CHAPTER XII.
HINTS FOR BOOKS WRITTEN AND UNWRITTEN.
1855-1865.
Book of MS. Memoranda—Home of the Barnacles—Original of Mrs. Clennam—River and Ferryman—Notions for Little Dorrit—Original of Hunted Down—Titles for Tale of Two Cities—Hints for Mutual Friend—Reprobate's Notion of Duty—Proposed Opening for a Story—England first seen by an Englishman—Touching Fancy—Story from State Trials—Sentimentalist and her Fate—Female Groups—Children Farming—Subjects for Description—Fancies not worked upon—Available Names—Mr. Brobity's Snuff-box.
Dickens began the Book of Memoranda for possible use in his work, to which occasional reference has been made, in January 1855, six months before the first page of Little Dorrit was written; and I find no allusion leading me to suppose, except in one very doubtful instance, that he had made addition to its entries, or been in the habit of resorting to them, after the date of Our Mutual Friend. It seems to comprise that interval of ten years in his life.
In it were put down any hints or suggestions that occurred to him. A mere piece of imagery or fancy, it might be at one time; at another the outline of a subject or a character; then a bit of description or dialogue; no order or sequence being observed in any. Titles for stories were set down too, and groups of names for the actors in them; not the least curious of the memoranda belonging to this class. More rarely, entry is made of some oddity of speech; and he has thus preserved in it, verbatim et literatim, what he declared to have been as startling a message as he ever received. A confidential servant at Tavistock House, having conferred on some proposed changes in his bed-room with the party that was to do the work, delivered this ultimatum to her master. "The gas-fitter says, sir, that he can't alter the fitting of your gas in your bed-room without taking up almost the ole of your bed-room floor, and pulling your room to pieces. He says, of course you can have it done if you wish, and he'll do it for you and make a good job of it, but he would have to destroy your room first, and go entirely under the jistes."[250]
It is very interesting in this book, last legacy as it is of the literary remains of such a writer, to compare the way in which fancies were worked out with their beginnings entered in its pages. Those therefore will first be taken that in some form or other appeared afterwards in his writings, with such reference to the latter as may enable the reader to make comparison for himself.
"Our House. Whatever it is, it is in a first-rate situation, and a fashionable neighbourhood. (Auctioneer called it 'a gentlemanly residence.') A series of little closets squeezed up into the corner of a dark street—but a Duke's Mansion round the corner. The whole house just large enough to hold a vile smell. The air breathed in it, at the best of times, a kind of Distillation of Mews." He made it the home of the Barnacles in Little Dorrit.