"After that," I said--"you had better go to McWhing. I hope you will tell him that I am the triple essence of all the newest 'discoveries'

rolled into one!"

"Never fear!" returned Lucio,--"I've learned all my stock-phrases by heart--a 'star of the first magnitude' etc.,--I've read the _Athenaeum_ till I've got the lingo of the literary auctioneer well-nigh perfect, and I believe I shall acquit myself admirably. Au revoir!"

He was gone; and I, after a little desultory looking over my papers, went out to lunch at Arthur's, of which club I was now a member. On my way I stopped to look in at a bookseller's window to see if my 'immortal' production was yet on show. It was not,--and the volume put most conspicuously to the front among all the 'newest books' was one ent.i.tled 'Differences. By Mavis Clare.' Acting on a sudden impulse I went in to purchase it.

"Has this a good sale?" I asked, as the volume was handed to me.

The clerk at the counter opened his eyes wide.

"Sale?" he echoed--"Well, I should think so--rather! Why everybody's reading it!"

"Indeed!" and I turned over the uncut pages carelessly--"I see no allusion whatever to it in the papers."

The clerk smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"No--and you're not likely to, sir"--he said--"Miss Clare is too popular to need reviews. Besides, a large number of the critics,--the 'log-rollers' especially, are mad against her for her success, and the public know it. Only the other day a man came in here from one of the big newspaper offices and told me he was taking a few notes on the books which had the largest sales,--would I tell him which author's works were most in demand? I said Miss Clare took the lead,--as she does,--and he got into a regular rage. Said he--'That's the answer I've had all along the line, and however true it is, it's no use to me because I dare not mention it. My editor would instantly scratch it out--he hates Miss Clare.' 'A precious editor you've got!' I said, and he looked rather queer. There's nothing like journalism, sir, for the suppression of truth!"

I smiled, and went away with my purchase, convinced that I had wasted a few shillings on a mere piece of woman's trash. If this Mavis Clare was indeed so 'popular,' then her work must naturally be of the 'penny dreadful' order, for I, like many another literary man, laboured under the ludicrous inconsistency of considering the public an 'a.s.s' while I myself desired nothing so much as the said 'a.s.s's' applause and approval!--and therefore I could not imagine it capable of voluntarily selecting for itself any good work of literature without guidance from the critics. Of course I was wrong; the great ma.s.ses of the public in all nations are always led by some instinctive sense of right, that moves them to reject the false and unworthy, and select the true.

Completely prepared, like most men of my type to sneer and cavil at the book, chiefly because it was written by a feminine hand, I sat down in a retired corner of the club reading-room, and began to cut and skim the pages. I had not read many sentences before my heart sank with a heavy sense of fear and,--jealousy!--the slow fire of an insidious envy began to smoulder in my mind. What power had so gifted this author--this mere _woman_,--that she should dare to write better than I! And that she should force me, by the magic of her pen to mentally acknowledge, albeit with wrath and shame, my own inferiority! Clearness of thought, brilliancy of style, beauty of diction, all these were hers, united to consummate ease of expression and artistic skill,--and all at once, in the very midst of reading, such a violent impulse of insensate rage possessed me that I flung the book down, dreading to go on with it. The potent, resistless, unpurchaseable quality of Genius!--ah, I was not yet so blinded by my own conceit as to be unable to recognize that divine fire when I saw it flashing up from every page as I saw it now; but, to be compelled to give that recognition to a woman's work, galled and irritated me almost beyond endurance. Women, I considered, should be kept in their places as men's drudges or toys--as wives, mothers, nurses, cooks, menders of socks and shirts, and housekeepers generally,--what right had they to intrude into the realms of art and s.n.a.t.c.h the laurels from their masters' brows! If I could but get the chance of reviewing this book, I thought to myself savagely!--I would misquote, misrepresent, and cut it to shreds with a joy too great for words! This Mavis Clare, 'uns.e.xed,' as I at once called her in my own mind simply because she had the power I lacked,--wrote what she had to say with a gracious charm, freedom, and innate consciousness of strength,--a strength which forced me back upon myself and filled me with the bitterest humiliation. Without knowing her I hated her,--this woman who could win fame without the aid of money, and who was crowned so brightly and visibly to the world that she was beyond criticism. I took up her book again and tried to cavil at it,--over one or two dainty bits of poetic simile and sentiment I laughed,--enviously. When I left the club later in the day, I took the book with me, divided between a curious desire to read it honestly through with justice to it and its author, and an impulse to tear it asunder and fling it into the road to be crushed in the mud under rolling cab and cart wheels. In this strange humour Rimanez found me, when at about four o'clock he returned from his mission to David McWhing, smiling and--triumphant.

