Tag Archives: Charles Dickens

Notes and Queries – 2 Queries

Notes and Queries is a British periodical. It was originally subtitled "a medium of inter-communication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, genealogists, etc". Its motto was "When found, make a note of", from the catchphrase of Capt. Cuttle, a character in Dickens' Dombey and Son (1848). Dickens himself was a contributor, as were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Walter Skeat and Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo.) Most contributors were pseudonymous or anonymous. Ironically it was first produced to combat the perceived lowering of intellectual standards caused by 'railway mania' - but the trains allowed for its swift printing and distribution. Parallels with the web are often made - some referring to it as the 'Victorian Internet.'

The most intriguing section was 'Queries' where contributors asked for information on subjects they were studying. A typical query on London history from one 'E.F.R.'

The Strand Maypole.—What was the ultimate fate of the "tall Maypole" which "once o'erlooked the Strand"? The answer came in the next issue. ***

166 years later Jot101's motto 'found it, read it, posted it' echoes Captain Cuttle's "When found,make a note of" and in the same spirit here are a couple of queries:

Somewhere Oscar Wilde wrote the most significant thing in British history was the leather trousers of some royal personage. Not sure where he wrote this and what he actually said. Possibly in undergraduate notes.

Colin Wilson wrote that it was hard to imagine a potentially happier situation than a young millionaire lying on his yacht in the Aegean with all the summer still ahead of him. Possibly girls were lying by his side...Where was this? It might have been in a book of essays - some on H P Lovecraft.

***It was taken down about the year 1717, when it was found to measure a hundred feet. It was obtained by Sir Isaac Newton, and borne on a carriage, for timber, to Wanstead, in Essex, the seat of the Earl of Tylney, where, under the direction of the Reverend Mr. Pound Breton, it was placed in the Park, for the erection of a telescope, the largest then in the world, presented by a French gentleman to the Royal Society.

The Perils of Irony

From a Bookman's Budget by the estimable Austion Dobson (OUP 1917). The case was reported in the Westminster Gazette of 1916 but has a slightly Dickensian ring.

THE PERILS OF IRONY

Irony, which Byron described as a ' master-spell ',
and Mrs. Slipslop called 'ironing'* is at times an
awkward edged-tool.There is no better illustration
of this than an anecdote of the late Lord Justice
Bowen. Once, when acting as a Puisne Judge, there
came before him the case of a burglar who, having
entered a house by the top-story, was afterwards
captured below stairs in the act of sampling the silver.
The defence was more ingenuous than ingenious. The
accused was alleged to be a person of eccentric habits,
much addicted to perambulating the roofs of adjacent
houses, and occasionally dropping in 'permiscuous'
through an open skylight. This naturally stirred the
judge to caustic comment. Summing up, he is reported
to have said : "If, gentlemen, you think it likely that
the prisoner was merely indulging an amiable fancy for
midnight exercise on his neighbour's roof; if you think
it was kindly consideration for that neighbour which led
him to take off his boots and leave them behind him before
descending into the house ; and if you believe that it was
the innocent curiosity of the connoisseur which brought him
to the silver pantry and caused him to borrow the teapot,
then, gentlemen, you will acquit the prisoner!" To Lord
Bowen's dismay, the jury did instantly acquit the prisoner.

*Byron must have remembered this when he said that the
irrepressible Mme de Stael was ' well ironed ' by Sheridan at
one of Rogers's breakfasts.

Second-hand Bookstalls in Paris (1890s)

From Dickens's Dictionary of Paris. The book is anonymous but a note in an old bookseller's hand informs us that it was written (partly) by the son of Anthony Trollope. This edition was published about 1896 and there are advertisements for hotels giving their phone numbers.The book is listed at the British Library as being by Charles Dickens jnr.,

The bookstalls by the Seine are still much in evidence and an occasional source of rare finds. The other stalls dotted around Paris have mostly gone but many lingered on into the 1960s and some may still be there.

The only mention of English books is a stall at Rue Daunou. This street was shortly to have other English language associations - as in 1911 (at number 5) it became the site of Harry's New York Bar where famously James Bond went on his first visit to Paris aged 16. Ian Fleming writes (possibly this happened to him?) "..he followed the instructions in Harry's advertisement in the Continental Daily Mail, and told his taxi driver 'Sank Roo Doe Noo'...that had started one of the memorable evenings of his life, culminating in the loss, almost simultaneous, of his virginity and his notecase".

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Inadvertencies

I have found a curious pamphlet from the rather neglected Mill House Press which was run by Edward Gathorne- Hardy whose pic is below. Printed on mould made paper in 1963 It is one of 200 copies only and called Inadvertencies collected from the works of several eminent authors.

Basically a collection of inadvertently obscene passages from mostly 19th century classics. The double entendre game. This passage from Charles Dickens gives the flavour -- 'She touched his organ; and from that bright epoch, even it, the old companion of his happiest hours, incapable, as he had thought, of elevation, began a new and deified existence.' My favourites are from Henry James. There is always a faint air of embarrassment with the Master anyway and Gathorne- Hardy has found some corkers.

"'Oh, I can't explain,' cried Roderick impatiently, returning to his work. 'I've only one way of expressing my deepest feelings - it's this.' And he swung his tool." (Roderick Hudson)

"You think me a queer fellow already. It's not easy to tell you how I feel, not easy for so queer a fellow as I to tell you in how many ways he's queer." (Passionate Pilgrim)

'What an intimacy, what an intensity of relation, I said to myself, so successful a process implied! It was of course familiar enough that when people were so deeply in love they rubbed off on each other....' (The Sacred Fount)

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