where he was scared of the waiters. This probably was not the Reform
Club, as he was very much at home there and loved the place. However,
just the outside of this "mausoleum" in Pall Mall scared Mr. Hopkinson
Smith, who had been inside a few clubs here and there, and who spoke,
in a sketch of London, of its "forbidding" aspect, "a great, square,
sullen mass of granite, frowning at you from under its heavy browed
windows--an aloof, stately, cold and unwelcome sort of place."
An aristocratic functionary, probably a superannuated member of
Parliament, placed me under arrest at the door, and in a vast, marble
pillared hall I was held on suspicion to await the arrival of Mr.
Belloc.
A large, brawny man he is, with massive shoulders, a prizefighter's
head, a fine, clean shaven face and a bull neck. Somehow he suggested
to me--though I do not clearly remember the picture--the portrait of
William Blake by Thomas Phillips, R.A., in the National Portrait
Gallery, frequently reproduced in books.
He gives your hand a hearty wrench, turns and strides ahead of you into
another room. You--and small boys in buttons, with cards and letters
on platters, to whom he pays no attention--trot after him. A driving,
forceful, dominating character, apparently. Looks at his watch
frequently. Perpetually up and down from town, he says, and
continually rushing about London. Keen on the job, evidently, all the
while.
He does not know how far you are acquainted with England; "there is a
wonderful lot of things to be seen in the island." Tells you all sorts
of unusual places to go; how, somewhere in the north, you can walk
along a Roman wall for ever so long, "a wonderful experience." Makes
your head spin, he knows so much that you never thought of about
England.
Discussing a tremendous meeting later on, where all the literary
nobility of London are to be with you, he follows you down the steps
when you go. Later forgets, in the crush of his affairs, all about
this arrangement. Then sends you telegrams and basketfuls of letters
of apology, with further invitations.
"Here you are, sir! All the winners! One penny." This had been the
cry of the news lads but the week before.
"England to fight! Here you are, sir. Britain at war!" suddenly they
began to yell through the streets.
It was not an hour now, I felt, to trouble Englishmen with my petty
literary adventures. Also, I became a refugee, to some extent. And,
well--I "beat it" back 'ome again. This was the only way I knew, as a
neutral (then), to serve the countries at war.
VII
HENRY JAMES, HIMSELF
We have now to record an extraordinary adventure. Our later education
was derived in some considerable measure from the writings of Mr. Henry
James. This to explain our emotion. We had never expected to behold
himself, the illustrious expatriate who had so far enlightened an
unkempt mind. But the night before we had been talking of him.
Indeed, it is impossible for us to fail to perceive here something of
the supernatural.
But hold! "William Edwards," says a newspaper notice, "who used to
drive a post stage between New York and Albany, died on Saturday at his
home. He was born in Albany," and so and so, "and many were the
stories he had to tell of incidents connected with the famous men who
were his passengers." Even so. We were ourselves a clerk. That is,
for a number of years we waited on customers in a celebrated book shop.
This is one of the stories we have to tell of the personages who were,
so to say, our passengers. Or perhaps we are more in the nature of
those unscrupulous English footmen to high society, of whom we have
heard, who "sell out" their observation and information to the society
press.
Anyhow, we are of a loquacious, gossipy turn; and we were booksellers,
so to speak, to crowned heads. We have recently heard, too, of another
precedent to our garrulous performance, the publication in Rome of the
memoirs of an old waiter, who carefully set down the relative
liberality of prominent persons whom he served. After having served
Cardinals Rampolla and Merry del Val, this excellent memoirist entered
opposite their names, "Both no good." With this we drop the defensive.
We noticed Mr. Wharton sitting down, legs crossed, smoking a cigar.
Awaiting, we presumed, his wife. A not unpicturesque figure, tall,
rather dashing in effect, ruddy visage, dragoon moustache, and habited
in a light, smartly-cut sack suit of rather arresting checks,
conspicuous grey spats; a gentleman manifesting no interest whatever in
his surroundings.
Mr. Brownell, the critic, entered through the front door and moved to
the elevator.
