book. I said one time of a book of Lady Gregory's that it was a highly
amusing affair; and I gave numerous excerpts in support of my
statement. I had enjoyed the book greatly. It was delightful, I
thought. It was then a bit of a jolt to me to read a lengthy article
by another reviewer of the same book, who set forth that Lady Gregory
was an extremely serious person, with never a smile, and who gave
copious evidence of this point in quotations. Each of us made out a
perfectly good case.
Now suppose you read in the New York _This_, a daily paper, that
Such-and-Such a book was the best thing of its kind since Adam. And
suppose you found the same opinion to be that of the New York _Weekly
That_ and of the New York _Weekly Other_. Notwithstanding that the New
York Something-Else declared that this was the rottenest hook that ever
came from the press, you would be inclined to accept the conclusion of
the majority of critics, would you not? Well, I'll tell you this: the
man who "does" the fiction week by week for the New York _This_ and for
_The That_ and for _The Other_, is one and the same industrious person.
I know him well. He has a large family to support (which is
continually out of shoes) and his wife just presented him with a new
set of twins the other day. He is now trying to add the job on _The
Something-Else_ to his list.
Let us farther suppose that you are a magazine editor. You wrote this
Such-and-Such book yourself. You are a very disagreeable person (we
will imagine). You rejected three of my stories about my experiences
as a vagabond. Farthermore, when I remonstrated with you about this
over the telephone, you told me that you were very busy. When your
book came out I happened to review it for three papers. I tried to do
it justice although I didn't think much of the book, or of anything
else that you ever did.
Now, reflecting upon the vast frailty of human nature, and considering
the power of the reviewer to exercise petty personal pique, I think
there is little dishonesty of this nature in reviews. The prejudice is
the other way round, in "log rolling," as it is called, among little
cliques of friends. Though I have known more than one case more or
less like that of a reviewer man, otherwise fairly well balanced, who
had a rabid antipathy to the work of Havelock Ellis. Whenever he got
hold of a book of Havelock Ellis's he became blind and livid with rage.
In the period when I was a free lance reviewer, I used to review
generally only books that I was particularly interested in, books on
subjects with which I was familiar, books by authors whom I knew all
about. And in writing my reviews I used to wait now and then for an
idea. Those were happy, innocent, amateur days. That is: when my
thoughts got stalled I would throw myself on a couch for a bit, or I
would look out at my window, or I took a turn about Gramercy Park for a
breath of air. Reviews sometimes had to be in by the following day,
or, so my editor would declare to me with much vigour over the
telephone, the paper would go to smash; and then he would hold them in
type for three weeks. But they rarely had to be done within a couple
of hours or less.
In the course of time I got down to brass tacks; I took a staff
position, a desk job. It was up to me to review everything going, in a
steady ceaseless grind. I began work at half past nine in the morning.
When I was commuting I began earlier, taking up a book on the train.
Between nine thirty and a quarter to eleven I did a book, say, on the
extermination of the house-fly; from then until lunch time, three
hundred words on a very pleasant novel called, for instance, "Roast
Beef, Medium"; in the afternoon, three-quarters of a column on a
"History of the American Negro"; winding up the day, perhaps, with a
lively article about a popular book on "Submarine Diving and Light
Houses"; and taking home at night the "Note Books of Samuel Butler." I
began the morrow, very likely, with an "omnibus article" lumping
together five books on the Panama Canal. And then, as the publishers
of the latest book on art had turned in a double-column
hundred-agate-line "ad" the week before, it was necessary to do
something serious "for" that masterpiece. I reviewed a dictionary and
a couple of cookery books. At the holiday season I polished off a
jumble of Christmas and New Year's cards, a pile of picture calendars,
and a table full of "juveniles." Woman suffrage, alcoholism, New
Thought, socialism, minor poetry, big game hunting, militarism,
athletics, architecture, eugenics, industry, European travel,
education, eroticism, red blood fiction, humour, uplift books, white
slavery, nature study, aviation, bygone kings (and their mistresses),
statesmen, scientists, poverty, disease, and crime, I had always with
me. I became a slightly bald reviewer.
