AT THE LITERARY COUNTER
XIX
“THE FATHER OF SANTA CLAUS”
The Successful Author dropped in at the club and looked around for some one to whom he might talk shop. He spied the Timid Aspirant in the corner, and asked him to sit down. The Timid Aspirant blushed all over, and felt that better days were dawning for him, because the Successful Author’s name was in every one’s mouth.
“Have much trouble to sell your stuff, my boy?”
“Oh, I suppose I oughtn’t to complain.”
“Never destroy a manuscript, my boy. You don’t, do you?”
“Sometimes, sir.”
“Ah, don’t. You never know when it will become valuable. Anything written has its niche somewhere.”
Then the Successful Author sank back in his arm-chair and continued reminiscently: “I’ll never forget how one of my articles fared. It was the fourth or fifth thing that I had written, and it was called ‘The Father of Santa Claus.’ I liked it better than any editor has ever liked anything of mine.”
The Timid Aspirant nodded sympathetically, and the Successful Author continued: “I sent it to the ‘Prospect,’ and it came back promptly. Did I destroy it? Not at all. I pigeonholed it, and next year I sent it to them again. Again it came back, and once more I laid it to rest for a twelvemonth, and then bombarded the ‘Prospect’ with it. This sort of thing went on for several years, until at last, to save time, the editor had a special form of rejection printed for it that ran about as follows:
“Dear Sir: The time of year has come once more when we reject your story, ‘The Father of Santa Claus.’ It would not seem like the sweet Christmas season if we did not have a chance to turn it down.
“Yours respectfully,
“Editor the Prospect.”
“Let you down easy each year, didn’t he?”
“Yes. Well, in course of time my price went up. At the start I’d have been tickled to death to get five dollars for the thing, but now I knew that if the editor ever did change his mind I’d get at least fifty, so I kept at it. Well, it was last year that my collection of stories made such a hit, and since then I’ve been so busy filling orders for short stories that I forgot to send my dear old mossback out this year. But day before yesterday I received a note from the editor of the ‘Prospect’ asking for a Christmas sketch. Now was my opportunity. I wrote back:
“Sorry I haven’t anything new, but it struck me that you might like to look at an old thing of mine called ‘The Father of Santa Claus,’ and if you care to consider its publication I’ll let it go for a couple of hundred, just for the sake of old times.
I inclosed the story, and just before coming here I received a check for two hundred dollars.”
“What moral do you deduce from this, sir?”
“Don’t ever sell anything until you’ve gotten a big reputation.”
“Do you mind talking a little more shop?” asked the Timid Aspirant. Somehow he lost his timidity when talking to his renowned friend.
“Of course not. No one really does, though some affect to. Most talk is shop talk. It may relate to plumbing, or to dry-goods, or to painting, or to babies, but it is of the shop shoppy, as a rule, only ‘literary shop talk,’ as Ford calls it, is more interesting to an outsider than the other kinds. What particular department of our shop did you want me to handle?”
“I wanted to ask you if you believed in cutting a man’s work—in other words, do you believe in blue-penciling?”
“Ah, my boy, I see that they have been coloring your manuscript with the hateful crayon. No, I don’t believe in it. I dislike it now because it mars my work, and I used to hate it because it took money from my purse. Let me tell you a little incident.
“One time, years ago, I wrote an article, and after it was done I figured on what I would get for it and with it. If I sold it to a certain monthly I had in mind I should receive enough to buy a new hat, a new suit, a pair of shoes, ditto of socks, and a necktie, for all of which I stood in sore need. I hied me forth in all the exuberance of youth and bore my manuscript to the editor. As he was feeling pretty good, he said he’d read it while I waited. At last he laid it down and said: ‘That’s a pretty good story.’ My heart leaped like an athlete. ‘But’—my heart stopped leaping and listened—‘it will need a little cutting, and I’ll do it now, if you wish.’”
“Poor fellow!” said the Timid Aspirant, sympathetically.
“Well, the first thing that editor did was to cut the socks off of it; then he made a deep incision in the hat; then he slashed away at the trousers and did some scattered cutting, and at last handed the manuscript to me that I might see the havoc he had wrought in my prospective wardrobe. Dear man, I had a vest and a necktie left, and that was all. And it would have been the same if it had been a dinner.”
The Timid Aspirant shuddered.
“Many a young author has seen the soup and the vegetables, and at last the steak, fade away under the terrible obliterating power of the indigo crayon, and lucky is he if a sandwich and a glass of water remain after the editor’s fell work. Blessed is that editor who does not care to work in pastel,—to whom the blue pencil is taboo,—for he shall be held in honored remembrance of all writers, and his end shall be peace.”
“Amen!” said the Timid Aspirant.
XX
THE DIALECT STORE
“I suppose I dreamed it; but if there isn’t such a store, there might be, and it would help quill-drivers a lot,” said the newspaper man, as he and his friend were waiting to give their order in a down-town restaurant yesterday noon.
“What store are you talking about, and what dream? Don’t be so vague, old man,” said his friend the magazine-writer.
“Why, a dialect store. Just the thing for you. I was walking down Fifth Avenue, near Twenty-first Street, and I saw the sign, ‘Dialect shop. All kinds of dialects sold by the yard, the piece, or in quantities to suit.’ I thought that maybe I might be able to get some Swedish dialect to help me out on a little story I want to write about Wisconsin, so I walked in. The place looked a good deal like a dry-goods store, with counters down each side, presided over by some twenty or thirty clerks, men and women.
