The question is sometimes asked 'how poets sell.' One feels inclined
idealistically to ask, 'Ought poets to sell?' What can poets want with
money?--dear children of the rainbow, who from time immemorial
... on honeydew have fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Have you never felt a sort of absurdity in paying for a rose--especially
if you paid in copper? To pay for a thing of beauty in coin of extreme
ugliness! There is obviously no equality of exchange in the transaction.
In fact, it is little short of an insult to the flower-girl to pretend
that you thus satisfy the obligation. Far better let her give it you--for
the love of beauty--as very likely, if you explained the incongruity, she
would be glad to do: for flower-girls, no doubt, like every one else, can
only have chosen their particular profession because of its being a joy
for ever. There might be fitness in offering a kiss on account, though
that, of course, would depend on the flower-girl. To buy other things with
flowers were not so incongruous. I have often thought of trying my
tobacconist with a tulip; and certainly an orchid--no very rare one
either--should cover one's household expenses for a week, if not a
fortnight.
Omar Khayyám used to wonder what the vintners buy 'one-half so precious as
the stuff they sell.' It is surely natural to wonder in like manner of the
poet. What have we to offer in exchange for his priceless manna? One feels
that he should be paid on the mercantile principles of 'Goblin Market.'
Said Laura:--
'Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin;
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either....'
Copper! silver even! The goblin-men were more artistic than that; they
realised the absurdity of paying for immortal things in coin of mere
mortality. So--
'You have much gold upon your head,'
They answered all together:
'Buy from us with a golden curl.'
Yes, those are the ideal rates at which poetry should be paid. We should,
of course, pay for fairy goods in fairy-gold.
One of the few such appropriate transactions I remember was Queen
Elizabeth's buying a poem from Sir Philip Sidney, literally, with a lock
of her 'gowden hair.' Poem and lock now lie together at Wilton, both
untouched of time. Or was it that Sir Philip Sidney paid for the lock with
his poem? However it was, the exchange was appropriate. The ratio between
the thing sold and the price given was fairly equal. And, at all times, it
is far less absurd for a poet to pay for the earthly thing with his poem
(thus leaving us to keep the change), than that we should think to pay him
for his incorruptible with our corruptible. There would, no doubt, be a
subtle element of absurdity in a poet consenting to pay his tailor for a
suit with a sonnet, while it would obviously be beyond all proportion
monstrous for a tailor to think to buy a sonnet with a suit. Yet a poet
might, perhaps, be brought to consider the transaction, if he chanced to
be of a gentle disposition.
Yes, the true, the tasteful way to pay a poet is by the exchange of some
other beautiful thing: by beautiful praise, by a beautiful smile, by a
well-shaped tear, by a rose. It is thus that a poet--frequently, I am
bound to confess--finds his highest reward.
At the same time, there is a subtle ironic pleasure in taking the world's
money for poetry--even though one pays it over to a charity
immediately--for one feels that the world, for some reason or another, has
been persuaded to buy something which it didn't really want, and which it
will throw away so soon as we are round the corner. If the reader has ever
published a volume of verse, he must often have chuckled with an unnatural
glee over the number of absolutely unpoetic good souls who, from various
motives--the unhappy accident of relationship, perhaps--have
'subscribed.' Most of us have sound unpoetic uncles. Of course, you make
them buy you--in large-paper too. Have you ever gloatingly pictured their
absolute bewilderment as, with a stern sense of family pride, they sit
down to cut your pages? Think of the poor souls thus 'moving about in
worlds not realised.'
A perfect instance of this cruelty to the Philistine occurs to me. The
poet in question is one whose _forte_ is children's poetry. Very tender
some of his poems are. You will find them now and again in _St. Nicholas_,
and he is not unknown in this country. With a heart like a lamb for
children, he is like a hawk upon the Philistine. I remember an occasion,
before he published a volume, when we were together in a tavern in a
country-town, a tavern thronged with farmers on market-days. The poet had
some prospectuses in his pocket. Suddenly a great John Bull would come
bumping in like a cockchafer, and call for his pint. 'Just you watch,' the
poet would say, and away he crossed over to his victim. 'Good morning,
Mr. Oats!' 'Why, good morning, sir. How-d'ye-do; I hardly know'd thee.'
Then presently the voice of the charmer unto the farmer--'Mr. Oats, you
care for children, don't you?' 'Ay, ay,' would answer the farmer, a little
doubtfully, 'when they're little'uns.' 'Well, you know I'm what they call
a poet.' To this Mr. Oats would respond with a good round laugh, as of a
man enjoying a good thing. This was very subtle of the poet, for it put
the farmer on good terms with himself. He wondered, as he had his laugh
over again, how a man could choose to be a poet, when he might have been a
farmer. 'Well, I'm bringing out a book of poems all about children--here
is one of them!' and the poet would read some humorous thing, such as
'Breeching Tommy.' Then another--such simple pictures of humanity at the
age of two, that the farmer could not but be moved to that primary
artistic delight, the recognition of the familiar. Then the farmer would
grow grave, as he always did at any approach to a purchase, however small,
while the poet would rapidly speak of the fitness of the volume as a
present to the old woman: 'Women cared for such things,' he would add
pityingly. Then the farmer would cautiously ask the price, and blow his
cheeks out in surprise on hearing that it was five shillings. He had never
given so much for a book in his life. The poet would then insidiously
suggest that by subscribing before publication he would save a discount.
This would arouse the farmer's instinct for getting things cheap; and so,
finally, with a little more 'playing,' Mr. Timothy Oats, of Clod Hall,
Salop, was landed high and dry on the subscription list--a list, by the
way, which already included all the poet's tradesmen! This is one example
of 'how poets sell.'
Yet over and above what we may term these forced sales, the demand for
verse, we are assured, is growing. The impression to the contrary on the
part of the Philistine is a delusion, a false security. And the demand, a
well-known publisher has told us, is an intelligent one, for poetry of the
markedly idealistic, or markedly realistic, kind; but to writers of the
merely sentimental he can offer no hope. Their golden age, a pretty long
one while it lasted, has probably gone for ever.
This is good news for those engaged in growing dreams for the London
market.