Traits that make a child disagreeable are apt to be perpetuated in the
adult. The bumptious, impudent, selfish, “hateful” boy may become a
man of force, of learning, of decided capacity, even of polish and
good manners, and score success, so that those who know him say how
remarkable it is that such a “knurly” lad should have turned out
so well. But some exigency in his career, it may be extraordinary
prosperity or bitter defeat, may at any moment reveal the radical traits
of the boy, the original ignoble nature. The world says that it is
a “throwing back”; it is probably only a persistence of the original
meanness under all the overlaid cultivation and restraint.
Without bothering itself about the recondite problems of heredity or
the influence of environment, the world wisely makes great account of
“stock.” The peasant nature, which may be a very different thing from
the peasant condition, persists, and shows itself in business affairs,
in literature, even in the artist. No marriage is wisely contracted
without consideration of “stock.” The admirable qualities which make a
union one of mutual respect and enduring affection--the generosities,
the magnanimities, the courage of soul, the crystalline truthfulness,
the endurance of ill fortune and of prosperity--are commonly the
persistence of the character of the stock.
We can get on with surface weaknesses and eccentricities, and even
disagreeable peculiarities, if the substratum of character is sound.
There is no woman or man so difficult--to get on with, whatever his
or her graces or accomplishments, as the one “you don't know where to
find,” as the phrase is. Indeed, it has come to pass that the highest
and final eulogy ever given to a man, either in public or private life,
is that he is one “you can tie to.” And when you find a woman of that
sort you do not need to explain to the cynical the wisdom of the Creator
in making the most attractive and fascinating sex.
The traits, good and bad, persist; they may be veneered or restrained,
they are seldom eradicated. All the traits that made the great Napoleon
worshiped, hated, and feared existed in the little Bonaparte, as
perfectly as the pea-pod in the flower. The whole of the First Empire
was smirched with Corsican vulgarity. The world always reckons with
these radical influences that go to make up a family. One of the first
questions asked by an old politician, who knew his world thoroughly,
about any man becoming prominent, when there was a discussion of his
probable action, was, “Whom did he marry?”
There are exceptions to this general rule, and they are always
noticeable when they occur--this deviation from the traits of the
earliest years--and offer material fox some of the subtlest and most
interesting studies of the novelist.
It was impossible for those who met Philip Burnett after he had left
college, and taken his degree in the law-school, and spent a year, more
or less studiously, in Europe, to really know him if they had not known
the dreaming boy in his early home, with all the limitations as well as
the vitalizing influences of his start in life. And on the contrary, the
error of the neighbors of a lad in forecasting his career comes from the
fact that they do not know him. The verdict about Philip would probably
have been that he was a very nice sort of a boy, but that he would never
“set the North River on fire.” There was a headstrong, selfish, pushing
sort of boy, one of Philip's older schoolmates, who had become one of
the foremost merchants and operators in New York, and was already talked
of for mayor. This success was the sort that fulfilled the rural idea of
getting on in the world, whereas Philip's accomplishments, seen through
the veneer of conceit which they had occasioned him to take on, did not
commend themselves as anything worth while. Accomplishments rarely do
unless they are translated into visible position or into the currency
of the realm. How else can they be judged? Does not the great public
involuntarily respect the author rather for the sale of his books than
for the books themselves?
The period of Philip's novitiate--those most important years from his
acquaintance with Celia Howard to the attainment of his professional
degree--was most interesting to him, but the story of it would not
detain the reader of exciting fiction. He had elected to use his little
patrimony in making himself instead of in making money--if merely
following his inclination could be called an election. If he had
reasoned about it he would have known that the few thousands of dollars
left to him from his father's estate, if judiciously invested in
business, would have grown to a good sum when he came of age, and he
would by that time have come into business habits, so that all he would
need to do would be to go on and make more money. If he had reasoned
more deeply he would have seen that by this process he would become
a man of comparatively few resources for the enjoyment of life, and a
person of very little interest to himself or to anybody else. So perhaps
it was just as well that he followed his instincts and postponed the
making of money until he had made himself, though he was to have a good
many bitter days when the possession of money seemed to him about the
one thing desirable.