“The floor-walker stepped up to me and said, ‘What can I do for you?’ ‘I want to buy some dialect,’ said I. ‘Oh, yes; what kind do you want to look at? We have a very large assortment of all kinds. There’s quite a run on Scotch just now; perhaps you’d like to look at some of that.’ ‘No; Swedish is what I’m after,’ I replied. ‘Oh, yes; Miss Jonson, show this gentleman some Swedish dialect.’
“I walked over to Miss Jonson’s department, and she turned and opened a drawer that proved to be empty. ‘Are you all out of it?’ I asked. ‘Ja; but I skall have some to-morrer. A faller from St. Paul he baen haer an’ bought seventy jards.’
“I was disappointed, but as long as I was there I thought I’d look around; so I stepped to the next counter, behind which stood a man who looked as if he had just stepped out of one of Barrie’s novels. ‘Have you Scotch?’ said I. ‘I hae joost that. What’ll ye hae? Hielan’ or lowlan’, reeleegious or profane? I’ve a lairge stock o’ gude auld Scotch wi’ the smell o’ the heather on it; or if ye’re wantin’ some a wee bit shop-worn, I’ll let ye hae that at a lower price. There’s a quantity that Ian Maclaren left oot o’ his last buke.’ I expressed surprise that he had let any escape him, and he said: ‘Hech, mon, dinna ye ken there’s no end to the Scots?’ I felt like telling him that I was sorry there had been a beginning, but I refrained, and he went on: ‘We’re gettin’ airders fra the whole English-sp’akin’ warld for the gude auld tongue. Our manager has airdered a fu’ line of a’ soorts in anticipation of a brisk business, now that McKinley—gude Scotch name, that—is President.’
“I should have liked to stay and see a lot of the Scotch, as it seemed to please the man to talk about his goods; but I wanted to have a look at all the dialects, so I bade him good morning, and stepped to the next department—the negro.
“Here an unctuous voice called out: ‘Fo’ de Lawd! Ah don’ b’lieve you’ll pass me widout buyin’. Got ’em all hyah, boss—Sou’ Ca’lina an’ Ten’see an’ Virginny. Tawmas Nelson Page buys a heap er stuff right yer. Dat man sut’n’y got a great haid. He was de fustes’ one ter see how much folks was dyin’ ter git a leetle di’lect er de ra’ht sawt, an’ Ah reckon Ah sol’ him de fus’ yard he evah bo’t.’
“‘Do you sell it by the yard?’ I asked, just to bring him out. ‘Shuah!’ and pulling down a roll of black goods, he unrolled enough dialect to color ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ But I said, ‘I don’t want to buy, uncle; but I’m obliged to you for showing it to me.’ ‘Oh, dat’s all right, boss. No trouble to show goods. Ah reckon yo’ nev’ saw sech a heap er local col’in’ as dat. Hyah! hyah! hyah! We got de goods, an’ any tahm you want to fix up a tale, an’ put in de Queen’s English in black, come yer an’ as’ fer me. Good day, sah.’ And I passed on to the next—Western dialect.
“Here I found that James Whitcomb Riley had just engaged the whole output of the plant. The clerk had an assistant in his little son,—a Hoosier boy,—and he piped up: ‘We got ’ist a littul bit er chile’s di’lec’, an’ my popper says ’at ef Mist’ Riley don’t come an’ git it soon ’at I can sell it all my own se’f. ’At ’d be the mostest fun!’ and his childish treble caused all the other clerks in the store to look around and smile kindly at him.
“In the German department the clerk told me he was not taking orders for dialect in bulk. ‘Zome off dose tayatree-kalers dey buy it, aber I zell not de best to dem. I zell imitation kints “made in Chairmany.” Aber I haf der best eef you vant it.’
“I told him I did not care to buy, and passed on to the French-Canadian department. The clerk was just going out to lunch; but although I told him I merely wished to look, and not to buy, he said politely: ‘I try hall I can for get di’lect, but hup in Mon’réal dat McLennan he use hall dere is; but bymby I speak for some dat a frien’ have, an’ he sen’ me some. An’ ’e tell me I’ll get hit las’ summer.’
“I expressed a polite wish that he might get his goods even sooner than ‘las’ summer,’ and walked to the Jew-dialect counter, over which I was nearly pulled by the Hebrew clerk. ‘You’re chust in time,’ he said. ‘Say, veepin’ Rachel! but I sell you a parkain. Some goots on’y been ust vun veek on der staich; unt so hellep me cracious! you look so like mein prudder Imre dat I let dem go’—here he lowered his voice to a whisper—‘I let dem go fer a qvarter uf a darler.’
“I resisted him, and hurried to the Yankee department. There was tall hustling going on there, and a perfect mob of buyers of all sorts and conditions of writers; and it took half a dozen men, women, and children, including three typical farmers, to wait on them; and they were selling it by the inch and by the carload. ‘Wall, I’m plumb tired. Wisht they’d let up so ’st I could git a snack er somep’n’ inside me,’ said one; and he looked so worn out that I passed on to the Irish counter. A twinkling-eyed young Irishman, not long over, in answer to my question, said: ‘Sure, there’s not much carl fer larrge quantities av ut. Jane Barlow do be havin’ a good dale, an’ the funny papers do be usin’ ut in smarl lots, but ’t is an aisy toime I have, an’ that’s a good thing, fer toimes is harrd.’
“I paused a moment at the English-dialect counter, and the rosy-cheeked clerk said: ‘Cawn’t I show you the very litest thing in Coster?’ I told him no, and he offered me Lancashire and Yorkshire at ‘gritely reduced rites’; but I was proof against his pleading, and having now visited all the departments but one, went to that.”
“What was it?” asked the writer for the magazines.
“The tough-dialect counter.”
“Tough is not a dialect,” said he.
