“No!” cried the fat man.
“What is more,” continued the indignant one, “we are asked to dwell among nincompoops who have never had and never could have any reputation, young men who used to insult us in the newspapers, cranks and faddists who have never reached the heart of the great public and are jealous of those who have. And these men are set to work with us in our drudgery, and they are paid exactly at the same rate. Fortunately many of them waste their time in writing poetry and drama while we do their work and make them pay in contributions to our table. Pass the port, brother.”
They spent the evening reading aloud from their volumes of press cuttings, living in the glorious past, while they appealed to me every now and then for news of the publishing world in America. I invented the names of best sellers and made my hosts’ mouths water over the prices I alleged to be then current. They were so pleased with me that they pressed me to stay with them and to work on the new Concordance of Christmas.
XVI: REVOLUTION
Work on the Index, I soon found, meant preparing the whole mighty undertaking, while my three men of genius smoked, ate, drank, slept, talked, and went a-strolling in the capital. There was this advantage about being a man of genius that I was free to come and go as and when I liked, though I was everywhere scoffed at and treated with good-humoured scorn. I was always liable to insult at the hands of the high-spirited young women of the capital who held places in the Government offices and had acquired the insolent manners of a ruling class. However, I soon learned to recognise the type and to avoid an encounter, though my poor old friends often came home black and blue.
There was a great deal more sense in Christmas than I had at first supposed, and, as I progressed with my work, I saw that what he meant was very near what Edmund and his father had been at, namely, that men and women, if only they set about it the right way, can find in each other the interest, amusement, and imaginative zest to dispel the boredom which is alone responsible for social calamities. His appeal had been to men, but he had only reached the ears of women, and they had hopelessly misunderstood him. They had expected him to have a new message and had taken his old wisdom for novelty by identifying it with his personality. He had not taken the precaution to placate the men of genius of his time. Without a marketable reputation they could not recognise him. They refused to acknowledge him and drove him into the strange courses which made him seem to the nerve-ridden women of the country new, fresh, and Heaven-sent. Certainly he had genius, as my professional men of genius had it not, and it came into too direct a contact with the public mind. The smouldering indignation of ages burst into flame. More and more as I worked I was filled with respect for this idealist and with pity for the human beings who had followed him to their undoing. His insight was remarkable, and I made a collection of his works to take back with me to America, if I should ever go there.
I stayed in the Suburb of Genius for a couple of years, very pleased to be away from the women, and among people many of whom were amusing. There were painters and sculptors, who spent their time making Christmas portraits and effigies, cursing like sailors as they worked. Very good company some of these men, and most ingenious in their shifts and devices to dodge the rules and regulations with which they were hemmed in. Some of them had smuggled women into their houses and lived in a very charming domesticity. I envied them and was filled with longing for my home.
One day as I was at my work I came on an unpublished manuscript of Christmas. It contained a poem which I liked and a saying which fired me. This was the poem:
“The woman’s spirit kindles man’s desire,
And both are burned up by a quenchless fire.