It was Celia, who had been his constant counselor and tormentor, about
the time when she was beginning to feel a little shy and long-legged,
in her short skirts, who had, in a romantic sympathy with his tastes,
opposed his going into a “store” as a clerk, which seemed to the boy at
one time an ideal situation for a young man.
“A store, indeed!” cried the young lady; “pomatum on your hair, and a
grin on your face; snip, snip, snip, calico, ribbons, yard-stick; 'It's
very becoming, miss, that color; this is only a sample, only a remnant,
but I shall have a new stock in by Friday; anything else, ma'am, today?'
Sho! Philip, for a man!”
Fortunately for Philip there lived in the village an old waif, a
scholarly oddity, uncommunicative, whose coming to dwell there had
excited much gossip before the inhabitants got used to his odd ways.
Usually reticent and rough of speech--the children thought he was an old
bear--he was nevertheless discovered to be kindly and even charitable
in neighborhood emergencies, and the minister said he was about the most
learned man he ever knew. His history does not concern us, but he was
doubtless one of the men whose talents have failed to connect with
success in anything, who had had his bout with the world, and retired
into peaceful seclusion in an indulgence of a mild pessimism about the
world generally.
He lived alone, except for the rather neutral presence of Aunt Hepsy,
who had formerly been a village tailoress, and whose cottage he had
bought with the proviso that the old woman should continue in it as
“help.” With Aunt Hepsy he was no more communicative than with anybody
else. “He was always readin', when he wasn't goin' fishin' or off in the
woods with his gun, and never made no trouble, and was about the easiest
man to get along with she ever see. You mind your business and he'll
mind his'n.” That was the sum of Aunt Hepsy's delivery about the
recluse, though no doubt her old age was enriched by constant “study”
over his probable history and character. But Aunt Hepsy, since she had
given up tailoring, was something of a recluse herself.
The house was full of books, mostly queer books, “in languages nobody
knows what,” as Aunt Hepsy said, which made Philip open his eyes when he
went there one day to take to the old man a memorandum-book which he had
found on Mill Brook. The recluse took a fancy to the ingenuous lad when
he saw he was interested in books, and perhaps had a mind not much more
practical than his own; the result was an acquaintance, and finally an
intimacy--at which the village wondered until it transpired that Philip
was studying with the old fellow, who was no doubt a poor shack of a
school-teacher in disguise.
It was from this gruff friend that Philip learned Greek and Latin enough
to enable him to enter college, not enough drill and exact training in
either to give him a high stand, but an appreciation of the literatures
about which the old scholar was always enthusiastic. Philip regretted
all his life that he had not been severely drilled in the classics and
mathematics, for he never could become a specialist in anything. But
perhaps, even in this, fate was dealing with him according to his
capacities. And, indeed, he had a greater respect for the scholarship of
his wayside tutor than for the pedantic acquirements of many men he came
to know afterwards. It was from him that Philip learned about books
and how to look for what he wanted to know, and it was he who directed
Philip's taste to the best. When he went off to college the lad had not
a good preparation, but he knew a great deal that would not count in the
entrance examinations.
“You will need all the tools you can get the use of, my boy, in the
struggle,” was the advice of his mentor, “and the things you will need
most may be those you have thought least of. I never go fishing without
both fly and bait.”
Philip was always grateful that before he entered college he had a fine
reading knowledge of French, and that he knew enough German to read and
enjoy Heine's poems and prose, and that he had read, or read in, pretty
much all the English classics.
He used to recall the remark of a lad about his own age, who was on a
vacation visit to Rivervale, and had just been prepared for college
at one of the famous schools. The boys liked each other and were much
together in the summer, and talked about what interested them during
their rambles, carrying the rod or the fowling-piece. Philip naturally
had most to say about the world he knew, which was the world of
books--that is to say, the stored information that had accumulated in
the world. This more and more impressed the trained student, who one day
exclaimed:
“By George! I might have known something if I hadn't been kept at school
all my life.”