"Congratulate me Geoffrey!" he exclaimed as he entered my room--"Congratulate me, and yourself! I am _minus_ the five hundred pound cheque I showed you this morning!"

"McWhing has pocketed it then,"--I said sullenly--"All right! Much good may it do him, and his 'charity'!"

Rimanez gave me a quick observant glance.

"Why, what has happened to you since we parted?" he inquired, throwing off his overcoat and sitting down opposite to me--"You seem out of temper! Yet you ought to be a perfectly happy man--for your highest ambition is about to be gratified. You said you wished to make your book and yourself 'the talk of London,'--well, within the next two or three weeks you will see yourself praised in a very large number of influential newspapers as the newest discovered 'genius' of the day, only a little way removed from Shakespeare himself (three of the big leading magazines are guaranteed to say that) and all this through the affability of Mr McWhing, and the trifling sum of five hundred pounds!

And are you not satisfied? Really, my friend, you are becoming difficult!--I warned you that too much good fortune spoils a man."

With a sudden movement I flung down Mavis Clare's book before him.

"Look at this"--I said--"Does _she_ pay five hundred pounds to David McWhing's charity?"

He took up the volume and glanced at it.

"Certainly not. But then,--she gets slandered--not criticized!"

"What does that matter!" I retorted--"The man from whom I bought this book says that everybody is reading it."

"Exactly!" and Rimanez surveyed me with a curious expression, half of pity, half of amus.e.m.e.nt--"But you know the old axiom, my dear Geoffrey?--'you may lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink.' Which statement, interpreted for the present occasion, means that though certain log-rollers, headed by our estimable friend McWhing, may drag the horse--i.e. the public, up to their own particularly prepared literary trough, they cannot force it to swallow the mixture.

The horse frequently turns tail and runs away in search of its own provender,--it has done so in the case of Miss Clare. When the public choose an author for themselves, it is a dreadful thing of course for other authors,--but it really can't be helped!"

"Why should they choose Mavis Clare?" I demanded gloomily.

"Ah, why indeed!" he echoed smiling--"McWhing would tell you they do it out of sheer idiotcy;--the public would answer that they choose her because she has genius."

"Genius!" I repeated scornfully--"The public are perfectly incapable of recognizing such a quality!"

"You think so?" he said still smiling--"you really think so? In that case it's very odd isn't it, how everything that is truly great in art and literature becomes so widely known and honoured, not only in this country but in every civilized land where people think or study? You must remember that all the very famous men and women have been steadily 'written down' in their day, even to the late English Laureate, Tennyson, who was 'criticized' for the most part in the purest Billingsgate,--it is only the mediocrities who are ever 'written up.' It seems as if the stupid public really had a hand in selecting these 'great,' for the reviewers would never stand them at any price, till driven to acknowledge them by the popular _force majeure_. But considering the barbarous want of culture and utter foolishness of the public, Geoffrey, what _I_ wonder at, is that you should care to appeal to it at all!"

I sat silent,--inwardly chafing under his remarks.

"I am afraid--" he resumed, rising and taking a white flower from one of the vases on the table to pin in his b.u.t.ton-hole--"that Miss Clare is going to be a thorn in your side, my friend! A man rival in literature is bad enough,--but a woman rival is too much to endure with any amount of patience! However you may console yourself with the certainty that _she_ will never get 'boomed,'--while you--thanks to my tender fostering of the sensitive and high-principled McWhing, will be the one delightful and unique 'discovery' of the press for at least one month, perhaps two, which is about as long as any 'new star of the first magnitude' lasts in the latter-day literary skies. Shooting-stars all of them!--such as poor old forgotten Beranger sang of--

"les etoiles qui filent, 'Qui filent,--qui filent--et disparaissent!'"

"Except--Mavis Clare!" I said.

"True! Except Mavis Clare!" and he laughed aloud,--a laugh that jarred upon me because there was a note of mockery in it--"She is a small fixture in the vast heavens,--or so it seems--revolving very contentedly and smoothly in her own appointed orbit,--but she is not and never will be attended by the brilliant meteor-flames that will burst round _you_, my excellent fellow, at the signal of McWhing! Fie Geoffrey!--get over your sulks! Jealous of a woman! Be ashamed,--is not woman the inferior creature?, and shall the mere spectre of a feminine fame cause a five-fold millionaire to abase his lofty spirit in the dust? Conquer your strange fit of the spleen, Geoffrey, and join me at dinner!"

