There are a certain class of authors who remind me of a certain class of gamblers—men who believe in a special "lucky number," and are always staking their largest amounts upon it. To speak more plainly, I should say that I mean the "groovy" men, who, as soon as they find one particular sort of "style" that chances to hit the taste of the public, keep on grinding away at it with the remorselessness of an Italian street-organ player. I see lots of such fellows in the crowd around me, and I know most of them personally. For instance, there is William Black, a distinctly "groovy" man if ever there was one. All his books are like brothers and sisters, bearing astrong family resemblance one to another. If you have read "A Princess of Thule" and "A Daughter of Heth" you have got thecrême de la crêmeof all that was or is in him. The rest of his work is evolved from precisely the same substance as is found in these two books, only it is drawn out into various criss-cross threads of deft weaving; and, deft as it is, it makes uncommonly thin material. In his latter novels, indeed, there is so much of what may be justly termed "feminine twaddle," that one has to look back to the title-page in order to convince one's self that it is really one of the "virile" sex who is telling a story. Excellent Willie! With his small head and inoffensive physiognomy, he suggests an intellectual sort of pint-pot, out of which it would be absurd to expect a quart of brain. Inasmuch as a pint-pot can only hold a pint; so let us be grateful for small mercies. And let us admire, not for the first time either, the persistent kindly confidence of the British Public, who steadily take up Willie's novels, one after the other, in thesanguine faith of finding something new therein. "Some day," says the patient B.P. in its trot to and from Mudie's Library—"some day Willie will give us a book without a sunset in it. Some day, by happy chance, he will forget there exists such a thing as a yacht. And some day—who knows?—he may even awaken to the fact that there are other places on earth besides Scotland, and other men who are as interesting as Scotchmen."
Good B.P.! Excellent B.P.! What a heart you have! You deserve the very best that can be given you for the sake of your tolerance and cheerfulness of temper, which qualities in you seem truly inexhaustible. Here followeth an anecdote: A certain flimsy scribbler I wot of, who had just got himself into a loosely-fitting suit of literary armour, and was handling his sword a bit awkwardly, as beginners at warfare are apt to do, said to me one day, with a sort of schoolboy vaunt, "The Public wanttrash!—and trash is what I'll give them!" O wise judge! O learned judge! Out he went with his "trash," his swordpoking into everybody's eye, and his armour waggling uncomfortably round him, and lo! the Public "took" his trash and threw it into the gutter, broke his sword for him, gave him back the pieces, and civilly recommended him to look after the loose places in his armour. He went home, did that proud warrior, and sat thinking about what had chanced—it may be he is thinking still.
No, the B.P. don't want "trash"—they want the best of everything—but they have an infinite kindness and patience in waiting for that "best," and carefully looking out for it; and when it truly comes they welcome it with honest enthusiasm. Thus did they welcome and applaud the "Princess of Thule," because they found it good and charming and unique, and ever since that time they have reposed quite a pathetic trust in little Black, hoping against hope that he will give them something else equally good again. Alas for the vanity of all such human wishes! for William is a "groovy" man now, and in his groove heevidently purposes to remain. I remember dining with, him on one occasion, when, in the ordinary way of conversation, I asked him what books he had been reading lately? Oh, what sublime amazement in his rolling eye!
"Read?" he drawled. "I never read. Reading spoils an author's own style."
Haw-haw! Weally! Good B.P., you see how matters stand? Willie's "kail-yairdie," or little plot of garden-ground, is barren; its first crop has been gathered, and no more seed sown by study, so don't expect any other rich harvests, or look for wonders in such work as "Stand fast, Craig Royston!" For even brain-soil wants cultivation, if it is to produce something better than weeds.