Philip's career in college could not have been called notable. He was
not one of the dozen stars in the class-room, but he had a reputation
of another sort. His classmates had a habit of resorting to him if they
wanted to “know anything” outside the text-books, for the range of his
information seemed to them encyclopaedic. On the other hand, he escaped
the reputation of what is called “a good fellow.” He was not so much
unpopular as he was unknown in the college generally, but those who did
know him were tolerant of the fact that he cared more for reading than
for college sports or college politics. It must be confessed that he
added little to the reputation of the university, since his name was
never once mentioned in the public prints--search has been made since
the public came to know him as a writer--as a hero in any crew or team
on any game field. Perhaps it was a little selfish that his muscle
developed in the gymnasium was not put into advertising use for the
university. The excuse was that he had not time to become an athlete,
any more than he had time to spend three years in the discipline of the
regular army, which was in itself an excellent thing.
Celia, in one of her letters--it was during her first year at a woman's
college, when the development of muscle in gymnastics, running, and
the vigorous game of ball was largely engaging the attention of this
enthusiastic young lady--took him to task for his inactivity. “This is
the age of muscle,” she wrote; “the brain is useless in a flabby body,
and probably the brain itself is nothing but concentrated intelligent
muscle. I don't know how men are coming out, but women will never get
the position they have the right to occupy until they are physically the
equals of men.”
Philip had replied, banteringly, that if that were so he had no desire
to enter in a physical competition with women, and that men had better
look out for another field.
But later on, when Celia had got into the swing of the classics, and was
training for a part in the play of “Antigone,” she wrote in a different
strain, though she would have denied that the change had any relation to
the fact that she had strained her back in a rowing-match. She did not
apologize for her former advice, but she was all aglow about the Greek
drama, and made reference to Aspasia as an intellectual type of what
women might become. “I didn't ever tell you how envious I used to be
when you were studying Greek with that old codger in Rivervale, and
could talk about Athens and all that. Next time we meet, I can tell
you, it will be Greek meets Greek. I do hope you have not dropped the
classics and gone in for the modern notion of being real and practical.
If I ever hear of your writing 'real' poetry--it is supposed to be real
if it is in dialect or misspelled! never will write you again, much less
speak to you.”
Whatever this decided young woman was doing at the time she was sure was
the best for everybody to do, and especially for Master Phil.
Now that the days of preparation were over, and Philip found himself
in New York, face to face with the fact that he had nowhere to look for
money to meet the expense of rent, board, and clothes except to his own
daily labor, and that there was another economy besides that which he
had practiced as to luxuries, there were doubtless hours when his faith
wavered a little in the wisdom of the decision that had invested all his
patrimony in himself. He had been fortunate, to be sure, in securing a
clerk's desk in the great law-office of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle, and he
had the kindly encouragement of the firm that, with close application to
business, he would make his way. But even in this he had his misgivings,
for a great part of his acquirements, and those he most valued, did not
seem to be of any use in his office-work. He had a lofty conception of
his chosen profession, as the right arm in the administration of justice
between man and man. In practice, however, it seemed to him that
the object was to win a case rather than to do justice in a case.
Unfortunately, also, he had cultivated his imagination to the extent
that he could see both sides of a case. To see both sides is indeed the
requisite of a great lawyer, but to see the opposite side only in order
to win, as in looking over an opponent's hand in a game of cards. It
seemed to Philip that this clear perception would paralyze his efforts
for one side if he knew it was the wrong side. The argument was that
every cause a man's claim or his defense--ought to be presented in
its fullness and urged with all the advocate's ingenuity, and that the
decision was in the bosom of an immaculate justice on the bench and
the unbiased intelligence in the jury-box. This might be so. But Philip
wondered what would be the effect on his own character and on his
intellect if he indulged much in the habit of making the worse appear
the better cause, and taking up indifferently any side that paid. For
himself, he was inclined always to advise clients to “settle,” and he
fancied that if the occupation of the lawyer was to explain the case
to people ignorant of it, and to champion only the right side, as
it appeared to an unprejudiced, legally trained mind, and to compose
instead of encouraging differences, the law would indeed be a noble
profession, and the natural misunderstandings, ignorance, and different
points of view would make business enough.
“Stuff!” said Mr. Sharp. “If you begin by declining causes you
disapprove of, the public will end by letting you alone in your
self-conceited squeamishness. It's human nature you've got to deal with,
not theories about law and justice. I tell you that men like litigation.