He laughed again as he left the room,--and again his laughter irritated me. When he had gone, I gave way to the base and unworthy impulse that had for some minutes been rankling within me, and sitting down at my writing table, penned a hasty note to the editor of a rather powerful magazine, a man whom I had formerly known and worked for. He was aware of my altered fortunes and the influential position I now occupied, and I felt confident he would be glad to oblige me in any matter if he could. My letter, marked '_private and confidential_' contained the request that I might be permitted to write for his next number, an anonymous 'slashing' review of the new novel ent.i.tled 'Differences' by Mavis Clare.

XVI

It is almost impossible for me to describe the feverish, irritated and contradictory state of mind in which I now began to pa.s.s my days. With the absolute fixity of my fortunes, my humours became more changeful than the wind, and I was never absolutely contented for two hours together. I joined in every sort of dissipation common to men of the day, who with the usual inanity of noodles, plunged into the filth of life merely because to be morally dirty was also at the moment fashionable and much applauded by society. I gambled recklessly, solely for the reason that gambling was considered by many leaders of the 'upper ten' as indicative of 'manliness' and 'showing _grit_.'

"I hate a fellow who grudges losing a few pounds at play,"--said one of these 'distinguished' t.i.tled a.s.ses to me once--"It shows such a cowardly and currish disposition."

Guided by this 'new' morality, and wishing to avoid the possibility of being called "cowardly and currish," I indulged in baccarat and other ruinous games almost every night, willingly losing the 'few pounds'

which in my case meant a few hundreds, for the sake of my occasional winnings, which placed a number of 'n.o.ble' rakes and blue-blooded blacklegs in my power for 'debts of honour,' which are supposed to be more strictly attended to and more punctually paid than any debts in the world, but which, as far as I am concerned, are still owing. I also betted heavily, on everything that could be made the subject of a bet,--and not to be behind my peers in 'style' and 'knowledge of the world' I frequented low houses and allowed a few half-nude brandy-soaked dancers and vulgar music-hall 'artistes' to get a couple of thousand pounds worth of jewels out of me, because this sort of thing was called 'seeing life' and was deemed part of a 'gentleman's' diversion.

Heavens!--what beasts we all were, I and my aristocratic boon companions!--what utterly worthless, useless, callous scoundrels!--and yet,--we a.s.sociated with the best and the highest in the land;--the fairest and n.o.blest ladies in London received us in their houses with smiles and softly-worded flatteries--we--whose presence reeked with vice; we, 'young men of fashion' whom, if he had known our lives as they were, an honest cobbler working patiently for daily bread, might have spat upon, in contempt and indignation that such low rascals should be permitted to burden the earth! Sometimes, but very seldom, Rimanez joined our gambling and music-hall parties, and on such occasions I noticed that he, as it were, 'let himself go' and became the wildest of us all. But though wild he was never coa.r.s.e,--as _we_ were; his deep and mellow laughter had a sonorous richness in it that was totally unlike the donkey's 'hee-haw' of our 'cultured' mirth,--his manners were never vulgar; and his fluent discourse on men and things, now witty and satirical, now serious almost to pathos, strangely affected many of those who heard him talk, myself most of all. Once, I remember, when we were returning late from some foolish carouse,--I with three young sons of English peers, and Rimanez walking beside us,--we came upon a poorly clad girl sobbing and clinging to the iron railing outside a closed church door.

"Oh G.o.d!" she wailed--"Oh dear G.o.d! Do help me!"

One of my companions seized her by the arm with a lewd jest, when all at once Rimanez stepped between.

"Leave her alone!" he said sternly--"Let her find G.o.d if she can!"

The girl looked up at him terrified, her eyes streaming with tears, and he dropped two or three gold pieces into her hand. She broke out crying afresh.

"Oh G.o.d bless you!" she cried wildly--"G.o.d bless you!"

He raised his hat and stood uncovered in the moonlight, his dark beauty softened by a strangely wistful expression.

"I thank you!" he said simply--"You make me your debtor."

And he pa.s.sed on; we followed, somewhat subdued and silenced, though one of my lordling friends sn.i.g.g.e.red idiotically.

"You paid dearly for that blessing, Rimanez!" he said--"You gave her three sovereigns;--by Jove! I'd have had something more than a blessing if I had been you."

"No doubt!" returned Rimanez--"You deserve more,--much more! I hope you will get it! A blessing would be of no advantage whatever to _you_;--it is, to _me_."

