AN IDIOSYNCRASY
Then there's the matter of these dedications. Several weeks ago I
received a communication. I think it was sent by Miss Katherine Lord, or
maybe it was Hamlin Garland. Anyhow, it was an invitation. The upshot of
this invitation was that the annual exhibit of the "best books of the
year" held at the National Arts Club, New York City, under the auspices
of the Joint Committee of Literary Arts was now going--or was just about
to go. Further, it was conveyed that the opening evening of the exhibit
would be devoted to a reception for the authors of the books exhibited.
Also, that on this evening speeches would be made by a number of
distinguished persons acquainted with this matter on the subject of the
idiosyncrasies of authors and editors. Further than this, this
invitation made clear beyond all manner of reasonable doubt that the
pleasure of the evening would be generally felt to be sadly incomplete
without the presence there among the speakers of myself.
The reasons why I was (I am sorry to say) unable to rise to this
occasion were two. For one thing, I have known long and intimately a
considerable number of authors and editors. Also, I have had the honor
of having been several times to the National Arts Club. And (such is my
tact and delicacy) I could not feel that this was any fit place for me
to discuss the (as the term is) idiosyncrasies with which a decidedly
checkered career has acquainted me. Then, as to one of my own
idiosyncrasies: I am like George Moore in this which he says, that he is
"the only Irishman living or dead who cannot make a speech"--except that
I am not an Irishman.
All of this, however, is merely picking up the threads of my thought.
What I have in my eye is an idiosyncrasy of authors which doubtless I
could have discussed with some propriety. That is, if I were able to
discuss before an audience anything at all. Though with this subject, as
many of those present were authors (who had their toes along with them)
I should have had to exercise more than a little caution, and
considerable skill in maintaining a honeyed amiability. Maybe this
theme wouldn't have done at all either.
You see, it's this way: Many people, I believe, do not read the
introductions, prefaces, forewords (and whatever else such things are
called) to books. I always do. Perhaps this is a habit formed during a
number of years spent as a professional reviewer. If you read the
introduction, preface (or whatever it's called), to a book you can
generally pick up pretty much what the author thought he was about when
he wrote it, the points he intended to make in the work, the
circumstances in which he wrote it, and so on. This is a great time and
labor saving procedure. All you've got to do then is to read a bit in
the volume here and there to taste the style, pick up a few errors of
fact or grammar, glance at the "conclusion," where the author sums up,
to see whether or not he got anywhere--and so far as you are further put
out by having this book on your hands it might just as well never have
been written. But I am drifting. That's one reason I can't make a
speech. Never can recollect what it was I set out to say.
Oh, yes! About these dedications. Less people than read prefaces, I
fancy, read the dedications of books. I always read 'em. I read them
when I have no intention whatever of reading the volumes which
they--well, dedicate. They are fine--dedications. Better, far better,
than old tombstones. But never judge a book by its dedication.
I one time knew a man, of a most decidedly humorous cast of mind, who
was a great spendthrift, an A 1 wastrel. He ran through everything his
father left him (a very fair little fortune), and then when he had run
through, in advance of that gentleman's death, everything his wife was
to inherit from his father-in-law he had no means whatever. He had a
daughter. Without, it was clearly evident, the least suspicion of the
pleasant humor of this, he named her Hope. She was a small child.
And--it's absurd, I know; but 'tis so; there was not a particle of
conscious irony in it; this child's name was the one blind spot in her
father's sense of the ridiculous--her parents frequently referred to her
affectionately as "little Hope."
So, quite so, with dedications. Whenever, or perhaps we had better say
frequently, when a man writes a particularly worthless book he lays the
deed (in his dedication of it) onto his wife, "without whose constant
devotion," etc., etc., etc., "this work would never have come into
being." Amen! Or he says that it is inscribed "To--my gentlest
friend--and severest critic--my aged Grandmother." Or maybe he accuses
his little daughter, "whose tiny hands have led me." Again he may say
benignantly: "To--my faithful friend--Murray Hill--who made possible
this volume"; or "the illumination of whose personality has lighted my
way to truth."
Doubtless he means well, this author. And, in most cases, highly
probable it is that his magnanimous sentiments are O. K. all round. For
to the minds of what would probably be called "right-thinking" persons
is not having a book dedicated to you the equivalent, almost, of having
a career yourself? I know a very distinguished American novelist--well,
I'll tell you who he is: Booth Tarkington--who has told me this: Time
and again he has been relentlessly pursued by some person unknown to him
who, in the belief that did he once hear it he would surely use it as
material for his next book, wished to tell him the story of his life.
This life, according to the communications received by the novelist,
was in every case one of the most remarkable ever lived by man. It was,
in every case, most extraordinary in, among a variety of other singular
things, this: the abounding in it of the most amazing coincidences. And
so on, and so on, and so on. One of these romantic personages nailed the
novelist somewhere coming out of a doorway one day, and contrived to
compel him to sit down and listen to the life story. He was an old, old
man, this chap, and firmly convinced that the tale of his many days (as
simple, commonplace, dull and monotonous an existence as ever was
conceived) was unique. Now he did not want any pay for telling his
story; he had no design on any royalty to come from the great book to be
made out of it; no, not at all. All he asked--and that, he thought, was
fair enough--was that the book be dedicated to him. And so it was with
them all, all of those with the remarkable, obscure, romantic, humdrum
lives. So much for that.