They want to have it out with somebody. And it is better than
fisticuffs.”
From Mr. Hunt, who moved in the serener upper currents of the law,
Philip got more satisfaction.
“Of course, Mr. Burnett, there are miserable squabbles in the law
practice, and contemptible pettifoggers and knaves, and men who will
sell themselves for any dirty work, as there are in most professions and
occupations, but the profession could not exist for a day if it was not
on the whole on the side of law and order and justice.
“No doubt it needs from time to time criticism and reformation. So does
the church. You look at the characters of the really great lawyers! And
there is another thing. In dealing with the cases of our complex life,
there is no accomplishment, no learning in science, art, or literature,
that the successful practitioner will not find it very advantageous to
possess. And a lawyer will never be eminent who has not imagination.”
Philip thought he had a very good chance of exercising his imagination
in the sky chamber where he slept--a capital situation from which to
observe the world. There could not have been an uglier view created--a
shapeless mass of brick and stone and painted wood, a collected,
towering monstrosity of rectangular and inharmonious lines, a realized
dream of hideousness--but for the splendid sky, always changing and
doing all that was possible in the gleams and shadows and the glowing
colors of morning and evening to soften the ambitious work of man; but
for the wide horizon, with patches of green shores and verdant flats
washed by the kindly tide; but for the Highlands and Staten Island,
the gateway to the ocean; but for the great river and the mighty bay
shimmering and twinkling and often iridescent, and the animated life
of sails and steamers, the leviathans of commerce and the playthings of
pleasure, and the beetle-like, monstrous ferry-boats that pushed
their noses through all the confusion, like intelligent, business-like
saurians that knew how to keep an appointed line by a clumsy courtesy
of apparent yielding. Yes, there was life enough in all this, and
inspiration, if one only knew what to be inspired about.
When Philip came home from the office at sunset, through the bustling
streets, and climbed up to his perch, he insensibly brought with him
something of the restless energy and strife of the city, and in this
mood the prospect before him took on a certain significance of
great things accomplished, of the highest form of human energy and
achievement; he was a part of this exuberant, abundant life, to succeed
in the struggle seemed easy, and for the moment he possessed what he
saw.
The little room had space enough for a cot bed, a toilet-stand, a couple
of easy-chairs--an easy-chair is the one article of furniture absolutely
necessary to a reflecting student--some well-filled book-shelves, a
small writing-desk, and a tiny closet quite large enough for a wardrobe
which seemed to have no disposition to grow. Except for the books and
the writing-desk, with its heterogeneous manuscripts, unfinished or
rejected, there was not much in the room to indicate the taste of its
occupant, unless you knew that his taste was exhibited rather by what he
excluded from the room than by what it contained. It must be confessed
that, when Philip was alone with his books and his manuscripts, his
imagination did not expand in the directions that would have seemed
profitable to the head of his firm. That life of the town which was
roaring in his ears, that panorama of prosperity spread before him,
related themselves in his mind not so much as incitements to engage
in the quarrels of his profession as something demanding study and
interpretation, something much more human than processes and briefs
and arguments. And it was a dark omen for his success that the world
interested him much more for itself than for what he could make out
of it. Make something to be sure he must--so long as he was only a law
clerk on a meagre salary--and it was this necessity that had much to do
with the production of the manuscripts. It was a joke on Philip in his
club--by-the-way, the half-yearly dues were not far off--that he was
doing splendidly in the law; he already had an extensive practice in
chambers!
The law is said to be a jealous mistress, but literature is a young lady
who likes to be loved for herself alone, and thinks permission to adore
is sufficient reward for her votary. Common-sense told Philip that the
jealous mistress would flout him and land him in failure if he gave
her a half-hearted service; but the other young lady, the Helen of
the professions, was always beckoning him and alluring him by the most
subtle arts, occupying all his hours with meditations on her grace and
beauty, till it seemed the world were well lost for her smile. And the
fascinating jade never hinted that devotion to her brought more drudgery
and harassment and pain than any other service in the world. It would
not have mattered if she had been frank, and told him that her promise
of eternal life was illusory and her rewards commonly but a flattering
of vanity. There was no resisting her enchantments, and he would rather
follow her through a world of sin and suffering, pursuing her radiant
form over bog and moor, in penury and heartache, for one sunrise smile
and one glimpse of her sunset heaven, than to walk at ease with a
commonplace maiden on any illumined and well-trod highway.
