A Black Adonis. Linn Boyd Porter
I was talking only to Mr. Weil, who is not in the profession and does not expect to be. Now, let me say at once, Mr. Roseleaf, that your contribution is not open to any of the objections I have cited. You have evidently been well educated. Your English is pure and forcible. It is a real delight to read your pages. Every line shows the greatest care in construction. I did with your story what I have not done with another for a long time—I read it through. Why then did I reject it?"
The question was too great for the one most interested to answer, but in the glow of pleasure that the compliment brought he forgot for the moment his bitter feelings.
"Possibly," he suggested, "Cutt & Slashem have more novels on hand than they feel like producing at present."
"No," responded Mr. Gouger, disposing of that theory in one breath. "A house like ours would never reject a really desirable manuscript. If you will reflect that only one or two of this description are produced each year you will the more readily understand me. Your story has a cardinal fault for which no excellence of style or finish can compensate. Shall I tell you what it is, and before this gentleman?"
He indicated Mr. Weil as he spoke. Roseleaf's heart sank. For the first time he felt a deadly fear.
"Tell me, by all means," he responded, faintly.
Mr. Gouger's face bore its gentlest expression at that moment. He was taking valuable time, time that belonged to his employers, to say something that must temporarily disappoint, though in the end it might benefit his hearer.
"Let me repeat," he said, "that your work is well written, and that I have read it with the greatest interest. Its fault—an insuperable one—is that it lacks fidelity to nature. Mr. Roseleaf, I think I could gauge your past life with tolerable accuracy merely from what that manuscript reveals."
The novelist shook his head. There was not a line of autobiography in those pages, and he told his critic so.
"Oh, I understand," replied Mr. Gouger. "But this I have learned: Your life has been marvelously colorless. Yet, in spite of that, you have undertaken to write of things of which you know nothing, and about which, I may add, you have made very poor guesses."
Mr. Weil, leaning back in his chair, began to show a decided interest. Mr. Roseleaf, sitting upright, in an attitude of strained attention, inquired what Mr. Gouger meant.
"Well, for instance, this," responded the critic: "You attempt to depict the sensations of love, though you have never had a passion. Can you expect to know how it feels to hold a beautiful girl in your arms, when you never had one there? You put words of temptation into the mouth of your villain which no real scamp would think of using, for their only effect would be to alarm your heroine. You talk of a planned seduction as if it were part of an oratorio. And you make your hero so superlatively pure and sweet that no woman formed of flesh and blood could endure him for an hour."
The color mounted to Roseleaf's face. He felt that this criticism was not without foundation. But presently he rallied, and asked if it were necessary for a man to experience every sensation before he dared write about them.
"Do you suppose," he asked, desperately, "that Jules Verne ever traveled sixty thousand leagues under the sea or made a journey to the moon?"
Mr. Weil could not help uttering a little laugh. Mr. Gouger struck his hands together and clinched them.
"No," said he. "But he could have written neither of those wonderful tales without a knowledge of the sciences of which they treat."
"He has read, and I have read," responded Roseleaf. "What is the difference?"
"He has studied, and you have not," retorted the critic. "That makes all the difference in the world. He has a correct idea of the structure of the moon and what should be found in the unexplored caverns of the ocean; while you, in total ignorance, have attempted to deal in a science to which these are the merest bagatelles! You know as little of the tides that control the heart of a girl as you do of the personal history of the inhabitants of Jupiter! Your powers of description are good; those of invention feeble. Either throw yourself into a love affair, till you have learned it root and branch, or never again try to depict one."
Mr. Archie Weil smiled and nodded, as if he entirely agreed with the speaker.
"What a novel I could make, my dear fellow!" he exclaimed, "if I only had the talent. I have had experiences enough, but I could no more write them out than I could fly."
"It is quite as well," was the response, "your women would all be Messalinas and fiction has too many now."
"Not all of them, Lawrence," was the quick and meaning reply.
"In that case," said Gouger, "I wish heartily you could write. The world is famishing for a real love story, based on modern lines, brought up to date. I tell you, there has been nothing satisfactory in that line since Goethe's day."
Mr. Weil suggested Balzac and Sand.
"Why don't you include George William Reynolds?" inquired Gouger, with a sneer. "Neither of them wrote until they were depraved by contract with humanity. If we could get a young man of true literary talent to see life and write of it as he went along, what might we not secure? But I have no more time to spare, Mr. Roseleaf. I was sorry to be obliged to reject your story. Some day, when you have seen just a little of the world, begin again on the lines I have outlined, and come here with the result."
Quite dispirited, now that the last plank had slipped from under him, the novelist walked slowly down the stairs. He did not even ask for his manuscript. After what he had heard, it did not seem worth carrying to his lodgings. His plans were shipwrecked. Instead of the fame and fortune he had hoped for, he felt the most bitter disappointment. All his bright dreams had vanished.
A step behind him quicker than his own, made him aware that some one was following him, and presently a voice called his name. It was Mr. Archie Weil, who had put himself to unusual exertion, and required some seconds to recover his breath before he could speak further.
"I want you to come over to my hotel and have a little talk with me," he said. "Gouger has interested me in you immensely. I believe, as he says, that you have the making of a distinguished author, and I want to arrange a plan by which you can carry out his scheme."
Mr. Roseleaf stared doubtfully at his companion.
"What scheme?" he said, briefly.
"Why, of imparting to you that knowledge of the world which will enable you to draw truthful portraits. You have the art, he says, the talent, the capacity—whatever you choose to call it. All you lack is experience. Given that, you would make a reputation second to none. What can be plainer than that you should acquire the thing you need without delay?"
"The 'thing I need'?" repeated Roseleaf, dolefully.
Mr. Weil laughed, delightfully.
"Yes!" he explained. "What you need is a friend able to interest you, to begin with. Pardon me if I say I may be described by that phrase. Come to my hotel a little while and let us talk it over."
It was not an opportunity to be refused, in Roseleaf's depressed condition, and the two men walked together to the Hoffman House, where Mr. Weil at that time made his home.
CHAPTER II.
"WAS MY STORY TOO BOLD?"
"Well, Millie, your letter has come," said Mr. Wilton Fern, as he entered the parlor of his pleasant residence, situated about twenty miles from the limits of New York City. "Open it as quick as you can, and learn your fate."
His daughter