"Do you take me for such a callous creature as all that?" I
exclaimed--"You are mistaken in me, Lucio. I feel most keenly----"
"What do you feel?" he inquired, fixing his eyes steadily upon
me--"There are hundreds of starving wretches in this metropolis,--men
and women on the brink of suicide because they have no hope of anything
in this world or the next, and no sympathy from their kind--do you feel
for them? Do _their_ griefs affect _you_? You know they do not,--you
know you never think of them,--why should you? One of the chief
advantages of wealth is the ability it gives us to shut out other
people's miseries from our personal consideration."
I said nothing,--for the first time my spirit chafed at the truth of his
words, principally because they _were_ true. Alas, Lucio!--if I had
only known then what I know now!
"Yesterday," he went on in the same quiet voice--"a child was run over
here, just opposite this hotel. It was _only_ a poor child,--mark that
'only.' Its mother ran shrieking out of some back-street hard by, in
time to see the little bleeding body carted up in a mangled heap. She
struck wildly with both hands at the men who were trying to lead her
away, and with a cry like that of some hurt savage animal fell face
forward in the mud--dead. She was only a poor woman,--another 'only.'
There were three lines in the paper about it headed 'Sad Incident.' The
hotel-porter here witnessed the scene from the door with as composed a
demeanor as that of a fop at the play, never relaxing the serene majesty
of his attitude,--but about ten minutes after the dead body of the woman
had been carried out of sight, he, the imperial, gold-buttoned being,
became almost crook-backed in his servile haste to run and open the door
of your brougham, my dear Geoffrey, as you drove up to the entrance.
This is a little epitome of life as it is lived now-a-days,--and yet the
canting clerics swear we are all equal in the sight of heaven! We may
be, though it does not look much like it,--and if we are, it does not
matter, as we have ceased to care how heaven regards us. I don't want to
point a moral,--I simply tell you the 'sad incident' as it
occurred,--and I am sure you are not the least sorry for the fate of
either the child who was run over, or its mother who died in the sharp
agony of a suddenly broken heart. Now don't say you are, because I know
you're not!"
"How can one feel sorry for people one does not know or has never
seen,--" I began.
"Exactly!--How is it possible? And there we have it--how can one feel,
when one's self is so thoroughly comfortable as to be without any other
feeling save that of material ease? Thus, my dear Geoffrey, you must be
content to let your book appear as the reflex and record of your past
when you were in the prickly or sensitive stage,--now you are encased
in a pachydermatous covering of gold, which adequately protects you from
such influences as might have made you start and writhe, perhaps even
roar with indignation, and in the access of fierce torture, stretch out
your hands and grasp--quite unconsciously--the winged thing called
Fame!"
"You should have been an orator,"--I said, rising and pacing the room to
and fro in vexation,--"But to me your words are not consoling, and I do
not think they are true. Fame is easily enough secured."
"Pardon me if I am obstinate;"--said Lucio with a deprecatory
gesture--"Notoriety is easily secured--very easily. A few critics who
have dined with you and had their fill of wine, will give you notoriety.
But fame is the voice of the whole civilized public of the world."
"The public!" I echoed contemptuously--"The public only care for trash."
"It is a pity you should appeal to it then;"--he responded with a
smile--"If you think so little of the public why give it anything of
your brain? It is not worthy of so rare a boon! Come, come Tempest,--do
not join in the snarl of unsuccessful authors who take refuge, when
marked unsaleable, in pouring out abuse on the public. The public is the
author's best friend and truest critic. But if you prefer to despise it,
in company with all the very little literature-mongers who form a mutual
admiration society, I tell you what to do,--print just twenty copies of
your book and present these to the leading reviewers, and when they have
written you up (as they will do--I'll take care of that) let your
publisher advertise to the effect that the 'First and Second Large
Editions' of the new novel by Geoffrey Tempest, are exhausted, one
hundred thousand copies having been sold in a week! If that does not
waken up the world in general, I shall be much surprised!"