CHAPTER XIII: ENCHANTED CIGARETTES
To dream over literary projects, Balzac says, is like "smoking enchantedcigarettes," but when we try to tackle our projects, to make them real,the enchantment disappears. We have to till the soil, to sow the seed,to gather the leaves, and then the cigarettes must be manufactured, whilethere may be no market for them after all. Probably most people haveenjoyed the fragrance of these enchanted cigarettes, and have broodedover much which they will never put on paper. Here are some of "theashes of the weeds of my delight"--memories of romances whereof no singleline is written, or is likely to be written.
Of my earliest novel I remember but little. I know there had been awreck, and that the villain, who was believed to be drowned, came homeand made himself disagreeable. I know that the heroine's mouth was _not_"too large for regular beauty." In that respect she was original. Allheroines are "muckle-mou'd," I know not why. It is expected of them. Iknow she was melancholy and merry; it would not surprise me to learn thatshe drowned herself from a canoe. But the villain never descended tocrime, the first lover would not fall in love, the heroine's ownaffections were provokingly disengaged, and the whole affair came to adead stop for want of a plot. Perhaps, considering modern canons offiction, this might have been a very successful novel. It was entirelydevoid of incident or interest, and, consequently, was a good deal likereal life, as real life appears to many cultivated authors. On the otherhand, all the characters were flippant. This would never have done, andI do not regret novel No. I., which had not even a name.
The second story had a plot, quantities of plot, nothing but plot. Itwas to have been written in collaboration with a very great novelist,who, as far as we went, confined himself to making objections. Thisnovel was stopped (not that my friend would ever have gone on) by "CalledBack," which anticipated part of the idea. The story was entitled "Whereis Rose?" and the motto was--
"_Rosa quo locorum_ _Sera moratur_."
The characters were--(1) Rose, a young lady of quality. (2) The RussianPrincess, her friend (need I add that, to meet a public demand, _her_name was Vera?). (3) Young man engaged to Rose. (4) Charles, hisfriend. (5) An enterprising person named "The Whiteley of Crime," theuniversal Provider of Iniquity. In fact, he anticipated Sir ArthurDoyle's Professor Moriarty. The rest were detectives, old ladies, mob,and a wealthy young Colonial larrikin. Neither my friend nor I was fondof describing love scenes, so we made the heroine disappear in the secondchapter, and she never turned up again till chapter the last. Afterplaying in a comedy at the house of an earl, Rosa and Vera entered herbrougham. Soon afterwards the brougham drew up, _empty_, at Rose's owndoor. Where _was_ Rose? Traces of her were found, of all places, in theHaunted House in Berkeley Square, which is not haunted any longer. Afterthat Rose was long sought in vain.
This, briefly, is what had occurred. A Russian detective "wanted" Vera,who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera he made an alliance with"The Whiteley of Crime." He was a man who would destroy a parishregister, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break up a Pro-Boermeeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or manage apersonation, or issue amateur bank-notes, or what you please. Thinkingto kill two birds with one stone, he carried off Rose for her diamondsand Vera for his friend, the Muscovite police official, lodging them bothin the Haunted House. But there he and the Russian came to blows, and,in the confusion, Vera made her escape, while Rose was conveyed, _asVera_, to Siberia. Not knowing how to dispose of her, the Russian policeconsigned her to a nunnery at the mouth of the Obi. Her lover, in ayacht, found her hiding-place, and got a friendly nun to give her somenarcotic known to the Samoyeds. It was the old _truc_ of the Friar in"Romeo and Juliet." At the mouth of the Obi they do not bury the dead,but lay them down on platforms in the open air. Rose was picked up thereby her lover (accompanied by a chaperon, of course), was got on board thesteam yacht, and all went well. I forget what happened to "The Whiteleyof Crime." After him I still rather hanker--he was a humorous ruffian.Something could be made of "The Whiteley of Crime." Something _has_ beenmade, by the author of "Sherlock Holmes."
In yet another romance, a gentleman takes his friend, in a country place,to see his betrothed. The friend, who had only come into theneighbourhood that day, is found dead, next morning, hanging to a tree.Gipsies and others are suspected. But the lover was the murderer. Hehad been a priest, in South America, and the lady was a Catholic (whoknew not of his Orders). Now the friend fell in love with the lady atfirst sight, on being introduced to her by the lover. As the two menwalked home, the friend threatened to reveal the lover's secret--histonsure--which would be fatal to his hopes. They quarrelled, parted, andthe ex-priest lassoed his friend. The motive, I think, is an originalone, and not likely to occur to the first comer. The inventor is open tooffers.
The next novel, based on a dream, was called "In Search of Qrart."
What is _Qrart_? I decline to divulge this secret beyond saying that_Qrart_ was a product of the civilisation which now sleeps under thesnows of the pole. It was an article of the utmost value to humanity.Farther I do not intend to commit myself. The Bride of a God was one ofthe characters.
