And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at least, that here and
there some reader may be found not wholly blind to this book's goal,
whatever be his opinion as to this book's success in reaching it. Yet
many honest souls there be among us average-novel-readers in whose eyes
this volume must rest content to figure as a collection of short
stories having naught in common beyond the feature that each deals with
the _affaires du coeur_ of a poet.
Such must always be the book's interpretation by mental indolence. The
fact is incontestable; and this fact in itself may be taken as
sufficient to establish the inexpediency of publishing _The Certain
Hour_. For that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" is
notorious to all publishers. To offset the axiom there are no doubt
incongruous phenomena--ranging from the continued popularity of the
Bible to the present general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing the
rather unaccountable vogue of "O. Henry";--but, none the less, the
superstition has its force.
Here intervenes the multifariousness of man, pointed out somewhere by
Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, which enables the individual to be at once a
vegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a Democrat, and
an immortal spirit. As a rational person, one may debonairly consider
_The Certain Hour_ possesses as large license to look like a volume of
short stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its customary guise of
a two-volume history; but as an average-novel-reader, one must vote
otherwise. As an average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very book
which, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write through long
consideration of the drama already suggested--that immemorial drama of
the desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscure
martyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor.
Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament with a fixed force
does not forthwith begin another story when the locale of combat
shifts. The case is, rather, as when--with certainly an intervening
change of apparel--Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium and
Pharsalus, or as when General Grant successively encounters General Lee
at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox. The
combatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is the same, the
tragedy has continuity. And even so, from the time of Sire Raimbaut to
that of John Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrily
confronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in this fleet hour of
my vigor, may one write perfectly of beautiful happenings?
Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch as we
average-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent to both logic and good
writing. And always the fact remains that to the mentally indolent
this book may well seem a volume of disconnected short stories. All of
us being more or less mentally indolent, this possibility constitutes a
dire fault.
Three other damning objections will readily obtrude themselves: _The
Certain Hour_ deals with past epochs--beginning before the introduction
of dinner-forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when people
used to waltz and two-step--dead eras in which we average-novel-readers
are not interested; _The Certain Hour_ assumes an appreciable amount of
culture and information on its purchaser's part, which we
average-novel-readers either lack or, else, are unaccustomed to employ
in connection with reading for pastime; and--in our eyes the crowning
misdemeanor--_The Certain Hour_ is not "vital."
Having thus candidly confessed these faults committed as the writer of
this book, it is still possible in human multifariousness to consider
their enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional
reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-reader--by a
representative of that potent class whose preferences dictate the
nature and main trend of modern American literature. And to do this,
it may be, throws no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existent
problem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write perfectly of
beautiful happenings?