“Maybe not, but it sounds all right, all right. Well, whatever it is, the fellow in charge was a regular Ninth-Warder, and when I got abreast of him he hailed me with, ‘Soy, cully, wot sort d’ yer want? I got a chim-dandy Sunny-school line er samples fer use in dose joints, or I c’n gi’ yer hot stuff up ter de limit an’ beyon’. See? Here’s a lot of damaged “wot t’ ’ells” dat I’ll trun down fer a fiver, an’ no questions ast. Soy, burn me fer a dead farmer if I ever sol’ dem at dat figger before; but dey’s some dat Townsen’ did n’ use, an’ yet dey’s dead-sure winners wit’ de right gang. See?’
“And then I woke up, if I was asleep; and if I wasn’t, I wish I could find the store again, for I’d be the greatest dialect-writer of the age if I could get goods on credit there. Say, waiter, we came for lunch, not supper.”
XXI
“FROM THE FRENCH”
When a Frenchman sets out to write a tale that shall be wholly innocuous, he succeeds—and thereby drives his readers to seek in De Maupassant and Zola the antidote for his poisoning puerility.
He generally lays the scene in London, that he may air his ignorance of things foreign; and when the tale is done it contains absolutely nothing that would bring the blush of shame to any cheek in Christendom, seek said cheek where you might.
The following is a fair sample of the unharmful French story. I trust that if it had been printed without preamble or credit, the discerning reader would have exclaimed, upon reading it, “From the French!” I have called it—
IT IS GOOD TO BE GOOD
In the great city of London, which, as you may know, is in England, there is a bridge, famous throughout the whole town as London Bridge. One dark night, many years ago, two men started to cross it in opposite directions, and running into each other, their heads crashed together in the fog which day and night envelops the city.
“Parbleu!” cried one, a fellow of infinite wealth; “but have you, then, no better use for your head than to make of it a battering-ram?”
“Sapristi!” replied the other, speaking in the coarse tones of an English mechanic out of work. “What matters it what I do with it? A moment more and I shall be in the Thames” (a large river corresponding to our Seine, and in equal demand by suicides). “To-night, for the first time in my life, I commit suicide!”
“Why, then,” said the other, “we will jump together, for it is for that purpose that I have come to this great bridge.”
“But,” said the mechanic, “why should you commit suicide? I can tell by the feeling of your garments that you are rich, and by the softness of your head that you are noble.”
“True, I am both of those things, but, also, I have exhausted every pleasure in life but the pleasure of suicide, and would now try that. But you, you are a mechanic out of work, as I can tell by your speech. Why should you seek pleasure instead of employment?”
“Alas, sir! I have at home one wife and seventeen children, all flaxen-haired, and all as poor as I. I cannot bear to go home to them without even the price of a biftek or a rosbif.”
“Come,” said the nobleman; “I will defer my sport for the night. I have never seen a starving family. It will furnish me with a new sensation.”
“Ah! but you have a kind heart, and I will not refuse you. The river will keep. Follow me.”
They followed each other through the region of the Seven Clocks, and through Blanc Chapel, afterward the scene of the murders of “Jean the Rapper,” until they came to the wretched apartment of the poor artisan. There, huddled in the corner of the room, were sixteen of the starving but still flaxen-haired children. The mother sat near the fireplace, so that she might be near the warmth when it came. In the other corner of the room—for they were so poor, these people, that they could not afford four corners—sat a vision of beauty, aged seventeen and a girl, ma foi! At sight of her the count’s eyes filled with tears of compassion, and he handed his purse to the wretched father and said: “My good man, do not stir from here. I will return in an hour with furniture!”
Tears of gratitude coursed down the thirty-eight cheeks of the poor family, and they no longer felt hungry, for they knew that in a short time they would be sitting upon real sofas and rocking in chairs like those they had seen through the windows of the rich on Holy Innocents’ Day.
The count, whose full title was Sir Lord Ernold Cicil Judas GeorgeS Herold Wallington, grandson of the great Lord of Wallington, was as good as his word, and in an hour he returned with six of his servants, bearing sofas and cushions and tables and tête-à-têtes, and what not.
The family seated themselves on the furniture, and, clasping his knees, overwhelmed him with thanks.
“Dame! Sacré!” cried he. “It is nothing, this thing I have done. What is it that it is? Know, then, that for the first time in my life I have the happiness.” Then, turning to the father: “Give me the purse. I left it as a collateral. Now that you have the furniture, you will not need it. But that angelic being there, she shall never weep again. I will take her with me.”
“Ah!” said the mother; “but that is like you, Count Wallington. You mean that she is to be a maid in your father’s house? Ah! what prosperity!”
“Ah! do not insult the most beautiful being who ever went about in a London fog. She a servant? Never! I will make her my wife. She shall be Miledi Comptesse Ernold Cicil Judas GeorgeS Herold Wallington!”
In Southwark-on-Trent, a suburb of London, is the hospital for those about to commit suicide. Ring the bell at the gate, and you will be admitted by sixteen flaxen-haired ones who will conduct you to the governor and matron. Need I say who they are, or whose money built the institution?
And when you read in London Ponch, among the court news, that a great beauty has been presented to the Queen of England, London, and Ireland, you will know that it is the Comptesse Wallington. She is presented at all the levees, and, with her husband, the handsome and philanthropic Lord Wallington, is the cynosure of all English eyes.
It is good to be good.
XXII
ON THE VALUE OF DOGMATIC UTTERANCE
FROM MY “GUIDE TO YOUNG AUTHORS”
My dear young reader, if you are thinking of launching a little craft upon the troublous sea of literature, see that it is well ballasted with dogmatic assertions. (I should like to continue this nautical metaphor further, but I am such a landlubber that I doubt if I should be able to mix it properly, and what interest has a metaphor if it be not well mixed?) But to continue in plain English: A dogmatic assertion carries conviction to the minds of most unthinking people—in other words, to most people. (You and I don’t think, dear reader, and is it likely that we are worse than the rest of mankind?)