How often I have thought of this incident since! I was too dense to attach either meaning or importance to it then,--self-absorbed as I was, I paid no attention to circ.u.mstances which seemed to have no connection with my own life and affairs. And in all my dissipations and so-called amus.e.m.e.nts, a perpetual restlessness consumed me,--I obtained no real satisfaction out of anything except my slow and somewhat tantalizing courtship of Lady Sibyl. She was a strange girl; she knew my intentions towards her well enough; yet she affected not to know. Each time I ventured to treat her with more than the usual deference, and to infuse something of the ardour of a lover into my looks or manner, she feigned surprise. I wonder why it is that some women are so fond of playing the hypocrite in love? Their own instinct teaches them when men are amorous; but unless they can run the fox to earth, or in other words, reduce their suitors to the lowest pitch of grovelling appeal, and force them to such abas.e.m.e.nt that the poor pa.s.sion-driven fools are ready to fling away life, and even honour, dearer than life, for their sakes, their vanity is not sufficiently gratified. But who, or what am I that I should judge of vanity,--I whose egregious and flagrant self-approbation was of such a character that it blinded me to the perception and comprehension of everything in which my own Ego was not represented! And yet,--with all the morbid interest I took in myself, my surroundings, my comfort, my social advancement, there was one thing which soon became a torture to me,--a veritable despair and loathing,--and this, strange to say, was the very triumph I had most looked forward to as the crown and summit of all my ambitious dreams. My book,--the book I had presumed to consider a work of genius,--when it was launched on the tide of publicity and criticism, resolved itself into a sort of literary monster that haunted my days and nights with its hateful presence; the thick, black-lettered, lying advertis.e.m.e.nts scattered broadcast by my publisher, flared at me with an offensive insistence in every paper I casually opened. And the praise of the reviewers! ... the exaggerated, preposterous, fraudulent 'boom'! Good G.o.d!--how sickening it was!--how fulsome! Every epithet of flattery bestowed upon me filled me with disgust, and one day when I took up a leading magazine and saw a long article upon the 'extraordinary brilliancy and promise' of my book, comparing me to a new aeschylus and Shakespeare combined, with the signature of David McWhing appended to it, I could have thrashed that erudite and a.s.suredly purchased Scot within an inch of his life. The chorus of eulogy was well-nigh universal; I was the 'genius of the day'--the 'hope of the future generation,'--I was the "Book of the Month,"--the greatest, the wittiest, most versatile, most brilliant scribbling pigmy that had ever honoured a pot of ink by using it! Of course I figured as McWhing's 'discovery,'--five hundred pounds bestowed on his mysterious 'charity' had so sharpened his eyesight that he had perceived me shining brightly on the literary horizon before anyone else had done so. The press followed his 'lead' obediently,--for though the press,--the English press at least,--is distinctly unbribable, the owners of newspapers are not insensible to the advantages of largely paying advertis.e.m.e.nts. Moreover, when Mr McWhing announced me as his 'find' in the oracular style which distinguished him, some other literary gentlemen came forward and wrote effective articles about me, and sent me their compositions carefully marked. I took the hint,--wrote at once to thank them, and invited them to dinner. They came, and feasted royally with Rimanez and myself;--(one of them wrote an 'Ode' to me afterwards),--and at the conclusion of the revels, we sent two of the 'oracles' home, considerably overcome by champagne, in a carriage with Amiel to look after them, and help them out at their own doors. And my 'boom' expanded,--London 'talked' as I had said it should; the growling monster metropolis discussed me and my work in its own independent and peculiar fashion. The 'upper ten' subscribed to the circulating libraries, and these admirable inst.i.tutions made a two or three hundred copies do for all demands, by the simple expedient of keeping subscribers waiting five or six weeks till they grew tired of asking for the book, and forgot all about it. Apart from the libraries, the public did not take me up. From the glowing criticisms that appeared in all the papers, it might have been supposed that 'everybody who was anybody' was reading my 'wonderful' production. Such however was not the case. People spoke of me as 'the great millionaire,' but they were indifferent to the bid I had made for literary fame. The remark they usually made to me wherever I went was--"You have written a novel, haven't you? What an odd thing for _you_ to do!"--this, with a laugh;--"I haven't read it,--I've so little time--I must ask for it at the library." Of course a great many never did ask, not deeming it worth their while; and I whose money, combined with the resistless influence of Rimanez, had started the favourable criticisms that flooded the press, found out that the majority of the public never read criticisms at all. Hence, my anonymous review of Mavis Clare's book made no effect whatever on _her_ popularity, though it appeared in the most prominent manner. It was a sheer waste of labour,--for everywhere this woman author was still looked upon as a creature of altogether finer clay than ordinary, and still her book was eagerly devoured and questioned and admired; and still it sold by thousands, despite a lack of all favourable criticism or prominent advertis.e.m.e.nt. No one guessed that I had written what I am now perfectly willing to admit was a brutally wanton misrepresentation of her work,--no one, except Rimanez. The magazine in which it appeared was a notable one, circulating in every club and library, and he, taking it up casually one afternoon, turned to that article at once.