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a world-wide fame and power–”
“Like Christ again!” I said mischievously, for I loved to jar his non-conformist conscience.
“Exactly!” He paused, looking piously down. Then with a return of secular animation he added—“But I was not thinking of the Great Example just then, Mr Tempest—I was thinking of a woman.”
“Indeed!” I said indifferently.
“Yes—a woman, who despite continued abuse and opposition is rapidly becoming celebrated. You are sure to hear of her in literary and social circles”—and he gave me a furtive glance of doubtful inquiry—“but she is not rich, you know,—only famous. However,—we have nothing to do with her just now—so let us return to business. The one uncertain point in the matter of your book’s success is the attitude of the critics. There are only six leading men who do the reviews, and between them they cover all the English magazines and some of the American too, as well as the London papers. Here are their names”—and he handed me a pencilled memorandum,—“and their addresses, as far as I can ascertain them, or the addresses of the papers for which they most frequently write. The man at the head of the list, David McWhing, is the most formidable of the lot. He writes everywhere about everything,—being a Scotchman he’s bound to have his finger in every pie. If you can secure McWhing, you need not trouble so much about the others, as he generally gives the ‘lead,’ and has his own way with the editors. He is one of the ‘personal friends’ of the editor of the Nineteenth Century for example, and you would be sure to get a notice there, which would otherwise be impossible. No reviewer can review anything for that magazine unless he is one of the editor’s friends[2]. You must manage McWhing, or he might, just for the sake of ‘showing off,’ cut you up rather roughly.”
“That would not matter,” I said, diverted at the idea of ‘managing McWhing,’—“A little slating always helps a book to sell.”
“In some cases it does,”—and Morgeson stroked his thin beard perplexedly—“But in others it most emphatically does not. Where there is any very decided or daring originality, adverse criticism is always the most effective. But a work like yours requires fostering with favour,—wants ‘booming’ in short–”
“I see!” and I felt distinctly annoyed—“You don’t think my book original enough to stand alone?”
“My dear sir!—you are really—really—! what shall I say?” and he smiled apologetically—“a little brusque? I think your book shows admirable scholarship and delicacy of thought,—if I find fault with it at all, it is perhaps because I am dense. The only thing it lacks in my opinion is what I should call tenaciousness, for want of a better expression,—the quality of holding the reader’s fancy fixed like a nail. But after all this is a common failing of modern literature; few authors feel sufficiently themselves to make others feel.”
I made no reply for a moment. I was thinking of Lucio’s remarks on this very same subject.
“Well!” I said at last—“If I had no feeling when I wrote the book, I certainly have none now. Why man, I felt every line of it!—painfully and intensely!”
“Ay, ay indeed!” said Morgeson soothingly—“Or perhaps you thought you felt, which is another very curious phase of the literary temperament. You see, to convince people at all, you must first yourself be convinced. The result of this is generally a singular magnetic attraction between author and public. However I am a bad hand at argument,—and it is possible that in hasty reading I may have gathered a wrong impression of your intentions. Anyhow the book shall be a success if we can make it so. All I venture to ask of you is that you should personally endeavour to manage McWhing!”
I promised to do my best, and on this understanding we parted. I realised that Morgeson was capable of greater discernment than I had imagined, and his observations had given me material for thought which was not altogether agreeable. For if my book, as he said, lacked tenacity, why then it would not take root in the public mind,—it would be merely the ephemeral success of a season,—one of those brief ‘booms’ in literary wares for which I had such unmitigated contempt,—and Fame would be as far off as ever, except that spurious imitation of it which the fact of my millions had secured. I was in no good humour that afternoon, and Lucio saw it. He soon elicited the sum and substance of my interview with Morgeson, and laughed long and somewhat uproariously over the proposed ‘managing’ of the redoubtable McWhing. He glanced at the five names of the other leading critics and shrugged his shoulders.
“Morgeson is quite right,”—he said—“McWhing is intimate with the rest of these fellows—they meet at the same clubs, dine at the same cheap restaurants and make love to the same painted ballet-girls. All in a comfortable little fraternal union together, and one obliges the other on their several journals when occasion offers. Oh yes! I should make up to McWhing if I were you.”
“But how?” I demanded, for though I knew McWhing’s name well enough having seen it signed ad nauseam to literary articles in almost every paper extant, I had never met the man; “I cannot ask any favour of a press critic.”
“Of course not!” and Lucio laughed heartily again—“If you were to do such an idiotic thing what a slating you’d get for your pains! There’s no sport a critic loves so much as the flaying of an author who has made the mistake of lowering himself to the level of asking favours of his intellectual inferiors! No, no, my dear fellow!—we shall manage McWhing quite differently,—I know him, though you do not.”
“Come, that’s good news!” I exclaimed—“Upon my word Lucio, you seem to know everybody.”
“I think I know most people worth knowing—“ responded Lucio quietly—“Though I by no means include Mr McWhing in the category of worthiness. I happened to make his personal acquaintance in a somewhat singular and exciting manner. It was in Switzerland, on that awkward ledge of rock known as the Mauvais Pas. I had been some weeks in the neighbourhood on business of my own, and being surefooted and fearless, was frequently allowed by the guides to volunteer my services with theirs. In this capacity of amateur guide, capricious destiny gave me the pleasure of escorting the timid and bilious McWhing across the chasms of the Mer de Glace, and I conversed with him in the choicest French all the while, a language of which, despite his boasted erudition, he was deplorably ignorant. I knew who he was I must tell you, as I know most of his craft, and had long been aware of him as one of the authorised murderers of aspiring genius. When I got him on the Mauvais Pas, I saw that he was seized with vertigo; I held him firmly by the arm and addressed him in sound strong English thus—‘Mr McWhing, you wrote a damnable and scurrilous article against the work of a certain poet’ and I named the man—‘an article that was a tissue of lies from beginning to end, and which by its cruelty and venom embittered a life of brilliant promise, and crushed a noble spirit. Now, unless you promise to write and publish in a leading magazine a total recantation of this your crime when you get back to England,—if you get back!—giving that wronged man the ‘honourable mention’ he rightly deserves,—down you go! I have but to loosen my hold!’ Geoffrey, you should have seen McWhing then! He whined, he wriggled, he clung! Never was an oracle of the press in such an unoracular condition. ‘Murder!—murder!’ he gasped, but his voice failed him. Above him towered the snow peaks like the summits of that Fame he could not reach and therefore grudged to others,—below him the glittering ice-waves yawned in deep transparent hollows of opaline blue and green,—and afar off the tinkling cowbells echoed through the still air, suggestive of safe green pastures and happy homes. ‘Murder!’ he whispered gurglingly. ‘Nay!’ said I, ‘’tis I should cry Murder!—for if ever an arresting hand held a murderer, mine holds one now! Your system of slaying is worse than that of the midnight assassin, for the assassin can but kill the body,—you strive to kill the soul. You cannot succeed, ’tis true, but the mere attempt is devilish. No shouts, no struggles will serve you here,—we are alone with Eternal Nature,—give the man you have slandered his tardy recognition, or else, as I said before—down you go!’ Well, to make my story short, he yielded, and swore to do as I bade him,—whereupon placing
The author has Mr Knowles’s own written authority for this fact.