Dedications run the whole gamut of the emotions. A type of author very
tonic to the spirit is that one whose soul embraces not merely an
individual but which enfolds in its heroic sweep a nation, a people, or
some mighty idea. What, for instance, could be more vast in the
grandeur of its sweep than this--which I came upon the other day in a
modest little volume? "To the Children of Destiny." The Great War, which
has wrought so much evil and inspired so much literature, is responsible
for a flood of noble, lofty dedications. The merest snooping through a
bunch of recent war books turns up, among a multitude more, the
following: "To the Mothers of America." "To--the Loyalty and
Patriotism--of the--American People." "To the Hour--When the Troops Turn
Home." "To All the Men at the Front."
I should not affirm, of course, that there is anything new under the
sun. And it is very probable that ever since this psychic literature
began (whenever it began) authors resident beyond the stars have,
naturally enough, dedicated their manuscripts submitted to earthly
publishers to folks back in the old home, so to say. But with the War,
which has so greatly stimulated literary activity on the other side of
life, the dedications of these (to put it so) expatriated authors have
perhaps become (in a manner of speaking) loftier in tone than ever
before. As a sample of the present state of exalted feeling of authors
of this sort I copy the following dedication from the recently published
book of a writer "gone West": "To the heroic women of the world, the
mothers, wives and sweethearts who bravely sent us forth to battle for a
great cause:--we who have crossed the Great Divide salute you."
I wish, I do wish, I had at hand a book which I saw a number of years
ago.... As examples of persons to whom books have been dedicated may be
specified The Deity, The Virgin Mary, Royalty and Dignitaries of Church
and State, "The Reader," and the author himself. Many of the pleasantest
dedications have been to children. Besides armies and navies, countries,
states, cities and their inhabitants, books have also been dedicated to
institutions and societies, to animals, to things spiritual, and to
things inanimate. An attractive example of a dedication to Deity is
furnished by one John Leycaeter, who, in 1649, dedicated his "Civill
Warres of England, Briefly Related from his Majesties First Setting Up
his Standard, 1641, to this Present Personall Hopefull Treaty"--"To the
Honour and Glory of the Infinite, Immense, and Incomprehensible Majesty
of Jehovah, the Fountaine of all Excellencies, the Lord of Hosts, the
Giver of all Victories, and the God of Peace." He continued in a poem,
"By J. O. Ley, a small crumme of mortality."
But about that book I saw some time ago. You, of course, remember that
prayer in "Tom Sawyer" (or somewhere else in Mark Twain) where the
great-hearted minister called upon the Lord to bless the President of
the United States, the President's Cabinet, the Senate of the United
States, the governors of each of the states, and their legislatures, the
mayors of all the cities, and all the towns, of the United States, and
the inhabitants--grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and wives,
husbands and fathers, sons and daughters, bachelors and little
children--of every hamlet, town and city of the United States, also of
all the countryside thereof. Well, this book of which I am
speaking,--this minister in the august range and compass of his prayer
had nothing on its dedication. It was published, as I recollect, by the
author; printed on very woody wood-pulp paper by a job press, and had a
coarse screen frontispiece portrait of the author, whose name has long
since left me. What it was about I do not remember. That is a little
matter. It lives in my mind, and should live in the memory of the
world, by its dedication; which, I recall, in part was: "To the Sultan
of Turkey--the Emperor of Japan--the Czar of Russia--the Emperor of
Germany--the President of France--the King of England--the President of
the United States--and to God."
But it was in an elder day that they really knew how to write sonorous
dedications. If I should write a book (and the idea of having one to
dedicate tempts me greatly) I'd pick out some important personage, such
as Benjamin De Casseres, or Frank Crowinshield, or Charles Hanson Towne,
or somebody like that. Then I would take as the model for my dedication
that one, say, of Boswell's to Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am afraid you have
not read it lately. And so, for the joy the meeting of it again will
give you, I will copy it out. It goes as follows:
My Dear Sir,--Every liberal motive that can actuate an Authour in
the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing me to you, as
the person to whom the following Work should be inscribed.
If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished merit of a
contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of vanity not altogether
inexcusable, in appearing fully sensible of it, where can I find
one, in complimenting whom I can with more general approbation
gratify those feelings? Your excellence not only in the Art over
which you have long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in
Philosophy and elegant Literature, is well known to the present,
and will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your equal
and placid temper, your variety of conversation, your true
politeness, by which you are so amiable in private society, and
that enlarged hospitality which has long made your house a common
centre of union for the great and accomplished, the learned, and
the ingenious; all these qualities I can, in perfect confidence of
not being accused of flattery, ascribe to you.
