(12) Oddly enough, I was writing a poem. Will send it to you.
Gilbert's engagement had given him the impetus to earn more but he was always entirely unpractical. His salary at Fisher Unwin's had been negligible and he was not making much yet by the journalism which was now his only source of income. The repeated promise to "write to Nutt" is very characteristic. For Nutt was the manager of the solitary publisher who was at the moment prepared to put a book of Gilbert's on the market at his own risk!
Although they did not manage to get married this year, by the end of it he was becoming well known. The articles, in the Speaker especially, were attracting attention and Greybeards at Play had a considerable success. This, the first of Gilbert's books to be published, is a curiosity. It is made up of three incredibly witty satirical poems—"The Oneness of the Philosopher with Nature," "The Dangers Attending Altruism on the High Seas" and "The Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in All Classes." The illustrations drawn by himself are as witty as the verses. By the beginning of 1901 his work was being sought for by other Liberal periodicals and he was writing regularly for the Daily News. The following letter to Frances bears the postmark Feb. 8, 1901.
Somewhere in the Arabian Nights or some such place there is a story of a man who was Emperor of the Indies for one day. I am rather in the position of that person: for I am Editor of the Speaker for one day. Hammond is unwell and Hirst has gone to dine with John Morley, so the latter asked me to see the paper through for this number. Hence this notepaper and the great hurry and brevity which I fear must characterise this letter.
There are a few minor amusing things, however, that I have a moment to mention.
(1) The "Daily News" have sent me a huge mass of books to review, which block up the front hall. A study of Swinburne—a book on Kipling—the last Richard le Gallienne—all very interesting. See if I don't do some whacking articles, all about the stars and the moon and the creation of Adam and that sort of thing. I really think I could work a revolution in Daily paper—writing by the introduction of poetical prose.
(2) Among other books that I have to review came, all unsolicited, a book by your old friend Schofield. Ha! Ha! Ha! It's about the Formation of Character, or some of those low and beastly amusements. I think of introducing parts of my Comic Opera of the P.N.E.U. into the articles.
(3) Another rather funny thing is the way in which my name is being spread about. Belloc declares that everyone says to him "Who discovered Chesterton?" and that he always replies "The genius Oldershaw." This may be a trifle Gallic, but Hammond has shown me more than one letter from Cambridge dons and such people demanding the identity of G.K.C. in a quite violent tone. They excuse themselves by offensive phrases in which the word "brilliant" occurs, but I shouldn't wonder if there was a thick stick somewhere at the back of it.
Belloc, by the way, has revealed another side of his extraordinary mind. He seems to have taken our marriage much to heart, for he talks to me, no longer about French Jacobins and Mediaeval Saints, but entirely about the cheapest flats and furniture, on which, as on the others, he is a mine of information, assuring me paternally that "it's the carpet that does you." I should think this fatherly tone would amuse you.
Now I must leave off: for the pages have come up to be seen through the press. . . .