If you purpose becoming a novelist of character, follow my directions, and your first book will nail your reputation to the mast of public opinion. Fill your story full of such utterances as these: “Chaplain Dole always nodded his head a great many times to express affirmation. This is a common practice with persons who are a little hard of hearing.” (It isn’t, and yet it may be, for all I know to the contrary; but it will carry weight. Nine persons out of ten will say, “Why, that’s so, isn’t it? Haven’t you noticed it?”)
It doesn’t matter what you say; if you say it dogmatically it will go. Thus: “She walked with the slow, timid step that is so characteristic of English spinsters.” That’s a fine one, for it may excite contradiction, and contradiction is advertisement. Here are half a dozen examples: “He tapped his forehead with his left little finger, a gesture peculiar to people who have great concentration of mind.” “His half-closed eyes proclaimed him a shrewd business man. Why is it that your keen man of affairs should always look out at the world through a slit?” “The child spoke in that raucous tone of voice that always presages cerebral trouble.” “Miss de Mure waved her fan languidly, with a scarcely perceptible wrist motion, a sure indication that she was about to capitulate, but Mr. Wroxhaemme, not being a keen observer, took no note of it.” And, “He spoke but three words, yet you sensed that he was an advocate. Why is it that a lawyer cannot conceal his profession? A doctor may talk all day, and if he bar shop his vocation will not be detected; but a lawyer tunes up his vocal chords, as it were, and the secret is out.”
If all the above specimens of “observation” were introduced into your story the critics would unite in praising your keenness of vision.
Perhaps you would like to figure as a musical author. Few authors know anything about music, and you don’t have to; dogmatism and alliteration in equal parts will take the trick. Please step this way (as they say in the stores) and I will show you.
“She played Chopin divinely—but she did not care to clean dishes. Chopin and care of a house do not coalesce. A girl may love Beethoven and yet busy herself with baking; Bach and the Beatitudes are not antagonistic; Haydn, Handel, and housekeeping hunt together; Schumann and Schubert are not incompatible with sweetness and serenity of demeanor and a love for sewing; Mozart and Mendelssohn may be admired and the girl will also love to mend stockings; Weber and work may be twins: but Chopin and cooking, Wagner and washing, Berlioz or Brahms and basting, Dvořák and vulgar employment—or Dvořák and darning (according as you pronounce Dvořák)—are eternally at war. So, when I have said that Carlotta was a devotee of Chopin, I have implied that her poor old mother did most of the housework, while the sentimental maiden coquetted with the keys continually.”
Fill your stories with such bits of false observation, and ninety-nine persons out of a hundred will accept them at their face-value; which remark, being in itself a dogmatic assertion, will doubtless carry weight and conviction with it.
XXIII
THE SAD CASE OF DEACON PERKINS
It is now some fifteen years since the dialect story assumed undue prominence in the literary output of the time, and about eight since it became a “craze.” There is no craze without its attendant disease or ailment: thus roller-skating developed “roller’s heel”; gum-chewing, “chewer’s jaw”; bicycling, the “bicycle face,” and later the “leg”; housekeeping, “housemaid’s knee”; golf-playing, “idiocy”; and so on, every craze having a damaging effect upon some portion of the anatomy. It is only within the last year, however, that it has been discovered that an over-indulgence in dialect stories is liable to bring on an affection of the tongue.
A peculiarly sad case and the most notable that has thus far been brought to the attention of the public is that of Deacon Azariah Perkins of West Hartford, Connecticut.
Far from deploring the spread of the dialect story, he reveled in it, reading all the tales that he could get hold of in magazines or circulating library. But his was not a healthy, catholic taste; he had ears and eyes for one dialect alone—the negro. For him Ian Maclaren and Barrie spread their most tempting Scotch jaw-breakers in vain; he had no desire for them. After fifteen years of negro dialect in every form in which Southern and Northern writers can serve it, any specialist in nervous disorders could have told the deacon that he was liable to have “negromania”; but West Hartford does not employ specialists, and so the stroke came unheralded, with all the suddenness of apoplexy.
Deacon Perkins has always been able to think standing; indeed, he has been called the Chauncey Depew of West Hartford, and no revival meeting or strawberry festival or canned clam-bake was considered a success unless the deacon’s ready tongue took part in the exercises.
Last Sunday they had a children’s festival in the Congregational Church, and after the children had made an end of reciting and singing, the deacon was called upon for a few remarks. He is a favorite with young and old, and a man of great purity and simplicity of character. He arose with alacrity and walked down the isle with the lumbering gait peculiar to New-Englanders who have struggled with rocky farms the best part of their lives. He ascended the platform steps, inclined his head to the audience, and spoke as follows:
“Mah deah li’l’ chillun! Yo’ kahnd sup’inten’ent has ast me to mek a few remahks.” (Subdued titters on the part of the scholars.) “Ah don’ s’pose you-all’ll b’lieve me w’en Ah say dat Ah too was once a li’l’ piccaninny same as yo’, but Ah was, an’ Ah ’membeh how mah ol’ mammy use teh tek me to Sunny-school.” (Consternation on the part of the superintendent and teachers.)
“Now, ef you-all wan’ to go to heb’n w’en yo’ die, be ci’cumspectious ’bout de obsarvence ob de eighth c’man’ment. Hit ain’t so awful wicked ter steal—dat ain’t hit, but hit’s jes nach’ly tryin’ to a man’s self-respec’ ter git cotched. Don’ steal jes fer deviltry, but ef yo’ is ’bleeged ter steal, study de wedder repohts, ac’ accordin’, an’—don’ git foun’ out—or in, eiver.”
