Summer Clean Out
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William Hazlitt came yesterday. I was lying on the sofa, The Old Curiosity Shop laid out on my reclining body, Little Nell curled up, contented as a cat, purring along my chest. I was lying on the sofa dreaming in the sultry afternoon, when the door bell rang; followed by a harsh tattoo battering at the door. “What the…”
It wasn’t a hooligan. It was Hazlitt. I hadn’t seen him for years. He hasn’t changed much; hard to think him older than two centuries. Same as always, his words running, barging into the room; mine rushed out of the open window…
“You can’t drive a brougham down the M4”, he quipped; and added, banging his fist against the bookshelves, “nor will you squeeze Kant into The Telegraph.”
I couldn't help myself, and glanced across at The Old Curiosity Shop flung, like a sagging tent, flaccid on the floor. Those two periscopes followed my gaze.
“That must go. Now. This moment. Come on! Fling out The Old…”
“You mean…"
“Dickens, Eliot, George Gissing: Hemingway killed that lot off with his first novel. You can’t write three-deckers when twitter’s your publisher. Only a Rochefoucauld will do today.” Then, after quoting himself - “for original genuine, observations are like minute drops from off the eaves’, and not an incessant shower” - he left me.
Bloody hell!
ReplyDeleteLove the new look. You don't hang about, do you? I gasped audibly as the page opened and the cat, startled, leapt off the table. He doesn't approve of change, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed."
Best wishes and good luck to you.