THE WORST PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1485, 6 July 1912, Page 9

THE WORST PRELUDE TO ADVENTURE.

London is never so exciting as on May nights. The other evening I was forced into attending a debate; a thing I had not done for years. Never mind what the subject was, but one speaker after another got up—a few in reply to the last speaker, but most merely to deliver ' some remarks prepared even earlier (if possible) than the last speaker had prepared his. And so it wont on, and then there was a show of hands, something was carried, something was lost; and I found myself under the May stars with tho sweetness of the May night all about me.

It was .not very late; I was in no hurryto go to bed; and the evening's rhetoric, so futile, when nil is said, because only academic and leading, nowhithcr, had aroused in me a mood of Tovolt. To think that wo should have been sitting there, .arguing in a stuffy room, when we might havo been high o.;i Hampstead Heath; or in the garden of the Spaniards; or smelling the lilacs of Holland..Walk; or, at ease, on the crazy green balcony of the Angel at Rothcrhithe. watching tlio river lights jind tho stcnlthy nocturnal shipping. Or we might have been merely in London's streets under the May stars. It infuriated me. "I havo lost an evening." I .said, "and n May evening at I hat, and life is so devilish short." And so saying I pulled myself together and added, "But no matter—here you are. with a latchkey and an open mind; have an adventure!" THE MISCHIEF OF BOOKS. It was then about a quarter past eleven. At one o'clock I wns Hearing home, weary and disheartened, asking myself the question, "Who are the people that have adventures?" and answering it. "Those who cannot appreciate them." And then I asked, "How is it that I, spoiling for an adventure, have had none?" and tho answer was, "For two reasons—one, your nttitudo of receptivity; it is tho unexpected that happens; and, two, only an ass would ever expect an adventure." And then I asked, "This being so, why on earth did I ever prepare the wnv for an adventure at all? Why didn't' I know that they didn't occur?" And the answer was "Books." The answer wns "Books." It is books that do the mischief. Without books we should know life for the humdrum thing and impo-fur? it is. oven in_ London on n May night. And even as it is. we, know it; but bonk? make us forget what wo know. Books are in our blood. No'one who begins bookishly ever quite becomes free again. There t'hey are. all the' tim«. in the barkcround, dominating conduct, and prodding standards, ideals, limitations, but

above nil illusions and disappointments. For the books that one reads in the impressionable years, and therefore nbsorns and remembers, are always so much better and nioro exciting than life.

DICKENS CHARACTERS. Ballantync, for example, who came first —what chances his boys bad that were never ours!. Coral islands to be castaway upon; fur-tradingj gorilla-hunting—you see the mischief of it all! Then Haggard, .Stevenson, Defoe, Scott, Dickens. These are the corrupters of youth. Ono comes away from them for ever expecting something, where ono might, without them, have been merely acceptive and at peace. For they all heighten; they nil arrange, lifo their own way and sauce it. Dickens comes nearest to the lifo that ono knows: ono continually meets characters witii a vague Dickensiau flavour; but the breath of genius is not in thorn._ They are the shells only; the great, comic, humnne, living, unreal fairyland spirit has not animated.them. It never can: it began with Dickens and passed with him. Disappointment again! But on my .way home that night it was Stevenson whom I felt to be the first of tho traitor.s: Stevenson, who brought Bngdad to London (the low trick!), and, since Bagdad is not really London, spoiled lifo for thousands of us. How olten have I invented New Arabian Nights for myself! I suppose all that ever tasted that seductive poison havo done so. The taxi chauffeur who invites ono to ride free to the mysterious house. The anonymous agonised gentleman who stops mo in the street imploring me to witness his will or perform some other service, (o lie followed not long after by tho receipt of tho lawyer's letter (always a lawyer's letter!) that carries tho news of fortune. The note dropped from the barred upper windowbehind which the beautiful girl is incarcerated. Tho veiled lady with the bloodhound ....

IN THE SMALL HOURS. On a May night of stars in London how one can play with, elnborato, and perfect such motifs. In tho adventure of the agonised gentleman, who requires a signature, for example, he stands at the gate in tho small hours, counting the infre-. fluent passers-by, his object being to invite the seventh. Perhaps it : is not himself for whom ho: is acting, but some strango sinister employer, bed-Tiddcn, at death's door, upstairs. An old woman, maybe, masterful, cunning, but helpless, who cannot spare this factotum, but must havo a lifc-aud-death message carried at once. It is I who carry it. Perhaps it is written; perhaps, it 'is verbal—curious cryptic words which, when I say them to tho pereon they are intended for, causo him to blanch and quail. Everyone has these dreams of romantic interludes in the drab monotony of. city lifo; but they come to nothing. Adventures, such as they are, fall only to those who have forgotten the story-writers or never knew them. As to how similar the ideas of exceedingly dissimilar persons can be, even when they aro deliberately fantastic, I have an instance only too pat. It has long been a favourite whim of mine that a mirror should bo invented capable of retaining every reflection it had'ever recorded, and giving them back wnen desired. A littlewhile ago I picked up "Passages from tho American Note-Books" of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and found tho same idea jotted down for use one day in a romance. This book, by the way, is a mino of suggestions for the story-writers, for Hawtliorno had more thoughts in a day than he could use in a year; and many of them aro here.

And'so, turning the key, I bado fnrewell to the May 6tars, nnd did one of ihe most adventurous things left to'.ns—l'went to bed. For no one can lay a' hand on cur dreams. All the authors of tho world cannot spoil those—E.'V. Lucas, in the "Daily News." ' ,