[CHAPTER XIII]
THE WORLD
SELLING THE COPYRIGHT—THE POLITICIAN’S DAY-DREAMS—TATTERSALL’S AT FLOOD—A DANDY’S DESTINY
“Can’t do it, my lord—your lordship must consider—overwritten yourself sadly of late—your ‘Broadsides from the Baltic’ were excellent—telling, clever, and eloquent; but you’ll excuse me—you were incorrect in your statistics and mistaken in your facts. Then your last novel, ‘Captain Flash; or, the Modern Grandison,’ was a dead loss to us—lively work—well reviewed—but it didn’t sell. In these days people don’t care to go behind the scenes for a peep at aristocratic ruffians and chivalrous black-legs—no, what we want is something original—hot and strong, my lord, and lots of nature. Now, these translations”—and the publisher, for a publisher it was who spoke, waved his sword of office, a huge ivory paper-cutter, towards a bundle of manuscripts—“these translations from the ‘Medea’ are admirably done—elegant language—profound scholarship—great merit—but the public won’t look at them; and even with your lordship’s name to help them off, we cannot say more than three hundred—in point of fact, I think we are hardly justified in going as far as that;” and the publisher crossed his legs and sat back in his arm-chair, like a man who had made up his mind.
We have almost lost sight of Lord Mount Helicon since the Guyville ball, but he now turns up, attending to business, as he calls it, and is sitting in Mr. Bracketts’ back-room, driving as hard a bargain as he can for the barter of his intellectual produce, and conducting the sale in his usual careless, good-humoured manner, although he has a bill coming due to-morrow, and ready money is a most important consideration. The little back-room is perfectly lined with newspapers, magazines, prospectuses, books, proof-sheets, and manuscripts, whilst the aristocracy of talent frown in engravings from the walls—faces generally not so remarkable for their beauty as for a dishevelled, untidy expression, consequent on disordered hair pushed back from off the temples, and producing the unbecoming effect of having been recently exposed to a gale of wind; nevertheless, the illegible autographs beneath symbolise names which fill the world.
Mr. Bracketts, the presiding genius of the place, is a remarkable man; his broad, high brow and deep-set flashing eyes betray at once the man of intellect, the champion whose weapon is the brain, whilst his spare, bent frame is attenuated by that mental labour which produces results precisely the converse of healthy physical exertion. Mr. Bracketts might have been a great poet, a successful author, or a scientific explorer; but, like the grocer’s apprentice who is clogged with sweets till he loathes the very name of sugar, our publisher has been surfeited with talent till he almost pines to be a boor, to exchange the constant intellectual excitement which wears him to shreds for placid ignorance, a good appetite, and fresh air. How can he find time to embody his own thoughts who is continually perusing, rejecting, perhaps licking into shape those of others? How can he but be disgusted with the puny efforts of the scribbler’s wing, when he himself feels capable of flights that would soar far out of the ken of that every-day average authorship of which his soul is sick?—so beyond an occasional slashing review, written in no forbearing spirit, he seldom puts pen to paper, save to score and interline and correct; yet is he, with all his conscious superiority, not above our national prejudices in favour of what we playfully term good society. We fear he had rather go to a “crush” at Lady Dinadam’s than sup with Boz. He is an Englishman, and his heart warms to a peer—so he lets Lord Mount Helicon down very easy, and offers him three hundred for his manuscript.
“Hang it, Bracketts,” said his lordship, “it’s worth more than that—look what it cost me; if it hadn’t been for that cursed ‘Sea-breeze’ chorus I should have been at Newmarket, when ‘Bowse-and-Bit’ won ‘The Column’—and I should have landed ‘a Thou’ at least. But I was so busy at it I was late for the train. Come, Bracketts, spring a point, and I’ll put you ‘on’ about ‘Sennacherib’ for the Goodwood Cup.”
“We should wish to be as liberal as possible, my lord,” replied Mr. Bracketts, shaking his head with a smile, “but we have other interests to consult—if I was the only person concerned it would be different—but, in short, I have already rather exceeded my powers, and I can go no farther!”
“Very well,” said Lord Mount Helicon, looking at his watch, and seeing it was time for him to be at Tattersall’s; “only if it goes through another edition, we’ll have a fresh arrangement. It’s time for me to be off. Any news among the fraternity? Anything good coming out soon?”
“Nothing but a novel by a lady of rank,” returned Mr. Bracketts, with a meaning smile; “and we all know what that is likely to be. Capital title, though: ‘Blue-bell; or, the Double Infidelity’—the name will sell it. Good-morning; good-morning, my lord. Pray look in again, when you are this way.” And the publisher, having bowed out his noble guest, returned to his never-ending labours, whilst Lord Mount Helicon whisked into the street, with five hundred things to do, and, as usual, a dozen appointments to keep, all at the same time.
Let us follow him down to Tattersall’s, whither, on the principle of “business first and pleasure afterwards,” he betakes himself at once, treading as it were upon air, his busy imagination teeming with a thousand schemes, and his spirits rising with that self-distilled elixir which is only known to the poetic temperament, and which, though springing to a certain extent from constitutional recklessness, owes its chief potency to the self-confidence of mental superiority—the reflection that, when all externals are swept away, when ruin and misfortune have done their wickedest, the productive treasure, the germ of future success, is still untouched within.