THE LITERARY LIFE
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: I have read a great many references, at one time or another, to something which is known as “the literary life”. I have read of it in novels, in essays, in criticisms and in the reports of the daily newspapers. Everybody seems to know of it, and everybody speaks of it as of something to be taken for granted; but though I have made an earnest effort to discover just what it is and where and by whom it is lived, I have been quite unable to do so. I had been a newspaper writer for several years when I first began to take an interest in this curiously illusive sort of existence. It was in a novel, I think, that I had read it upon the occasion when my curiosity aroused me to action. “There it is again,” I said to myself. “What is this literary life, anyway? Who lives it and in what does the living of it consist?How does one go about finding out the secret of it?”
So I set out on my quest. As all good reporters should do, I first took stock of my possible sources of information, and having done so, I did what reporters usually do when they wish to find out anything—I asked the city editor.
“How the devil do I know?” said he in his unliterary way. “You’re a reporter, ain’t you? Get busy and find out. If you get anything worth writing, make a story of it.” That is the way with city editors; they have no thought for anything but “stories”, no thirst for knowledge that is not in the way of business, no soul for the higher things in life.
With this source of information closed to me, I turned to the staff. I knew I could learn nothing from the books where I had found the term used. The books merely referred to “literary life” just as we say “prison life” or “army life” and expect every one to understand what we mean. The first man I asked about it simply laughed and said, “That’s a good one!”The second man told me to go away and stop bothering him. He was writing an interesting article about the price of onions. The third man asked me if I thought I was funny. That nearly discouraged me. I tried one or two others without success, and then I determined to try a more subtle method of investigation.
I had failed to gather my desired information as a reporter; I would try my hand as a detective. I took to following the members of the staff home from the office. It was an afternoon newspaper and that was easy to do. The result of my shadowing was that I learned much of the habits of these men, but little of what I wanted to know. The police reporter went from the office direct to the butcher shop. There he made a purchase which he tucked under his arm and went home. He stayed at home every night that I watched him. The court reporter spent his evenings in a little saloon on a side street playing poker with a particular friend of his who was a boilermaker. The hotel reporter covered the same ground every evening that he had covered during the day. Hewent from one hotel to another, playing pool or billiards and shaking dice with traveling men. After about a fortnight of investigation I gave up trying to learn anything about the literary life from newspaper men. I looked up a few magazine writers and the result was the same:No two of these men lived the same life at all!
I was astonished. I asked myself how it came about that these men had overlooked their obvious duty of living the literary life. If literary men knew nothing of the literary life, then who would? I resolved that I would solve that problem if it took me a year. From the magazine writers I went on to the novelists who seemed to have even less in common than the two former classes had. The publishers were so widely scattered in so many different suburbs that I had not the courage to seek them out.
After a conscientious search which covered a period of six months or more, I began to think that the literary life might be one of those traditions handed down from another age; oneof those things which continue to be spoken of in books long after they cease to have any real existence. Perhaps the authors of other days had lived the literary life, even if the authors of my own time did not. I would see. I began to read biography. In Johnson’sLives of the PoetsI found that:
Abraham Cowley was the son of a grocer. He showed early signs of genius; he was expelled from Cambridge. He was, for a time, private secretary to Lord Falkland. Afterward he spent some time in jail as a political prisoner. Upon emerging from prison he became a doctor, and thinking a knowledge of botany necessary to one of his profession, he retired into the country to study that science. For some reason, he abandoned botany for poetry and from that time on he wrote poetry. He died peacefully of rheumatism.
Edmund Waller was the son of a country gentleman. He attended Cambridge and was sent to Parliament before he was twenty. Rich by birth, he added to his wealth by marrying an heiress who died young and left him freeto marry again, which he did. He lived among people of fashion and wealth, and though he was sent into exile for a short time because of a treasonable conspiracy in which he engaged, he was soon restored to general favor. He died in good circumstances of old age.
Thomas Otway was the son of a rector. He left college without a degree. He went into gay society and mingled his literary labor with dissipation. He was, for a short time, an officer in the army. He fell upon evil days, and when threatened with starvation, borrowed a guinea from a total stranger. With this he bought himself a roll, but he was so ravenous that he attempted to bolt it at one mouthful and so choked himself to death.
Which one of these men might properly be said to have led the literary life?
You need not be surprised to find in your paper some morning an advertisement to this effect: “Wanted—Some definite information concerning the character and habitat of the Literary Life.” But if you know anything about it, don’t wait for the advertisement, butsend on your information at once. I think maybe I would be willing to try it myself. Certainlysomebodyought to live it.
I am, Sir,A. J. Penn.