“I never pay the least attention to them,” she answered, “except when they are hasty and misguided enough to write lies about me,—then I very naturally take the liberty to contradict those lies, either through my own statement or that of my lawyers. Apart from refusing to allow the public to be led into a false notion of my work and aims, I have no grudge whatever against the critics. They are generally very poor hard-working men, and have a frightful struggle to [p 323] live. I have often, privately, done some of them a good turn without their knowledge. A publisher of mine sent me an MS. the other day by one of my deadliest enemies on the press, and stated that my opinion would decide its rejection or acceptance,—I read it through, and though it was not very brilliant work, it was good enough, so I praised it as warmly as I could, and urged its publication, with the stipulation that the author should never be told I had had the casting vote. It has just come out I see,—and I’m sure I hope it will succeed.” Here she paused to gather a few deep damask roses, which she handed to Sibyl. “Yes,—critics are very badly, even cruelly paid,”—she went on musingly—“It is not to be expected that they should write eulogies of the successful author, while they continue unsuccessful,—such work could not be anything but gall and wormwood to them. I know the poor little wife of one of them,—and settled her dressmaker’s bill for her because she was afraid to show it to her husband. The very week afterwards he slashed away at my last book in the most approved style in the paper on which he is employed, and got, I suppose, about a guinea for his trouble. Of course he didn’t know about his little wife and her dunning dressmaker; and he never will know, because I have bound her over to secrecy.”
“But why do you do such things?” asked Sibyl astonished; “I would have let his wife get into the County Court for her bill, if I had been you!”
“Would you?” and Mavis smiled gravely—“Well, I could not. You know Who it was that said ‘Bless them that curse you, and do good to them that hate you’? Besides, the poor little woman was frightened to death at her own expenditure. It is pitiful, you know, to see the helpless agonies of people who will live beyond their incomes,—they suffer much more than the beggars in the street who make frequently more than a pound a day by merely whining and snivelling. The critics are much more in evil case than the beggars—few of them make even a pound a day, and of [p 324] course they regard as their natural enemies the authors who make thirty to fifty pounds a week. I assure you I am very sorry for critics all round,—they are the least-regarded and worst-rewarded of all the literary community. And I never bother myself at all about what they say of me, except as I before observed, when in their haste they tell lies,—then of course it becomes necessary for me to state the truth in simple self-defence as well as by way of duty to my public. But as a rule I hand over all my press-notices to Tricksy there,”—indicating the minute Yorkshire terrier who followed closely at the edge of her white gown,—“and he tears them to indistinguishable shreds in about three minutes!”
She laughed merrily, and Sibyl smiled, watching her with the same wonder and admiration that had been expressed in her looks more or less since the beginning of our interview with this light-hearted possessor of literary fame. We were now walking towards the gate, preparatory to taking our departure.
“May I come and talk to you sometimes?” my wife said suddenly, in her prettiest and most pleading voice—“It would be such a privilege!”
“You can come whenever you like in the afternoons,”—replied Mavis readily—“The mornings belong to a goddess more dominant even than Beauty;—Work!”
“You never work at night?” I asked.
“Indeed no! I never turn the ordinances of Nature upside down, as I am sure I should get the worst of it if I made such an attempt. The night is for sleep—and I use it thankfully for that blessed purpose.”
“Some authors can only write at night though,” I said.
“Then you may be sure they only produce blurred pictures and indistinct characterization,” said Mavis—“Some I know there are, who invite inspiration through gin or opium, as well as through the midnight influences, but I do not believe in such methods. Morning, and a freshly rested brain are required for literary labour,—that is, if one [p 325] wants to write a book that will last for more than one ‘season.’”