There were times when Rickman, harassed by his engagement, reviewed
his literary position with dismay. Of success as men count success, he
had none. He was recognized as a poet by perhaps a score of people; to
a few hundreds he was a mere name in the literary papers; to the great
mass of his fellow-countrymen he was not even a name. He had gone his
own way and remained obscure; while his friends, Jewdwine and Maddox,
had gone theirs and won for themselves solid reputations. As for
Rankin (turned novelist) he had achieved celebrity. They had not been
able to impart to him the secret of success. But the recognition and
something more than recognition of the veteran poet consoled him for
the years of failure, and he felt that he could go through many such
on the strength of it.
The incident was so momentous that he was moved to speak of it to
Jewdwine and to Maddox. As everything that interested him interested
Maddox, he related it to Maddox in full; but with Jewdwine (such was
his exceeding delicacy) he observed a certain modest reticence. Still
there was no diminution in his engaging candour, his innocent
assumption that Jewdwine would be as pleased and excited as Maddox and
himself.
"He really seemed," said he, selecting from among Fielding's
utterances, "to think the things were great."
Jewdwine raised his eyebrows. "My dear Rickman, I congratulate you."
He paused for so long that his next remark, thoughtfully produced,
seemed to have no reference to Rickman's communication. "Fielding is
getting very old." If Rickman had been in a state of mind to attend
carefully to Jewdwine's manner, he might have gathered that the
incident had caused him some uneasiness.
It had indeed provided the editor of _The Museion_ with much matter
for disagreeable thought. As it happened (after months of grave
deliberation), he had lately had occasion to form a very definite
opinion as to the value of Rickman the journalist. He knew that
Rickman the journalist had no more deadly enemy than Rickman the poet;
and at that particular moment he did not greatly care to be reminded
of his existence. Jewdwine's attitude to Rickman and his confidences
was the result of a change in the attitude of _The Museion_ and its
proprietors. _The Museion_ was on the eve of a revolution, and to
Jewdwine as its editor Rickman the journalist had suddenly become
invaluable.
The revolution itself was not altogether sudden. For many months the
behaviour of _The Museion_ had been a spectacle of great joy to the
young men of its contemporary, _The Planet_. The spirit of competition
had latterly seized upon that most severely academic of reviews, and
it was now making desperate efforts to be popular. It was as if a
middle-aged and absent-minded don, suddenly alive to the existence of
athletic sports in his neighbourhood, should insist on entering
himself for all the events, clothed, uniquely, if inappropriately, in
cap and gown. He would be a very moving figure in the eyes of
hilarious and immortal youth. And such a figure did _The Museion_ in
its latter days present. But the proprietors were going to change all
that. _The Museion_ was about to be withdrawn from circulation and
reissued in a new form under the new title of _Metropolis_. As if
aware of the shocking incongruity it was going to fling off its cap
and gown. Whatever its staying power might be, its spirit and its
outward appearance should henceforth in no way differ from those of
other competitors in the race for money and position.
While the details of the change were being planned in the offices of
_The Museion_, the burning question for the proprietors was this:
would their editor, their great, their unique and lonely editor, be
prepared to go with them? Or would he (and with him his brilliant and
enthusiastic staff) insist on standing by the principles that had been
the glory of the paper and its ruin? Mr. Jewdwine had shown himself
fairly amenable so far, but would he be any use to them when it really
came to the point?
To Jewdwine that point was the turning-point in his career. He had
had to put that burning question to himself. Was he, after all,
prepared to stand by his principles? It was pretty certain that if he
did, his principles would not stand by him. Was there anything in them
that _would_ stand at all against the brutal pressure that was
moulding literature at the present hour? No organ of philosophic
criticism could (at the present hour) exist, unless created and
maintained by Jewdwine single-handed and at vast expense. His position
was becoming more unique and more lonely every day, quite intolerably
lonely and unique. For Jewdwine after all was human. He longed for
eminence, but not for such eminence as meant isolation. Isolation is
not powerful; and even more than for eminence he longed for power. He
longed for it with the passion of a weak will governed despotically by
a strong intellect. It amounted to a positive obsession, the tyranny
of a cold and sane idea. He knew perfectly well now what his position
as editor of _The Museion_ was worth. Compared with that great, that
noble but solitary person, even Maddox had more power. But the editor
of _Metropolis_, by a few trifling concessions to the spirit of
modernity, would in a very short time carry all before him. He must
then either run with the race or drop out of it altogether; and
between these two courses, Jewdwine, with all his genius for
hesitation, could not waver. After much deliberation he had consented
(not without some show of condescension) to give his name and
leadership to Metropolis; and he reaped the reward of his plasticity
in a substantial addition to his income.
