New Grub Street (4 page)

'I understand that you have devoted most of your life to the
making of paper. If that article were not so cheap and so abundant,
people wouldn't have so much temptation to scribble.'

Alfred Yule uttered a short laugh.

'I think you are cornered, John.'

'I wish,' answered John, 'that you were both condemned to write
on such paper as I chiefly made; it was a special kind of
whitey-brown, used by shopkeepers.'

He chuckled inwardly, and at the same time reached out for a box
of cigarettes on a table near him. His brother and Jasper each took
one as he offered them, and began to smoke.

'You would like to see literary production come entirely to an
end?' said Milvain.

'I should like to see the business of literature abolished.'

'There's a distinction, of course. But, on the whole, I should
say that even the business serves a good purpose.'

'What purpose?'

'It helps to spread civilisation.'

'Civilisation!' exclaimed John, scornfully. 'What do you mean by
civilisation? Do you call it civilising men to make them weak,
flabby creatures, with ruined eyes and dyspeptic stomachs? Who is
it that reads most of the stuff that's poured out daily by the ton
from the printing-press? Just the men and women who ought to spend
their leisure hours in open-air exercise; the people who earn their
bread by sedentary pursuits, and who need to live as soon as they
are free from the desk or the counter, not to moon over small
print. Your Board schools, your popular press, your spread of
education! Machinery for ruining the country, that's what I call
it.'

'You have done a good deal, I think, to counteract those
influences in Wattleborough.'

'I hope so; and if only I had kept the use of my limbs I'd have
done a good deal more. I have an idea of offering substantial
prizes to men and women engaged in sedentary work who take an oath
to abstain from all reading, and keep it for a certain number of
years. There's a good deal more need for that than for abstinence
from strong liquor. If I could have had my way I would have revived
prize-fighting.'

His brother laughed with contemptuous impatience.

'You would doubtless like to see military conscription
introduced into England?' said Jasper.

'Of course I should! You talk of civilising; there's no such way
of civilising the masses of the people as by fixed military
service. Before mental training must come training of the body. Go
about the Continent, and see the effect of military service on
loutish peasants and the lowest classes of town population. Do you
know why it isn't even more successful? Because the damnable
education movement interferes. If Germany would shut up her schools
and universities for the next quarter of a century and go ahead
like blazes with military training there'd be a nation such as the
world has never seen. After that, they might begin a little
book-teaching again—say an hour and a half a day for everyone above
nine years old. Do you suppose, Mr Milvain, that society is going
to be reformed by you people who write for money? Why, you are the
very first class that will be swept from the face of the earth as
soon as the reformation really begins!'

Alfred puffed at his cigarette. His thoughts were occupied with
Mr Fadge and The Study. He was considering whether he could aid in
bringing public contempt upon that literary organ and its editor.
Milvain listened to the elder man's diatribe with much
amusement.

'You, now,' pursued John, 'what do you write about?'

'Nothing in particular. I make a salable page or two out of
whatever strikes my fancy.'

'Exactly! You don't even pretend that you've got anything to
say. You live by inducing people to give themselves mental
indigestion—and bodily, too, for that matter.'

'Do you know, Mr Yule, that you have suggested a capital idea to
me? If I were to take up your views, I think it isn't at all
unlikely that I might make a good thing of writing against writing.
It should be my literary specialty to rail against literature. The
reading public should pay me for telling them that they oughtn't to
read. I must think it over.'

'Carlyle has anticipated you,' threw in Alfred.

'Yes, but in an antiquated way. I would base my polemic on the
newest philosophy.'

He developed the idea facetiously, whilst John regarded him as
he might have watched a performing monkey.

'There again! your new philosophy!' exclaimed the invalid. 'Why,
it isn't even wholesome stuff, the kind of reading that most of you
force on the public. Now there's the man who has married one of my
nieces—poor lass! Reardon, his name is. You know him, I dare say.
Just for curiosity I had a look at one of his books; it was called
"The Optimist." Of all the morbid trash I ever saw, that beat
everything. I thought of writing him a letter, advising a couple of
anti-bilious pills before bedtime for a few weeks.'

Jasper glanced at Alfred Yule, who wore a look of
indifference.

'That man deserves penal servitude in my opinion,' pursued John.
'I'm not sure that it isn't my duty to offer him a couple of
hundred a year on condition that he writes no more.'

Milvain, with a clear vision of his friend in London, burst into
laughter. But at that point Alfred rose from his chair.

'Shall we rejoin the ladies?' he said, with a certain pedantry
of phrase and manner which often characterised him.

'Think over your ways whilst you're still young,' said John as
he shook hands with his visitor.

'Your brother speaks quite seriously, I suppose?' Jasper
remarked when he was in the garden with Alfred.

'I think so. It's amusing now and then, but gets rather tiresome
when you hear it often. By-the-bye, you are not personally
acquainted with Mr Fadge?'

'I didn't even know his name until you mentioned it.'

'The most malicious man in the literary world. There's no
uncharitableness in feeling a certain pleasure when he gets into a
scrape. I could tell you incredible stories about him; but that
kind of thing is probably as little to your taste as it is to
mine.'

Miss Harrow and her companions, having caught sight of the pair,
came towards them. Tea was to be brought out into the garden.

'So you can sit with us and smoke, if you like,' said Miss
Harrow to Alfred. 'You are never quite at your ease, I think,
without a pipe.'

But the man of letters was too preoccupied for society. In a few
minutes he begged that the ladies would excuse his withdrawing; he
had two or three letters to write before post-time, which was early
at Finden.

