The Literary Shop, and Other Tales. James L. Ford
and note the skill with which he has caught the very essence of the spirit of student life, preserved it for a third of a century, and then given it to us in all its freshness, and with the fire of an artistic youth blended with the philosophy and worldly knowledge that belong only to later life.
To read “Trilby” is to open a box in which some rare perfume has been kept for thirty odd years, and to drink in the fragrance that is as pervading and strong and exquisite as ever.
And while we are enjoying this charming story, let us not forget to give thanks to the Harpers for the courage which they have shown in publishing it, for if there is anything calculated to injure them in the eyes of the gas-fitters and paper-hangers it is a novel in which the truth is told in the high-minded, cleanly, and straightforward fashion in which Mr. Du Maurier tells it here. Fancy the feelings of a Christian Endeavorer—the modern prototype of the Levite who passed by on the other side—on finding in a publication of the sort which he has always found as soothing to his prejudices and hypocrisy and pet meannesses as the purring of a cat on a warm hearthstone—fancy the feelings of such an one as he finds the mantle of charity thrown over the sins and weaknesses of the erring, suffering, exquisitely human Latin Quarter model.
One need not read more than a single instalment of “Trilby” to realize that its author never learned the trade of letters in either the Ledger primary school or the Dr. Holland academy, for there is scarcely a chapter that does not fairly teem with matter that has long been forbidden in all well-regulated magazine offices, and I know that a great many experienced manufacturers of and dealers in serial fiction believe that it marks a new era in literature.
But to return to our sheep—and in the case of Mr. Rhodes the word is an apt one—why was that article about the Latin Quarter of Paris published?
Perhaps some of my readers think it was that the Scribner people did not know any better, or because Mr. Rhodes belonged to that “ring of favored contributors” of which one hears so much in certain artistic circles. In reply, let me say that the “ring of favored contributors” is a myth, or at least I have never been able to find reasonable proof of its existence. Magazine editors buy exactly what they consider suitable for their readers, and they buy from whoever offers what they want. If they allowed themselves to be influenced by their small personal likes and dislikes the whole literary system which they have reared would go to pieces, and some dialect-writers that I wot of would be “back on the old farm,” like the slick chaps in eight of the “Two Brothers” poems.
As for the Scribner editors “not knowing any better,” let none be deceived. They have always known a great deal more than their rejected contributors gave them credit for, and there was a distinct and vital reason for every important step that they took in building up the magnificent property now known the world over as the Century Magazine. Personally I have the highest confidence in the wisdom of the magazine barons. If a barbed-wire fence is stretched across a certain pasture it is with a purpose as definite and rational as that which led Mr. Bonner to reject Jack Moran’s “Stepmother’s Prayer” and pay $160 for the sixteen poems about the two brothers.
No; there was something in this article that made it valuable for magazine purposes. It was well calculated to please those who revel in that sniveling Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy and humbug about British virtue and the wickedness of the French people. Mr. Rhodes was employed by Dr. Holland because he was probably the only living creature who could stand on the spot from which has come so much that has made the world brighter and better and happier, and utter his silly platitudes about “young men draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs.” I say that the editor of Scribner’s had just as good a reason for publishing the Quartier Latin essay as Mr. Bonner had for being “down on stepmothers” and refusing all poems that treated of them: Dr. Holland was down on grisettes.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DAWN OF THE JOHNSONIAN PERIOD.
When the good Dr. Holland passed away, his mantle descended upon the shoulders of Mr. R. U. Johnson, the foremost of his disciples, and one who had literally sat at the feet of the great master of the eighth decade of the present century, and learned from his lips the deathless principles of modern magazine editing. Since then Mr. Johnson has, in his capacity of associate editor of the Century Magazine, so skillfully blended the methods of the canny Scotch Ledger editor with those of Dr. Holland that he has not only kept his own periodical well in the lead, but has also set the pace for American literature and compelled his rivals to watch his movements at all times with the closest care, and frequently to imitate him.
I first heard of the existence of Mr. Johnson, who is unquestionably the one dominant figure in American literature of to-day, about fourteen years ago, just as I was beginning to learn something about the trade of writing. I had placed in the hands of a literary friend—now well known as one of the most successful of the modern school of story-writers—the manuscript of a story which dealt with the criminal life of the lower east side of the town, and was wondering how soon I was to awake and find myself famous when my manuscript was returned to me with a brief note from my friend, in which he said:
“I read your story through yesterday, and was so much pleased with it that my first impulse was to take it to the Century Magazine. Indeed, I would have done so had I not remembered at that moment that Johnson does not like low life; so you had better try one of the daily papers.”
“Johnson does not like low life!”
That was encouraging news for a young man who believed that literary methods had not materially altered since the days when Oliver Goldsmith wrote The Vicar of Wakefield.
The pen fell from my hand—it happened to be employed just then on a story dealing with life in a Pell Street opium-joint—and I said to myself: “Merciful heavens! must I devote my life to the delineation of what are called society types, simply because Johnson—whoever he may be—does not like low life?”
I think that if I had known then that low life was only one of a thousand things that could not meet the approval of Johnson, and that, moreover, Bonner was down on fast horses, stepmothers, sisters, matrimonial cousins, and brindle-pups, I would have thrown down my pen and endeavored to support myself in some other way.
But I did not know anything about the practical side of literature then, so I blundered on, wasting a great deal of time over forbidden topics, until I made the acquaintance of Jack Moran and others of his school, who welcomed me to Bohemia, and generously bade me share their treasure-house of accrued knowledge of editorial likes and dislikes. My low-life story—in my sublime faith I had written it on the flimsiest sort of paper—traveled from one office to another until it had eaten up $1.28 in postage and looked like Prince Lorenzo in the last act of The Mascot. Then, held together by copper rivets, it sank into its grave in the old daily Truth, unwept and unsigned.
I came across this forgotten offspring of my literary youth not long ago, and candor compels me to say that if Mr. Johnson had read that story and printed it in the Century Magazine he would not be to-day the dominant figure in the literature of our country that he is. My romance was not nearly as good as a great many that I have read in daily papers from the pens of clever newspaper men who know what they are writing about. In point of intense dramatic interest it was not within a thousand miles of the Sun’s masterly history of the career of George Howard, the bank burglar, who was murdered in the Westchester woods about fifteen years ago. The story of Howard’s life and crimes was told in a page of the Sun, I think by Mr. Amos Cummings, and if I could find any fiction equal to it in one of our magazines I would gladly sound the praises of the editor who was courageous enough to publish it.
I can afford to smile now as I recall the bitterness of spirit in which I used to chafe under the restrictions imposed upon us by the all-powerful barons of literature. I used to console my wounded vanity then by picturing to myself a bright future, when Johnson would stretch out his hands to me and beg me to place on the tip of his parched tongue a few pages of my cooling