IX.
OF WRITERS IN GROOVES.
IX. OF WRITERS IN GROOVES.
There are a certain class of authors who remind me of a certain class of gamblers—men who believe in a special "lucky number," and are always staking their largest amounts upon it. To speak more plainly, I should say that I mean the "groovy" men, who, as soon as they find one particular sort of "style" that chances to hit the taste of the public, keep on grinding away at it with the remorselessness of an Italian street-organ player. I see lots of such fellows in the crowd around me, and I know most of them personally. For instance, there is William Black, a distinctly "groovy" man if ever there was one. All his books are like brothers and sisters, bearing a strong family resemblance one to another. If you have read "A Princess of Thule" and "A Daughter of Heth" you have got the crême de la crême of all that was or is in him. The rest of his work is evolved from precisely the same substance as is found in these two books, only it is drawn out into various criss-cross threads of deft weaving; and, deft as it is, it makes uncommonly thin material. In his latter novels, indeed, there is so much of what may be justly termed "feminine twaddle," that one has to look back to the title-page in order to convince one's self that it is really one of the "virile" sex who is telling a story. Excellent Willie! With his small head and inoffensive physiognomy, he suggests an intellectual sort of pint-pot, out of which it would be absurd to expect a quart of brain. Inasmuch as a pint-pot can only hold a pint; so let us be grateful for small mercies. And let us admire, not for the first time either, the persistent kindly confidence of the British Public, who steadily take up Willie's novels, one after the other, in the sanguine faith of finding something new therein. "Some day," says the patient B.P. in its trot to and from Mudie's Library—"some day Willie will give us a book without a sunset in it. Some day, by happy chance, he will forget there exists such a thing as a yacht. And some day—who knows?—he may even awaken to the fact that there are other places on earth besides Scotland, and other men who are as interesting as Scotchmen."
Good B.P.! Excellent B.P.! What a heart you have! You deserve the very best that can be given you for the sake of your tolerance and cheerfulness of temper, which qualities in you seem truly inexhaustible. Here followeth an anecdote: A certain flimsy scribbler I wot of, who had just got himself into a loosely-fitting suit of literary armour, and was handling his sword a bit awkwardly, as beginners at warfare are apt to do, said to me one day, with a sort of schoolboy vaunt, "The Public want trash!—and trash is what I'll give them!" O wise judge! O learned judge! Out he went with his "trash," his sword poking into everybody's eye, and his armour waggling uncomfortably round him, and lo! the Public "took" his trash and threw it into the gutter, broke his sword for him, gave him back the pieces, and civilly recommended him to look after the loose places in his armour. He went home, did that proud warrior, and sat thinking about what had chanced—it may be he is thinking still.
No, the B.P. don't want "trash"—they want the best of everything—but they have an infinite kindness and patience in waiting for that "best," and carefully looking out for it; and when it truly comes they welcome it with honest enthusiasm. Thus did they welcome and applaud the "Princess of Thule," because they found it good and charming and unique, and ever since that time they have reposed quite a pathetic trust in little Black, hoping against hope that he will give them something else equally good again. Alas for the vanity of all such human wishes! for William is a "groovy" man now, and in his groove he evidently purposes to remain. I remember dining with, him on one occasion, when, in the ordinary way of conversation, I asked him what books he had been reading lately? Oh, what sublime amazement in his rolling eye!
"Read?" he drawled. "I never read. Reading spoils an author's own style."