V
It is the desire of every ambitious soul to, enter Literature by the
front door, and the few who have patience and money enough to live
without the aid of the beckoning Helen may enter there. But a side
entrance is the destiny of most aspirants, even those with the golden
key of genius, and they are a long time in working their way to be seen
coming out, of the front entrance. It is true that a man can attract
considerable and immediate attention by trying to effect an entrance
through the sewer, but he seldom gains the respect of the public whom he
interests, any more than an exhibitor of fireworks gains the reputation
of an artist that is accorded to the painter of a good picture.
Philip was waiting at the front door, with his essays and his prose
symphonies and his satirical novel--the satire of a young man is apt to
be very bitter--but it was as tightly shut against him as if a publisher
and not the muse of literature kept the door.
There was a fellow-boarder with Philip, whose acquaintance he had made
at the common table in the basement, who appeared to be free of the
world of letters and art. He was an alert, compact, neatly dressed
little fellow, who had apparently improved every one of his twenty-eight
years in the study of life, in gaining assurance and confidence in
himself, and also presented himself as one who knew the nether world
completely but was not of it. He would have said of himself that he knew
it profoundly, that he frequented it for “material,” but that his home
was in another sphere. The impression was that he belonged among those
brilliant guerrillas of both sexes, in the border-land of art and
society, who lived daintily and talked about life with unconventional
freedom. Slight in figure, with very black hair, and eyes of cloudy
gray, an olive complexion, and features trained to an immobility proof
against emotion or surprise, the whole poised as we would say in the
act of being gentlemanly, it is needless to say that he took himself
seriously. His readiness, self-confidence, cocksureness, Philip thought
all expressed in his name--Olin Brad.
Mr. Brad was not a Bohemian--that is, not at all a Bohemian of the
recognized type. His fashionable dress, closely trimmed hair, and dainty
boots took him out of that class. He belonged to the new order, which
seems to have come in with modern journalism--that is, Bohemian in
principle, but of the manners and apparel of the favored of fortune. Mr.
Brad was undoubtedly clever, and was down as a bright young man in the
list of those who employed talent which was not dulled by conscientious
scruples. He had stood well in college, during three years in Europe
he had picked up two or three languages, dissipated his remaining small
fortune, acquired expensive tastes, and knowledge, both esoteric and
exoteric, that was valuable to him in his present occupation. Returning
home fully equipped for a modern literary career, and finding after some
bitter experience that his accomplishments were not taken or paid for
at their real value by the caterers for intellectual New York, he had
dropped into congenial society on the staff of the Daily Spectrum, a
mighty engine of public opinion, which scattered about the city and
adjacent territory a million of copies, as prodigally as if they had
been auctioneers' announcements. Fastidious people who did not read it
gave it a bad name, not recognizing the classic and heroic attitude of
those engaged in pitchforking up and turning over the muck of the Augean
stables under the pretense of cleaning them.
Mr. Brad had a Socratic contempt for this sort of fault-finding. It was
answer enough to say, “It pays. The people like it or they wouldn't buy
it. It commands the best talent in the market and can afford to pay
for it; even clergymen like to appear in its columns--they say it's
a providential chance to reach the masses. And look at the 'Morning
GooGoo' (this was his nickname for one of the older dailies), it
couldn't pay its paper bills if it hadn't such a small circulation.”
Mr. Brad, however, was not one of the editors, though the acceptance
of an occasional short editorial, sufficiently piquant and impudent and
vivid in language--to suit, had given him hopes. He was salaried, but
under orders for special service, and was always in the hope that the
execution of each new assignment would bring him into popular notice,
which would mean an advance of position and pay.
Philip was impressed with the ready talent, the adaptable talent, and
the facility of this accomplished journalist, and as their acquaintance
improved he was let into many of the secrets of success in the
profession.
