Behind the Beyond, and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge by Stephen Leacock (ebook pc reader txt) 📗
- Author: Stephen Leacock
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To tell the truth, it had occurred to me that perhaps I might need after all to buy the miserable stuff. Even while I felt that my indignation at the low knavery of the fellow[175] was justified, I knew that it might be necessary to control it. The present low state of public taste demands a certain amount of this kind of matter distributed among the advertising.
I rang the bell again.
"Please take this man away and shut him up again. Have them keep a good eye on him. He's an author."
"Very good, sir," said the secretary.
I called her back for one moment.
"Don't feed him anything," I said.
"No," said the girl.
The manuscript lay before me on the table. It looked bulky. It bore the title Dorothy Dacres, or, Only a Clergyman's Daughter.
I rang the bell again.
"Kindly ask the janitor to step this way."
He came in. I could see from the straight, honest look in his features that he was a man to be relied upon.
"Jones," I said, "can you read?"
"Yes, sir," he said, "some."
"Very good. I want you to take this manu[176]script and read it. Read it all through and then bring it back here."
The janitor took the manuscript and disappeared. I turned to my desk again and was soon absorbed in arranging a full-page display of plumbers' furnishings for the advertising. It had occurred to me that by arranging the picture matter in a neat device with verses from "Home Sweet Home" running through it in double-leaded old English type, I could set up a page that would be the delight of all business readers and make this number of the magazine a conspicuous success. My mind was so absorbed that I scarcely noticed that over an hour elapsed before the janitor returned.
"Well, Jones," I said as he entered, "have you read that manuscript?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you find it all right—punctuation good, spelling all correct?"
"Very good indeed, sir."
"And there is, I trust, nothing of what one would call a humorous nature in it? I want you to answer me quite frankly, Jones,—there[177] is nothing in it that would raise a smile, or even a laugh, is there?"
"Oh, no, sir," said Jones, "nothing at all."
"And now tell me—for remember that the reputation of our magazine is at stake—does this story make a decided impression on you? Has it," and here I cast my eye casually at the latest announcement of a rival publication, "the kind of tour de force which at once excites you to the full qui vive and which contains a sustained brio that palpitates on every page? Answer carefully, Jones, because if it hasn't, I won't buy it."
"I think it has," he said.
"Very well," I answered; "now bring the author to me."
In the interval of waiting, I hastily ran my eye through the pages of the manuscript.
Presently they brought the author back again. He had assumed a look of depression.
"I have decided," I said, "to take your manuscript."
Joy broke upon his face. He came nearer to me as if to lick my hand.[178]
"Stop a minute," I said. "I am willing to take your story, but there are certain things, certain small details which I want to change."
"Yes?" he said timidly.
"In the first place, I don't like your title. Dorothy Dacres, or, Only a Clergyman's Daughter is too quiet. I shall change it to read Dorothea Dashaway, or, The Quicksands of Society."
"But surely," began the contributor, beginning to wring his hands——
"Don't interrupt me," I said. "In the next place, the story is much too long." Here I reached for a large pair of tailor's scissors that lay on the table. "This story contains nine thousand words. We never care to use more than six thousand. I must therefore cut some of it off." I measured the story carefully with a pocket tape that lay in front of me, cut off three thousand words and handed them back to the author. "These words," I said, "you may keep. We make no claim on them at all. You are at liberty to make any use of them that you like."[179]
"But please," he said, "you have cut off all the end of the story: the whole conclusion is gone. The readers can't possibly tell,——"
I smiled at him with something approaching kindness.
"My dear sir," I said, "they never get beyond three thousand words of the end of a magazine story. The end is of no consequence whatever. The beginning, I admit, may be, but the end! Come! Come! And in any case in our magazine we print the end of each story separately, distributed among the advertisements to break the type. But just at present we have plenty of these on hand. You see," I continued, for there was something in the man's manner that almost touched me, "all that is needed is that the last words printed must have a look of finality. That's all. Now, let me see," and I turned to the place where the story was cut, "what are the last words: here: 'Dorothea sank into a chair. There we must leave her!' Excellent! What better end could you want? She sank into a chair and you leave her. Nothing more natural."[180]
The contributor seemed about to protest. But I stopped him.
"There is one other small thing," I said. "Our coming number is to be a Plumbers' and Motor Number. I must ask you to introduce a certain amount of plumbing into your story." I rapidly turned over the pages. "I see," I said, "that your story as written is laid largely in Spain in the summer. I shall ask you to alter this to Switzerland and make it winter time to allow for the breaking of steam-pipes. Such things as these, however, are mere details; we can easily arrange them."
I reached out my hand.
"And now," I said, "I must wish you a good afternoon."
The contributor seemed to pluck up courage.
"What about remuneration"—he faltered.
I waived the question gravely aside. "You will, of course, be duly paid at our usual rate. You receive a cheque two years after publication. It will cover all your necessary expenses, including ink, paper, string, sealing-wax and other incidentals, in addition to which we hope[181] to be able to make you a compensation for your time on a reasonable basis per hour. Good-bye."