There stepped from the elevator car a somewhat portly little man who
joined Mr. Wharton. He wore a rather queer looking, very big derby
hat, oddly flat on top. His shoulders were hooped up somewhat like the
figure of Joseph Choate. A rather funny, square, box-like body on
little legs. An English look to his clothes. Under his arm an
odd-looking club of a walking-stick. Mr. Brownell turned quickly to
this rather amusing though not undistinguished figure, and said, "Mr.
James--Brownell." The quaint gentleman took off his big hat,
discovering to our intent curiosity a polished bald dome, and began
instantly to talk, very earnestly, steadily, in a moderately pitched
voice, gesticulating with an even rhythmic beat with his right hand,
raised close to his face.
Joined presently by Mrs. Wharton, the party, bidding Mr. Brownell
adieu, took a somewhat humorous departure (we felt) from the shop; Mr.
James, with some suddenness, preceding out the door. Moving nimbly up
the Avenue, he was overhauled by Mrs. Wharton under full sail, who
attached herself to his arm. Her husband by an energetic forward play
around the end achieved her other wing. In this formation, sticks
flashing, skirt whipping, with a somewhat spirited mien, the august
spectacle receded from our rapt view, to be at length obliterated as a
unit by the general human scene.
We saw Mr. James after this a number of times. Accompanied again by
Mrs. Wharton, and later in the charge (such was the effect) of another
lady, who, we understood, drives regularly to her social chariot
literary lions. In something like six years' observation of the human
being in a book shop, we have never seen any person so thoroughly in a
book store, a magazine, that is, of books, as Mr. James. One can be,
you know--it is most common, indeed--in a book store and at the same
time not be in a book store--any more than if one were in a hotel
lobby. Mr. James "snooked" around the shop. He ran his nose over the
tables, and inch by inch (he must be very shortsighted) along the
walls, stood on tiptoe and pulled down volumes from high places,
rummaged in dark corners, was apparently oblivious of the presence of
anything but the books. He was not the slightest in a hurry. He would
have been, we felt, content and quite happy, like a child with blocks,
to play this way by himself all day.
Happening, by our close proximity, to turn to us the first time in the
shop that he required attention, upon each succeeding visit he sought
out us to attend to his wishes. The position of retail salesman "on
the floor" is one completely exposed to every human attitude and
humour. Against arrogance, against contempt of himself as a shop
person, a species of "counter-jumper," against irascibility, against
bigoted ignorance, against an indissoluble assumption, perhaps logical,
that he is of inferior mentality, this factotum has no defence. His
very business is to meet all with amenity. It is his daily portion,
included in the material with which he works.
It (he finds) injures him not, essentially; it ceases to particularly
affect him, beyond his inward appraisement of the character before him.
Toward him one acts simply in accordance with the instincts of one's
nature. His status counsels no constraint, invites no display, has no
property of stimulation. Thus the view of a famous man's character
from the position of retail clerk is valuable. Mr. James's manner with
Mr. Brownell would hardly be the same as toward us. But it was,
exactly. There was present in his mind at the moment, was quite
apparent, absolutely no consciousness of any distance of mind, or
position, between him and us. He sought conversation (any suggestion
of so equalising a thing as conversation with a clerk is not uncommonly
repressed by the important as preposterous). In his own talk with us,
he seemed to us to be a man consciously striving with the material of
words and sentences to express his thought as well as he could.
He was very earnest. He looked up at us constantly (we are a little
tall) with fixed concentration of gaze, and moved his hand to and fro
as though seeking to balance his ideas. He asked questions with
deference. Among other things, he desired very much to know what per
cent. of the novels on the fiction table was the product of writers in
England. "I live in England myself," he said, very simply, "and I am
curious to know this." He expressed a little impatience at the
measureless flood of mediocre fiction, making a fluttering gesture
conveying a sense of impotence to give it attention. He barely glanced
at the pile of his own book, and did not mention it. He did not seem
at first (though we believe later he changed this opinion) to think
highly of Arnold Bennett (this was at the first bloom of Mr. Bennett's
vogue here), nor to have read him. "Oh, yes, yes; he is an English
journalist," in a tone as though, merely a journalist. Clear artist in
fibre. When he took his departure he bade us "Good day," and lifted
his hat.
