She woke, and thought of the deep red hole she had seen.
And she reflected on her strange meeting with X. Y. Z. of the
_Athenæum_, and the 'Religious Spirit' of the _Pall Mall_.
And she also thought what a playful and hilarious personage God
was.
Then she remembered she had had late supper the previous evening.
Which accounted for 'Dreams.'
* * * * *
The sunlight still lies now and then across the bed of the woman
from South Africa.
It is a way the sunlight has.
And God laughs, as well He may."
Now I hope everybody sees what a "touching simplicity" there is, what
a child-like familiarity with the Deity pervades the whole of this
"prose poem." And yet there is a "subtlety," a candour, a strange
melancholy, a curious cynicism, and a weirdness of conception and
strong picturesqueness about its every line. It is unique in itself; it
wants no explanation, because it says everything in the fewest words.
It has a diction as innocent and unadorned as that of an infant's
first spelling-book. And all the best critics I know want authors
to let "brevity be the soul of wit," and to tell their stories as
concisely as possible. If I were a novel-maker and wished to please
the critics, I should write my "thrillers" in telegram form; twelve or
twenty-four words to a chapter. Then I am sure I should get very well
reviewed. Critics have no time to read any thoroughly finished and
careful work--they seldom can do more than scan the first page and the
last. I know this, being a Critic myself, and I think it is a thousand
pities authors should take any trouble to write a middle part to their
stories. An Ollendorf curtness of wording is always desirable, unless,
indeed, one happens to be a George Meredith, and can manage to get
cleverly involved in a long sentence which takes time to decipher, and
when deciphered has literally no meaning at all. Then of course one is
a genius at once; but such masterly art is rare. And so on the whole I
like the "allegory" style best, because it is both brief and obscure
at the same time. It has the surface appearance of simplicity, but its
depth--ah! it is surprising to what a depth you can go in an allegory.
You can fall down a regular well of thought and go fast asleep at
the bottom, and when you wake up you wonder what it was all about,
and you have to begin that allegory over again. That is what I call
"reading"--hard reading--sensible reading. I like a thing you can never
make head or tail of--the brain fattens on such provender. I am going
to write out several dozen "Dreams" by and by--some of the queer ones I
have had after a bout of champagne, for example--and I shall give them
_gratis_ to the _Pall Mall_ with my fondest blessing. If there is "one
bright particular star" in the sphere of journalism I worship more than
another it is the _Pall Mall_, and I feel I can never do too much for
it. And it likes "dreams" and little innocent religious allegories,
because it is so good itself, and, like the boy Washington, has "never
told a lie." I have always considered that the _Pall Mall_ and the
German Kaiser are the only two earthly institutions "God" can favour,
seeing that, according to the lady from South Africa, He has taken
to "laughing" at most things. It is a pleasant picture, that of God
laughing--one, too, not to be found in all the Bible. There the Deity
has been represented as angry, jealous, reproachful, or benignant, but
it has been left to South African literary skill to show us how He
"laughed." And as the _Pall Mall_ thinks it all right that He _should_
laugh, why then we ought to coincide unanimously in the _Pall Mall's_
opinion. Because just imagine what London would be without the _Pall
Mall_! Can mind conceive a more hideous desert?--a more wildly howling
desolation? We should be left friendless and all unguided without our
angel of reform; our clean, white-winged, heavenly, truthful Apostle
of Northumberland Street, who is always able to tell us what is good
and what is bad; who can inform us all, statesmen, clerics, authors,
artists, and day-labourers, exactly what we ought and what we ought
not to do. In the event of another Deluge (and some of the scientists
assure us we shall have it soon) I know of a way in which some few of
us might be saved; that is, some few with whom "God" is delighted,
such as myself and the German Kaiser. We should simply require to make
friends with the _Pall Mall_ staff, (several of the members are ladies,
and how charming to have their society!), and build an ark out of
planks from the _Pall Mall_ office floors. We should then paste it all
over with _Pall Mall_ placards of the latest accounts of the Flood up
to date of sailing, for the fishes to read, and then we should get into
it; we who were the elected ones (including the Kaiser of course), and
off we would go in smiling safety, secure from winds and waves, being
the only "just people" left on a corrupted earth. And if in the end we
found another Mount Ararat, and it were left to the governing body,
_i.e._, the _Pall Mall_ staff and the German Kaiser, to begin a new
world ... O ye gods and little fishes! What a world it would be!
