Thyrsis had by this time tried all the world, and he knew that there was no one to understand. Just about now he was utterly stranded, and had to borrow money for even his next day’s food. And oh, the humiliations and insults that came with these loans! And worse yet, the humiliations and insults that came without any loans! There was one rich man who advanced him ten dollars; Thyrsis, when he returned it, sent a check he had received from some out-of-town magazine—and in return was rebuked by the rich man for failing to include the “exchange” on the check. Thyrsis wrote humbly to inquire what manner of thing the “exchange” on a check might be; and learned that he was still in the rich man’s debt to the sum of ten cents!
His case was the more hopeless, he found, because he was a married man. The world might have pardoned a young free-lance who was willing to “rough it” and take his chances for a while; but a man who had a wife and child—and was still prating about poetry! To the world the possession of a wife and child meant self-indulgence; and when a man had fallen into that trap, he simply had to settle down and take the consequence. How could Thyrsis explain that his marriage had not been as other men’s? How could he hint at such a thing, without proving himself a cad?
Section 10. The work of “contemporary biography” had come to an end; there followed weeks of seeking, and then another opening appeared—Mr. Ardsley offered him a chance to do some manuscript-reading. This was really a splendid opportunity, for the work would not be difficult, and the payment would be five dollars for each manuscript. Thyrsis accepted joyfully, and forthwith carried off a couple of embryo books to his room.
It was a new and curious occupation, which opened up to him whole worlds whose existence he had not previously suspected. Through his review-writing he had become acquainted with the books that had seen the light of day; now he made the startling discovery that for every one that was born, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, that died in the womb. He could see how it went—the hordes of half-educated people who read books and were moved to write something like them. Each manuscript was a separate tragedy; and often there would be a letter or a preface to make certain that one did not miss the sense of it. Here would be a settlement-worker, burning with a message, but unable to draw a character or to write dialogue; here would be a business-man, who had studied up the dialect of the region where he spent his summer vacations, and whose style was so crude that one winced as he turned the pages; here would be a poor bookkeeper, or a type-writer, or other cog in the business machine, who had read of the fortunes made by writers of fiction, and had spent all his hours of leisure for a year in composing a tale of the grand monde, or some feeble imitation of the sugar-coated “historical romance” of the hour.
Sometimes as he read these manuscripts, a shudder would come over Thyrsis; how they made him realize the odds in the game of life! These thousands and tens of thousands panting and striving for success; and he lost in the throng of them! What madness it seemed to imagine that he might climb over their heads—that he had been chosen to scale the heights of fame! Their letters and prefaces sounded like a satire upon his own attitude, a reductio ad absurdum of his claims to “genius”. Here, for instance, was a man who wrote to introduce himself as America’s first epic poet—stating incidentally that he was an inspector of gas-meters, and had a wife and six children. His poem occupied some six hundred foolscap sheets, finely bound up by hand; it set forth the soul-states of a Byron from Alabama—an aristocratic hero who was refused by the lady of his heart, and voiced his anger and perplexity in a long speech, two lines of which stamped themselves forever upon the mind of the reader—-
“But I! he cried. My limbs are straight,
My purse well-filled, my veins all F. F. V.!”
As a method of earning one’s living, this was almost too good to be true. The worse the manuscripts were the easier was his task; in fact, when he came upon one which showed traces of real power and interest he cursed his fate, for then it might take several days to earn his five dollars. But for the most part the manuscripts were bad enough, and he could have earned a year’s income in a week, if only there had been enough of them. So he made a great effort to succeed at the work, and filled his reports with epigrams and keen observations, carefully adapted to what he knew was Mr. Ardsley’s point of view. He allowed time for these devices to be effective, and then paid a visit to find out about the prospects.
“Mr. Ardsley,” he began, “I am going to try to meet you half way with a book.”
“Ah!” said the other.
“I want to write a novel that you can publish. I believe that I can do it.”