This great change in the organization of the review called for certain
corresponding changes in its staff. And it was here that Rickman came
in. He had been retained on _The Museion_ partly in recognition of his
brilliance, partly by way of satisfying the claims of Jewdwine's
magnanimity. On _The Museion_ he had not proved plastic either as
sub-editor or as contributor. He did not fit in well with the
traditions of the paper; for he was, to Jewdwine, modernity incarnate,
the living spirit of revolt, to be bound down with difficulty by the
editorial hand. Looking back on the record of the past four years
Jewdwine marvelled how and why it was that he had kept him. A score
of times he had been tempted to dismiss him after some fresh enormity;
and a score of times Rickman had endeared himself by the seductive
graces of his style. But Rickman on the staff of _Metropolis_ was,
Jewdwine considered, Rickman in the right place. Not only could he now
be allowed to let loose his joyous individuality without prejudice to
the principles of that paper (for the paper strictly speaking would
have no principles), but he was indispensable if it was to preserve
the distinction which its editor still desired. Jewdwine had no need
of the poet; but of the journalistic side of Rickman he had endless
need. It was a baser faculty, but his care must be to develop it, to
train it, to handle it judiciously, until by handling he had made it
pliable to all the uses of his paper. Jewdwine had a genius for
licking young men into shape. He could hardly recognize that band of
awkward and enthusiastic followers in his present highly disciplined
and meritorious staff. None of them were like Rickman; none of them
had done anything to rouse an uneasy suspicion of their genius. Still,
none of them were precisely fitted for his present purpose. Rickman
the poet, of course, you could not lick into shape. His shape, plastic
only under the divine fire, was fashioned by the fingers of the god.
But Rickman the journalist, once get him on to the right journal,
would prove to be made of less unmanageable stuff. If he had not
hitherto proved manageable, that was no doubt because hitherto he had
been employed on the wrong journal.
And yet, when he came to discuss the change of programme with the
different members of his staff (some of whom he was giving their
dismissal), it was with Rickman (whom he proposed to retain) that he
felt the most acute embarrassment. Rickman, although at the moment
dining with Jewdwine, was so abominably direct.
"I see," he said, after listening to a lengthy exposition of the
proprietors' view; "they want to popularize the thing."
Jewdwine winced perceptibly. "Well, hardly," said he. "In that case
they would have been obliged to change their editor. We certainly want
to draw a rather larger public than we have done; and to do that we
must make _some_ concessions to modernity. There's no doubt that the
paper's interests have suffered from its tradition. We have been too
exclusive, too detached. We can no longer afford to be detached. We
propose to abandon the tradition in favour of--well--of a somewhat
broader attitude." He looked keenly at Rickman, as if he defied him to
put it any other way.
"I see. We've either got to take a more genial view of our
contemporaries--or scoot."
"You may put it that way if you like. It simply means that if we are
to appeal to a wider public, we must take a wider view. It's surely in
the interests of the public, _and_ of literature, that we should not
narrow the influence of the paper any more than we can help. Not make
the best criticism inaccessible." He continued to take the lofty and
the noble view. The habit was inveterate. But his last remark started
him on the way of self-justification. "Of course I couldn't go on with
the paper if I hadn't come to see this for myself. The fact is, you
cannot run a leading review on abstract principles."
Rickman forbore to smile at the fulfilment of his prophecy. Jewdwine's
"Absolute" had been obliged to "climb down."
"Not," said Jewdwine, "if that review is really to lead public
opinion."
"And certainly not," said Rickman, "if public opinion is to lead the
review."
"In either case," said Jewdwine nobly, "the principles remain."
"Only they're not applied?"
"They are not applied, because there is nothing to apply them to. In
the present state of literature a review like _The Museion_ has no
reason for its existence."
"I don't know. It was a very useful protest against some forms of
modernity."
"My dear fellow, modernity simply means democracy. And when once
democracy has been forced on us there's no good protesting any
longer."
"All the same, you'll go on protesting, you know."
"As a harmless private person, yes. As a critic I must accept a
certain amount of defeat at the hands of the majority."
"But you don't happen to believe in the majority?"
"I do believe in it," said he, bitterly. "I believe that it has
destroyed criticism by destroying literature. A critic only exists
through the existence of great men. And there are no great men
nowadays; only a great number of little men."
"I see. Othello's occupation's gone."
"Not at all. Othello's occupation's only beginning. You can't
criticize these people, but you must review them. And I assure you it
means far more labour and a finer discrimination to pick out your
little man from a crowd of little men than to recognize your great man
when you see him."
"When you see him--"
"Ah yes--_when_ I see him. But where is he? Show me," said Jewdwine,
"one work of unmistakable genius published any time in the last five,
the last ten years."
Rickman looked at him and said nothing. And to Jewdwine his silence
was singularly uncomfortable. He would have been more uneasy still but
for his conviction that the serenity in Rickman's eyes was reflected
from the eyes of Fielding. Rickman, he thought, was rather too
obviously elated at the great man's praise; and the exhibition of
elation was unpleasant to him. Worse than all, he realized that
Rickman, in spite of his serenity, was hurt. On the top of that came a
miserable misgiving as to the worthiness of his own attitude to his
friend.
As for Rickman, he had no feeling that he could have put into words,
beyond owning in his heart that he was hurt. He had never before had
any occasion for such a confession; he felt it to be humiliating both
to Jewdwine and himself. Sometimes, in moments of depression he had
suspected that it was Jewdwine's coldness that preserved his
incorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in their
relations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezing
process that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the day
when, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul,
hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he owned
that he was hurt.
Jewdwine changed the subject.