Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Paperstake his place in that chair opposite me, and begin oneof his tremendous stories.Madmen, you know, see visions, hold conversationswith, even draw the likeness of, people invisible to youand me. Is this making of people out of fancy madness?and are novel-writers at all entitled to strait-waistcoats?I often forget people’s names in life; and in my ownstories contritely own that I make dreadful blundersregarding them; but I declare, my dear sir, with respectto the personages introduced into your humble servant’sfables, I know the people utterly—I know the sound oftheir voices. A gentleman came in to see me the otherday, who was so like the picture of Philip Firmin in Mr.Walker’s charming drawings in the cornhill Magazine,that he was quite a curiosity to me. The same eyes,beard, shoulders, just as you have seen them from monthto month. Well, he is not like the Philip Firmin in mymind. Asleep, asleep in the grave, lies the bold, thegenerous, the reckless, the tender-hearted creaturewhom I have made to pass through those adventureswhich have just been brought to an end. It is yearssince I heard the laughter ringing, or saw the brightblue eyes. When I knew him both were young. I becomeyoung as I think of him. And this morning he was aliveagain in this room, ready to laugh, to fight, to weep. AsI write, do you know, it is the gray of evening; thehouse is quiet; everybody is out; the room is getting alittle dark, and I look rather wistfully up from the paperwith perhaps ever so little fancy that he may comein.—No? No movement. No gray shade, growing morepalpable, out of which at last look the well-known eyes.No, the printer came and took him away with the lastpage of the proofs. And with the printer’s boy did thewhole cortege of ghosts flit away, invisible? Ha! stay!what is this? Angels and ministers of grace! The dooropens, and a dark form—enters, bearing a black—a blacksuit of clothes. It is John. He says it is time to dress fordinner.* * *Every man who has had his German tutor, and has been236