"After that," I said--"you had better go to McWhing. I hope you will
tell him that I am the triple essence of all the newest 'discoveries'
rolled into one!"
"Never fear!" returned Lucio,--"I've learned all my stock-phrases by
heart--a 'star of the first magnitude' etc.,--I've read the _Athenæum_
till I've got the lingo of the literary auctioneer well-nigh perfect,
and I believe I shall acquit myself admirably. Au revoir!"
He was gone; and I, after a little desultory looking over my papers,
went out to lunch at Arthur's, of which club I was now a member. On my
way I stopped to look in at a bookseller's window to see if my
'immortal' production was yet on show. It was not,--and the volume put
most conspicuously to the front among all the 'newest books' was one
entitled 'Differences. By Mavis Clare.' Acting on a sudden impulse I
went in to purchase it.
"Has this a good sale?" I asked, as the volume was handed to me.
The clerk at the counter opened his eyes wide.
"Sale?" he echoed--"Well, I should think so--rather! Why everybody's
reading it!"
"Indeed!" and I turned over the uncut pages carelessly--"I see no
allusion whatever to it in the papers."
The clerk smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"No--and you're not likely to, sir"--he said--"Miss Clare is too popular
to need reviews. Besides, a large number of the critics,--the
'log-rollers' especially, are mad against her for her success, and the
public know it. Only the other day a man came in here from one of the
big newspaper offices and told me he was taking a few notes on the books
which had the largest sales,--would I tell him which author's works were
most in demand? I said Miss Clare took the lead,--as she does,--and he
got into a regular rage. Said he--'That's the answer I've had all along
the line, and however true it is, it's no use to me because I dare not
mention it. My editor would instantly scratch it out--he hates Miss
Clare.' 'A precious editor you've got!' I said, and he looked rather
queer. There's nothing like journalism, sir, for the suppression of
truth!"
I smiled, and went away with my purchase, convinced that I had wasted a
few shillings on a mere piece of woman's trash. If this Mavis Clare was
indeed so 'popular,' then her work must naturally be of the 'penny
dreadful' order, for I, like many another literary man, laboured under
the ludicrous inconsistency of considering the public an 'ass' while I
myself desired nothing so much as the said 'ass's' applause and
approval!--and therefore I could not imagine it capable of voluntarily
selecting for itself any good work of literature without guidance from
the critics. Of course I was wrong; the great masses of the public in
all nations are always led by some instinctive sense of right, that
moves them to reject the false and unworthy, and select the true.
Completely prepared, like most men of my type to sneer and cavil at the
book, chiefly because it was written by a feminine hand, I sat down in a
retired corner of the club reading-room, and began to cut and skim the
pages. I had not read many sentences before my heart sank with a heavy
sense of fear and,--jealousy!--the slow fire of an insidious envy began
to smoulder in my mind. What power had so gifted this author--this mere
_woman_,--that she should dare to write better than I! And that she
should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge, albeit
with wrath and shame, my own inferiority! Clearness of thought,
brilliancy of style, beauty of diction, all these were hers, united to
consummate ease of expression and artistic skill,--and all at once, in
the very midst of reading, such a violent impulse of insensate rage
possessed me that I flung the book down, dreading to go on with it. The
potent, resistless, unpurchaseable quality of Genius!--ah, I was not yet
so blinded by my own conceit as to be unable to recognize that divine
fire when I saw it flashing up from every page as I saw it now; but, to
be compelled to give that recognition to a woman's work, galled and
irritated me almost beyond endurance. Women, I considered, should be
kept in their places as men's drudges or toys--as wives, mothers,
nurses, cooks, menders of socks and shirts, and housekeepers
generally,--what right had they to intrude into the realms of art and
snatch the laurels from their masters' brows! If I could but get the
chance of reviewing this book, I thought to myself savagely!--I would
misquote, misrepresent, and cut it to shreds with a joy too great for
words! This Mavis Clare, 'unsexed,' as I at once called her in my own
mind simply because she had the power I lacked,--wrote what she had to
say with a gracious charm, freedom, and innate consciousness of
strength,--a strength which forced me back upon myself and filled me
with the bitterest humiliation. Without knowing her I hated her,--this
woman who could win fame without the aid of money, and who was crowned
so brightly and visibly to the world that she was beyond criticism. I
took up her book again and tried to cavil at it,--over one or two dainty
bits of poetic simile and sentiment I laughed,--enviously. When I left
the club later in the day, I took the book with me, divided between a
curious desire to read it honestly through with justice to it and its
author, and an impulse to tear it asunder and fling it into the road to
be crushed in the mud under rolling cab and cart wheels. In this strange
humour Rimânez found me, when at about four o'clock he returned from his
mission to David McWhing, smiling and--triumphant.
