Doctor Grimshawe's Secret — a Romance

Note 4. Author’s note. — “The children were at play in the churchyard.”

Note 5. Author’s note. — “He mentions that he was probably buried in the churchyard there.”

CHAP. VII

Note 1. Author’s note. — “Perhaps put this narratively, not as spoken.”

Note 2. Author’s note. — “He was privately married to the heiress, if she were an heiress. They meant to kill him in the wood, but, by contrivance, he was kidnapped.”

Note 3. Author’s note. — “They were privately married.”

Note 4. Author’s note. — “Old descriptive letters, referring to localities as they existed.”

Note 5. Author’s note. — “There should be symbols and tokens, hinting at the schoolmaster’s disappearance, from the first opening of the scene.”

CHAP. VIII

Note 1. Author’s note. — “They had got up in remarkably good case that morning.”

Note 2. Author’s note. — “The stranger may be the future master of the Hospital. — Describe the winter day.”

Note 3. Author’s note. — “Describe him as clerical.”

Note 4. Author’s note. — “Represent him as a refined, agreeable, genial young man, of frank, kindly, gentlemanly manners.”

Note 5. Alternative reading: “A clergyman.”

CHAP. IX

Note 1. Author’s note. — “Make the old grave-digger a laudator temporis acti, — especially as to burial customs.”

Note 2. Instead of “written,” as in the text, the author probably meant to write “read.”

Note 3. The MS. has “delight,” but “a light” is evidently intended.

Note 4. Author’s note. — “He aims a blow, perhaps with his pipe, at the boy, which Ned wards off.”

CHAP. X

Note 1. Author’s note. — “No longer could play at quarter-staff with Ned.”

Note 2. Author’s note. — “Referring to places and people in England: the Bloody Footstep sometimes.”

Note 3. In the original the following occurs, but marked to indicate that it was to be omitted: “And kissed his hand to her, and laughed feebly; and that was the last that she or anybody, the last glimpse they had of Doctor Grimshawe alive.”

Note 4. Author’s notes. — “A great deal must be made out of the spiders, and their gloomy, dusky, flaunting tapestry. A web across the orifice of his inkstand every morning; everywhere, indeed, except across the snout of his brandy-bottle. — Depict the Doctor in an old dressing-gown, and a strange sort of a cap, like a wizard’s. — The two children are witnesses of many strange experiments in the study; they see his moods, too. — The Doctor is supposed to be writing a work on the Natural History of Spiders. Perhaps he used them as a blind for his real project, and used to bamboozle the learned with pretending to read them passages in which great learning seemed to be elaborately worked up, crabbed with Greek and Latin, as if the topic drew into itself, like a whirlpool, all that men thought and knew; plans to cultivate cobwebs on a large scale. Sometimes, after overwhelming them with astonishment in this way, he would burst into one of his laughs. Schemes to make the world a cobweb-factory, etc., etc. Cobwebs in his own brain. Crusty Hannah such a mixture of persons and races as could be found only at a seaport. There was a rumor that the Doctor had murdered a former maid, for having, with housewifely instinct, swept away the cobwebs; some said that he had her skeleton in a closet. Some said that he had strangled a wife with web of the great spider.” — “Read the description of Bolton Hall, the garden, lawn, etc., Aug. 8, ‘53. — Bebbington church and churchyard, Aug. 29, ‘53. — The Doctor is able to love, — able to hate; two great and rare abilities nowadays. — Introduce two pine trees, ivy-grown, as at Lowwood Hotel, July 16, ‘58. — The family name might be Redclyffe. — Thatched cottage, June 22, ‘55. — Early introduce the mention of the cognizance of the family, — the Leopard’s Head, for instance, in the first part of the romance; the Doctor may have possessed it engraved as coat of arms in a book. — The Doctor shall show Ned, perhaps, a drawing or engraving of the Hospital, with figures of the pensioners in the quadrangle, fitly dressed; and this picture and the figures shall impress themselves strongly on his memory.”

The above dates and places refer to passages in the published “English Note-Books.”

CHAP. XI

Note 1. Author’s note. — “Compare it with Spenser’s Cave of Despair. Put instruments of suicide there.”

Note 2. Author’s note. — “Once, in looking at the mansion, Redclyffe is struck by the appearance of a marble inserted into the wall, and kept clear of lichens.”

Note 3. Author’s note. — “Describe, in rich poetry, all shapes of deadly things.”

CHAP. XII

Note 1. Author’s note. — “Conferred their best qualities”: an alternative phrase for “done their utmost.”

Note 2. Author’s note. — “Let the old man have a beard as part of the costume.”

CHAP. XIII

Note 1. Author’s note. — “Describe him as delirious, and the scene as adopted into his delirium.”

Note 2. Author’s note. — “Make the whole scene very dreamlike and feverish.”

Note 3. Author’s note. — “There should be a slight wildness in the patient’s remark to the surgeon, which he cannot prevent, though he is conscious of it.”

Note 4. Author’s note. — “Notice the peculiar depth and intelligence of his eyes, on account of his pain and sickness.”

Note 5. Author’s note. — “Perhaps the recognition of the pensioner should not be so decided. Redclyffe thinks it is he, but thinks it as in a dream, without wonder or inquiry; and the pensioner does not quite acknowledge it.”

Note 6. The following dialogue is marked to be omitted or modified in the original MS.; but it is retained here, in order that the thread of the narrative may not be broken.

Note 7. Author’s note. — “The patient, as he gets better, listens to the feet of old people moving in corridors; to the ringing of a bell at stated periods; to old, tremulous voices talking in the quadrangle; etc., etc.”

Note 8. At this point the modification indicated in Note 5 seems to have been made operative: and the recognition takes place in another way.

CHAP. XIV

Note 1. This paragraph is left incomplete in the original MS.

Note 2. The words “Rich old bindings” are interlined here, indicating, perhaps, a purpose to give a more detailed description of the library and its contents.

CHAP. XV

Note 1. Author’s note. — “I think it shall be built of stone, however.”

Note 2. This probably refers to some incident which the author intended to incorporate in the former portion of the romance, on a final revision.

CHAP. XVI

Note 1. Several passages, which are essentially reproductions of what had been previously treated, are omitted from this chapter. It belongs to an earlier version of the romance.

CHAP. XVII