Still Randall said nothing, still waited.
Armstrong hesitated, drumming on the arm of his chair with his slender fingers. But the lull was only temporary, the storm not past; the end was not yet.
“I suppose,” he forged on, “the work should be its own reward, its own justification. At least would-be artists are told so repeatedly. Whenever one rebels at the injustice the world is there with this sophistry, feeds him with it as a nurse feeds pap to a crying child, until he’s full and temporarily comatose. But just suppose for an instant that the same argument were used in any other field of endeavor. Suppose, for instance, you told the prospector who’d spent 134 years searching for and who’d finally found a gold mine that his reward should be in the mere knowledge of having found it, the feeling of elation that he had added to the sum total of the world’s wealth, and that he should relinquish it intact as a public trust. Just preach this gospel, and how long would you escape the mad-house? Or the architect who designs and superintends the construction of a sky-scraper. Take him aside and argue with him that the artistic satisfaction of having conceived that great pile of stone and steel should repay him for his work, that to expect remuneration was sordid and disgusting. Do you think he’d sign a certificate to the effect that you were normal and sane? And still how is it with a writer in this the twentieth century,—century of enlightenment and of progress? First of all he must go through the formative period, which means years. Nothing, even genius, springs without preparation into full bloom. No matter how good the idea, how big the thought, it must be moulded by a mastery of technique and a proficiency that only experience can give. And meanwhile he must live. How? No matter. The suggestion is mundane. Let him settle that for himself. At last, perhaps, if he has 135 the divine spark, he gets a hearing. We’ll suppose he accomplishes his purpose,—pleases them, makes them think, or laugh, or forget temporarily, as the case may be. In a way he has made an opening and arrived. And yet, though an artist, he is, first of all, a human being, an animal. The animal part of him demands insistently the good things of life. If he is normal he wants a home and a family of his own; and wants that home as good as that of his neighbor who practises law or makes soda biscuits. With this premise what do the public, who don’t know him personally but whom he serves just the same, do? The only way they can show their appreciation tangibly is by buying his work; giving him encouragement, making it possible to live and to write more. I repeat I know this is all mundane and commonplace and unæsthetic, but it’s reality. And do they give this encouragement, buy themselves, and let him make his tiny royalty which in turn enables him to live, pass an appreciation on to their friends and induce them to buy? In a fractional proportion of times, yes. In the main, John, whom the writer has worked a year, day and night, to reach, by chance meets his friend Charley. ‘By the way,’ he remarks, ‘I picked 136 up that novel of Blank’s lately. It’s good, all right, all right; kept me up half the night to finish it. I want you to read it, old man. It’s just your style. No use to buy it, though,’ he adds hurriedly. ‘Drop in sometime and I’ll lend it to you.’ Of a sudden he remembers. ‘Come to think of it, though, I believe just now it’s lent to Phil—or was it Dick who took it. The story’s a corker and they’ve both had it.’ He thinks again hard and remembers. ‘I have it now. Dick gave it to Sam; he told me so. Get it from him yourself. I know you’ll like it.’ And so the lending goes on so long as the covers hold together. Meanwhile the writer, away off somewhere waiting and hoping and watching the sale, in return for the pleasure he gives John and Charley and Phil and Dick and Sam and the rest, and in consideration of that year of work and weariness and struggle, gets enough perhaps to buy a meal at a Chinese restaurant. This is appreciation, I say, enlightened twentieth century appreciation; and the beauty of it is that every one of that company who get his work for nothing feel that by their praise and by reading his work they’ve given that writer, who can’t possibly know anything about it, all that he could possibly desire.” For 137 the first time that evening Armstrong paused to laugh. “Oh, it’s humorous, all right, when one stops to consider and appreciate! Just suppose, though, in the name of fair play, some one had suggested to John that he throw that copy of his in the furnace where no one could possibly borrow it, and then go on telling his appreciation. Just supposing some one had suggested that! Do you fancy John would have considered that person wholly sane? And still that writer, besides being an artist, is an animal with a stomach and needs a home to live in, and maybe is human enough to have burdened himself with a wife and—and children—”
“Steve, confound it, you’ve gone on long enough.”
“I know it—too long.”
“It doesn’t do any good to rail at something you can’t help, that no one can help.”
“Admitted. I’m just talking to myself—and you. It’s all the same.”
“You’ve never starved yet or gone without clothes, so far as I know.”
“Starved, no. I had soup at my boarding-house for lunch again to-day—soup with carrots in it. Hungry—I don’t know. This is a big world we’re in and I’ve never had the 138 chance even to look over the horizon yet. Hungry? I’ve been hungry for—Elice for years, and I don’t dare—Hunger is awfully near to starvation sometimes, friend Harry.”
Harry Randall squirmed. He saw it coming—it!