During the delivery of this remarkable speech the deacon’s face wore his habitual expression; a kindly light shone in his eye, a smile of ineffable sweetness played about his lips, and he evidently imagined that he was begging them to turn from their evil ways and seek the narrow path.
But at this juncture Dr. Pulcifer of New York, the eminent neurologist, who happened to be spending Sunday in West Hartford, whispered to the superintendent, and on receiving an affirmative nod to his interrogation, went up to the platform. He held out his hand to Deacon Perkins, who was making a rhetorical pause, and said kindly, “Good morning, uncle.”
“Mornin’, sah,” said the deacon, bowing awkwardly and scratching his head.
“Can you direct me to a good melon-patch?”
Deacon Perkins gave vent to an unctuous negro chuckle. Then, holding up his forefinger to enjoin caution, he tiptoed off the platform, closely followed by the doctor; and before nightfall he was on his way to a private hospital for nervous diseases, where rest and a total abstention from negro-dialect stories is expected to restore him to his usual sane condition of mind in a short time.
XXIV
THE MISSING-WORD BORE
Then, there’s that bore whose thoughts come by freight, and the freight is always late. You know what’s coming, that is, you can imagine the way-bill, but he won’t let you help him to make better time, and runs his train of thought as if it were on a heavy grade.
He starts to tell a story, blinking his red eyes, meanwhile, as if he thought that they supplied the motive power for his tongue. To make listening to him the harder, he generally tells a very old story.
“One day, William Makepeace—er-er—”
“Thackeray,” you say, intending to help him. Of course it is Thackeray, and he was going to tell about the novelist and the Bowery boy; but he is so pig-headed that he shifts on to another track.
“No; Dickens, Charles Dickens. One day, when Charles Dickens was at work on ‘Bleak’—er—er—”
“‘Bleak House’?” you say.
“No!” he snaps; “‘Dombey and Son.’ One day, when Charles Dickens was at work on ‘Dombey and Son,’ he was approached by his biographer, John—er—er—”
“Forster?”
“No; it wasn’t his biographer, either; it was Edmund Yates.”
You now take a gleeful pleasure in seeing how hopelessly you can make him tangle himself up by the refusal of your help, but he doesn’t care. He’ll tell it in his own words, though the heavens fall and though he starts a hundred stories.
“Charles Dickens had a very loud way of—er—er—”
“Dressing?”
“No, no! He had a loud way of talking, and he and Edmund—er—er—”
“Yates?”
“No, sir; Edmund Spenser.”
Of course this is arrant nonsense on the face of it, but he won’t admit that he’s made pi of his story, and he goes on:
“Edmund said that Charles—”
“Dickens?”
“No, sir; Charles Reade. Edmund said that Charles Reade thought George—er—”
“Meredith?”
“No; hang it all! George Eliot. He thought that George Eliot never wrote a better book than ‘Silas’—er—”
“‘Marner’?”
“Not at all! ‘Silas Lapham.’”
Now, if you are merciful, or if you are refinedly cruel, either one, you will allow him to finish his story in peace, and, like as not, he will start all over again by saying: “I guess I inadvertently got hold of the wrong name at the beginning. It was not Dickens, as you said, but Thackeray. Thackeray was one day walking along the Bowery when he met a typical—” And so on to the bitter end.
For the sake of speed, do not ever interrupt his kind!
XXV
THE CONFESSIONS OF A CRITIC
I met a prominent literary critic the other evening. A review signed with his name or even with his initials is apt to make or mar the work treated therein.
Now, I have not a little hypnotic power, and the mischievous idea came into my head to hypnotize him and make him “confess.”
We were sitting in the reading-room of an up-town club. I led the conversation to the subject of hypnotism, and soon gained the critic’s consent to be put into a trance.
I did not influence him any more than to put his mind in the attitude of truthfully answering what questions I might ask him.
Q. Which do you prefer to criticize, a book that has already been reviewed or one that is perfectly fresh?
A. Oh, one that has been reviewed, and the oftener the better. I thus gain some idea of the trend of critical opinion and shape my review accordingly.
Q. Do you ever run counter to the general sentiment?
A. Yes; if I find that a book has been damned with faint praise, I sometimes laud it to the skies and thus gain a reputation for independence that is very useful to me. Or if a book has been heralded by the best critics of both countries as “the book of the year,” I sometimes pick it to pieces, taking its grammar as a basis, or some other point that I think I can attack without injury to my reputation for discernment, and again I score a victory for my independence.
Q. Why don’t you like to be the first to review a new book?
A. For the same reason that most critics hate to—unless, indeed, they are just out of college and are cock-sure of everything. I fear that its author may be one of the numerous coming men. I may be entirely at sea about the book. I prefer to get some idea of what the consensus of the best opinion is.
Q. Then you do not consider your own the best opinion?
A. No; no one critic’s opinion is worth much.
Q. Can you tell an author by his style?
A. Always, if I know who he is before I begin to read. But it is hazardous work to say such-and-such a work is by such-and-such a man unless there are internal evidences aside from the style. Once a book was sent to me for criticism. Before I opened it I lent it to a waggish friend of mine, and he returned it next day. I looked at the title-page, saw that it was by an absolutely unknown man and that the scene was laid in India, and, of course, I felt safe in giving it fits on the principle that Rudyard Kipling is not likely to be equaled in this generation as a depicter of Indian life. Well, I said that it was painfully crude and amateurish; that it might do for the “Servants’ Own,” but was not a book for ladies and gentlemen; that it had absolutely no style or local coloring; that the scene might as well have been laid in Kamchatka; and that it was marked by but one thing, audacity, for the author had borrowed some of Kipling’s characters—to the extent of the names only. In short, I had fun with that book, for I knew that my fellow-critics would with one accord turn and rend it. By mere chance I didn’t sign it.