Books of theology and of philosophy were given out to a theologian;
books concerning the dramatic art were done by the dramatic critic; and
those on music went to the music critic. We had an occasional letter
from Paris on current French literature.
In addition to writing (for I was an editor), I read the "literary"
galley proofs; "made up" once a week down in the composing room late at
night; compiled the feature variously called in different papers _Books
Received_, _Books of the Week_, or _The Newest Books_; and got out the
correspondence of the literary department--with publishers and with
fools who write in about things. I also went over the foreign
exchange, that is: clipped literary notes out of foreign papers. Once
a month I surveyed the current magazines. I worked in the office on
every holiday of the year except Christmas and New Year's, and
frequently on Sundays at home.
With a view to attracting the intellectual elite to a profession where
this class is needed, I will tell you what I got for this. It should
be understood, however, that I was with one of the great papers, which
paid a scale of generous salaries. Mine was forty dollars a week.
That is a good deal of money for a literary man to earn regularly.
But--
I did, indeed, have an assistant in this office; there was a person
associated with me who took the responsibility of everything in the
department that was excellent. That is, I was "assistant literary
editor." Few newspapers can afford to employ a chief solely for each
department. It is recognised that the work of the literary editor can
be economically combined with that of the dramatic editor, or with that
of the art critic; or the art critic runs the Saturday supplement, or
some such thing. My chief looked in every day or so, and frequently,
perhaps in striving for exact honesty I should say regularly,
contributed reviews. He directed the policy of the department,
subject, of course, to criticism from "down stairs."
But (as I was about to say above) that regular income is very
uncertain. Universities cultivate a sense of security in their
professors, in order to obtain loyal service and lofty endeavour. The
editorial tenure, as all men know, is a house of sand--a summer's
breeze, a wash of the tide, and the editor is a refugee. I know the
editor of literary pages that go far and wide, who has held down that
job now for over a year. That man is troubled: none has ever stood in
his shoes for much longer than that.
"Don't fool yourself," I heard a successful young journalist say the
other day to a very conscientious young reviewer. "Good work won't get
you anything. Play politics, office politics all the while."
Doubtless sound advice, this, for any gainful employment.
Now about that prime department of the press called the business
office. Many people firmly believe that all book reviews--and dramatic
criticisms and editorials--are bought by "the interests." One of the
principal librarians of New York holds this view of reviews. I never
knew a reviewer who was bound to tell anything but the truth as he saw
it. Nor have I ever written in any review a word that I knew to be
false; and I believe that few reviewers do. Because, however, this or
that publishing house was "a friend of ours," or because the husband of
this author used to work for the paper (pure sentiment!), or that one
is a friend of the wife of The Editor (caution!), it has been suggested
to me by my chief that I "go easy" with certain books.
The good reviewer does go easy with most books. It is a mark of his
excellence as a reviewer that he has a catholic taste, that he sees
that books are written to many standards, and that every book, almost,
is meet for some. It is not his business to break things on the wheel;
but to introduce the book before him to its proper audience; always
recognising, of course, sometimes with pleasant subtle irony, its
limitations. It is only when a book pretends to be what it is not,
that he damns it. All that is not business, but sensible, sensitive
criticism.
To return. The business office exerts not a direct but a moral
influence, so to put it, upon the literary department. Business tact
must be recognised. A hostile review already in type and in the plan
of the next issue may be "killed" when a large "ad" announcing books
brought out by the publisher of this one so treated comes in for the
next paper; and then search is made for a book from the same publisher
which may be favourably reviewed. Or a hostile review may be held over
until a time more politic for its release, say following several
enthusiastic reviews. And there is no sense in noticing in one issue a
disproportionate number of books published by one house.
In concluding my discussion I will draw two portraits of professional
reviewers, one composite of a class, the other a picture of a man who
stands at the top of his profession.
