Vaine: Will you indeed. That honour alone will repay me for writing it. By the way, I imagine I saw a copy in the library. Let me look.
(As Vaine had put it there himself his doubt seemed a little superfluous. He switched on a light, and from the ranked preciosity of a certain shelf he selected a slim, gilt volume.)
Vaine: Poems Plutonian.
Quince (taking it in his fat, soft hands): How utterly exquisite! What charming generosity of margin!
Vaine: Yes; you know the great fault of books, to my mind, is that they contain printed matter. Some day I dream of writing a book that shall be nearly all margin, a book from which the crudely obvious shall be eliminated, a book of exquisite intrusion, of supreme suggestion, where magic words like rosaries of pearls shall glimmer down the pages. I really think that books are the curse of literature. If every writer were compelled to grave his works on brass and copper from how much that is vain and vapid would we not be delivered?
Quince: Ah, yes! Still books have their advantages. Here, for example, am I going to burn the incense of a cigar before the putrescent—I mean the iridescent altar of art. Now if Poems Plutonian were inscribed on brass or stone I confess I should hesitate. What are those things?
(He pointed to a separate shelf, on which stood nine volumes with somewhat aggressive covers.)
Vaine: Well may you ask. Brazen strumpets who have stumbled into the temple of Apollo. These, my dear sir, are the so-called novels of Norman Dane. You see, as a member of the club, he is supposed to give the library a copy of his books. We all hoped he wouldn’t, but he came egregiously forward. Of course we couldn’t refuse the monstrous things.
Quince: No, I understand. What’s this? The Yellow Streak: Two hundred thousand! The Dipsomaniac: Sixth Edition!! Rattlesnake Ranch: Tenth Impression!!! Why, what a disgusting lot of money the man must be making!
Vaine: Yes, the Indiana Idol, the Boy Bestsellermonger. A perfect bounder as regards Art. But he knows how to truckle to the mob. His books sell by the ton. They’re so bad, they’re almost good.
Quince (with surprising feeling): There! I don’t agree with you. He doesn’t even know how to please the public. It takes a clever man to do that, and Norman Dane is only a dry-goods clerk spoiled. No, the point is—he is the public, the apotheosis of the vulgar intelligence. Don’t think for a moment he is writing down to the level of the mob. He charms the great half-educated because he himself belongs to them. He can’t help it.
Vaine: Yes, but there are so many plebeian novelists. How do you account for Dane’s spectacular success?