XII.
QUESTIONETH CONCERNING THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.
Standing still too long is rather monotonous work. How Socrates could
have managed to remain a whole night on his feet in meditation is one
of those strange historical circumstances that have always puzzled me.
Now here have I been only a few minutes at rest; only dreaming one
little "dream" of how I, together with the Kaiser and the _Pall Mall_,
am going to set to work in the general renovation and improvement of
mankind, and yet I am as tired and bored and disposed to yawn as any
of the gaping people in the crowd who have stopped a second to listen
to me. Let me pass on, good folk!--I will e'en resume my indolent,
aimless way, for truly there are many things to be seen both wise and
wonderful, which even a strolling player would not miss. Only I will,
with everybody's good leave, avoid that black and stagnant quagmire
of literary matter that stretches its unseemly length across the
social arena. 'Tis a veritable mud-trap, a dismal Slough of Despond,
into which I once fell heedlessly, all through the force of example.
I saw others (some of whom I respected) making for the Slough, and I
followed. When my friends ran to it straight and tumbled in, I did
likewise, and wallowed in the mud with those who were near and dear
to me. I stayed there heroically till I was nearly suffocated, then,
unable to bear it any longer, I made a strong effort and scrambled out,
melancholy and depressed, but--free. Free, and wise enough not to be
cajoled into those black depths again. You see I have not yet shaken
off my allegorical humour, and I am just now speaking allegorically.
For the benefit of those who are slow to perceive the "subtle" meaning
of an allegory I do not mind condescending to explain that by the
Slough of Despond I mean the great, sticky, woful, heterogeneous
mass of Magazine Literature. What is the use of it? Why is it with
us? Who wants such productions as the magazines of England, when the
magazines of America can be had? Americans know how to make their
magazines interesting; Englishmen do not. I beg some one who is well
instructed in these matters to tell me where I can find the abnormal
beings who derive any real intellectual benefit from the ponderous
pages of the _Nineteenth Century_, for example? Little Knowles sits in
his editorial chair even as an angler sits by a stream, assiduously
fishing for names and nothing more. He allows Gladstone to write
the purest nonsense about "Dante at Oxford," simply because he _is_
Gladstone. He takes poorly-written articles on public questions from
lords and dukes simply because they _are_ lords and dukes. Genius
weighs as nothing with him--titles and passing notorieties that "draw"
are everything. Then we have the _Contemporary_, the _Fortnightly_, the
_New Review_, the _Quarterly_, all on the same "deadly lively" level.
The _Quarterly_ still boasts of its bygone villainous attack on Keats,
for not so very long ago it said that it considered that in-"famous"
criticism perfectly justifiable. Satisfied with itself in this regard,
it praises Hall Caine! O gods of Olympus! There is also the venerable
_Blackwood_, of whose mild chimney-corner prattle it were cruel to
take serious observation. And there is _Temple Bar_, _The Argosy_,
_London Society_, _Belgravia_, and hosts of mild imitations of these;
yet taken altogether the magazines published in London do not give in
their entirety half as much satisfaction or well-written information
to the reader as the American _Century_ magazine, or _Harper's_. This
fact helps to emphasize the general "behindhand" tendency of literary
things in Great Britain, as compared to those same things in America.
Even the children's magazines in the "States" are interesting, and
full of concise, simple, pleasantly-worded knowledge, but here, if
you want pure, undiluted literary drivel, buy a child's magazine.
However, it must be remembered that Americans generally, young and
old, like to acquire information; perhaps they feel they do not yet
know everything. The English, on the contrary, have a rooted aversion
to being instructed, inasmuch as every true-born Britisher considers
himself about equal to the Deity in omniscience.
