Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackerayby the sleeve, and plaguing her with some of his cynicalsermons? I cry peccavi loudly and heartily. I tell you Iwould like to be able to write a story which should showno egotism whatever—in which there should be no reflections,no cynicism, no vulgarity (and so forth), butan incident in every other page, a villain, a battle, amystery in every chapter. I should like to be able tofeed a reader so spicily as to leave him hungering andthirsting for more at the end of every monthly meal.Alexandre Dumas describes himself, when inventingthe plan of a work, as lying silent on his back for twowhole days on the deck of a yacht in a Mediterraneanport. At the end of the two days he arose and called fordinner. In those two days he had built his plot. He hadmoulded a mighty clay, to be cast presently in perennialbrass. The chapters, the characters, the incidents,the combinations were all arranged in the artist’s brainere he set a pen to paper. My Pegasus won’t fly, so as tolet me survey the field below me. He has no wings, he isblind of one eye certainly, he is restive, stubborn, slow;crops a hedge when he ought to be galloping, or gallopswhen he ought to be quiet. He never will show off whenI want him. Sometimes he goes at a pace which surprisesme. Sometimes, when I most wish him to makethe running, the brute turns restive, and I am obligedto let him take his own time. I wonder do other novelwritersexperience this fatalism? They must go a certainway, in spite of themselves. I have been surprisedat the observations made by some of my characters. Itseems as if an occult Power was moving the pen. Thepersonage does or says something, and I ask, how thedickens did he come to think of that? Every man hasremarked in dreams, the vast dramatic power which issometimes evinced; I won’t say the surprising power,for nothing does surprise you in dreams. But thosestrange characters you meet make instant observationsof which you never can have thought previously. In likemanner, the imagination foretells things. We spake anonof the inflated style of some writers. What also if thereis an afflated style,—when a writer is like a Pythonesson her oracle tripod, and mighty words, words which hecannot help, come blowing, and bellowing, and whis-241