He left, and I could hear them throwing him downstairs.
Then I sat down, while my mind was on it, and wrote the advance notice of the story. It ran like this:
MAGAZINE WILL CONTAIN A
THRILLING STORY, ENTITLED
"DOROTHEA DASHAWAY, OR, THE
QUICKSANDS OF SOCIETY."
The author has lately leaped into immediate recognition as the greatest master of the short story in the American World. His style has a brio, a poise, a savoir faire, a je ne sais quoi, which stamps all his work with the cachet of literary superiority. The sum paid for the story of Dorothea Dashaway is said to be the largest ever paid for a single MS. Every page palpitates with interest, and at the con[182]clusion of this remarkable narrative the reader lays down the page in utter bewilderment, to turn perhaps to the almost equally marvellous illustration of Messrs. Spiggott and Fawcett's Home Plumbing Device Exposition which adorns the same number of the great review.
I wrote this out, rang the bell, and was just beginning to say to the secretary—
"My dear child,—pray pardon my forgetfulness. You must be famished for lunch. Will you permit me——"
And then I woke up—at the wrong minute, as one always does.
[183]
HOMER AND HUMBUG AN ACADEMIC DISCUSSION[184]
[185]
THE following discussion is of course only of interest to scholars. But, as the public schools returns show that in the United States there are now over a million coloured scholars alone, the appeal is wide enough.
I do not mind confessing that for a long time past I have been very sceptical about the classics. I was myself trained as a classical scholar. It seemed the only thing to do with me. I acquired such a singular facility in handling Latin and Greek that I could take a page of either of them, distinguish which it was by merely glancing at it, and, with the help of a dictionary and a pair of compasses, whip off a translation of it in less than three hours.
But I never got any pleasure from it. I lied about it. At first, perhaps, I lied through vanity. Any coloured scholar will understand the feel[186]ing. Later on I lied through habit; later still because, after all, the classics were all that I had and so I valued them. I have seen thus a deceived dog value a pup with a broken leg, and a pauper child nurse a dead doll with the sawdust out of it. So I nursed my dead Homer and my broken Demosthenes though I knew in my heart that there was more sawdust in the stomach of one modern author than in the whole lot of them. Observe, I am not saying which it is that has it full of it.
So, as I say, I began to lie about the classics. I said to people who knew no Greek that there was a sublimity, a majesty about Homer which they could never hope to grasp. I said it was like the sound of the sea beating against the granite cliffs of the Ionian Esophagus: or words to that effect. As for the truth of it, I might as well have said that it was like the sound of a rum distillery running a night shift on half time. At any rate this is what I said about Homer, and when I spoke of Pindar,—the dainty grace of his strophes,—and Aristophanes, the delicious sallies of his wit, sally[187] after sally, each sally explained in a note calling it a sally—I managed to suffuse my face with an animation which made it almost beautiful.
I admitted of course that Virgil in spite of his genius had a hardness and a cold glitter which resembled rather the brilliance of a cut diamond than the soft grace of a flower. Certainly I admitted this: the mere admission of it would knock the breath out of anyone who was arguing.
From such talks my friends went away sad. The conclusion was too cruel. It had all the cold logic of a syllogism (like that almost brutal form of argument so much admired in the Paraphernalia of Socrates). For if:—
And if I read Virgil and Homer and Pindar,
And if they only read Mrs. Wharton and Mrs. Humphrey Ward
Then where were they?
So continued lying brought its own reward in the sense of superiority and I lied more.[188]
When I reflect that I have openly expressed regret, as a personal matter, even in the presence of women, for the missing books of Tacitus, and the entire loss of the Abacadabra of Polyphemus of Syracuse, I can find no words in which to beg for pardon. In reality I was just as much worried over the loss of the ichthyosaurus. More, indeed: I'd like to have seen it: but if the books Tacitus lost were like those he didn't, I wouldn't.
I believe all scholars lie like this. An ancient friend of mine, a clergyman, tells me that in Hesiod he finds a peculiar grace that he doesn't find elsewhere. He's a liar. That's all. Another man, in politics and in the legislature, tells me that every night before going to bed he reads over a page or two of Thucydides to keep his mind fresh. Either he never goes to bed or he's a liar. Doubly so: no one could read Greek at that frantic rate: and anyway his mind isn't fresh. How could it be, he's in the legislature. I don't object to this man talking freely of the classics, but he ought to keep it for the voters. My own opinion is that be[189]fore he goes to bed he takes whiskey: why call it Thucydides?
I know there are solid arguments advanced in favour of the classics. I often hear them from my colleagues. My friend the professor of Greek tells me that he truly believes the classics have made him what he is. This is a very grave statement, if well founded. Indeed I have heard the same argument from a great many Latin and Greek scholars. They all claim, with some heat, that Latin and Greek have practically made them what they are. This damaging charge against the classics should not be too readily accepted. In my opinion some of these men would have been what they are, no matter what they were.
Be this as it may, I for my part bitterly regret the lies I have told about
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