Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 69).djvu/150
in the reporters' gallery; and the novelist has told of his writing by the light of a dark lantern, "using the back of his hand for a desk," in a stage-coach making a night journey and exceeding the early Victorian speed limit by going at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. In the present volume the original notes were transcribed, classified, and checked off as used, a formal and ploding process from which detractors might argue that the novelist was no genius but merely a clever observer determined to put his talent to the best practical use.
Among the charges of exaggeration which have been brought against Dickens it has been alleged that even the names of his characters are absurd and impossible, but as Nature outdoes Art in the invention of the fantastic, fact exceeds imagination in the creation of peculiar nomenclature. Fielding christened his hero Tom Jones and let it go at that; but Dickens, with his hundreds of characters, could not find enough Browns, Smiths, and Joneses to go round, and assuredly the names chosen help to make the characters memorable. Knowing Seth Pecksniff, Silas Wegg, and Uriah Heep, who would change them to Johnson, Thompson, and Robinson?
One can see on London signboards to-day names that, if used in Dickens's novels, would be considered far-fetched even for him. In this notebook may be found some that are more eccentric than the most grotesque in the novels; and these were not invented but transcribed by the author from a Board-school list, and were actually given to unfortunate boys and girls when they were too young to protest.
A family might bear the name of Furry through no fault of its own; but that parents should prefix it with Zephaniah and inflict the combination upon a defenceless babe seems like the wanton addition of insult to injury. Knotwell Browndress, William Why, Robin Scrubbam, and Joey Stick are mentioned in the Board-school list, and all would have been justified in lifelong grievances against their parents. The catalogue of boys includes such un-Christian names as Zerubabel, Doctor, and Boetius, and there were girls in that Board school whose spiritual pastors and masters perforce addressed them as Rebinal, Seba, Persia, Aramanda, Balzina, and Gentilla. "Pleasant" is underlined and was conferred upon Miss Riderhood in Our Mutual Friend. On the same list appear such pleasing combinations as Matilda Rainbird, Sophia Doomsday, Sally Gimblet, Verity Hawkyard, Sarah Goldsocks, Catherine Two, and Rosetta Dust.
The book also contains many columns of names which have been brought together and classified, obviously from casual notes previously made. There is no indication whether these were found or invented, but few of them are as bizarre as those copied from the Board-school list. Compared to Zephaniah Furry and Sophia Doomsday, such names as Chilby, Queedy, Tarbox, and Powderhill are almost commonplace. Many of them are checked, indicating that they have been used, and among these one recognizes such familiar acquaintances as Headstone—noted as Amos, but changed to Bradley—Sapsea, Rokesmith, Dorrit—also noted as Dorret—Magwitch, Marigold, Merdle, Casby, Podsnap, Pumblechook, Wilfer, Gargery, and Riderhood. Boffin is here, and Silas Wegg—"with a wooden leg"—whose reading of the "Decline and Fall Off the Rooshan Empire" was such an important factor in the education of the Golden Dustman. The name of Mag appears and recalls the fact that David Copperfield narrowly escaped being called Thomas Mag, while the novel itself originally was to be Mag's Diversions.
DICKENS and Balzac had in common the habit of noting odd names seen on signboards. The French novelist has told of his delight in finding owver the door of a shop just the name he wanted—Z. Marcas; and Dickens found ready-made the odd name of Pickwick, one Moses of that ilk being the keeper of a livery stable at Bath. That many of Dickens's names were invented is shown by the elaborate evolution of some of them. Copperfield assed through the preliminary forms of Trotfield, Trotbury, Copperby, and Copperstone. Chuzzlewit, starting as Sweezlewag, worked its way through Chuzzletoe, Chuzzleboy, and Chubblewig. Happily, young Martin escapes all these, and as we have become inured to Chuzzlewit it is not so bad.
Another department in this ledger of ideas is devoted to titles for stories. Among those checked as used are Somebody's Luggage, To Be Left Till Called For, and No Thoroughfare. Rokesmith's Forge, Dust, and The Cinder Heap are also checked, probably as rejected in favour of Our Mutual Friend. Some of the unnused titles are The Lumber Room, Something Wanted, Two Generations, Broken Crockery, The Neighbour, Children of the Fathers, and Nobody's Fault—all more or less Dickensian in suggestion. These are followed by various ideas for characters and scenes: "A Vestryman, a Briber, a Station Waiting Room, a Physician's Waiting Room, the Royal Academy, the Dentist's Model, the Hair-dresser's Model, the Family Legs, Refreshments at Mugby"—the last the germ of the Christmas Story, Mugby Junction. One may trace in many of