William Jordan, Junior

by J. C. Snaith

“The truth is this,” said Dodson. “There is not a publisher in London who would print poor Luney’s poem.”

The old man fell back against the door of the shop with a little cry.

“But—but the first mind of the age lies at the point of dissolution!” he exclaimed. “They owe it to themselves that they cherish its fruits. Do they not know that death itself respects his labours, and awaits some token of homage from those for whom he wrought?”

“Yes, yes,” said Jimmy Dodson mournfully. “I know all that, my good old man; I have heard it all before; but you and I must not be high-flown. We must look the facts in the face. We must deal with things as they are. A week ago I carried it to Octavius—Octavius, you know, is the head of our firm, which is the chief, in fact the only publishing house in London, and therefore, you know, in the world. Well, as soon as Octavius saw the first page he said, ‘I am afraid, Mr. Dodson, this will never do,’ I am giving you the precise words he used; it is no use for you and me to deceive ourselves, is it?”

“Oh, oh,” said the old man incredulously. “But that is the verdict of only one man, a single street-person, an ignorant man who is neither gentle nor simple.”

“You may be right,” said Dodson, “and yet again you may be wrong. But I must tell you, old man, that the house of Crumpett and Hawker has nothing to learn. What they think to-day, the trade thinks to-morrow. What they don’t know is not business. And you must understand that I did not rest content with the opinion of Octavius. I took it down-stairs and showed it to W. P. Walkinshaw, a highly cultivated man. And although he does sit down-stairs, he has had a large and varied experience. And as soon as I had told him what it was, he said, ‘Really, Dodson, one has no need to look. A poem in blank verse, three times the length of Paradise Lost—why, really, my good fellow, there is not a publishing house in this country who would take the string off the parcel.’”

“No, no, no,” said the old man, beating his fingers upon the counter of the shop. “These unbelievers must not be permitted to speak in ignorance. Is it possible that the human soul can remain insensible to the nobility of its god-like power?”

“Well, as it happens,” said Dodson mournfully, “I did ask Pa to be kind enough to pay particular attention to it. But as soon as Pa cast his eyes over it, he used the identical words that were used by Octavius. ‘I am afraid, Dodson,’ he said, ‘this will never do.’”

“Can it be possible,” cried the old man, “the noblest achievement of the modern world to be thus discarded!”

“And I didn’t stop at Octavius, and I didn’t stop at Pa,” said the mournful emissary. “I went up-stairs again to Robert Brigstock, who gives Octavius a hand with the belles lettres, and who is on the staff of the Journal of Literature. And as soon as Robert Brigstock read that accursed first page, he said, ‘May I ask, Mr. Dodson, has the writer of this an established reputation?’ ‘Oh, no,’ I had to confess, ‘he is quite a young chap who has never published anything at all.’ ‘Well, then, Mr. Dodson,’ said Robert Brigstock, who as I say is on the staff of the Journal of Literature, ‘no one deprecates more firmly than I do the amazing presumption that is here revealed. The writer sets out to write a treatise on human life—a somewhat timeworn theme, Mr. Dodson—which is three times the length of Paradise Lost’—I am telling you word for word what Robert Brigstock said—‘and he does this in a metre which Homer and Virgil would certainly not have used had they had to deal with the English language. Can anything be more presumptuous, than that an unknown writer—who surely has been to neither of our universities, or most certainly he would never have proposed to perpetrate such a gratuitous piece of effrontery—that a man who has not received a regular education should attempt that which would give pause to all the foremost of our English poets, from Chaucer to the Poet Laureate, poets, Mr. Dodson, whose reputations have long been established beyond the range of controversy?’ And if you had seen Robert Brigstock, who as a rule is the mildest and most amiable and most polite of all fellows imaginable, who is a bit of a poet himself, begin to work himself up into a kind of frenzy over that first page, you would have understood, old man, far more clearly than I can hope to make you understand, how hopeless it is to get any publisher—I don’t care who—to undertake poor Luney’s effort on his own responsibility.”