Walking-Stick Papers Part 4

In the course of time I got down to bra.s.s tacks; I took a staff position, a desk job. It was up to me to review everything going, in a steady ceaseless grind. I began work at half past nine in the morning.

When I was commuting I began earlier, taking up a book on the train.

Between nine thirty and a quarter to eleven I did a book, say, on the extermination of the house-fly; from then until lunch time, three hundred words on a very pleasant novel called, for instance, "Roast Beef, Medium"; in the afternoon, three-quarters of a column on a "History of the American Negro"; winding up the day, perhaps, with a lively article about a popular book on "Submarine Diving and Light Houses"; and taking home at night the "Note Books of Samuel Butler." I began the morrow, very likely, with an "omnibus article" lumping together five books on the Panama Ca.n.a.l. And then, as the publishers of the latest book on art had turned in a double-column hundred-agate-line "ad" the week before, it was necessary to do something serious "for" that masterpiece. I reviewed a dictionary and a couple of cookery books. At the holiday season I polished off a jumble of Christmas and New Year's cards, a pile of picture calendars, and a table full of "juveniles." Woman suffrage, alcoholism, New Thought, socialism, minor poetry, big game hunting, militarism, athletics, architecture, eugenics, industry, European travel, education, eroticism, red blood fiction, humour, uplift books, white slavery, nature study, aviation, bygone kings (and their mistresses), statesmen, scientists, poverty, disease, and crime, I had always with me. I became a slightly bald reviewer.

Books of theology and of philosophy were given out to a theologian; books concerning the dramatic art were done by the dramatic critic; and those on music went to the music critic. We had an occasional letter from Paris on current French literature.

In addition to writing (for I was an editor), I read the "literary"

galley proofs; "made up" once a week down in the composing room late at night; compiled the feature variously called in different papers _Books Received_, _Books of the Week_, or _The Newest Books_; and got out the correspondence of the literary department--with publishers and with fools who write in about things. I also went over the foreign exchange, that is: clipped literary notes out of foreign papers. Once a month I surveyed the current magazines. I worked in the office on every holiday of the year except Christmas and New Year's, and frequently on Sundays at home.

With a view to attracting the intellectual elite to a profession where this cla.s.s is needed, I will tell you what I got for this. It should be understood, however, that I was with one of the great papers, which paid a scale of generous salaries. Mine was forty dollars a week.

That is a good deal of money for a literary man to earn regularly.

But--

I did, indeed, have an a.s.sistant in this office; there was a person a.s.sociated with me who took the responsibility of everything in the department that was excellent. That is, I was "a.s.sistant literary editor." Few newspapers can afford to employ a chief solely for each department. It is recognised that the work of the literary editor can be economically combined with that of the dramatic editor, or with that of the art critic; or the art critic runs the Sat.u.r.day supplement, or some such thing. My chief looked in every day or so, and frequently, perhaps in striving for exact honesty I should say regularly, contributed reviews. He directed the policy of the department, subject, of course, to criticism from "down stairs."

But (as I was about to say above) that regular income is very uncertain. Universities cultivate a sense of security in their professors, in order to obtain loyal service and lofty endeavour. The editorial tenure, as all men know, is a house of sand--a summer's breeze, a wash of the tide, and the editor is a refugee. I know the editor of literary pages that go far and wide, who has held down that job now for over a year. That man is troubled: none has ever stood in his shoes for much longer than that.

"Don't fool yourself," I heard a successful young journalist say the other day to a very conscientious young reviewer. "Good work won't get you anything. Play politics, office politics all the while."

Doubtless sound advice, this, for any gainful employment.

Now about that prime department of the press called the business office. Many people firmly believe that all book reviews--and dramatic criticisms and editorials--are bought by "the interests." One of the princ.i.p.al librarians of New York holds this view of reviews. I never knew a reviewer who was bound to tell anything but the truth as he saw it. Nor have I ever written in any review a word that I knew to be false; and I believe that few reviewers do. Because, however, this or that publis.h.i.+ng house was "a friend of ours," or because the husband of this author used to work for the paper (pure sentiment!), or that one is a friend of the wife of The Editor (caution!), it has been suggested to me by my chief that I "go easy" with certain books.

The good reviewer does go easy with most books. It is a mark of his excellence as a reviewer that he has a catholic taste, that he sees that books are written to many standards, and that every book, almost, is meet for some. It is not his business to break things on the wheel; but to introduce the book before him to its proper audience; always recognising, of course, sometimes with pleasant subtle irony, its limitations. It is only when a book pretends to be what it is not, that he d.a.m.ns it. All that is not business, but sensible, sensitive criticism.

To return. The business office exerts not a direct but a moral influence, so to put it, upon the literary department. Business tact must be recognised. A hostile review already in type and in the plan of the next issue may be "killed" when a large "ad" announcing books brought out by the publisher of this one so treated comes in for the next paper; and then search is made for a book from the same publisher which may be favourably reviewed. Or a hostile review may be held over until a time more politic for its release, say following several enthusiastic reviews. And there is no sense in noticing in one issue a disproportionate number of books published by one house.