“It isn't an easy thing,” said Mr. Brad, “to cater to a public that gets
tired of anything in about three days. But it is just as well satisfied
with a contradiction as with the original statement. It calls both news.
You have to watch out and see what the people want, and give it to
'em. It is something like the purveying of the manufacturers and the
dry-goods jobber for the changing trade in fashions; only the newspaper
has the advantage that it can turn a somersault every day and not have
any useless stock left on hand.
“The public hasn't any memory, or, if it has, this whirligig process
destroys it. What it will not submit to is the lack of a daily surprise.
Keep that in your mind and you can make a popular newspaper. Only,”
continued Mr. Brad, reflectively, “you've got to hit a lot of different
tastes.”
“You'd laugh,” this artist in emotions went on, after a little pause,
“at some of my assignments. There was a run awhile ago on elopements,
and my assignment was to have one every Monday morning. The girl must
always be lovely and refined and moving in the best society; elopement
with the coachman preferred, varied with a teacher in a Sunday-school.
Invented? Not always. It was surprising how many you could find ready
made, if you were on the watch. I got into the habit of locating them in
the interior of Pennsylvania as the safest place, though Jersey seemed
equally probable to the public. Did I never get caught? That made it
all the more lively and interesting. Denials, affidavits, elaborate
explanations, two sides to any question; if it was too hot, I could
change the name and shift the scene to a still more obscure town. Or it
could be laid to the zeal of a local reporter, who could give the most
ingenious reasons for his story. Once I worked one of those imaginary
reporters up into such prominence for his clever astuteness that my boss
was taken in, and asked me to send for him and give him a show on the
paper.
“Oh, yes, we have to keep up the domestic side. A paper will not go
unless the women like it. One of the assignments I liked was 'Sayings of
Our Little Ones.' This was for every Tuesday morning. Not more than
half a column. These always got copied by the country press solid. It is
really surprising how many bright things you can make children of five
and six years say if you give your mind to it. The boss said that I
overdid it sometimes and made them too bright instead of 'just cunning.'
“'Psychological Study of Children' had a great run. This is the age of
science. Same with animals, astronomy--anything. If the public wants
science, the papers will give it science.
“After all, the best hold for a lasting sensation is an attack upon
some charity or public institution; show up the abuses, and get all
the sentimentalists on your side. The paper gets sympathy for its
fearlessness in serving the public interests. It is always easy to find
plenty of testimony from ill-used convicts and grumbling pensioners.”
Undoubtedly Olin Brad was a clever fellow, uncommonly well read in the
surface literatures of foreign origin, and had a keen interest in what
he called the metaphysics of his own time. He had many good qualities,
among them friendliness towards men and women struggling like himself to
get up the ladder, and he laid aside all jealousy when he advised Philip
to try his hand at some practical work on the Spectrum. What puzzled
Philip was that this fabricator of “stories” for the newspaper should
call himself a “realist.” The “story,” it need hardly be explained, is
newspaper slang for any incident, true or invented, that is worked up
for dramatic effect. To state the plain facts as they occurred, or
might have occurred, and as they could actually be seen by a competent
observer, would not make a story. The writer must put in color, and
idealize the scene and the people engaged in it, he must invent dramatic
circumstances and positions and language, so as to produce a “picture.”
And this picture, embroidered on a commonplace incident, has got the
name of “news.” The thread of fact in this glittering web the reader
must pick out by his own wits, assisted by his memory of what things
usually are. And the public likes these stories much better than the
unadorned report of facts. It is accustomed to this view of life, so
much so that it fancies it never knew what war was, or what a battle
was, until the novelists began to report them.
Mr. Brad was in the story stage of his evolution as a writer. His light
facility in it had its attraction for Philip, but down deep in his
nature he felt and the impression was deepened by watching the career of
several bright young men and women on the press--that indulgence in it
would result in such intellectual dishonesty as to destroy the power of
producing fiction that should be true to life. He was so impressed by
the ability and manifold accomplishments of Mr. Brad that he thought it
a pity for him to travel that road, and one day he asked him why he did
not go in for literature.
