Oh, the opportunities are many for the cartomaniac! Who has mapped Utopia, Atlantis, Alice's Wonderland, or the countries of the Faerie Queene? Who has reconstructed the plans of Troy? And there are other allegorical lands, too, that should be mapped. I have had a try myself at the modern "Bohemia," and have taken the liberty of shewing within its much-maligned borders Arcady and the Forest of Arden. I have even planned Millamours, the city of a thousand loves, and I am now attempting to draw a map of the State of Literature in the year 1902.
There are many celebrated edifices, too, that might be trifled with. I have a friend, an architect, who has completed the Castle of Zenda, and he is now occupied with Circe's palace, with a fine eye to the decorative effect of the pig-pens. Think of laying out the gardens, grottoes, and palaces of the Arabian Nights! Why has the Castle of Otranto been neglected--and Udolpho, and Castle Dangerous, and the Moated Grange?
Many novelists, and, I think, most writers of pure romance, have played this game. Stevenson, dreaming in his father's office, drew the map of Treasure Island, and from that chart came forth, hint by hint, the suggestions for his masterpiece. Maurice Hewlett drew a plat of the ancient marches and forests where the Forest Lovers wandered, and it is a pity he did not publish it in more detail. This is one of the graphical solutions of story writing, a queer, anomalous method whereby the symbol suggests the concept. The cheaper magazines often use old cuts, and request some hack to write a story to fit the illustration. But the map is an abstraction; its revelations are cabalistic, not definite. A good map is a stage set for romantic fiction, ready for anybody who can write or dream the play.
The Science of Flattery
Time was when people were less sophisticated and almost everybody could be flattered. A compliment was the pinch of salt that could be placed upon any bird's tail. But such game is scarcer now, and to capture one's quarry one has to practice all the arts of modern social warfare. We have, for instance, been taught to believe, time out of mind, that women are especially susceptible to this saccharine process; that one had but to make a pretty speech, and her conquest was assured. But what lady nowadays can take a compliment without bridling? It is as much as a man's reputation is worth to make a plain, straightforward statement of approbation. He must veil his meaning so that it can be discovered only by a roundabout reflection. Whether it be true or not, he is held offensively responsible for the blush with which it is received.
So, to be successful, one must be politic and tactful; one must adopt the indirect method, and, above all, one must escape the obvious. To say what has been said many times before defeats the very purpose, whether it be good or evil, for which we flatter. The artist discards the hackneyed compliment, and endeavours to place his arrow in a spot that has never been hit before. He will compliment a poet upon his drawings and a painter upon his verses. If a woman ordinarily plainly dressed, has a single effective garment, does he compliment her upon that particular costume? By no means. Subtilty demands that he flatter her by pointing out some interesting feature in one of her common frocks, without hinting that it is surprising to see her particularly well clad. Such compliments have the flavour of novelty, and are treasured up by the recipient, to be quoted long after the donor has forgotten them.
The tribute of unexpected praise is more grateful to a person than the reward for which he works hardest and is most confident. It discovers to him new and pleasing attributes. It has all the zest and relish that the particular always has more than the general. And, besides, for the person who happens to light upon some little favourite trick of individuality, and to notice and to comment upon it, the reward is great. Such a flatterer is, in the heart of the flattered one, throned with the authority of discernment; he is considered forever after as a critic of the first importance. Everyone has a hobby, an idiosyncrasy, visible or invisible; it is the art of the flatterer to discover it, and his science to use it to his own ends.
Flattery is, however, an edged tool, and must be used with care. It is not everyone who has the tact to decide at a glance just how much his victim will stand. He may know enough, perhaps, to praise the author of a successful book for some other one of his works which has not attained a popular vogue; he may have the discretion to banter men about their success with the opposite sex, and to accuse women of cleverness; but for all that he may often misjudge his object, and give embarrassment if not actual affront. For all such the safest weapon is the written word.
This is the ambush from which your prey cannot escape. If a letter of praise, of compliment, or even of deliberate flattery, is made decently interesting, if it is not too grossly cloying even for private perusal, it cannot fail to count. It has to be paid for by no blush, no awkward moment, no painful conspicuous self-consciousness, no hypocritical denial. It strikes an undefending victim, and brings him down without a struggle. Such tributes of praise can be read and reread without mortification. It is a sweet-smelling incense that burns perpetually before the shrine of vanity. One compliment written down in black and white is worth any number of spoken words, and the trouble that has been taken to commit such praise to paper gives the offering an added interest and importance. Anything that can be said can be written, from the eulogy of a lady's slipper to the appreciation of a solo on the harp. You may be sure that any unconventionality of manner will be atoned for by the seduction of a honeyed manner. Stevenson, in his playful "Decalogue for Gentlemen," set down as his first canon, "Thou shalt not write an anonymous letter," but it cannot be doubted that he would have excepted an unsigned note of admiration.
The element of time, in flattery, too, is often disregarded. Few would-be flatterers understand the increased influence of a compliment deferred. It is again the same case of the misuse of the obvious. When your friend's book appears, or his picture is displayed, there are enough to compliment him on the spot, but your own sympathetic endorsement, delayed a few months, or even iterated, comes to him when he is least expecting the compliment. He is off his guard, and the shot goes home. When I give Celestine a present she thanks me immediately, of course, but that is not the last of it. In every third letter or so I am reminded of her gratitude and my kindness.