The Angel and the Author | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by David Price, email [email protected]
from the 1908 Hurst and Blackett edition.

THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR--AND OTHERS
by Jerome K. Jerome
CHAPTER I

I had a vexing dream one night, not long ago: it was about a fortnight
after Christmas. I dreamt I flew out of the window in my nightshirt. I
went up and up. I was glad that I was going up. "They have been
noticing me," I thought to myself. "If anything, I have been a bit too
good. A little less virtue and I might have lived longer. But one cannot
have everything." The world grew smaller and smaller. The last I saw
of London was the long line of electric lamps bordering the
Embankment; later nothing remained but a faint luminosity buried
beneath darkness. It was at this point of my journey that I heard behind
me the slow, throbbing sound of wings.
I turned my head. It was the Recording Angel. He had a weary look; I
judged him to be tired.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "it is a trying period for me, your Christmas
time."
"I am sure it must be," I returned; "the wonder to me is how you get
through it all. You see at Christmas time," I went on, "all we men and
women become generous, quite suddenly. It is really a delightful

sensation."
"You are to be envied," he agreed.
"It is the first Christmas number that starts me off," I told him; "those
beautiful pictures--the sweet child looking so pretty in her furs, giving
Bovril with her own dear little hands to the shivering street arab; the
good old red-faced squire shovelling out plum pudding to the crowd of
grateful villagers. It makes me yearn to borrow a collecting box and go
round doing good myself.
"And it is not only me--I should say I," I continued; "I don't want you
to run away with the idea that I am the only good man in the world.
That's what I like about Christmas, it makes everybody good. The
lovely sentiments we go about repeating! the noble deeds we do! from
a little before Christmas up to, say, the end of January! why noting
them down must be a comfort to you."
"Yes," he admitted, "noble deeds are always a great joy to me."
"They are to all of us," I said; "I love to think of all the good deeds I
myself have done. I have often thought of keeping a diary-- jotting
them down each day. It would be so nice for one's children."
He agreed there was an idea in this.
"That book of yours," I said, "I suppose, now, it contains all the good
actions that we men and women have been doing during