And Felix Kennaston was sitting at the writing-table in the library, with a gleaming scrap of metal before him; and, as the clock showed, it was bedtime.
“Well, it is undoubtedly quaint how dreams draw sustenance from half-forgotten happenings,” he reflected; “to think of my recollecting that weird daub which used to deface my room in Fairhaven! I had forgotten Beatricê entirely. And I certainly never spoke of her to any human being, except of course to Muriel Allardyce.... But I would not be at all surprised if I had involuntarily hypnotized myself, sitting here staring at this shiny piece of lead—you read of such cases. I believe I will put it away, to play with again sometime.”
V
Of Publishing: With an Unlikely Appendix
SO Kennaston preserved this bit of metal. “No fool like an old fool,” his commonsense testily assured him. But Felix Kennaston’s life was rather barren of interests nowadays....
He thought no more of his queer dream, for a long while. Life had gone on decorously. He had completed The Audit at Storisende, with leisured joy in the task, striving to write perfectly of beautiful happenings such as life did not afford. There is no denying that the typed manuscript seemed to Felix Kennaston—as he added the last touches, before expressing it to Dapley & Pildriff—to inaugurate a new era in literature.
Kennaston was yet to learn that publishers in their business capacity have no especial concern with literature. To his bewilderment he discovered that publishers seemed sure the merits of a book had nothing to do with the advisability of printing it. Herewith is appended a specimen or two from Felix Kennaston’s correspondence.
Dapley & Pildriff—“We have carefully read your story, ‘The Audit at Storisende,’ which you kindly submitted to us. It is needless for us to speak of the literary quality of the story: it is in fact exquisitely done, and would delight a very limited circle of readers trained to appreciate such delicate productions. But that class of readers is necessarily small, and the general reader would, we fear, fail to recognize the book’s merit and be attracted to it. For this reason we do not feel—and we regret to confess it—that the publication of this book would be a wise business enterprise for us to undertake. We wish that we could, in justice to you and ourselves, see the matter in another light. We are returning the manuscript to you, and we remain, with appreciation of your courtesy, etc.”
Paige Ticknor’s Sons—“We have given very careful consideration to your story, ‘The Audit at Storisende,’ which you kindly submitted to us. We were much interested in this romance, for it goes without saying that it is marked with high literary quality. But we feel that it would not appeal with force and success to the general reader. Its appeal, we think, would be to the small class of cultured readers, and therefore its publication would not be attended with commercial success. Therefore in your interest, as well as our own, we feel that we must give an unfavorable decision upon the question of publication. Naturally we regret to be forced to that conclusion, for the work is one which would be creditable to any publisher’s list. We return the manuscript by express, with our appreciation of your courtesy in giving us the opportunity of considering it, and are, etc.”
And so it was with The Gayvery Company, and with Leeds, McKibble & Todd, and with Stuyvesant & Brothers. Unanimously they united to praise and to return the manuscript. And Kennaston began reluctantly to suspect that, for all their polite phrases about literary excellence, his romance must, somehow, be not quite in consonance with the standards of that person who is, after all, the final arbiter of literature, and to whom these publishers very properly deferred, as “the general reader.” And Kennaston wondered if it would not be well for him, also, to study the all-important and exigent requirements of “the general reader.”