"Congratulate me Geoffrey!" he exclaimed as he entered my
room--"Congratulate me, and yourself! I am _minus_ the five hundred
pound cheque I showed you this morning!"
"McWhing has pocketed it then,"--I said sullenly--"All right! Much good
may it do him, and his 'charity'!"
Rimânez gave me a quick observant glance.
"Why, what has happened to you since we parted?" he inquired, throwing
off his overcoat and sitting down opposite to me--"You seem out of
temper! Yet you ought to be a perfectly happy man--for your highest
ambition is about to be gratified. You said you wished to make your book
and yourself 'the talk of London,'--well, within the next two or three
weeks you will see yourself praised in a very large number of
influential newspapers as the newest discovered 'genius' of the day,
only a little way removed from Shakespeare himself (three of the big
leading magazines are guaranteed to say that) and all this through the
affability of Mr McWhing, and the trifling sum of five hundred pounds!
And are you not satisfied? Really, my friend, you are becoming
difficult!--I warned you that too much good fortune spoils a man."
With a sudden movement I flung down Mavis Clare's book before him.
"Look at this"--I said--"Does _she_ pay five hundred pounds to David
McWhing's charity?"
He took up the volume and glanced at it.
"Certainly not. But then,--she gets slandered--not criticized!"
"What does that matter!" I retorted--"The man from whom I bought this
book says that everybody is reading it."
"Exactly!" and Rimânez surveyed me with a curious expression, half of
pity, half of amusement--"But you know the old axiom, my dear
Geoffrey?--'you may lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him
drink.' Which statement, interpreted for the present occasion, means
that though certain log-rollers, headed by our estimable friend McWhing,
may drag the horse--i.e. the public, up to their own particularly
prepared literary trough, they cannot force it to swallow the mixture.
The horse frequently turns tail and runs away in search of its own
provender,--it has done so in the case of Miss Clare. When the public
choose an author for themselves, it is a dreadful thing of course for
other authors,--but it really can't be helped!"
"Why should they choose Mavis Clare?" I demanded gloomily.
"Ah, why indeed!" he echoed smiling--"McWhing would tell you they do it
out of sheer idiotcy;--the public would answer that they choose her
because she has genius."
"Genius!" I repeated scornfully--"The public are perfectly incapable of
recognizing such a quality!"
"You think so?" he said still smiling--"you really think so? In that
case it's very odd isn't it, how everything that is truly great in art
and literature becomes so widely known and honoured, not only in this
country but in every civilized land where people think or study? You
must remember that all the very famous men and women have been steadily
'written down' in their day, even to the late English Laureate,
Tennyson, who was 'criticized' for the most part in the purest
Billingsgate,--it is only the mediocrities who are ever 'written up.' It
seems as if the stupid public really had a hand in selecting these
'great,' for the reviewers would never stand them at any price, till
driven to acknowledge them by the popular _force majeure_. But
considering the barbarous want of culture and utter foolishness of the
public, Geoffrey, what _I_ wonder at, is that you should care to appeal
to it at all!"