"I'm not such a fool as to suppose that fame is secured by
advertisement," I said--"For instance I am one of those who think the
fame of Millais as an artist was marred when he degraded himself to the
level of painting the little green boy blowing bubbles of Pears's Soap.
That was an advertisement. And that very incident in his career,
trifling though it seems, will prevent his ever standing on the same
dignified height of distinction with such masters in art as Romney, Sir
Peter Lely, Gainsborough or Reynolds."
"I believe there is a great deal of justice in what you say;" and
Morgeson shook his head wisely--"Viewed from a purely artistic and
sentimental standpoint you are right." And he became suddenly downcast
and dubious. "Yes,--it is a most extraordinary thing how fame does
escape people sometimes just when they seem on the point of grasping it.
They are 'boomed' in every imaginable way, and yet after a time nothing
will keep them up. And there are others again who get kicked and
buffeted and mocked and derided----"
"Like Christ?" I interposed with a half smile. He looked shocked,--he
was a Non-conformist,--but remembering in time how rich I was, he bowed
with a meek patience.
"Yes"--and he sighed--"as you suggest, Mr Tempest, like Christ. Mocked
and derided and opposed at every turn,--and yet by the queerest caprice
of destiny, they succeed in winning a world-wide fame and power----"
"Like Christ again!" I said mischievously, for I loved to jar his
non-conformist conscience.
"Exactly!" He paused, looking piously down. Then with a return of
secular animation he added--"But I was not thinking of the Great Example
just then, Mr Tempest--I was thinking of a woman."
"Indeed!" I said indifferently.
"Yes--a woman, who despite continued abuse and opposition is rapidly
becoming celebrated. You are sure to hear of her in literary and social
circles"--and he gave me a furtive glance of doubtful inquiry--"but she
is not rich, you know,--only famous. However,--we have nothing to do
with her just now--so let us return to business. The one uncertain point
in the matter of your book's success is the attitude of the critics.
There are only six leading men who do the reviews, and between them they
cover all the English magazines and some of the American too, as well as
the London papers. Here are their names"--and he handed me a pencilled
memorandum,--"and their addresses, as far as I can ascertain them, or
the addresses of the papers for which they most frequently write. The
man at the head of the list, David McWhing, is the most formidable of
the lot. He writes everywhere about everything,--being a Scotchman he's
bound to have his finger in every pie. If you can secure McWhing, you
need not trouble so much about the others, as he generally gives the
'lead,' and has his own way with the editors. He is one of the 'personal
friends' of the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_ for example, and you
would be sure to get a notice there, which would otherwise be
impossible. No reviewer _can_ review anything for that magazine unless
he _is_ one of the editor's friends.[2] You must manage McWhing, or
he might, just for the sake of 'showing off,' cut you up rather
roughly."
"That would not matter," I said, diverted at the idea of 'managing
McWhing,'--"A little slating always helps a book to sell."
"In some cases it does,"--and Morgeson stroked his thin beard
perplexedly--"But in others it most emphatically does _not_. Where there
is any very decided or daring originality, adverse criticism is always
the most effective. But a work like yours requires fostering with
favour,--wants 'booming' in short----"
"I see!" and I felt distinctly annoyed--"You don't think my book
original enough to stand alone?"
"My dear sir!--you are really--really--! what shall I say?" and he
smiled apologetically--"a little brusque? I think your book shows
admirable scholarship and delicacy of thought,--if I find fault with it
at all, it is perhaps because I am dense. The only thing it lacks in my
opinion is what I should call _tenaciousness_, for want of a better
expression,--the quality of holding the reader's fancy fixed like a
nail. But after all this is a common failing of modern literature; few
authors feel sufficiently themselves to make others feel."
I made no reply for a moment. I was thinking of Lucio's remarks on this
very same subject.
"Well!" I said at last--"If I had no feeling when I wrote the book, I
certainly have none now. Why man, I felt every line of it!--painfully
and intensely!"
"Ay, ay indeed!" said Morgeson soothingly--"Or perhaps you _thought_ you
felt, which is another very curious phase of the literary temperament.
You see, to convince people at all, you must first yourself be
convinced. The result of this is generally a singular magnetic
attraction between author and public. However I am a bad hand at
argument,--and it is possible that in hasty reading I may have gathered
a wrong impression of your intentions. Anyhow the book shall be a
success if we can make it so. All I venture to ask of you is that you
should personally endeavour to manage McWhing!"
I promised to do my best, and on this understanding we parted. I
realised that Morgeson was capable of greater discernment than I had
imagined, and his observations had given me material for thought which
was not altogether agreeable. For if my book, as he said, lacked
tenacity, why then it would not take root in the public mind,--it would
be merely the ephemeral success of a season,--one of those brief 'booms'
in literary wares for which I had such unmitigated contempt,--and Fame
would be as far off as ever, except that spurious imitation of it which
the fact of my millions had secured. I was in no good humour that
afternoon, and Lucio saw it. He soon elicited the sum and substance of
my interview with Morgeson, and laughed long and somewhat uproariously
over the proposed 'managing' of the redoubtable McWhing. He glanced at
the five names of the other leading critics and shrugged his shoulders.