Another "groovy" man is William Clark Russell. The waves rule Britannia in his opinion: The sea occupies his inventive faculty to the exclusion of everything else. A pigmy Neptune sits on his bald pate, touching it up with a trident. Sailors' "yarns," sailors' marriages, sailors' shipwrecks—tales of mariners in every sort of painful andpleasant situation—influence his mind and bring it into that "One-idea" condition which is considered by gravely spectacled specialists as a form of cerebral disease. Moreover, his books bristle with sailors' jargon, sailors' slang, sailors' "lingo," which people, who are not sailors and who never intend to be sailors, do not understand and do not want to understand. However, this monomania of his produced one good result—"The Wreck of the Grosvenor." He exhausted his best energies in that book, and having found it a success (as it deserved to be), settled into the Jack Tar line of writing, and became once for all and evermore "groovy." The "Wreck of the Grosvenor" is his "Princess of Thule." He is all there, and there is no more of him anywhere.
At one time I feared, but it was only a passing shudder, that one of the most brilliant novelists we have, Marion Crawford, was drifting in the fatal direction of "groove." When the rather lengthy "Sant' Ilario" came trailing along, after the equally lengthy "Saracinesca," I thought,"Alas! and woe is me! Are we never to hear the last of the beautiful and lovable Astrardente? A noble character, but somewhat too much of her is here." And I was on the verge of uncomfortable doubt for some time, for I had always judged Crawford to be of the true Protean type of genius, capable of touching every string on the literary harp he holds. And I was not mistaken, for "A Cigarette-maker's Romance," that most delicate and delightful work, proves that he is anything but "groovy"; and his "Witch of Prague" is a breaking of entirely new soil. So that the more I read of him, the more I am confirmed in the opinion I have previously ventured to express—namely, that he is our best man-novelist. I use the term "man-novelist" because I know there are women-novelists—ladies whom I should be very sorry to offend by applying the adjective "best" to any member of the viler sex. For I know also that those ladies, if affronted, have curious and unexpected ways of revenging themselves, and though I am masked, my silver dominois hardly proof against the green and glittering eye of a remorseless literary female. So pray you be not wrathful, sweet ladies!—rather join with me in gentle chorus, and say, as you know you must, that the author of "Dr. Isaacs," "A Roman Singer," and "Marzio's Crucifix" is indeed the least "groovy," and therefore the best "man-novelist" living; be kind and condescending thus far, for of women-novelists you shall have a word presently.
Somewhere, once upon a time, I called George Meredith an Eccentricity. I meant him no harm by this phrase or term—I mean none now, when I repeat it. Heisan Eccentricity—of Genius! Ha! where are you now, all you commentators and would-be clearers-up of the Mighty Obscure? An Eccentricity—a bit of genius gone mad—an Intellectual Faculty broken loose from the moorings of Common Sense, and therefore a hopelessly obstinate fixture in the "groove" of literary delirium. A Meredithian description of Meredith is found in his story of "One of our Conquerors"—a description thereapplied to the character of Dudley Sowerby, but fitting Meredith himself exactly. Here it is; "His disordered deeper sentiments were a diver's wreck where an armoured subtermarine, a monstrous puff-ball of man, wandered seriously light in heaviness, trebling his hundred-weights to keep him from dancing like a bladder-block of elastic lumber; thinking occasionally amid the mournful spectacle, of the atmospheric pipe of communication with the world above, whereby he was deafened yet sustained." Of course it is difficult to grasp all this at once—but I seize upon the words, "a bladder-block of elastic lumber"—I know, I feel that "bladder-block" is Meredith, though I cannot precisely inform myself or others what a "bladder-block" in its original sense may mean. But meanings are not expected to be vulgarly apparent on the surface of this "diver's wreck" or new school of prose—you have to search for them; and you must hold fast to whatever "atmospheric pipe of communication" you can find, in order to keep up with this "Monstrous puff-ball of manwandering seriously light in heaviness." It has been left to George Meredith to tell us about "the internal state of a gentleman who detested intangible metaphor as heartily as the vulgarest of our gobble-gobbets hate it"—and if we would not be considered "gobble-gobbets" ourselves, we must strive to be grateful for the light he throws on our intellectual darkness. He is supposed to understand women in and out and all round, so we must take it for granted that a woman can "breathe thunder." It sounds alarming—it is alarming—but if Meredith