“When you are through with that, Professor,” I put in, “let me have it, will you? I want to see what it says about Harley.”
“It’s a first-rate screed,” replied the Professor, handing over the publication. “It hits Harley right on the head.”
“I don’t know as that’s pleasant,” said Harley.
“What I mean, my dear boy,” said the Professor, “is that it does you justice.”
And it really did do Harley justice, although, as he had suggested, it was written largely to advertise the forthcoming work. It spoke nicely of Harley’s previous efforts, and judiciously, as it seemed to me. He had not got to the top of the ladder yet, but he was getting there by a slow, steady development, and largely because he was a man with a fixed idea as to what literature ought to be.
“Mr. Harley has seen clearly from the outset what it was that he wished to accomplish and how to accomplish it,” the writer observed. “He has swerved neither to the right nor to the left, but has progressed undeviatingly along the lines he has mapped out for himself, and keeping constantly in mind the principles which seemed to him at the beginning of his career to be right. It has been this persistent and consistent adherence to principle that has gained for Mr. Harley his hearing, and which is constantly rendering more certain and permanent his position in the world literary. Others may be led hither and yon by the fads and follies of the scatter-brained, but Realism will ever have one steadfast champion in Stuart Harley.”
“Read that,” I said, tossing the journal across the table.
He read it, and blushed to the roots of his ears.
“This is no time to desert the flag, Harley,” said I, as he read. “Stick to your colors, and let her stick to hers. You’d better be careful how you force your heroine.”
“Ha, ha!” he laughed. “I should think so, and for more reasons than one. I never really intended to do horrible things with her, my boy. Trust me, if I do lead her, to lead her gently. My persuasion will be suggestive rather than mandatory.”