A Mortal Antipathy Part 9

"He blushed perceptibly. 'Sometimes,' he answered. 'I hope they will all turn out well.'

"I am afraid I am taking up too much of your time, I said.

"No, not at all,' he replied. 'Come up into my library; it is warmer and pleasanter there.'

"I felt confident that I had him by the right handle then; for an author's library, which is commonly his working-room, is, like a lady's boudoir, a sacred apartment.

"So we went upstairs, and again he got me with the daylight on my face, when I wanted it on has.

"You have a fine library, I remarked. There were books all round the room, and one of those whirligig square book-cases. I saw in front a Bible and a Concordance, Shakespeare and Mrs. Cowden Clarke's book, and other cla.s.sical works and books of grave aspect. I contrived to give it a turn, and on the side next the wall I got a glimpse of Barnum's Rhyming Dictionary, and several Dictionaries of Quotations and cheap compends of knowledge. Always twirl one of those revolving book-cases when you visit a scholar's library. That is the way to find out what books he does n't want you to see, which of course are the ones you particularly wish to see.

"Some may call all this impertinent and inquisitive. What do you suppose is an interviewer's business? Did you ever see an oyster opened? Yes?

Well, an interviewer's business is the same thing. His man is his oyster, which he, not with sword, but with pencil and note-book, must open. Mark how the oysterman's thin blade insinuates itself,--how gently at first, how strenuously when once fairly between the sh.e.l.ls!

"And here, I said, you write your books,--those books which have carried your name to all parts of the world, and will convey it down to posterity! Is this the desk at which you write? And is this the pen you write with?

"'It is the desk and the very pen,' he replied.

"He was pleased with my questions and my way of putting them. I took up the pen as reverentially as if it had been made of the feather which the angel I used to read about in Young's 'Night Thoughts' ought to have dropped, and did n't.

"Would you kindly write your autograph in my note-book, with that pen? I asked him. Yes, he would, with great pleasure.

"So I got out my note-book.

"It was a spick and span new one, bought on purpose for this interview.

I admire your bookcases, said I. Can you tell me just how high they are?

"'They are about eight feet, with the cornice.'

"I should like to have some like those, if I ever get rich enough, said I. Eight feet,--eight feet, with the cornice. I must put that down.

"So I got out my pencil.

"I sat there with my pencil and note-book in my hand, all ready, but not using them as yet.

"I have heard it said, I observed, that you began writing poems at a very early age. Is it taking too great a liberty to ask how early you began to write in verse?

"He was getting interested, as people are apt to be when they are themselves the subjects of conversation.

"'Very early,--I hardly know how early. I can say truly, as Louise Colet said,

"'Je fis mes premiers vers sans savoir les ecrire.'"

"I am not a very good French scholar, said I; perhaps you will be kind enough to translate that line for me.

"'Certainly. With pleasure. I made my first verses without knowing how to write them.'

"How interesting! But I never heard of Louise Colet. Who was she?

"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information.

"'Louise the lioness! Never heard of her? You have heard of Alphonse Karr?'

"Why,--yes,--more or less. To tell the truth, I am not very well up in French literature. What had he to do with your lioness?

"'A good deal. He satirized her, and she waited at his door with a case-knife in her hand, intending to stick him with it. By and by he came down, smoking a cigarette, and was met by this woman flouris.h.i.+ng her case-knife. He took it from her, after getting a cut in his dressing-gown, put it in his pocket, and went on with his cigarette. He keeps it with an inscription:

"Donne a Alphonse Karr Par Madame Louise Colet....

Dans le dos.

"Lively little female!'

"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the lively little female. He was evidently tickled with the interest I appeared to take in the story he told me. That made him feel amiably disposed toward me.

"I began with very general questions, but by degrees I got at everything about his family history and the small events of his boyhood. Some of the points touched upon were delicate, but I put a good bold face on my most audacious questions, and so I wormed out a great deal that was new concerning my subject. He had been written about considerably, and the public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts; and these I meant to have, and I got. No matter about many of them now, but here are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to:

"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,' or a celebrated man?

"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appet.i.te for more of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of becoming slavery, like that following the abuse of alcohol, or opium, or tobacco. Think of a man's having every day, by every post, letters that tell him he is this and that and the other, with epithets and endearments, one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'

"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called celebrity?

"'I should think so! Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to stand and shake hands, as the President of the United States has to after his inauguration: how do you think your hand would feel after a few months' practice of that exercise? Suppose you had given you thirty-five millions of money a year, in hundred-dollar coupons, on condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner: how do you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year, in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday, cutting off a hundred coupons an hour, and found you had not finished your task, after all? You have addressed me as what you are pleased to call "a literary celebrity." I won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that t.i.tle. I will take it for granted I am what you call me, and give you some few hints on my experience.

"'You know there was formed a while ago an a.s.sociation of Authors for Self-Protection. It meant well, and it was hoped that something would come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed cla.s.s, but I am sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.'

"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Const.i.tution and Laws of that a.s.sociation. Yes, I said, an admirable a.s.sociation it was, and as much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the abuse of a deserving cla.s.s of men. It ought to have done it; it was well conceived, and its public manifesto was a masterpiece. (I saw by his expression that he was its author.)

"'I see I can trust you,' he said. 'I will unbosom myself freely of some of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you have applied the term "Literary Celebrity."

"'He is supposed to be a millionaire, in virtue of the immense sales of his books, all the money from which, it is taken for granted, goes into his pocket. Consequently, all subscription papers are handed to him for his signature, and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to him for a.s.sistance.

"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals, and is goaded by receiving blank formulae, which, with their promises to pay, he is expected to fill up.

"'He receives two or three books daily, with requests to read and give his opinion about each of them, which opinion, if it has a word which can be used as an advertis.e.m.e.nt, he will find quoted in all the newspapers.

"'He receives thick ma.s.ses of ma.n.u.script, prose and verse, which he is called upon to examine and p.r.o.nounce on their merits; these ma.n.u.scripts having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have been sent, and having as a rule no literary value whatever.

"'He is expected to sign pet.i.tions, to contribute to journals, to write for fairs, to attend celebrations, to make after-dinner speeches, to send money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of.

"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers, who begin by saying they have no claim upon his time, and then appropriate it by writing page after page, if of the male s.e.x; and sheet after sheet, if of the other.

"'If a poet, it is taken for granted that he can sit down at any moment and spin off any number of verses on any subject which may be suggested to him; such as congratulations to the writer's great-grandmother on her reaching her hundredth year, an elegy on an infant aged six weeks, an ode for the Fourth of July in a Western towns.h.i.+p not to be found in Lippincott's last edition, perhaps a valentine for some bucolic lover who believes that wooing in rhyme is the way to win the object of his affections.'

"Is n't it so? I asked the Celebrity.

"'I would bet on the prose lover. She will show the verses to him, and they will both have a good laugh over them.'

"I have only reported a small part of the conversation I had with the Literary Celebrity. He was so much taken up with his pleasing self-contemplation, while I made him air his opinions and feelings and spread his characteristics as his laundress spreads and airs his linen on the clothes-line, that I don't believe it ever occurred to him that he had been in the hands of an interviewer until he found himself exposed to the wind and suns.h.i.+ne in full dimensions in the columns of The People's Perennial and Household Inquisitor.'"