“Literature!” exclaimed Mr. Brad, with some irritation; “I starved on
literature for a year. Who does live on it, till he gets beyond the
necessity of depending on it? There is a lot of humbug talked about it.
You can't do anything till you get your name up. Some day I will make
a hit, and everybody will ask, 'Who is this daring, clever Olin Brad?'
Then I can get readers for anything I choose to write. Look at
Champ Lawson. He can't write correct English, he never will, he uses
picturesque words in a connection that makes you doubt if he knows what
they mean. But he did a dare-devil thing picturesquely, and now the
publishers are at his feet. When I met him the other day he affected
to be bored with so much attention, and wished he had stuck to the
livery-stable. He began at seventeen by reporting a runaway from the
point of view of the hostler.”
“Well,” said Philip, “isn't it quite in the line of the new movement
that we should have an introspective hostler, who perhaps obeys Sir
Philip Sidney's advice, 'Look into your heart and write'? I chanced
the other night in a company of the unconventional and illuminated, the
'poster' set in literature and art, wild-eyed and anaemic young women
and intensely languid, 'nil admirari' young men, the most advanced
products of the studios and of journalism. It was a very interesting
conclave. Its declared motto was, 'We don't read, we write.' And
the members were on a constant strain to say something brilliant,
epigrammatic, original. The person who produced the most outre sentiment
was called 'strong.' The women especially liked no writing that was not
'strong.' The strongest man in the company, and adored by the women, was
the poet-artist Courci Cleves, who always seems to have walked straight
out of a fashion-plate, much deferred to in this set, which affects
to defer to nothing, and a thing of beauty in the theatre lobbies. Mr.
Cleves gained much applause for his well-considered wish that all
that has been written in the world, all books and libraries, could be
destroyed, so as to give a chance to the new men and the fresh ideas of
the new era.”
“My dear sir,” said Brad, who did not like this caricature of his
friends, “you don't make any allowance for the eccentricities of
genius.”
“You would hit it nearer if you said I didn't make allowance for the
eccentricities without genius,” retorted Philip.
“Well,” replied Mr. Brad, taking his leave, “you don't understand your
world. You go your own way and see where you will come out.”
And when Philip reflected on it, he wondered if it were not rash to
offend those who had the public ear, and did up the personals and minor
criticisms for the current prints. He was evidently out of view.
No magazine paper of his had gained the slightest notice from these
sublimated beings, who discovered a new genius every month.
A few nights after this conversation Mr. Brad was in uncommon spirits at
dinner.
“Anything special turned up?” asked Philip.
“Oh, nothing much. I've thrown away the chance of the biggest kind of a
novel of American life. Only it wouldn't keep. You look in the Spectrum
tomorrow morning. You'll see something interesting.”
“Is it a--” and Philip's incredulous expression supplied the word.
“No, not a bit. And the public is going to be deceived this time, sure,
expecting a fake. You know Mavick?”
“I've heard of him--the operator, a millionaire.”
“A good many times. Used to be minister or consul or something at Rome.
A great swell. It's about his daughter, Evelyn, a stunning girl about
sixteen or seventeen--not out yet.”
“I hope it's no scandal.”
“No, no; she's all right. It's the way she's brought up--shows what
we've come to. They say she's the biggest heiress in America and
a raving beauty, the only child. She has been brought up like the
Kohinoor, never out of somebody's sight. She has never been alone one
minute since she was born. Had three nurses, and it was the business of
one of them, in turn, to keep an eye on her. Just think of that. Never
was out of the sight of somebody in her life. Has two maids now--always
one in the room, night and day.”
“What for?”
“Why, the parents are afraid she'll be kidnapped, and held for a big
ransom. No, I never saw her, but I've got the thing down to a dot.
Wouldn't I like to interview her, though, get her story, how the world
looks to her. Under surveillance for sixteen years! The 'Prisoner of
Chillon' is nothing to it for romance.”
“Just the facts are enough, I should say.”
“Yes, facts make a good basis, sometimes. I've got 'em all in, but of
course I've worked the thing up for all it is worth. You'll see. I kept
it one day to try and get a photograph. We've got the house and Mavick,
but the girl's can't be found, and it isn't safe to wait. We are going
to blow it out tomorrow morning.”