Most of us, I suppose, have heard of Charles Dickens and his immortal
novels, the most wholesome, humane, sympathetic, and heart-invigorating
books that ever, by happy fortune, were given to the public. And I
daresay we remember in "Little Dorrit" the lively young man connected
with the "Circumlocution Office," who very strenuously objected to the
existence of people who "wanted to know, you know." Now I am one of
those people. I want to know, you know, why we should have about us
all these little marshy literary mud-pools which make up the British
magazine Slough of Despond. I want those curiously-minded beings who
read (and buy) the magazines, and follow all the dreadful "serials"
therein, to "stand forth and deliver." I want to know, you know,
how they manage to do it? Whether they feel good after it? Whether
they ever read anything else? And what opinions they have formed on
literature by this means? Whether they accept the verse in _Temple
Bar_, for example, as actual poetry? Or the short stories and articles
as samples of good terse English style? Whether they find their
brains developing under the fine humour of _Belgravia_? Whether their
intellectual faculties are roused by a study of _The Strand Magazine_
(which began well, but is now as monotonous as the rest) or _The
English Illustrated_? I want to know, you know. Who laugheth at _The
Idler_? Who rejoiceth in _Macmillan's_? And who on God's good earth
can stand _The Novel Review_? What happy saints peruse _The Leisure
Hour_?--what angels sit down to con the pages of _Cassell's Family
Magazine_? Who bothereth himself with _The Bookman_? Who conceiveth
it agreeable to read _Longman's_ or _The Gentleman's Magazine_?
There must be people who do these things; and, certainly, by a wild
stretch of imagination, I can picture a fat mamma glancing casually at
_Belgravia_, the while she watches her eldest girl's flirtation with
a "moneyed" suitor out of the corner of her eye; I can also deem it
possible that a paunchy paterfamilias might cut the pages of _Temple
Bar_ and hand it in as a delicate attention to his children's governess
in the schoolroom. But further than this I cannot go. It may be that
the magazines exist for the domestic circle only--the English domestic
circle, of course. For other countries' domestic circles they would not
serve. I think all those interesting females who are understood to be
"good mothers," ladies with high maternal foreheads and small chins,
very likely read the magazines. They do not want to study, they do
not want to learn, they never require to read anything but the tamest
stuff, just to pass away an hour between lunch and afternoon-tea. These
are the only individuals I can connect with magazine literature. But,
of course, I may be wrong. There may be intellectual persons who accept
the varied utterances of the _Nineteenth Century_ and _Fortnightly_ as
gospel. I can understand any one liking the _Review of Reviews_. That
serves a purpose, and is admirably done. Apart from its adoration of
the _Pall Mall Gazette_, it is really an excellently managed concern.
That and the _Century_ suffice me--the American _Century_ I mean, not
the Nineteenth Century, which will hardly enter the Twentieth. Quite
recently, one Edward Delille severely slated the American press and
American literature generally, with the hysterical passion of those
lady-writers who, to use reviewer's parlance, "let down their back hair
and scream." Rather unkind of Edward, considering that rumour asserts
him to be American himself. A man should stick up for his own country
or get re-nationalised. Does Delille find English magazine literature
superior to that of America? If he does, he deserves his fate! Let him
wallow, as I did, in the Slough of Despond, till he groweth weary, and
when he crieth, "Help! release me!" let no one answer. For the Slough
is the ruin of all originally-minded men; and any novelist who writes
magazine serials is simply committing literary suicide. His name grows
stale to the public ear, his stories lose point, his style lacks proper
warmth, and his very thoughts grow crippled. In a work of true art the
creator should be free as air and answerable to none, not even to that
Olympian god, a magazine editor.
But because I now avoid the Slough of Despond I do not want others
to avoid it. On the contrary, I love to see a certain class of folk
stuck in the mud. I feel they could not be in a better plight, and
I enjoy the spectacle. Moreover, "by their magazines ye shall know
them." Their conversation, their ideas, their opinions, all are
taken out of the magazines. This is beautiful and edifying. The lady
who talks _Temple Bar_ has naturally a calmer view of life than the
gentleman who talks _Nineteenth Century_. The sweet thing who murmurs
_Chambers's Journal_ is not so worldly-wise as her friend who utters
_New Review_. The man at the club who converses _Quarterly_ may or may
not agree with him who pronounceth _Contemporary_. And so on. It is
like the Baths of Leuk, where every mud-bather has, if he likes, his
own private floating-table, with writing materials and cup of coffee.