In concluding my discussion I will draw two portraits of professional reviewers, one composite of a cla.s.s, the other a picture of a man who stands at the top of his profession.

Seated at his desk is a little man with a pointed beard and a large bald spot on top of his head. This man has been all his life a literary hack. He has read ma.n.u.script for publis.h.i.+ng houses; he has novelised popular plays for ha-penny papers, and dramatised trashy novels for cheap producers; he has done routine ch.o.r.e writing in magazine offices, made translations for pirate publishers, and picked up an odd sum now and then by a "Sunday story." He has always been an anonymous writer. He has never had sufficient intellectual character to do anything well. The downward side of middle age finds him afflicted with various physical ailments, entirely dependent upon a precarious position at a moderate salary, without influential friends, completely disillusioned, with a mediocre mind now much f.a.gged, devoid of high ambition, and with a most unstimulating prospect before him.

His att.i.tude toward the business of book reviewing is that he wishes he had gone into the tailor business or that his father had left him a grocery store. He would not have succeeded, however, as either a tailor or a grocer, as he has even less business than literary ability.

Farther, he regards himself as a gentleman, and books strike him as being more gentlemanly than trade. He has got along as well as he has, by bluff about his extensive acquaintance with literature, and his long experience in writing and publis.h.i.+ng.

This type of reviewing man says that he does the thing "mechanically."

About the new crop of juvenile books, let us say, he says the same thing again now that he said four years ago. "One idea every other paragraph," is his principle, and he thinks it sufficient in a review.

Sufficient, that is, to "get by." And whatever gets by, in his view, "pleases them just as well as anything else." Our friend of this character has a considerable number of stock remarks which may at any time be written very rapidly. One of these sentences is: "This book furnishes capital reading;" another says that this book "is welcome;"

and he holds as a general principle that, "the reviewer who reads the book is lost."

Occasionally, very occasionally, there is found among reviewers the type of old-fas.h.i.+oned person who used to be called a "man of letters."

This is a wild dream, but it would be a grand thing for American reviewing if every one of our young reviewers could have for an hour each week the moral benefit of the society of such a man. I know one who now has been active in New York literary journalism for something like thirty years--a fine intellectual figure of a man. He makes his living out of this, indeed, but his interest is in the thing itself, in literature. He has all that one really needs in the world, he has the esteem of the most estimable people, and he follows with unceasing pleasure a delightful occupation. He is as keen to-day, he declares, on the "right way of putting three words together" as he was when he began to write. His mellow, witty, and gentlemanly style is saturated with the sounds, scents and colours of literature. The exercise of his cultivated judgment is not a trade, but a sacred trust. To look at him and to think of his admirable career is to realise the dignity of his calling--discussing with authority the books of the world as they come from the press.

VI

LITERARY LEVITIES IN LONDOW

Now it's a funny thing, that, come to think of it. Some folks have questioned whether, the other way round, it could be done in this country at all. It's a pleasant view anyhow that the matter presents of that curious affair the English character.

There is a notion knocking about over here that considerable rigmarole is required to meet an Englishman. And very probably few who have tried it would dispute that it is somewhat difficult to "meet" an ordinary Englishman to whom you are not known in a railway carriage.

With the big 'uns, however, the business appears to be simple enough.

Foolish doings do clutter up one's luggage with letters of introduction when all that is needed to board round with the most celebrated people in England is a glance at a "Who's Who" in a public library to get addresses.

For the purpose of convenience the writer of these souvenirs will refer to himself as "I" and "me." I was all done up in health and was advised by doctors to clear out at once. So I bought a steams.h.i.+p ticket, packed a kit bag, crossed the water and took a couple of strolls about that island over there; when, feeling fitter, I turned up in London for a look about.

It sort of came over me that in my haste of departure I had neglected to bring any of my friends along, or to equip myself with the means of making others here. I was unarmed, so to say--a "Yank" in an obviously hostile country. This, you see, was before the war, before we and Britain had got so genuinely sweet on one another.

At that time I had two acquaintances resident in London. One, a Bostonian, whose attention was quite occupied with a new addition to his family; the other was the errand man stationed before my place of abode. He was an amiable soul, whose companionable nature, worldly wisdom and topographical knowledge I much appreciated. He instructed me in the culinary subject of "bubble and squeak" and many other learned matters; but unfortunately his social connections were limited to one cla.s.s.

One time not a great while back I happened to review in succession for a New York paper several books by Hilaire Belloc. Mr. Belloc had written me a note thanking me for these reviews. I decided to write Mr. Belloc that I was in London and to ask if he could spare a moment for me to look at him, Mr. Belloc being one of my literary pa.s.sions.

Then an ambitious idea popped into my head. I determined to write the same request to all the people in England I had ever reviewed.