Q. And who had written the book?
A. Why, Kipling. My friend had cut another name out of a book and had pasted it so neatly over Kipling’s wherever his occurred that I was, of course, taken unawares. You can’t bank on style. Look how positive people were Mark Twain had not written “Jeanne d’Arc.”
I here interrupted the flow of his conversation to say: “Your experience is not unlike that of the reviewer who criticized ‘Silas Lapham,’ and who had a sort of hazy notion from the similarity of titles that it was by the author of ‘Silas Marner.’ You may remember, it created a good deal of amusement at the time. He said that it was a mistake for George Eliot to try to write a novel of American life; that the vital essence—American humor—was lacking; that Silas Lapham was a dull Englishman transplanted bodily into a very British Boston; that his daughters were mere puppets, and the attempts at Americanisms doleful in the extreme. He concluded by saying that her ‘Romola’ had shown that she was best on British soil, and that she would better keep to the snug little isle in the future.”
“Yes,” said he, with a grin; “I remember that. It was my first criticism. Most people supposed it was a humorous skit, even the editors who accepted it, but I never was more in earnest. I was young then.”
Q. If you received a book to review with the name of Hardy on the title-page, would you give it a good send-off?
A. I certainly should, for I am a great admirer of Hardy; but I should prefer to wait until some one else had done so, for fear it might be another put-up job and turn out to be the work of some fifth-rate English author.
I then brought him out of his trance. He sat silent for a moment. I picked up the “Saturday Review” from the table and said, “Criticism is a very noble calling.”
“It is indeed,” he responded earnestly. “It is one that requires great insight into human nature, absolute independence, and not a little charity.”
With which beautiful sentiments he rose and, bowing, left the room.
XXVI
HOW ’RASMUS PAID THE MORTGAGE
A DIALECT STORY
I
Oh, de wolf an’ de har’ dey had a great fight.
(Down on de ribber de wil’ geese is callin’.)
De har’ pulled de wolf’s teeth so’s he couldn’ bite.
(A-callin’ me to my long home!)
Said de wolf to de har’, “Don’ hit so hard.”
(De dew on de hollyhock’s all a-dryin’!)
An’ he killed de har’ w’en he co’t him oaf his guard.
(Ah’ll dry up an’ go home!)
Up the vista formed by a narrow, tortuous Virginia lane, came Uncle ’Rasmus, an aged darky, singing one of the songs of his race that never grow old—because they die young, it may be.
As he hobbled along the path, he talked to himself, as was his wont:
“Golly! Ah mus’ hurry up, o’ de fo’kses won’ hab no dinnah; for, be jabers, ’tis mesilf that has got to git riddy dthat same. Och, worra! worra! but ’tis no synekewer Oi’m havin’, an’ dthat’s dther trut’.”
Just then his watch struck five minutes to six, and he ran off toward the homestead of Squire Lamar, saying, as he did so, in his quaint way: “Veepin’ Rachel! der boss will kick der live out mit me.”
Before the war Squire Lamar had been the richest man in Oconee County; but the conflict had ruined him, and he now had little except his plantation, horses, and stables. He lived in his ancestral house, which was heavily mortgaged, with his wife and children.
’Rasmus, his only servant, an ex-slave, supported the family by collecting dollars—at night.
As he ran toward the house, he saw Squire Lamar on the veranda. Just then a horseman dashed up. He was the sheriff of Oconee County. ’Rasmus took advantage of the commotion, and ran into the kitchen to cook the dinner. On seeing the squire, the sheriff called out to him: “The mortgage on this place will be foreclosed if the $3600 due is not forthcoming by to-morrow noon.”
“Alas!” said the squire; “you see how we are situated. I haven’t a dollar, and wouldn’t know how to earn one if I had.”
At this juncture, ’Rasmus, who had cooked the dinner during the conversation, came up and said: “Massa, Ah’s a free man, Ah know Ah is; but avick, ’t is a mighty shmall wan Oi’d be if I wouldn’t help out a poor omadhaun like yerself. ‘Caed mille fail the Bryn Mawr dolce far niente.’ Zat ees mon motto, an’ so, deah massah, I will guarantee to git de money by to-morrow noon.” Then turning to the sheriff, he said in a manly tone that contrasted ill with his ragged garments: “Ye maun fash awee, laddie, doon the skim.”
After a few more words, the sheriff, who was really a kind man at heart, rode off, saying he would be on hand the next day, and if the money were not forthcoming, he would march them all off to the county jail, ten miles distant. After blowing the dinner-horn, ’Rasmus hobbled off to his humble cottage.
II
On arriving at his cabin, ’Rasmus took a bolster-case full of dollars from under the bed, and proceeded to count them. There were just $3000. “Now, Ah mus’ git $600 more before to-morrow, or else me poor masther’ll be wor-r-rkin’ in the chain-gang. Ach, Himmel!” said the good old darky, his eyes suffused with tears, “if dot took blace, it zeems as if mein herz would break.”
He calmly decided on a plan of action, however. Waiting until night had flung over the earth a pall, through which the silvery moon cast shimmering beams aslant the quivering aspens of the forest, and the snoring of the birds told him that nature slept, he left his house and walked briskly off to the highway.
About that time a lawyer was riding along the road on horseback, with a wallet containing a share of an estate worth $600, which he had secured for an old woman.
’Rasmus saw the traveler, saw the horse, saw the wallet.
The traveler saw no one. He was blind—drunk.