But the mud is everywhere all the same, and every man is stuck in it
like a sort of civilised tadpole. And what is always a mystery to me
is how so many magazines manage to "pay." For of course they must pay,
or else they would not be kept going. However, there are various such
social mysteries, which not even the most astute person can fathom.
And I am not astute. I simply "notice" things. As for attempting to
take any sort of correct measure of the fancies and "fads" of the
British Public, that is impossible. Such humours are more "occult"
than theosophy itself. Frenchmen cannot understand "Madame Grundée."
Neither can I. She is always an incomprehensible old lady at the best
of times, but when she takes to reading all the magazines and liking
the literature therein contained, she becomes a spectacled Sphinx,
the riddle of whose social existence is not worth the solving. And in
its bovine tolerance of such an excess of stupid ephemeral literary
matter Great Britain proves for the millionth time how _un_-literary
and inartistic it is as a nation. But I am not going to be angry about
it. I always laugh at these things. They do not affect me personally,
as I am out of them. And I must never forget that I have reason to be
grateful to at least one magazine out of the mass--_The Fortnightly_.
It was lent to me by a friend as a cure for insomnia. It succeeded
perfectly. Three pages of a long political article sufficed; a gentle
drowsiness stole over me, a misty vagueness possessed my brain, and
I, who had been restless for many nights, now under the somnolent
spell of excellent Frank Harris, slept the sleep of the just. Others
have derived the same benefit by the same means, so I am told,
wherefore Harris is a benefactor to his kind. His magazine is the
one little oasis in the Slough where tired folks may find rest, if
not refreshment, and people who want a peaceful nap should go there
straight. As for me, I am out of the Slough altogether--I merely stand
near the brink and look on. And my observations are addressed to
nobody. I soliloquise for my own pleasure, like Hamlet, and, with that
psychological Dane, may assure everybody who is concerned about me that
"I am only mad nor-nor-east; when the wind blows southerly I know a
hawk from a heron-shaw."
XIII.
DESCRIBETH THE PIOUS PUBLISHER.
The pious publisher is a man who always says "God bless you!" to the
author he is cheating. "God bless you!" is easily said, sounds well,
and costs nothing, all of which is important. The more "profit" the
pious publisher can make out of the individual he blesses, the more
fervent is his benediction. Now, it is not pleasant to have to mistrust
a blessing, and yet, out of the vague interest I have always taken
in all human imps born of the ink-pot, I would advise them not to
bow with too much childlike humility and confidence to the blessing
of the pious publisher. If it is a particularly earnest and friendly
benediction,--well! it might be advisable to see how "royalties"
are getting on. The pious publisher does not bless you for nothing,
depend upon it. You are not his relative; he has no cause to love you
or ask the Almighty to look after you, unless he is making a "good
thing" out of you, in which case he is grateful, after a peculiar
manner of his own. Perhaps he feels he can order a few dozen extra
old brands of port; perhaps, too, he will find it possible to have
a certain improvement carried out in his dwelling which he has long
meditated, all through you--you, a successful author whose books have
had an extra large sale unknown to yourself. And, naturally, he looks
at you with a moist and kindly eye; his heart swells paternally, and
the blessing rises to his lips almost involuntarily. He surveys with
gentle complacency the modest arrangements of your house--the tact
by which worn-out furniture is concealed by "art" antimacassars,
the efforts to "make both ends meet" which are proudly visible in
every room, and he grows blander and blander. He admires the "art"
coverings--he admires the furniture--he admires everything. He does
not mind lunching with you--oh, not at all. And while at luncheon he
advises you, patronisingly, sagely, as to how you should write your
next book. You have your own ideas--yes, yes, that is right, that is
very good! it is proper for you to have your own ideas, but it is
also advisable for you to bring those ideas into keeping with the
ordinary public taste. Ordinary, mark you! not extraordinary. There
are certain subjects you should try to avoid, as being unpleasing to
the mind of the respectable middle classes. For example, new notions
with regard to religion are dangerous! yes, yes, dangerous and doubtful
too--doubtful as regards a "sale." Then, bigamy is not a pleasant
subject. It would cause eruptions to break out on the cheek of the
Young Person, and it would not secure any chance as a "gift-book."