Reviewing, mostly anonymous, had been my business for several years, with other literary ch.o.r.es on the side. I communicated to Mr.

Chesterton the fact that I had come over to look about, told him my belief that he was one of the n.o.blest and most interesting monuments in England, and asked him if he supposed that he could be "viewed" by me, at some street corner, say, at a time appointed, as he rumbled past in his triumphal car.

Writing to famous people that you don't know is somewhat like the drink habit. It is easy to begin; it is pleasurably stimulating; it soon fastens itself upon you to the extent that it is exceedingly difficult to stop indulgence and it leads you straight to excess. I wound up, I think, with Hugh Walpole. I had liked that "Fort.i.tude" thing very much.

My Englis.h.i.+sed Boston friend--he's the worst Englishman I saw over there--simply threw up his hands. He groaned and fell into a chair.

"Holy cat!" he cried, or English words to that effect, "you can't come over here and do that way. It's not done," he declared. "You can't meet Englishmen in that fas.h.i.+on. These people will think you are a wild, bounding red Indian. They'll all go out of town until you leave the country."

Well, I saw it was awfully bad. I have disgraced the U.S.A. That's what comes of having crude notions about meeting people. I felt pretty cheap. I felt sorry for my friend too, because he had to stay there where he lived and try to hold his head up while I could slink off back home. My friend pointed out to me that Mr. Chesterton and the other gentlemen had only my word for it that I had any connection with literature, and that as far as they were aware I might be the worst kind of crook, and at the very best was in all likelihood a very great bore.

Annie, the maid at my lodgings, handed me a bunch of mail. Mr. Belloc was particularly eager to see me, he said. He gave me an intimate two page account of his movements for the past couple of weeks or so. He had just been out to sea in his boat, the _Nona_, and had only got back after a good deal of difficulty outside; this he hoped would account for the delay of a day or so in his reply.

During the Whitsun days he had to travel about England to see his children at their various schools, and after that he had to go to settle again about his boat, where she lay in a Welsh port. Then he must speak at Eton. He would be "available," however, at the beginning of the next week, when he hoped I would "take a meal" with him.

Perhaps he could be of some use in acquainting me with England; it would be such a pleasure to meet me, and so on. Very nice att.i.tude for a man so slightly acquainted with one.

Mr. Chesterton wished to thank me for my letter and to say that he would be pleased if I cared to come down to spend an afternoon with him at Beaconsfield. Mr. Walpole apologised very greatly for seeming so curtly inhospitable, but he was only in London for a short time and had difficulty in squeezing his engagements in. This week, too, was infernally complicated by Ascot. But couldn't I come round on Monday to lunch with him at his club?

Mr. Chesterton is a grand man. Smokes excellent cigars. But first, as you come up the hill, from the railway station toward the old part of the village and to the little house Overroads, you enter, as like as not, as I did, a gate set in a pleasant hedge, and you knock at a side door, to the mirth later of Mrs. Chesterton.

This agreeable entrance is that for tradesmen. The way you should have gone in is round somewhere on another road. A maid admits you to a small parlour and in a moment Mrs. Chesterton comes in to inquire if you have an appointment with her husband. She always speaks of Mr.

Chesterton as "my husband." It develops that the letter you sent fixing the appointment got balled up in some way. It further develops that a good many things connected with Mr. Chesterton's life and house get balled up. Mrs. Chesterton's line seems to be to keep things about a chaotic husband as straight as possible.

Mr. Chesterton is a very fat man. His portraits, I think, hardly do him sufficient honour in this respect. He has a remarkably red face.

And a smallish moustache, lightish in colour against this background.

His expression is extraordinarily innocent; he looks like a monstrous infant. A tumbled mane tops him off. He sits in his parlour in a very small chair.

Did I write him when I was coming? Wonder what became of the letter?

Doesn't remember it. Perhaps it is in his dressing gown. Has a habit of sticking things that interest him into the pocket of his dressing gown. Where, do you suppose, is his dressing gown? However, no matter. "Have a cigar. Do have a cigar. Wonder where my cigars are!

Where are my cigars?" Mrs. Chesterton locates them.

Now about that poem, "The Inn at the End of the World," or some such thing. He is inclined to think that he did write it, but he cannot remember where it was published. Now he has lost his gla.s.ses, ridiculously small gla.s.ses, which he has been continually attempting to fix firmly upon his nose. Slapping yourself about the chest is an excellent way to find gla.s.ses.

Well, it is very flattering to be told that one is so well known in America. But so he had heard before. Describes himself as a "philosophical journalist." Did not know that there was an audience in America for his kind of writing. Wonders whether democracy as carried on there "on such a gigantic scale" can keep right on successfully.

Admits a division between our two peoples. "Trenches have been dug between us," he declares.

Rises to a remark about the Englishman's everlasting garden. "He likes to have a little fringe about him," he says. And then tells a little story, which one might say contains all the elements of his art.