and children pass; and in which murder sits unseen until the terrible moment when he rises up and kills? A farmer, say, has a gun over the mantel-piece in his room where he sits at his daily meals and rest: caressing his children, joking with his friends, smoking his pipe in his calm.One night the gun is taken down: the farmer goes out: and it is a murderer who comes back and puts the piece up and drinks by that fireside.Was he a murderer yesterday when he was tossing the baby on his knee, and when his hands were playing with his little girl's yellow hair? Yesterday there was no blood on them at all: they were shaken by honest men: have done many a kind act in their time very likely.He leans his head on one of them, the wife comes in with her anxious looks of welcome, the children are prattling as they did yesterday round the father's knee at the fire, and Cain is sitting by the embers, and Abel lies dead on the moor.