Then, a murder is a painful thing!--exceedingly painful--you must
leave out murder. And, for Heaven's sake, do not enter into any
question of suicide--it is a morbid taste, and a book dealing with it
in any powerful or striking manner would be quite tabooed from the
middle-class family circle, especially in the provinces. A forgery
might be introduced, if the forger turned out to be a manly hero in the
end and properly repentant--and a little (the pious publisher would say
"a leetle") illicit love would not be objectionable--in fact, it might
be made highly saleable if a curate and a housemaid were the guilty
parties, and there were a child born who turned out to be the heir to
five millions, and the erring curate set things right in the usual
thirty-one-and-sixpenny way. But nothing should be drawn too strong;
you understand? no luscious colouring of any sort--keep the imagination
well in check--tint the canvas grey--and make the book one that will be
bought by stout, moral-minded parents, for slim, no-minded young women,
and it is sure of a sale--sure! And thus the pious publisher pleasantly
adviseth, the while the heart of the listening author sinks lower
and lower, and his soul sickens, gasping for the strong, broad eagle
freedom of flight, which while he works for a pious publisher never
will be his.
It is a curious fact, but the pious publisher apparently possesses a
very naïve, innocent, and undefiled nature. He does not know the world
at all, or if he does, he has no idea of its wickedness. When he is
told of some dreadful social scandal he does not believe it--dear, dear
no! he cannot believe it. He is a round, paunchy man, is the pious
publisher, bald-headed, clean-shaven, with an eminently respectable
expression of countenance, and an ostentatious assertion of honesty in
the very set of his clothes. He has a soft voice and a conciliating
smile, and he gets on best with women authors. He tells them first how
well they are looking--his next step is to call them "my dear." They
are frequently much touched by this, and in the yielding softness of
their hearts, forget to nail him down to "terms." Even the fiercest,
ugliest "blue-stocking" that ever lived is conscious of a nervous quiver
through the iron fibres of her soul, when the fat, unctuous, kindly,
pious publisher, unawed by her stem features, says "My dear." There is
a delicate something in his tone which pleasantly persuades her that,
after all, it is possible she may be good-looking. Unconsciously she
relaxes in severity, and he drives his bargain home with such sweet
firmness as to entirely succeed in having his own way--a way which,
whether it lead to advantage or loss, she, poor "blue," is generally
too weak to dispute. "My dear" is a phrase that will not work on the
minds of men authors of course, so the pious publisher, when he has
to do with the "virile" sex, substitutes "My boy!" and accompanies
this epithet with a hearty, encouraging clap on the shoulder. When
the author in question is too old and frail (as well as too reduced
to misery by the machinations of pious publishers) to be impressed by
this jovial "My boy!" the pious publisher is not at a loss. No! He then
says "My dear fellow," in gentle, serious, sympathetic accents. This
frequently produces a good effect. It is indeed remarkable what an
impression these meaningless, apparently kindly, short phrases have on
the weary minds of authors when uttered by the pious publisher. It is
ridiculous in a way, but pitiful too. No consciousness of intellectual
supremacy will ever eradicate from the human heart the craving for
human sympathy, and the biggest author that ever wielded potent pen has
no proof-armour against the simple magic of a kindly word. And tired
out with long thinking and labour, it may be that sometimes the pious
publisher's "dear fellow" hits a sensitive little place in the author's
complex mechanism, somewhere about where the tears are (if any author
is permitted to have tears), and he becomes dimly soothed by the simple
phrase, so soothed as to actually fancy he has found--a friend! And in
the little "arrangement" made for his work the pious publisher scores
again--heavily, as usual.