Monday, November 18, 2013

The Adventure and Romance Agency

We should all indulge in our imaginations today and perhaps entertain an idea that Chesterton proposes:
"The adventure and Romance Agency has been started to meet a great modern desire.  On every side, in conversation and in literature, we hear of the desire for a larger theatre of events for something to waylay us and lead us splendidly astray.  Now the man who feels this desire for a varied life pays a yearly or quarterly sum to the Adventure and Romance Agency; in return, the Adventure and Romance Agency undertakes to surround him with startling and weird events.  As a man is leaving his front door, an excited sweet approaches him and assures him of a plot against his life; he gets into a cab, and is driven to an opium den; he receives a mysterious telegram or a dramatic visit, and is immediately in a vortex of incidents." 

From a short story called "The Tremendous Adventure of Major Brown" in a collection called "The Club of Queer Trades."

2 comments:

  1. This sounds like the premise of a Bryan Banquet ask. ;)

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  2. Ha ha! It would definitely make a good one! Have you read this short story?

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