If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known to the
world, that he has been thought worthy of particular attention by a
person of the first eminence in the age in which he lived, whose
company has been universally courted, I am justified in availing
myself of the usual privilege of a Dedication, when I mention that
there has been a long and uninterrupted friendship between us.
If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, I have
this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank you for the
many happy hours which I owe to your kindness,--for the cordiality
with which you have at all times been pleased to welcome me,--for
the number of valuable acquaintances to whom you have introduced
me,--for the _noctes cænæque Deûm_, which I have enjoyed under your
roof.
If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject
of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and
success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety,
dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved
friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the
most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him,
he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." You, my dear Sir,
studied him, and knew him well: you venerated and admired him. Yet,
luminous as he was upon the whole, you perceived all the shades
which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and
slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm
commendation of the specimen which I gave in my "Journal of a Tour
to the Hebrides," of my being able to preserve his conversation in
an authentik and lively manner, which opinion the Publik has
confirmed, was the best encouragement for me to persevere in my
purpose of producing the whole of my stores....
I am, my dear Sir,
Your much obliged friend,
And faithful humble servant,
London, April 20, 1791.
JAMES BOSWELL.
* * * * *
In a more modern style of composition the epistolary form of dedication
is still employed. I wish I had not (one time when I was moving) lost
that copy I had, English edition, of George Moore's book "The Lake." I
have a feeling that the dedicatory letter there, in French, was an
admirable example of its kind of thing. If you happen to have a copy of
the book, why don't you look it up?
When poems are written as dedications an established convention is
followed. You affect at the beginning (in this formula) to be very
humble in spirit, deeply modest in your conception of your powers. You
speak, if your book is verse, of your "fragile rhyme," or (with Patmore)
you "drag a rumbling wain." Again perhaps you speak (in the words of
Burns) of your "wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble," or you call
Southwell to witness that:
He that high growth on cedars did bestow,
Gave also lowly mushrumps leave to grow.
And so on. At any rate, you always do this. Then you say that his (or
her) eyes for whom the book was written will change the dross to gold,
the "blind words" to "authentic song," the "mushrump" to a flower, or
some such thing. So, after all, you skillfully contrive to leave your
book to the reader on a rather high, confident note. Any other way of
writing a dedicatory poem to a book of verse (being out of the tradition
altogether) is, I take it, bad, very bad, literary etiquette.
Numerous dedications have considerable fame. There is that enigmatical
one to "Mr. W. H.," prefixed by Thomas Thorpe, bookseller of London, to
Shakespeare's Sonnets. And Dr. Johnson's scathing definition of a patron
when Lord Chesterfield fell short of Johnson's expectations in the
amount which he contributed to the publication of the famous dictionary
men will not willingly let die. Another celebrated dedication is that of
"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies"--"To the Rare Few, who, early in
life, have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many." Laurence
Sterne's solemn "putting up fairly to public sale" to an imaginary lord
a dedication to "Tristram Shandy" is not without merit. John Burroughs
was felicitous in his dedication of "Bird and Bough"--"To the kinglet
that sang in my evergreens in October and made me think it was May." And
a very amiable dedication prefixed to "The Bashful Earthquake," by
Oliver Herford, illustrated by the author, is this: "To the Illustrator,
in grateful acknowledgment of his amiable condescension in lending his
exquisite and delicate art to the embellishment of these poor verses,
from his sincerest admirer, The Author." Mr. Herford's latest book (at
the time of this writing), "This Giddy Globe," is dedicated so: "To
President Wilson (With all his faults he quotes me still)."
A clever dedication, I think, is that of Christopher Morley's
"Shandygaff"--"To The Miehle Printing Press--More Sinned Against Than
Sinning." A dedication intended to be clever, and one frequently seen,
is, in effect, "To the Hesitating Purchaser." A certain appropriateness
is presented in a recent book on advertising, "Respectfully dedicated to
the men who invest millions of dollars a year in national advertising."
And some nimbleness of wit is attained in the inscription of the book
"Why Worry"--"To my long-suffering family and circle of friends, whose
patience has been tried by my efforts to eliminate worry, this book is
affectionately dedicated." As cheerful a dedication as I have come
across is that prefixed by Francis Hackett to his volume "The Invisible
Censor"; it is: "To My Wife--Signe Toksvig--whose lack of interest--in
this book has been my--constant desperation."
Miss Annie Carroll Moore, supervisor of work with children at the New
York Public Library, tells me that the other day a small boy inquired,
"Who was the first man to write a book to another man?" I'm sure I don't
know. Perhaps this is told somewhere. A number of books and articles
concerning dedications, I have heard, are to be found in studious
places. I have never read any of them. I remember, however, reviewing
for a newspaper a number of years ago (I think it was in 1913) a book,
then just published, called "Dedications: An Anthology of the Forms Used
from the Earliest Days of Bookmaking to the Present Time." It was
compiled by Mary Elizabeth Brown. The volume made handy to the general
reader a fairly representative collection of dedications.