Seated at his desk is a little man with a pointed beard and a large
bald spot on top of his head. This man has been all his life a
literary hack. He has read manuscript for publishing houses; he has
novelised popular plays for ha-penny papers, and dramatised trashy
novels for cheap producers; he has done routine chore writing in
magazine offices, made translations for pirate publishers, and picked
up an odd sum now and then by a "Sunday story." He has always been an
anonymous writer. He has never had sufficient intellectual character
to do anything well. The downward side of middle age finds him
afflicted with various physical ailments, entirely dependent upon a
precarious position at a moderate salary, without influential friends,
completely disillusioned, with a mediocre mind now much fagged, devoid
of high ambition, and with a most unstimulating prospect before him.
His attitude toward the business of book reviewing is that he wishes he
had gone into the tailor business or that his father had left him a
grocery store. He would not have succeeded, however, as either a
tailor or a grocer, as he has even less business than literary ability.
Farther, he regards himself as a gentleman, and books strike him as
being more gentlemanly than trade. He has got along as well as he has,
by bluff about his extensive acquaintance with literature, and his long
experience in writing and publishing.
This type of reviewing man says that he does the thing "mechanically."
About the new crop of juvenile books, let us say, he says the same
thing again now that he said four years ago. "One idea every other
paragraph," is his principle, and he thinks it sufficient in a review.
Sufficient, that is, to "get by." And whatever gets by, in his view,
"pleases them just as well as anything else." Our friend of this
character has a considerable number of stock remarks which may at any
time be written very rapidly. One of these sentences is: "This book
furnishes capital reading;" another says that this book "is welcome;"
and he holds as a general principle that, "the reviewer who reads the
book is lost."
Occasionally, very occasionally, there is found among reviewers the
type of old-fashioned person who used to be called a "man of letters."
This is a wild dream, but it would be a grand thing for American
reviewing if every one of our young reviewers could have for an hour
each week the moral benefit of the society of such a man. I know one
who now has been active in New York literary journalism for something
like thirty years--a fine intellectual figure of a man. He makes his
living out of this, indeed, but his interest is in the thing itself, in
literature. He has all that one really needs in the world, he has the
esteem of the most estimable people, and he follows with unceasing
pleasure a delightful occupation. He is as keen to-day, he declares,
on the "right way of putting three words together" as he was when he
began to write. His mellow, witty, and gentlemanly style is saturated
with the sounds, scents and colours of literature. The exercise of his
cultivated judgment is not a trade, but a sacred trust. To look at him
and to think of his admirable career is to realise the dignity of his
calling--discussing with authority the books of the world as they come
from the press.
VI
LITERARY LEVITIES IN LONDOW
Now it's a funny thing, that, come to think of it. Some folks have
questioned whether, the other way round, it could be done in this
country at all. It's a pleasant view anyhow that the matter presents
of that curious affair the English character.
There is a notion knocking about over here that considerable rigmarole
is required to meet an Englishman. And very probably few who have
tried it would dispute that it is somewhat difficult to "meet" an
ordinary Englishman to whom you are not known in a railway carriage.
With the big 'uns, however, the business appears to be simple enough.
Foolish doings do clutter up one's luggage with letters of introduction
when all that is needed to board round with the most celebrated people
in England is a glance at a "Who's Who" in a public library to get
addresses.
For the purpose of convenience the writer of these souvenirs will refer
to himself as "I" and "me." I was all done up in health and was
advised by doctors to clear out at once. So I bought a steamship
ticket, packed a kit bag, crossed the water and took a couple of
strolls about that island over there; when, feeling fitter, I turned up
in London for a look about.
It sort of came over me that in my haste of departure I had neglected
to bring any of my friends along, or to equip myself with the means of
making others here. I was unarmed, so to say--a "Yank" in an obviously
hostile country. This, you see, was before the war, before we and
Britain had got so genuinely sweet on one another.
At that time I had two acquaintances resident in London. One, a
Bostonian, whose attention was quite occupied with a new addition to
his family; the other was the errand man stationed before my place of
abode. He was an amiable soul, whose companionable nature, worldly
wisdom and topographical knowledge I much appreciated. He instructed
me in the culinary subject of "bubble and squeak" and many other
learned matters; but unfortunately his social connections were limited
to one class.
One time not a great while back I happened to review in succession for
a New York paper several books by Hilaire Belloc. Mr. Belloc had
written me a note thanking me for these reviews. I decided to write
Mr. Belloc that I was in London and to ask if he could spare a moment
for me to look at him, Mr. Belloc being one of my literary passions.