’Rasmus cut a stout bludgeon.
The traveler ambled on.
’Rasmus clasped the bludgeon.
The traveler continued to amble.
’Rasmus stole up beside him....
The traveler lay in the ditch.
’Rasmus jumped on the horse, the wallet in his hand, and galloped home, stabling the beautiful animal in his cabin to avoid being suspected of the murder.
Placing his shoe in front of the one window of the cabin, that none might see him, he counted the money, and found it amounted to just $600, which, together with the $3000, formed the sum required by the sheriff. This made him so happy that he picked up a banjo and played Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” through once or twice, accompanying himself on his throat in a rich tenor. He then turned out the gas and retired, to sleep as only a good, unselfish soul can.
III
It is 11:45 A. M. The squire and his family, who have heard nothing from ’Rasmus, are on the veranda, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the sheriff.
11:50 A. M.! Is ’Rasmus dead? Has the sheriff relented?
11:55. Good lack! The sheriff is seen galloping toward the house, and yet there is no sign of ’Rasmus.
That individual, who is nothing if not dramatic, is sitting behind the house on horseback, awaiting the stroke of twelve.
The door of the ormolu cuckoo-clock in the kitchen opens, the cuckoo advances. At her first note the sheriff jumps from his horse; at the second he walks sternly upon the veranda; at the third he asks for the money; at the fourth and fifth they tell him that ’Rasmus has disappeared; at the sixth, seventh, and eighth he handcuffs them all together; at the ninth, tenth, and eleventh he jumps on his horse and rides off, dragging them behind him; and at the twelfth ’Rasmus trots leisurely out from behind the house, and, opening a carpet-bag, counts out $3600 in silver!
The astonished sheriff puts the money into his pocket, gives Squire Lamar a receipt in full for it, unlocks the handcuffs, and the family resume their wonted places on the veranda.
But all was not yet done. ’Rasmus still had his bludgeon with him, and a few deft strokes on the sheriff’s head were all-sufficient. ’Rasmus then took back the money and gave it to Squire Lamar. Then he told them all to remain perfectly still, and whistling three times, an amateur photographer made his appearance, adjusted his apparatus, and took their pictures.
Sarony could have wished for no better subjects. On the broad veranda lay the old lady prone on the floor, reading the “Tallahassee Inland Mariner”; at her side sat her daughter, Turk-fashion, shelling a pea; while the son and heir reclined near by, reading an account by a Prussian officer of the third battle of Bull Run. The father, weighted down with dollars, snored in the background.
And beaming on them all with the consciousness of having done his best and done it well, old ’Rasmus stood, singing ventriloquially, so as not to injure the picture, this negro plantation song:
De ribber Jordan I can see,
Toujour jamais, toujour jamais;
Mein liebe frau, ach, she lofes me,
Fair Jeannie het awa!
Then I wen’ daown the caows to milk,
Toujour jamais, toujour jamais;
Me lika banan’ as softa as silk,
Helas, cordon, by gar!
XXVII
’MIDST ARMED FOES
BY THE AUTHOR OF “DUNN TO DEATH; OR, THE WEATHER PROPHET’S FATE,” “SARAH THE SALES-WOM-LADY; OR, FROM COUNTER TO COUNTESS,” ETC.
Raoul Chevreuilly stood within a rude hut in the dark recesses of the forest of Fontainebleau. By his side stood his lady-love, the beautiful Perichole Perihelion. Without, the night was black and the wind roared as it is wont to do in stories of this type.
“Dost fear aught, my precious?” asked Raoul, gazing at the French face of the lovely Parisian.
“Why should I fear when I am protected by my Raoul—how do you pronounce Raoul, anyway?” replied she.
“I long ago gave up trying. But, Perichole, while I would not have you fear, yet it is no light task that I have undertaken—your defense against as fierce a pack of roistering thieves as ever beset the forest and who now surround this hut. Let but the wind die down so that they may be heard, and they will hurl execrations at me and beat down the door. Réné Charpentier seeks my life because I have promised to be yours, or rather because you have promised to be mine. But he shall kill me only at the expense of my life. Yea, though he had twice a hundred myrmidons at his back and beck.”
For answer the entrancing girl took a mother-of-pearl jews’ harp off the wall and played “Mlle. Rosie O’Grady,” “There’ll be a chaud temps in the vieux ville ce soir,” and other simple French ditties.
Instead of admiring her pluck, Raoul was moved to fury, and he cried in French,—this whole business is supposed to be in French, except the descriptions,—“Is it impossible to move you to a realization of my bravery? Know, then, that, save for ourselves, there is not a human being within three miles of this hut. I had thought that you would be moved to added love by such an exhibition of bravery on my part as your defense against a hundred bravos; but, viol di gamba! you have no imagination.”
“And Réné Charpentier?”
“There is no such fellow. He is but a pigment—I mean figment of my brain.”
Flinging a pair of arms around his French neck, the adorable Perichole kissed Raoul again and once more. Then she said, “My adored one, that you were brave I suspected—are you not the hero of a French novel? But I never knew that you were such a lovely liar. Raoul, my own forevermore!”
And her beautiful face beamed with a love-light whose wick had been newly trimmed.
XXVIII
AT THE SIGN OF THE CYGNET
A COSMOPOLITAN ROMANCE
I
It was late spring in New England. Buttercups bespangled the grass and nodded and smiled at the apple-blossoms in the trees. And the apple-blossoms nodded in return, and in a few days fluttered down to the buttercups.
On the front stoop of an old baronial castle in the south of France stood Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre. He had been standing there all the morning, he knew not why. True, he looked well, but he would have looked as well anywhere else, and he might have been doing something. Still, there is time. It is but the first chapter.
Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on Baddecumb, the only daughter of her widowed mother and widowered father, cantered slowly down the roadway that led to Churchill Hall, the home of the Churchills for seven centuries. Her right cheek was overflushed, and ever and anon she bit her chin. England could boast of no prettier girl than Godiva, nor did England boast of it as much as Godiva did.
II
It is summer in New England. The as yet colorless spears of goldenrod give warning that the year is speeding speedily. The buttercups fled long ago with the apple-blossoms, and from the verdant limbs of the apple-trees hang bullet-like apples.
Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre is still in the south of France. My French map is mislaid, and I cannot spell the name of the place he is at, but it is on bottles, I think. He has left the front stoop, and passes his time gazing at the goldfish in the fountain and waiting to be drawn into the plot of my story. Patient man!
Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on Baddecumb, is still in the saddle, filled with vague longings.
III
Purple asters fringe the highways of New England, and rosy apples depend from the boughs in countless orchards. (I think that scenery is my strong point.)
Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre is chafing at my delay, but continues to reside in the south of France from sheer inertia.
Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on Baddecumb, has worn out the left fore foot of her horse by her incessant cantering upon the graveled paths of Churchill Hall. She is beginning to feel resentment at me for the enforced monotony of her existence, but heavens! how can I help it? I’m trying my level best to evolve a plot.
IV
The flowers that gladdened the meads and highways and shady lanes of New England are gone. Winter’s robes of office are thrown carelessly over the landscape, and apples in innumerable barrels stand in the cellars, waiting for better prices.
The reason why I have so faithfully described New England scenery is because that’s the only kind of scenery I know anything about.
I am ashamed to confess it, but this is the last chapter, and blamed if I can think of any good reason for the departure of Armand Maria Sylvestre de Faience Pomade Pommedeterre from the south of France. He can’t speak a word of English, and if you’re thinking of Godiva, she can’t speak a syllable of French.
Poor Godiva Churchill Churchill, of Churchill Wolde, Biddecumb on Baddecumb! She is quite lame from her long-continued exercise in the saddle, but still canters aimlessly about. She has become the laughing-stock of all the tenants of Churchill Wolde, and it’s all my fault.
If she saw Armand she’d fall in love with him, but I can’t think of a way to bring about their meeting. That’s what it is to lack invention.
Just imagine me trying to write a novel!
Anyhow, I’ve got a good title for the story.
THE END
XXIX
A SCOTCH SKETCH
The shadows lengthened on old Ben Nevis. Surely none of my readers imagines that Ben Nevis is the hero of my simple Scotch sketch. If so, he is awa off. Ben Nevis is a mountain, and I have flung it in as a suitable background for the following conversation:
“Mither, mither, ye’ll mek nae doot o’ haein’ roast beef fer supper,” said Hillocks Kilspindie, as he sat on the old bench in front of their cottage door.
With a troubled look, his mother, old Margaret Kilspindie, replied: “Man, Hillocks, div ye no see me buyin’ the haggis?”
“Yes, mither; but I’m sair sick o’ haggis. Syne Scotch literatoor kem in it’s hard put we are to live at all. I say may the plague take Maclaren and Barrie and Crockett. Before they began to write”—and in his excitement Hillocks was using as good English as any other Scotchman in real life—“roast beef and wheat bread and chops and tomato-sauce and other Christian dishes were good enough for us all. Then came the influx of Americans who wanted to see the scenes made immortal by the ‘Bonnie Brier Bush’ (I wish Ian might have scratched his writing-hand upon it) and the ‘Window in Thrums’ (which I wish some one had broken before Barrie saw it), and now it is haggis in the morning, and haggis at noon, and haggis at night, and Scotch dialect that tears my tongue to pieces all the time.”
“Hech, my bairnie; but thae are wrang words, an’ fu’ o’ unchristian bitterness.”
“Oh, mother! drop your ‘hechs’ and your ‘fu’s.’ There are no Americans about this evening. It’s hard enough to talk the abominable gibberish when we have to, without keeping it up all the time. But, tell me, mother, couldn’t you smuggle in a little roast beef to-night, and let me eat in the cellar?” And a pleading look came into the young man’s eyes that was hard to resist.
“My bairn—I mean my boy, I’d like to, but I dare not. Maclaren’s inspectors are due here any minute, and I could ill afford to pay the heavy fine that would be levied if we were found with as English a thing as roast beef in the house. No, lad, we maun stick to parritch and haggis—I mean we must stick to oatmeal and haggis.”
Just then the sentry that was stationed at the outskirts of the village to warn the villagers of the approach of Americans gave the laugh of warning: “H-O! H-O! H-O!” And, with a bitter look on his face, and a shake of his fist in the direction of Loch Lomond, Ben Nevis, Ben Bolt, and various other bits of Scotch scenery that were scattered about, Hillocks Kilspindie said to his mother: “Weel, as surees deith a’ c’u’dna help it; tae be sittin’ on peens for mair than twa oors, tryin’ tae get a grup o’ a man’s heads. (I learned that this morning, mother. Isn’t it a looloo?)”
“(Indeed it is, my son. Look out! The Americans are almost within ear-shot.) Noo we’ve tae begin an’ keep it up till they gang awa, for there mauna be a cheep aboot the hoose, for Annie’s sake! Here they are.”
“Mither! Mither! if ye lo’e me bring me mair haggis.”
Chorus of Americans. Oh, how adorably Scotch!
“Losh keep us a’, but the childie’ll eat his mither oot o’ hoose an’ hame wi’ his haggis. Ye’ll find some o’ it i’ the cupboard.”
American (politely to Hillocks). Have some haggis on me.
Hillocks (with a canny Scotch leer). Thanks; but I prefer a plate.