Then the relations of the celebrities became writers on their own account, and straightway the pages of Mr. Bok’s invaluable magazine glistened with “How My Wife’s Great-uncle Wrote ‘Rip Van Winkle,’” by Peter Pointdexter; “My Childhood in the White House,” by Ruth McKee; “How Much Money My Uncle is Worth,” by Cornelius Waldorf Astorbilt: and “Recollections of R. B. Hayes,” by his ox and his ass.
Even a well-trained mind becomes stunned and bewildered in an attempt to estimate the extent to which this newly discovered force can be carried. The imagination can no more grasp it than it can grasp the idea of either space or eternity, and it is my firm belief that under the impetus already acquired in the Ladies’ Home Journal the hoofs of the relations of celebrities will go clattering down through the literature of centuries as yet unborn.
In the mind of a celebrity the prospect is one calculated to rob the grave of half its repose; nevertheless it must be a comfort to pass away in the great white light of fame, cheered by the thought that the stricken wife, the orphaned children, and the consumptive aunt are left with a perpetual source of income at their fingers’ ends.
A well-thumbed paragraph in a recent number of the Journal announces that Mr. Bok has trampled upon his diffident, sensitive nature to the extent of permitting “what he considers a very satisfactory portrait” of himself to be offered to his admirers at the low price of a quarter of a dollar apiece. This offer, which bears the significant heading “The Girl Who Loves Art,” is made with the express stipulation that intending purchasers shall not deepen the blush on the gifted editor’s cheek by sending their orders direct to the Home Journal office, but shall address them direct to the photographer, Mr. C. M. Gilbert, of 926 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.
I desire to add that I reprint this generous proposition of my own free will and without either solicitation on the part of Mr. Bok or hope of reward from the photographer whose precious privilege it has been to transmit to the cabinet-sized cardboard the likeness of America’s crown-prince. I would not do this for Mr. Gilder, for Mr. Scribner, or for any of the Harpers. I would do it only for Mr. E. W. Bok.
CHAPTER IX.
CERTAIN THINGS WHICH A CONSCIENTIOUS LITERARY WORKER MAY FIND IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
Let us return to my imaginary young friend from Park Row, to whom I have referred in a previous chapter, and let us picture him at a small social gathering in the drawing-room of some clever and charming woman of fashion, of the kind that assiduously cultivate the society of men of art and letters because they like to hear the gossip of literature, the stage, and the studio “at first hand,” if I may use the term.
Our young friend is modest and well-bred, and, moreover, carries with him a certain breezy and intimate knowledge of the men and events of the day which fairly entitles him to a place of his own in what ought to be the most enjoyable of all circles of society. He is delighted with the young women whom he meets here in what his hostess fondly hopes will become a salon—how many New York women have had a similar ambition!—and yet he cannot understand why they pay so much attention to certain gentlemen who are present also, and whom he knows to be of very small account so far as the arts and letters are concerned.