Then an ambitious idea popped into my head. I determined to write the
same request to all the people in England I had ever reviewed.
Reviewing, mostly anonymous, had been my business for several years,
with other literary chores on the side. I communicated to Mr.
Chesterton the fact that I had come over to look about, told him my
belief that he was one of the noblest and most interesting monuments in
England, and asked him if he supposed that he could be "viewed" by me,
at some street corner, say, at a time appointed, as he rumbled past in
his triumphal car.
Writing to famous people that you don't know is somewhat like the drink
habit. It is easy to begin; it is pleasurably stimulating; it soon
fastens itself upon you to the extent that it is exceedingly difficult
to stop indulgence and it leads you straight to excess. I wound up, I
think, with Hugh Walpole. I had liked that "Fortitude" thing very much.
My Englishised Boston friend--he's the worst Englishman I saw over
there--simply threw up his hands. He groaned and fell into a chair.
"Holy cat!" he cried, or English words to that effect, "you can't come
over here and do that way. It's not done," he declared. "You can't
meet Englishmen in that fashion. These people will think you are a
wild, bounding red Indian. They'll all go out of town until you leave
the country."
Well, I saw it was awfully bad. I have disgraced the U.S.A. That's
what comes of having crude notions about meeting people. I felt pretty
cheap. I felt sorry for my friend too, because he had to stay there
where he lived and try to hold his head up while I could slink off back
home. My friend pointed out to me that Mr. Chesterton and the other
gentlemen had only my word for it that I had any connection with
literature, and that as far as they were aware I might be the worst
kind of crook, and at the very best was in all likelihood a very great
bore.
Annie, the maid at my lodgings, handed me a bunch of mail. Mr. Belloc
was particularly eager to see me, he said. He gave me an intimate two
page account of his movements for the past couple of weeks or so. He
had just been out to sea in his boat, the _Nona_, and had only got back
after a good deal of difficulty outside; this he hoped would account
for the delay of a day or so in his reply.
During the Whitsun days he had to travel about England to see his
children at their various schools, and after that he had to go to
settle again about his boat, where she lay in a Welsh port. Then he
must speak at Eton. He would be "available," however, at the beginning
of the next week, when he hoped I would "take a meal" with him.
Perhaps he could be of some use in acquainting me with England; it
would be such a pleasure to meet me, and so on. Very nice attitude for
a man so slightly acquainted with one.
Mr. Chesterton wished to thank me for my letter and to say that he
would be pleased if I cared to come down to spend an afternoon with him
at Beaconsfield. Mr. Walpole apologised very greatly for seeming so
curtly inhospitable, but he was only in London for a short time and had
difficulty in squeezing his engagements in. This week, too, was
infernally complicated by Ascot. But couldn't I come round on Monday
to lunch with him at his club?
Mr. Chesterton is a grand man. Smokes excellent cigars. But first, as
you come up the hill, from the railway station toward the old part of
the village and to the little house Overroads, you enter, as like as
not, as I did, a gate set in a pleasant hedge, and you knock at a side
door, to the mirth later of Mrs. Chesterton.
This agreeable entrance is that for tradesmen. The way you should have
gone in is round somewhere on another road. A maid admits you to a
small parlour and in a moment Mrs. Chesterton comes in to inquire if
you have an appointment with her husband. She always speaks of Mr.
Chesterton as "my husband." It develops that the letter you sent
fixing the appointment got balled up in some way. It further develops
that a good many things connected with Mr. Chesterton's life and house
get balled up. Mrs. Chesterton's line seems to be to keep things about
a chaotic husband as straight as possible.
Mr. Chesterton is a very fat man. His portraits, I think, hardly do
him sufficient honour in this respect. He has a remarkably red face.
And a smallish moustache, lightish in colour against this background.
His expression is extraordinarily innocent; he looks like a monstrous
infant. A tumbled mane tops him off. He sits in his parlour in a very
small chair.
Did I write him when I was coming? Wonder what became of the letter?