Succeeding visits caused us to suspect that Mr. James's ideas of the
machinery of business are somewhat naive. He seemed to regard us as,
so to say, the whole works. It entered our head that maybe Mr. James
thought we received and answered all manner of correspondence,
editorial as well as that connected with the retail business, opened up
in the morning, read, accepted, and rejected manuscript, nailed up
boxes for shipment, swept out the shop, and were acquainted perfectly
with all confidential matters of the House. "I wrote you" (us), "you
know," he said. And he referred by the way, apparently upon the
assumption that the matter had been laid before us, to business of
which we could not possibly have cognizance. And then he desired to
send some books. Fumbling in his breast pocket, he produced a letter,
from which he read aloud a list of his own works apparently requested
of him. Carefully replacing his letter, he said: "I should like to
send these books to my sister-in-law." With that he started out.
Now, it was not a difficult problem to assume that this could be no
other than Mrs. William James, still, it is customary for purchasers to
state the name of the person to whom goods are to go, and many people
are sceptical that the salesman has it down right even then. "Your
sister-in-law, Mr. James, is------?" we suggested. "Oh, yes, of
course--of course; Mrs. William James; of course--of course," Mr. James
said. Now, certainly, he supposed (it was evident) he had got finally
settled a difficult and complicated piece of business. Mrs. William
James's regular address we might reasonably infer. Still it might be
that she was at the moment somewhere else, on a visit. It were better
to have Mr. James give his order in the regular way. "And the
address?" we mentioned. "Oh, yes--oh, yes; of course--of course," Mr.
James said apologetically. Then, pausing a moment to see if there was
anything more in this bewildering labyrinth of details to such a
complex transaction, he departed, taking, as he drew away, his hat, as
Mrs. Nickleby says, "completely off."
Instead of ascending directly to that regal domain which is unaware of
our existence, Mr. James, with the inclination of a bow, approached us
one day and inquired, in a manner as though the decision rested largely
with us, whether he "could see" the head of the firm. The lady who was
his escort swept past him. "Oh, I am sure he will see him," she
declared; "this" (with impressive awe) "is Mr. James." Had we said,
No, right off the bat, so to say, like that, we believe (unchampioned)
Mr. James would have gently withdrawn.
VIII
MEMORIES OF A MANUSCRIPT
I was born in Indiana. That was several years ago, and I have since
seen a good deal of the world. I was reading in a newspaper the other
day of a new film which shows on the screen the innumerable adventures
of a book in the making, from the time the manuscript is accepted to
the point where the completed volume is delivered into the hands of the
reader. And it struck me that the intimate life of a manuscript before
it is accepted might be even more curious to the general public. The
career of many an obscure manuscript, I reflected, doubtless is much
more romantic than its character. I wonder why, I said, manuscripts
have all been so uncommonly reticent concerning themselves. But
manuscripts, one recollects, have sensitive natures; and their
experiences, at least the experiences of those not born to a great
name, could hardly be called flattering to their feelings. Indeed,
manuscripts suffer much humiliation, doubtless little suspected of the
world. And it requires a manuscript strong in the spirit of detachment
to lay bare its heart.
My parent--manuscripts commonly have but one parent--bore me great
love; indeed I think he loved me beyond everything else in the world.
He was a young man apprenticed to the law, but he cared more for me, I
think, than for his calling, which I suspect he decidedly neglected for
my sake. I know that in his family he was held a rather disappointing
young man; but his family did not know the fervour of his heart, or the
tenacity of purpose of which he was capable. He toiled over my
up-bringing for two years, and often and often into the very small
hours. I think I was never altogether absent from his thoughts, even
when he was abroad about his business or his pleasure. I was his first
manuscript--his first, that is, that ever grew up. And though I know
he was not ashamed but very proud of me, he attempted to keep my
existence something of a secret. I could not but feel that as I
developed I was a great happiness to him, and yet at times he would
give way to black discouragement about me. I know that I have passages
which caused him intense pain to bring about. Throughout the time of
my growth my dear parent alternated between periods of high exultation
and of keen torture. As time passed he became more and more completely
absorbed in me. When my climax came into sight he fell to working upon
me with exceeding fury, and in the construction of my climax it was
plain that he wrestled with much agony--an agony, however, which seemed
to be a kind of strange, mad joy.
