(_BY OUR SPECIAL LITERARY PARASITE_.)
The public already know something of the painful difficulties under
which novelists labour at the present moment owing to the paper
shortage and the enhanced cost of book production. But "the economic
consequences of the Peace" by no means exhaust the handicaps of the
conscientious and sensitive novelist. We are glad therefore to note
the efforts of _The Daily Graphic_ to enlist the sympathy of the
public on behalf of this sorely tried and meritorious class. Our
contemporary tells us, for example, of one momentous writer who was
reduced to dictating blindfold "because the facial peculiarities of
first one and then another amanuensis" upset her equanimity. Then
there is the tragic story of Mr. R.L. HITCHENS, who, being engaged
to write an article against time, sent out for a stenographer, who on
arrival proved to be a man with a large black beard of so sinister
an aspect that Mr. HICHINS was forced to dismiss him and write the
article in his own hand. Yet Mr. HICHENSis not easily put off, for we
learn that he finds he works best in big hotels and not, as we might
have guessed, in the sequestered tranquillity of a minaret.
To some writers solitude is the true school of genius. Yet Sir
LEWIS MORRIS found some of his happiest thoughts come to him while
travelling in the underground, while Mr. W.B. YEATS records a similar
experience as the result of a journey on the top of a tram-car. Your
advanced modernists, with MARINETTI at their head, find their best
stimulus to creative effort in the clang and clatter of machinery.
_per contra_, to return to _The Daily Graphic_, Mrs. C.N. WILLIAMSON
must have pretty things to look at "in business hours." But the
happiest of all our authors is Madame ALBANESI, who "finds her
brain-spur in a blank sheet of paper, and not the ghost of an idea
what she is going to write about." Less fortunate writers labour
assiduously only to leave the minds of their readers a blank, without
the ghost of an idea of what the author has been writing about.
It is a pity that Mr. W.L. GEORGE, in his interesting survey of modern
writers of fiction in the _English Review_, has told us nothing
about the methods of the "Neo-Victorians" and "Semi-Victorians,"
the "Edwardians" and "belated Edwardians," and the "Georgians" and
"Neo-Georgians." With all these classes he deals faithfully. But his
criticism is purely literary. He fails to tell us the things that
every reader wants to know. It is all very well to say that the
neo-Georgians "paint in ink," but he ought to have mentioned whether
it is green or red. Does Miss DOROTHY RICHARDSON dictate to the sound
of trumpets, garbed in crimson trouserloons? Does Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT
cantillate his "copy" into the horn of a graphophone or use a
motor-stylus? Does Mr. SIEGRIED SASSOON beat his breast with one hand
while he plays the loud bassoon with the other? Does Mr. ALEC WAUGH
use sermon-paper or foolscap? Does Mr. ALDOUS HUXLEY keep a tame
gorilla? These are the really illuminating details that we hunger for.
Without them it is impossible to appreciate the artistry of our young
Masters. Mr. W.L. GEORGE has given us a glimpse of the working of
their brains; let him now reveal to us the secrets of their workshops.
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[Illustration: "THERE'S THAT DASHED BULL OF YOURS IN MY FIELD AGAIN!
ONE OF THSES DAYS I'LL--I'LL--WRING ITS CONFOUNDED NECK!"
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