Jasper, relieved by the veteran's departure, began at once to
make himself very agreeable company. When he chose to lay aside the
topic of his own difficulties and ambitions, he could converse with
a spontaneous gaiety which readily won the good-will of listeners.
Naturally he addressed himself very often to Marian Yule, whose
attention complimented him. She said little, and evidently was at
no time a free talker, but the smile on her face indicated a mood
of quiet enjoyment. When her eyes wandered, it was to rest on the
beauties of the garden, the moving patches of golden sunshine, the
forms of gleaming cloud. Jasper liked to observe her as she turned
her head: there seemed to him a particular grace in the movement;
her head and neck were admirably formed, and the short hair drew
attention to this.

It was agreed that Miss Harrow and Marian should come on the
second day after to have tea with the Milvains. And when Jasper
took leave of Alfred Yule, the latter expressed a wish that they
might have a walk together one of these mornings.

Jasper's favourite walk led him to a spot distant perhaps a mile
and a half from home. From a tract of common he turned into a short
lane which crossed the Great Western railway, and thence by a stile
into certain meadows forming a compact little valley. One
recommendation of this retreat was that it lay sheltered from all
winds; to Jasper a wind was objectionable. Along the bottom ran a
clear, shallow stream, overhung with elder and hawthorn bushes; and
close by the wooden bridge which spanned it was a great ash tree,
making shadow for cows and sheep when the sun lay hot upon the open
field. It was rare for anyone to come along this path, save farm
labourers morning and evening.

But to-day—the afternoon that followed his visit to John Yule's
house—he saw from a distance that his lounging-place on the wooden
bridge was occupied. Someone else had discovered the pleasure there
was in watching the sun-flecked sparkle of the water as it flowed
over the clean sand and stones. A girl in a yellow-straw hat; yes,
and precisely the person he had hoped, at the first glance, that it
might be. He made no haste as he drew nearer on the descending
path. At length his footstep was heard; Marian Yule turned her head
and clearly recognised him.

She assumed an upright position, letting one of her hands rest
upon the rail. After the exchange of ordinary greetings, Jasper
leaned back against the same support and showed himself disposed
for talk.

'When I was here late in the spring,' he said, 'this ash was
only just budding, though everything else seemed in full leaf.'

'An ash, is it?' murmured Marian. 'I didn't know. I think an oak
is the only tree I can distinguish. Yet,' she added quickly, 'I
knew that the ash was late; some lines of Tennyson come to my
memory.'

'Which are those?'

'Delaying, as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself when all the woods are green,

somewhere in the "Idylls."'

'I don't remember; so I won't pretend to—though I should do so
as a rule.'

She looked at him oddly, and seemed about to laugh, yet did
not.

'You have had little experience of the country?' Jasper
continued.

'Very little. You, I think, have known it from childhood?'

'In a sort of way. I was born in Wattleborough, and my people
have always lived here. But I am not very rural in temperament. I
have really no friends here; either they have lost interest in me,
or I in them. What do you think of the girls, my sisters?'

The question, though put with perfect simplicity, was
embarrassing.

'They are tolerably intellectual,' Jasper went on, when he saw
that it would be difficult for her to answer. 'I want to persuade
them to try their hands at literary work of some kind or other.
They give lessons, and both hate it.'

'Would literary work be less—burdensome?' said Marian, without
looking at him.

'Rather more so, you think?'

She hesitated.

'It depends, of course, on—on several things.'

'To be sure,' Jasper agreed. 'I don't think they have any marked
faculty for such work; but as they certainly haven't for teaching,
that doesn't matter. It's a question of learning a business. I am
going through my apprenticeship, and find it a long affair. Money
would shorten it, and, unfortunately, I have none.'

'Yes,' said Marian, turning her eyes upon the stream, 'money is
a help in everything.'

'Without it, one spends the best part of one's life in toiling
for that first foothold which money could at once purchase. To have
money is becoming of more and more importance in a literary career;
principally because to have money is to have friends. Year by year,
such influence grows of more account. A lucky man will still
occasionally succeed by dint of his own honest perseverance, but
the chances are dead against anyone who can't make private interest
with influential people; his work is simply overwhelmed by that of
the men who have better opportunities.'

'Don't you think that, even to-day, really good work will sooner
or later be recognised?'

'Later, rather than sooner; and very likely the man can't wait;
he starves in the meantime. You understand that I am not speaking
of genius; I mean marketable literary work. The quantity turned out
is so great that there's no hope for the special attention of the
public unless one can afford to advertise hugely. Take the instance
of a successful all-round man of letters; take Ralph Warbury, whose
name you'll see in the first magazine you happen to open. But
perhaps he is a friend of yours?'

'Oh no!'

'Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is
there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty
struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a clever,
prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he
came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was
mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen
articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won't
succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get
into society that they may succeed in literature.'

'Yes, I know it is true,' said Marian, in a low voice.

'There's a friend of mine who writes novels,' Jasper pursued.
'His books are not works of genius, but they are glaringly distinct
from the ordinary circulating novel. Well, after one or two
attempts, he made half a success; that is to say, the publishers
brought out a second edition of the book in a few months. There was
his opportunity. But he couldn't use it; he had no friends, because
he had no money. A book of half that merit, if written by a man in
the position of Warbury when he started, would have established the
reputation of a lifetime. His influential friends would have
referred to it in leaders, in magazine articles, in speeches, in
sermons. It would have run through numerous editions, and the
author would have had nothing to do but to write another book and
demand his price. But the novel I'm speaking of was practically
forgotten a year after its appearance; it was whelmed beneath the
flood of next season's literature.'