WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK
It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite
sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its
newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few
years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was
obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature,
rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected
quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent,
was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is
breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his
personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his
fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be
pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper
that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed
more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would
stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about
him in _The Tyrian Daily Mail_, and that he intended to buy "the work"
as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little
flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be
purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a
proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he
would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making
notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song!
Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to
these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of
batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say
for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another,
Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce
that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty
pounds profit to share between them.
That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had
never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling
moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles
turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should
undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted
gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus
Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles.
Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike,
Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then
spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his
extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was
not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal
ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love?
Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a
delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe
to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as
the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's
unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always
behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet,
there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring,
unseen, the nutritive oil of praise.
This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to
Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the
charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She
had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the
letter coldly.
"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?"
"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry.
"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers."
"Angel dear, what _do_ you mean?"
"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an
ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the
world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!"
"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each
other, are we to have no other friends?"
"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to
see their letters."
"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those
discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be
accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's
faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help
him with his.
The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the
London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young
London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already
tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of
'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office
of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known"
officially stamped upon it.
He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall
try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether
it will be 'not known' then!"
The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen
from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready,
he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was
beginning already to smile.
But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was,
at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first
publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his
twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step
into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the
three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr.
Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman.
"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious
consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I
would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly
acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more
satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But,
unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit,
has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of
commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as
business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us,
though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier,
you have recently published a book."
Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed
of.
"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of
his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have
seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying,
like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but
its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is
that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use
our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long
as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled
again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by
your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no
longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an
acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may
have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to
buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you
with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his
own humour.
"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my
services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to
hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none.
"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope
you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both
for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an
old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out
of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but
take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and
so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and
sincere well-wishers."
The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense
of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful
task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be
something of a nuisance to business-men.
When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided
in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the
adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's
time his preliminary meals were to come from.
Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of
freedom all things might be hoped.
Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks,
and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be
at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere
custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may
have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances
at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his
office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and,
unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training,
humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others.
They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future
would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them.
His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so
soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over
wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had
heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were
he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged
in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the
temples to mark the lapse of time.
And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard,
with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached,
he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold
into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked £5
apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed.
And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long
since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in
some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to
make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or
another of those partners followed the opening of the front door.
The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of
tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his
father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas
Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"?
Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human.
For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to
follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset?
Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am
yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so
invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and
dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the
end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and
Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home.
Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than
he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his
place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or
two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon
for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little
dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern.
Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little
emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to
his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and
admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection.
Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose,
with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the
evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated
for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were
to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard
and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little
world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already
published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still
this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but
they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was
certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take
him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The
chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of
the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they
had spent together.
The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality,
Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring
them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no
worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best
fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with
reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years
had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was
not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume
of Henry's life was finally closed.