It is a fine thing when a young man, born to travel the speedway of luxury, voluntarily leaves it to hew out a pathway for himself through life. Brown thought so, too. And at twenty-four he resolutely graduated from Harvard, stepped out into the world, and looked about him very sternly.
All was not well with the world. Brown knew it. He was there to correct whatever was wrong. And he had chosen Good Literature as the vehicle for self expression.
Now, the nine sister goddesses are born flirts;[113] and every one of them immediately glanced sideways at Brown, who was a nice young man with modesty, principles, and a deep and reverent belief in Good Literature.
The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne seemed very attractive to him until the tenth and most recent addition to the Olympian family sauntered by with a flirt of her narrow skirt—the jade!
One glance into the starry blue wells of her baby eyes bowled him over. Henceforth she was to be his steady—Thalomene, a casual daughter of Zeus, and muse of all that is sacredly obvious in the literature of modern realism.
From early infancy Brown's had been a career of richest promise. His mother's desk was full of his earlier impressions of life. He had, in course of time, edited his school paper, his college paper; and, as an undergraduate, he had appeared in the contributor's columns of various periodicals.
His was not only a wealthy but a cultivated lineage as well. The love of literature was born in him.
To love literature is all right in its way; to love it too well is to mistake the appreciative for the creative genius. Reverence and devotion are[114] no equipment for creative authorship. It is not enough to have something to say about what other people have said. And the inspiration which comes from what others have done is never the true one. But Brown didn't know these things. They were not revealed unto him at Harvard; no inward instinct made them plain to him.
He began by foregathering with authors. Many, many authors foregather, from various causes—tradition, inclination, general shiftlessness. When they do that they produce a sort of serum called literary atmosphere, which is said to be delightful. And so Brown found it. However, there are authors who seem to be too busy with their profession to foregather and exhale atmosphere. But these are doubtless either literary hacks or the degraded producers of best-sellers. They are not authors, either; they are merely writers.
Now, in all the world there is only one thing funnier than an author; and that is a number of them. But Brown didn't know that, either.