"Morgeson is quite right,"--he said--"McWhing is intimate with the rest
of these fellows--they meet at the same clubs, dine at the same cheap
restaurants and make love to the same painted ballet-girls. All in a
comfortable little fraternal union together, and one obliges the other
on their several journals when occasion offers. Oh yes! I should make up
to McWhing if I were you."
"But how?" I demanded, for though I knew McWhing's name well enough
having seen it signed _ad nauseam_ to literary articles in almost every
paper extant, I had never met the man; "I cannot ask any favour of a
press critic."
"Of course not!" and Lucio laughed heartily again--"If you were to do
such an idiotic thing what a slating you'd get for your pains! There's
no sport a critic loves so much as the flaying of an author who has made
the mistake of lowering himself to the level of asking favours of his
intellectual inferiors! No, no, my dear fellow!--we shall manage McWhing
quite differently,--_I_ know him, though you do not."
"Come, that's good news!" I exclaimed--"Upon my word Lucio, you seem to
know everybody."
"I think I know most people worth knowing--" responded Lucio
quietly--"Though I by no means include Mr McWhing in the category of
worthiness. I happened to make his personal acquaintance in a somewhat
singular and exciting manner. It was in Switzerland, on that awkward
ledge of rock known as the Mauvais Pas. I had been some weeks in the
neighbourhood on business of my own, and being surefooted and fearless,
was frequently allowed by the guides to volunteer my services with
theirs. In this capacity of amateur guide, capricious destiny gave me
the pleasure of escorting the timid and bilious McWhing across the
chasms of the Mer de Glace, and I conversed with him in the choicest
French all the while, a language of which, despite his boasted
erudition, he was deplorably ignorant. I knew who he was I must tell
you, as I know most of his craft, and had long been aware of him as one
of the authorised murderers of aspiring genius. When I got him on the
Mauvais Pas, I saw that he was seized with vertigo; I held him firmly by
the arm and addressed him in sound strong English thus--'Mr McWhing, you
wrote a damnable and scurrilous article against the work of a certain
poet' and I named the man--'an article that was a tissue of lies from
beginning to end, and which by its cruelty and venom embittered a life
of brilliant promise, and crushed a noble spirit. Now, unless you
promise to write and publish in a leading magazine a total recantation
of this your crime when you get back to England,--_if_ you get
back!--giving that wronged man the 'honourable mention' he rightly
deserves,--down you go! I have but to loosen my hold!' Geoffrey, you
should have seen McWhing then! He whined, he wriggled, he clung! Never
was an oracle of the press in such an unoracular condition.
'Murder!--murder!' he gasped, but his voice failed him. Above him
towered the snow peaks like the summits of that Fame he could not reach
and therefore grudged to others,--below him the glittering ice-waves
yawned in deep transparent hollows of opaline blue and green,--and afar
off the tinkling cowbells echoed through the still air, suggestive of
safe green pastures and happy homes. 'Murder!' he whispered gurglingly.
'Nay!' said I, ''tis I should cry Murder!--for if ever an arresting hand
held a murderer, mine holds one now! Your system of slaying is worse
than that of the midnight assassin, for the assassin can but kill the
body,--_you_ strive to kill the soul. You cannot succeed, 'tis true, but
the mere attempt is devilish. No shouts, no struggles will serve you
here,--we are alone with Eternal Nature,--give the man you have
slandered his tardy recognition, or else, as I said before--down you
go!' Well, to make my story short, he yielded, and swore to do as I bade
him,--whereupon placing my arm round him as though he were my tender
twin-brother, I led him safely off the Mauvais Pas and down the kindlier
hill, where, what with the fright and the remains of vertigo, he fell
a'weeping grievously. Would you believe it, that before we reached
Chamounix we had become the best friends in the world? He explained
himself and his rascally modes of action, and I nobly exonerated
him,--we exchanged cards,--and when we parted, this same author's
bug-bear McWhing, overcome with sentiment and whisky toddy (he is a
Scotchman you know) swore that I was the grandest fellow in the world,
and that if ever he could serve me he would. He knew my princely title
by this time, but he would have given me a still higher name. 'You are
not--_hic_--a poet yourself?' he murmured, leaning on me fondly as he
rolled to bed. I told him no. 'I am sorry--very!' he declared, the tears
of whisky rising to his eyes, 'If you had been I would have done a great
thing for you,--I would have boomed you,--_for nothing_!' I left him
snoring nobly, and saw him no more. But I think he'll recognize me,
Geoffrey;--I'll go and look him up personally. By all the gods!--if he
had only known Who held him between life and death upon the Mauvais
Pas!"