Doesn't remember it. Perhaps it is in his dressing gown. Has a habit
of sticking things that interest him into the pocket of his dressing
gown. Where, do you suppose, is his dressing gown? However, no
matter. "Have a cigar. Do have a cigar. Wonder where my cigars are!
Where are my cigars?" Mrs. Chesterton locates them.
Now about that poem, "The Inn at the End of the World," or some such
thing. He is inclined to think that he did write it, but he cannot
remember where it was published. Now he has lost his glasses,
ridiculously small glasses, which he has been continually attempting to
fix firmly upon his nose. Slapping yourself about the chest is an
excellent way to find glasses.
Well, it is very flattering to be told that one is so well known in
America. But so he had heard before. Describes himself as a
"philosophical journalist." Did not know that there was an audience in
America for his kind of writing. Wonders whether democracy as carried
on there "on such a gigantic scale" can keep right on successfully.
Admits a division between our two peoples. "Trenches have been dug
between us," he declares.
Rises to a remark about the Englishman's everlasting garden. "He likes
to have a little fringe about him," he says. And then tells a little
story, which one might say contains all the elements of his art.
When he first came to Beaconsfield, Mr. Chesterton said, the policemen
used to touch their helmets to him, until he told them to stop it.
Because, he said, he felt that rather he should touch his hat to the
policemen. "Saluting the colours, as it were," he explained. "For,"
he added, "are they not officers of the King?"
Mr. Chesterton apologised for being, as he put it, excessively
talkative. This was occasioned, he said, by "worry and fatigue." I
declined to stay for tea, as I noticed a chugging car awaiting in front
of the house. "You must come to see me again," said the grand young
man of England. The last I saw of him he was rolling through his
garden, tossing his mane; the famous garden that rose up and hit him,
you remember, at the time of his unfortunate fall.
Fine time I had with young Walpole. Those English certainly have the
drop on us in the matter of clubs. They live about in the haunts
beloved of Thackeray, and everybody else you ever heard of. Pleasant
place, the Garrick. Something like our Players, but better. Slick
collection of old portraits. Fine bust there of Will Shakespeare,
found bottled up in some old passage.
Fashionable young man, Walpole. I can't remember exactly whether or
not he had on all these things; but he's the sort that, if he had on
nothing, would look as if he had: silk topper, spats, buttonhole
bouquet. Asked me if I had yet been to Ascot. "Oh, you must go to
Ascot." Buys his cigarettes, in that English way, in bulk, not by the
box. "Stuff some in your pocket," he said. "Won't you have a whiskey
and soda?"
Difficult person to talk with, as the only English he knows is the
King's English. I was endeavouring to explain that I had left New York
rather suddenly. "I just beat it, you know," I said.
"You beat it?" said Mr. Walpole.
"Yes, I just up and skidooed."
"You skidooed?"
I saw that I should have to talk like John Milton. "Sure," I said, "I
left without much preparation." And then we spoke of some writer I do
not care for. "I don't get him," I said.
"You don't get him?" inquired Mr. Walpole.
"No," I said, "I can't see him at all."
"You can't see him?" queried Mr. Walpole.
More Milton, I perceived. "I quite fail," I said, "to appreciate the
gentleman's writings."
Mr. Walpole got that.
"Fortitude" had done him very well. The idea of Russia had always
fascinated him; he had enough money to run him for a couple of years,
and he was leaving shortly for Russia. "Is there any one here you
would like me to help you to see?" he asked. Queer way for a gentleman
to treat a probable crook. "Have you met Mr. James?" Walpole was very
strong with Mr. James, it seemed.
Read aloud a letter just received from Mr. James, which he had been
fingering, to show that his informal, epistolary style was identical
with that of his recent autobiographical writings, which we had been
discussing. "Bennett, of course you should see Arnold Bennett." Great
friend of Walpole's. "And Mrs. Belloc Lowndes," said Mr. Walpole, "you
really must know her; knows as much about the writing game as any one
in England. I'll write those three letters to-night."
Suddenly he asked me if I were married. "All Americans are," was his
comment. He had to be going. Some stupid affair, he said, for the
evening. We walked together around into the Strand. "Well, good-bye,"
said Mr. Walpole, extending his hand, "I've got to beat it now."