“And doubtless,” said Kate, hastily sprinkling coral pepper over her savouries, “doubtless every time that fine fellow stops to wipe his beaded brow, he glances over here to envy a man who has nothing to do but sit in a [p192] comfortable chair in the shade and scribble any nonsense that comes into his head.”
“Now, why,” said Hugh addressing the rows of plates ranged beside him, “why does a woman feel it her bounden duty to clap down with a conventional remark like that every time a man lets off a little steam? Besides I deny it,—the chair is not comfortable.”
Kate gave a sidelong glance at the clock and began to chop parsley as if against time.
“No,” said Hugh, “I will not take the hint, my good woman. I hold you with my glittering eye and listen to me you shall. ‘Litteratoor is low’,—Artemus Ward says so. Worse than that it’s no longer exclusive,—Mr. Dooley maintains that it is not. Do you remember the verse and chapter, madam?”
“Something about turning Miranda into authoreen does her skirt sag,” murmured Kate.
Hugh held up a hand commanding silence and rolled out his Irish with gusto: “‘Th’ longer th’ wurruld lasts th’ more books does be comin’ out. They’s a publisher in ivry block an’ in thousands iv happy homes some wan is plugging away at th’ romantic novel or whalin’ out a pome on th’ typewriter upstairs. A fam’ly without an author is as contemptible as wan without a priest. Is Malachi near-sighted, peevish, averse to th’ [p193] suds, an’ can’t tell whether th’ three in th’ front yard is blue or green? Make an author iv him! Does Miranda prisint no attraction to the young men iv th’ neighbourhood, does her over-skirt dhrag an’ is she poor with th’ gas range? Make an authoreen iv her!’ That’s it, Kit, it’s a poor sort of life at best, no manliness about it. Picture the contrast, girl—those fine fellows who stood at attention by their gun at Colenso when it was all up with them, and your blessed brother tinkering away at a pink and white muslin heroine that never was on land or sea.”
“But, but, but,” said Kate, “you can’t have a world made up of axemen and fine soldiers. It seems to me Nature has made a use for your contemptible authors in letting them inspire others to fine deeds. Those men at Colenso, for instance,—I grant you it was a fine thing to do, to stand at attention while awaiting death. But I believe if such a thing ever could have been inquired into with the minuteness that the Psychic Research Society brings to bear upon the problems that confront it, it would have been found that something far back in the minds of one or more of the three, some fine deed in a book, some shining act witnessed on a stage, gave the cue for the act at which the civilized world thundered applause.”
“It’s a pretty notion,” said Hugh, “and a [p194] kind one to a writer sunk in a slough of despond. But I hae ma doots.”
“I haven’t,” said Kate stoutly. “In point of fact I truly believe that one half of our actions—especially our better ones—spring from an unconscious desire to be like or unlike some character of some book or play. Where a sincere Christian struggles desperately to live like Christ of the Great Book, the less courageous aim lower and substitute a panorama of book characters that shift with their stages of growth. Many a meanness of life is left uncommitted, not solely because it is a meanness but because it would look execrable in the pages of a novel. Why, only for being terrorized by the Old Maid of Fiction, I’d be keeping a cat and a parrot myself by this time, Hugh Kinross, and you know it.”
“And what should I be doing?” asked Hugh, amused.