AVES. THE
GREAT WHEEL. ROUND AND ROUND. OLD LEAVES. LONG AGO. FAR APART. FALLEN
LEAVES. FIVE AND TWENTY YEARS. YEARS AND YEARS. ROLLING YEARS. DAY AFTER
DAY. FELLED TREES. MEMORY CARTON. ROLLING STONES. TWO GENERATIONS." That
special title of _Memory Carton_ shows that what led to the greatest
success of the book as written was always in his mind; and another of
the memoranda is this rough hint of the character itself. "The
drunken?--dissipated?--What?--LION--and his JACKALL and Primer, stealing
down to him at unwonted hours."

The studies of Silas Wegg and his patron as they exist in _Our Mutual
Friend_, are hardly such good comedy as in the form which the first
notion of them seems to have intended. "Gibbon's Decline and Fall. The
two characters. One reporting to the other as he reads. Both getting
confused as to whether it is not all going on now." In the same story
may be traced, more or less clearly, other fancies which had found their
first expression in the Memoranda. A touch for Bella Wilfer is here.
"Buying poor shabby--FATHER?--a new hat. So incongruous that it makes
him like African King Boy, or King George; who is usually full dressed
when he has nothing upon him but a cocked hat or a waistcoat." Here
undoubtedly is the voice of Podsnap. "I stand by my friends and
acquaintances;--not for their sakes, but because they are _my_ friends
and acquaintances. _I_ know them, _I_ have licensed them, they have
taken out _my_ certificate. Ergo, I champion them as myself." To the
same redoubtable person another trait clearly belongs. "And by denying a
thing, supposes that he altogether puts it out of existence." A third
very perfectly expresses the boy, ready for mischief, who does all the
work there is to be done in Eugene Wrayburn's place of business. "The
office boy for ever looking out of window, who never has anything to
do."

The poor wayward purposeless good-hearted master of the boy, Eugene
himself, is as evidently in this: "If they were great things, I, the
untrustworthy man in little things, would do them earnestly--But O No, I
wouldn't!" What follows has a more direct reference; being indeed almost
literally copied in the story. "As to the question whether I, Eugene,
lying ill and sick even unto death, may be consoled by the
representation that coming through this illness, I shall begin a new
life, and have energy and purpose and all I have yet wanted: 'I _hope_ I
should, but I _know_ I shouldn't. Let me di