And then one night (I remember a storm raged without) my parent came to
me with a wild, yet happy, light on his face. He pounded at me harder
than ever before; and at intervals paced the floor, up and down, up and
down, like a man demented, throwing innumerable half-smoked cigarettes
over everywhere. The wind blew, and the little frame house strained
and groaned in its timbers. As he bent over me a face enwrapt,
striking the keys with a quick, nervous touch, great tears started from
my dear parent's eyes. Then, it must have been near dawn and the
little room hung and swayed in a golden fog of tobacco smoke, I knew
that I was finished. My parent was bending over my last page like a
six-day bicycle racer over his machine, when he straightened up,
raising his hands, and drove his right fist into his left palm.
"Done!" he cried, and started from his chair to pace the room in such a
frenzy as I had never seen him in before. It was fully half an hour
before his excitement abated, when he fell back into his chair, and
smoked incessantly until the light of morning paled our lamp. At
length I noticed he had ceased to smoke, his head gradually slipped
backward, his eyes closed, and he slept. Thus I was born and brought
up and grew to manuscript's estate in a little Middle-Western town, on
a rented typewriter.
One day shortly after this I was packed up with great care and very
carefully addressed, and under my parent's arm I boarded an interurban
car. We new over the friendly-looking Hoosier landscape, and at length
rolled into the interurban station of the bustling capital, the largest
city I had as yet seen. I did not see much of it, however, on this
first visit, as we went quickly around the handsome Soldiers' Monument
to the office of the American Express Company on Meridian Street. I
was given over in charge of a man there who very briskly weighed me and
asked my parent my value. My parent seemed to be in a good deal of a
dilemma as to this. He hemmed and hawed and finally replied: "Well, I
hardly know."
"Is its value inestimable?" inquired the clerk. "Why, in a way I guess
you might say it is," said my parent.
Finally, against the clerk's mounting impatience, an estimate was
effected, and I was declared to be worth $500. I was cast carelessly
on to a pile of other packages of various shapes and sizes, and my
parent, giving me a farewell lingering look of love, went out the door.
Of my journey there is not much to say. I arrived in New York amid a
prodigious crush of packages, and was delivered, in company with about
a dozen others, which I knew to be brother or rival, manuscripts, at
the office of a great publishing house. Here I was signed for, and, in
the course of the day, unwrapped. I was ticketed with a number and my
title, and placed in a tall cabinet, where I remained in the society of
several shelves full of other manuscripts for a number of days. Here I
was delighted to find quite a coterie of fellow-Hoosiers. But a
remarkable proportion of my associates, I discovered, was from the
South. The majority of us hailed from small towns. In our company
were three or four of somewhat distinguished lineage.
As time passed and nothing happened, I grew somewhat nervous, as I knew
with what anxiety my dear parent in Indiana would be counting the days.
One of my new-found friends, a portly manuscript (a story of
sponge-fishers) that had been out of the cabinet and had had a reading
before my arrival, told me in the way of gossip something of the
situation at the moment in this house. My friend was an old
campaigner, very ragged and battered in appearance, and had been (I was
appalled to hear) submitted to seventeen publishing houses before
arriving here. It had lost all hope of any justice in the publishing
world, and was very cynical. Heavens! would I------
However, it appeared that at this house the first reader had just been
obliged to take a vacation owing to ill-health occasioned by too
assiduous application to her task of attempting to keep somewhere
abreast of the incoming flood of manuscripts. She was, it seems, a
large elderly lady who had tried out her own talents as a novelist
without marked success some twenty years ago. Her niece, a miss of
twenty or so, who had a fancy for an editorial career and who had
vainly been seeking a situation of this character for some time, found
a windfall in the instant need for a substitute first reader. It was
with some petulance, it struck me, that she yanked the door open one
day. She was, apparently, showing some one about her office. "All
that," she said, waving her hand toward my case, "practically
untouched; and mountains besides. I don't know how I'm to get away
with it. I suppose I'll have to do a couple every night." I don't
know what time it was, but the light was going and the young lady had
got into bed when she began to read me, propped up against her knees.
