“Genius!” I repeated scornfully—“The public are perfectly incapable of recognizing such a quality!”
“You think so?” he said still smiling—“you really think so? In that case it’s very odd isn’t it, how everything that is truly great in art and literature becomes so widely known and honoured, not only in this country but in every civilized land where people think or study? You must remember that all the very famous men and women have been steadily ‘written down’ in their day, even to the late English Laureate, Tennyson, who was ‘criticized’ for the most part in the purest Billingsgate,—it is only the mediocrities who are ever ‘written up.’ It seems as if the stupid public really had a hand in selecting these ‘great,’ for the reviewers would never stand them at any price, till driven to acknowledge them by the popular force majeure. [p 176] But considering the barbarous want of culture and utter foolishness of the public, Geoffrey, what I wonder at, is that you should care to appeal to it at all!”
I sat silent,—inwardly chafing under his remarks.
“I am afraid—” he resumed, rising and taking a white flower from one of the vases on the table to pin in his button-hole—“that Miss Clare is going to be a thorn in your side, my friend! A man rival in literature is bad enough,—but a woman rival is too much to endure with any amount of patience! However you may console yourself with the certainty that she will never get ‘boomed,’—while you—thanks to my tender fostering of the sensitive and high-principled McWhing, will be the one delightful and unique ‘discovery’ of the press for at least one month, perhaps two, which is about as long as any ‘new star of the first magnitude’ lasts in the latter-day literary skies. Shooting-stars all of them!—such as poor old forgotten Béranger sang of—
“les etoiles qui filent,
‘Qui filent,—qui filent—et disparaissent!’”
“Except—Mavis Clare!” I said.
“True! Except Mavis Clare!” and he laughed aloud,—a laugh that jarred upon me because there was a note of mockery in it—“She is a small fixture in the vast heavens,—or so it seems—revolving very contentedly and smoothly in her own appointed orbit,—but she is not and never will be attended by the brilliant meteor-flames that will burst round you, my excellent fellow, at the signal of McWhing! Fie Geoffrey!—get over your sulks! Jealous of a woman! Be ashamed,—is not woman the inferior creature?, and shall the mere spectre of a feminine fame cause a five-fold millionaire to abase his lofty spirit in the dust? Conquer your strange fit of the spleen, Geoffrey, and join me at dinner!”
He laughed again as he left the room,—and again his laughter irritated me. When he had gone, I gave way to the base and unworthy impulse that had for some minutes been [p 177] rankling within me, and sitting down at my writing table, penned a hasty note to the editor of a rather powerful magazine, a man whom I had formerly known and worked for. He was aware of my altered fortunes and the influential position I now occupied, and I felt confident he would be glad to oblige me in any matter if he could. My letter, marked ‘private and confidential’ contained the request that I might be permitted to write for his next number, an anonymous ‘slashing’ review of the new novel entitled ‘Differences’ by Mavis Clare.