The next novel is, at present, my favourite cigarette. The scene ispartly in Greece, partly at the Parthian Court, about 80-60 B.C. Crassusis the villain. The heroine was an actress in one of the wandering Greekcompanies, splendid strollers, who played at the Indian and AsiaticCourts. The story ends with the representation of the "Bacchae," inParthia. The head of Pentheus is carried by one of the Bacchae in thatdrama. Behold, it is not a mask, but _the head of Crassus_, and thusconveys the first news of the Roman defeat. Obviously, this is a novelthat needs a great deal of preliminary study, as much, indeed, as"Salammbo."
Another story will deal with the Icelandic discoverers of America. Mr.Kipling, however, has taken the wind out of its sails with his sketch,"The Finest Story in the World." There are all the marvels and portentsof the _Eyrbyggja Saga_ to draw upon, there are Skraelings to fight, andwhy should not Karlsefni's son kill the last mastodon, and, asQuetzalcoatl, be the white-bearded god of the Aztecs? After that aromance on the intrigues to make Charles Edward King of Poland soundscommonplace. But much might be made of that, too, if the right man tookit in hand. Believe me, there are plenty of stories left, waiting forthe man who can tell them. I have said it before, but I say it again, ifI were king I would keep court officials, Mr. Stanley Weyman, Mr. Mason,Mr. Kipling, and others, to tell me my own stories. I know the kind ofthing which I like, from the discovery of _Qrart_ to that of the Frenchgold in the burn at Loch Arkaig, or in "the wood by the lochside" thatMurray of Broughton mentions.
Another cigarette I have, the adventures of a Poet, a Poet born in aPuritan village of Massachusetts about 1670. Hawthorne could have toldme my story, and how my friend was driven into the wilderness and livedamong the Red Men. I think he was killed in an attempt to warn hiscountrymen of an Indian raid; I think his MS. poems have a bullet-holethrough them, and blood on the leaves. They were in Carew's best manner,these poems.
Another tale Hawthorne might have told me, the tale of an excellent man,whose very virtues, by some baneful moral chemistry, corrupt and ruin thepeople with whom he comes in contact. I do not mean by goading them intothe opposite extremes, but rather something like a moral _jettatura_.This needs a great deal of subtlety, and what is to become of the hero?Is he to plunge into vice till everybody is virtuous again? It wantsworking out. I have omitted, after all, a schoolboy historical romance,explaining _why Queen Elizabeth was never married_. A Scottish paperoffered a prize for a story of Queen Mary Stuart's reign. I did not getthe prize--perhaps did not deserve it, but my story ran thus: You mustknow that Queen Elizabeth was singularly like Darnley in personalappearance. What so natural as that, disguised as a page, her Majestyshould come spying about the Court of Holyrood? Darnley sees her walkingout of Queen Mary's room, he thinks her an hallucination, discovers thatshe is rea
l, challenges her, and they fight at Faldonside, by the Tweed,Shakespeare holding Elizabeth's horse. Elizabeth is wounded, and iscarried to the Kirk of Field, and laid in Darnley's chamber, whileDarnley goes out and makes love to my rural heroine, the lady ofFernilee, a Kerr. That night Bothwell blows up the Kirk of Field,Elizabeth and all. Darnley has only one resource. Borrowing the ridinghabit of the rural heroine, the lady of Fernilee, he flees across theBorder, and, for the rest of his life, personates Queen Elizabeth. Thatis why Elizabeth, who was Darnley, hated Mary so bitterly (on account ofthe Kirk of Field affair), and _that is why Queen Elizabeth was nevermarried_. Side-lights on Shakespeare's Sonnets were obviously cast. Theyoung man whom Shakespeare admired so, and urged to marry, was--Darnley.This romance did not get the prize (the anachronism about Shakespeare isworthy of Scott), but I am conceited enough to think it deserved anhonourable mention.
Enough of my own cigarettes. But there are others of a more fragrantweed. Who will end for me the novel of which Byron only wrote a chapter;who, as Bulwer Lytton is dead? A finer opening, one more mysteriouslystirring, you can nowhere read. And the novel in letters, which Scottbegan in 1819, who shall finish it, or tell us what he did with his fairVenetian courtezan, a character so much out of Sir Walter's way? Hetossed it aside--it was but an enchanted cigarette--and gave us "TheFortunes of Nigel" in its place. I want both. We cannot call up thosewho "left half told" these stories. In a happier world we shall listento their endings, and all our dreams shall be coherent and concluded.Meanwhile, without trouble, and expense, and disappointment, and reviews,we can all smoke our cigarettes of fairyland. Would that many peoplewere content to smoke them peacefully, and did not rush on pen, paper,and ink!