She yawned now and then and sighed repeatedly as she shifted back my
pages. I thought I noticed that her, knees swayed, just perceptibly,
at times. Then suddenly my support sank to one side; I started to
slide, and would have plunged to the floor, very nearly pulling her
after me, if the disturbance had not as suddenly caught the young lady
back into wild consciousness, and she grabbed me and her knees and the
slipping bedclothes all in a lump. Shortly after this she turned back
to see how I ended, and then went to sleep comfortably, lights out.
I did not see the report the young lady wrote of me, but I had occasion
to think that she declared I was rather stupid. However, I got another
reading. I was given next to a young man, not, so I understood, a
regular reader, but a member of the advertising department who was
frequently called on to help weed out manuscript, who took me home with
him and threw me onto a couch littered with books and papers. Here I
stayed for ever so long. One day I heard the young man say to his
wife, nodding toward me: "I ought to try to get that unfortunate thing
off my hands before my vacation, but I never seem to get around to it."
As, alack-a-day! he did not get around to me before that occasion, I
went, packed in the bottom of a trunk, with the young man and his wife
on their annual holiday. In my pitchy gaol I had, of course, no means
of calculating the flight of time, but when I next saw the light, after
what seemed to me an interminable spell, I appeared to be the occasion
of some excitement. The young man brought me up after several vigorous
dives into the bottom of the trunk, as his wife was saying with much
energy: "Well, of course, you can do as you please, but if I were you
I'd telegraph an answer right straight back that I did not propose to
spend my vacation working for them. The idea! After all you do!"
"Oh, well," was the young man's reply, "some poor dog of an author
wrote the thing, and it's only right that he should have some kind of
an answer within a reasonable time. I ought to have got around to it
long ago."
Whatever the kind-hearted young man may have said about me I was given
yet another chance. A very business-like chap "took a shot at me," as
he expressed it, one forenoon at his desk, I was considerably
distressed, however, by the confusion and the multiplicity of
interruptions to which his attention to me was subject. When I thought
of the sacred privacy devoted to my creation, the whole-hearted
consecration of my dear parent's life-blood to my being, I felt that
such a reading was little short of criminally unjust. And how could
any one be expected to savour my power and my charm in the midst of
such distractions? The business-like chap sat somewhere near the
middle of a vast floor ranged with desks. In his immediate
neighbourhood a score or more of typewriters were clicking and perhaps
half as many telephones were going. The chap's own telephone rang, it
seemed to me, every five or six pages, and, resting me the while on his
knee, he expectantly awaited the outcome of his secretary's answering
conversation. At frequent intervals he was consulted by colleagues as
to this and that: covers, jackets, electros, fall catalogues, what not?
Nevertheless, he got through me in rather brisk order. At my
conclusion I observed no tears in his eyes. And, it was evident, he
settled my hash, as the phrase is, at this house.
I certainly felt sick at heart in that express car back to the corn
belt. My poor parent, when I again met him, unwrapped me very
tenderly, and sat for a long time turning me through very dully. I
stayed on his desk for several days, and then fared forth again on my
quest, valued this trip at a hundred dollars.
After the initial formalities, I fell this time first into the hands of
a driving sort of fellow who had the air of being perpetually up to his
neck in work, and who handed me to his wife with the remark: "Here's
another job for you tomorrow. Make a careful, working synopsis of the
story, and I'll dip into the manuscript here and there when I come home
to get a line on the style and general character of the thing." The
next night, after rustling energetically through me, he wrote out his
report, and, passing it to his wife, said: "There are no outright
mis-statements of fact as to the plot in that, are there?"