“The public taste for cheap notorieties, little people with a big noise, is on a par with its taste for literature and the drama,” said Mr. Bang, and the tone he used was bitter. As I am some day going to write a book, I thought I might as well find out more of this, so I turned to him and asked: “Do you really think so?”
“Certainly, the fact is plain as the nose on your—er—on my face. The man who cultivates a sound literary style and thinks the public will buy his books because of it, is not very far from the pawn shop.” (How vulgar!) “So, too, the young man or maiden who seeks to impress society with good manners would do better to tie his or her head in a wet blanket and cultivate a knowledge of what’s what.”
“Elsie, Jack thinks all society people fools,” laughed Mumsie.
“So they are!” stormed the young man. “Look how much trash on paper finds a ready market, while genius may be starving. Look at the social columns of our newspapers and see how nonentities find prominence.”
I was annoyed at this tirade, and the tone it was uttered in, the bitterness. “Do you mean to say,” I added, “that no clever people find eminence in society; how about the great Disraeli, is he not supposed to be the original of ‘Vivian Grey’?”
“That was England: this is Canada. Society in England is more catholic than here.”
I felt this was getting a little beyond me, so I doubled back. “Don’t you think,” I asked, “if some of your masters of literary style could produce a ‘best seller’ they would do so, and don’t you also think that some of your bright examples of good manners would be only too glad to occupy outstanding positions in society?”
“Absurd! Absurd!” stormed Mr. Bang. “A man of letters, a master of style, cannot write trash. I’m told that Conrad once tried to do it—and he couldn’t. Also it is impossible for a man of brains and good manners to attain eminence in the rushing society here. There is too little real recompense for the strain required. Vulgarity has no true attractiveness.”
“Don’t good manners count for anything?” I asked meekly. Jack—I mean Mr. Bang—smiled a smile of pitying tolerance.
“I once had an Englishman remark to me that he found the ruder he was to people here the more they esteemed him. He was a man of education and intelligence. I give you his opinion for what it is worth.”