says it, it must be true. And he does say it. With the calm conviction of one who knows, he assures us that "the lady breathed low thunder." She is a very remarkable person altogether, this "lady," called Mrs. Marsett, and her modes of action are carried on in positive defiance of all natural and physical law. For at one time we are told "her eye-lids(not her eyes) mildly sermonised," and on another occasion she actually "caught at her slippery tongue and carolled," quite a feat ofleger de langue.Again, "her woman's red mouth was shut fast on a fighting underlip." Till I read this, I was fool enough to think that the underlip was part of the mouth, but now I know that the underlip is quite a separate and distinct thing, as it is able to go on "fighting" while the mouth is "shut fast" on it. She does all sorts of curious things with this mouth of hers, does Mrs. Marsett; in one scene of her career it is said that "she blushed, blinked, frowned,sweetened her lip-lines, bit at the under one, and passed in a discomposure." Moreover, this strange mouth was given to the utterance of bad language, for with it and her "slippery tongue" Mrs. Marsett said her own name was "Damnable!" and what was still worse, "had the passion to repeat the epithet in shrieks and scratch up male speech for a hatefuller," whatever that may mean. Of course, it is all very grand and mixed and magnificent, if any one chooses to think so; people can work themselves up into an epilepsy of enthusiasm over prose run madà laMeredith, as over poetry gone a-woolgatheringà laBrowning. It is a harmless mania which is confined to the few, and is of a distinctly non-spreading tendency; while those who are not partakers in the craze can look on thereat and be amused thereby—for Meredith is at all times and all seasons both personally and in literature a real entertainment. Whether he be haranguing to the verge of deafness some stray acquaintance in the Garrick Club; whether he be met, a greybeard solitary, stalking up the slopes of Box Hill, at the foot of which he resides; whether he be inveighing against the "porkers,"i.e., the Public, within the precincts of a certain small and extortionate but rigidly pious bookseller's shop in the town of Dorking; or whether he be visited in his own small literary "châlet," which he built for himself in his own garden, away from his house, what time he had a wife, (a very charming, kindly lady, whose appreciative sense of humour enabled her to understand her husband's gifts better than any of his wildest worshippers), in order to escape from "domesticity"and the ways of the "women" he is supposed to understand—in each and all of these positions he is distinctly amusing—and never more so than when he thinks he is impressive. Yet there can be no doubt whatever as to his natural cleverness, and the original turn of mind which might have made him a distinctly great writer, if he had not forced himself into the strained style of the artificial "groove" he has adopted. Even now, if he would only leave the first spontaneous output of his thought alone, instead of altering it when it is on paper, and weighing it down with all the big words he can find in the dictionary, he would probably write something above the average of interest. However, it's no use being hard upon him, as he has quite recently been Lynched.[1]I cannot endure his novels, it is true—but still, I never wished him to meet such a frightful fate. When we reflect on the barbarity of the institution known as Lynch-law, we cannotbut wonder how his admirers have tamely stood by and seen him delivered over to so awful a punishment. Yet it is a positive fact that they have made no defence. And he has been torn limb from limb, and broken into explained pieces by a pitiless executioner self-elected to the performance of the abhorrent deed. A woman too—yclept Hannah as well as Lynch; and eke a spinster—mind cannot picture a more formidable foe—a more fearful fate! Heaven save you, poor Meredith! for man cannot. Lynched you are, and Lynched you must be by every word, sentence and chapter, until you be dead, and may God have mercy on your soul!
Among other "groovy" men may be included Hall Caine (whose big "bow-wow" style is utterly unchanged and unchangeable), W. E. Norris, the pale, far-off, feeble imitator of Thackeray, and F. C. Philips. This latter gentleman is evidently fast "set" in the "groove" of naughty but interesting adventuresses. His tale of "As in a Looking-glass" met with so much success, besidesreceiving the extremely questionable honour of dramatisation, that he now indulges in the error of imagining that all the world must for the future be persistently eager to know the histories of a continuous succession of conscienceless ladies like Lena Despard. One of his creations of the kind, Margaret Byng, might be Lena's twin sister. (According to the title-page, one P. Fendall would seem to have something to do with Margaret Byng, but how and where it is impossible to discover.) Adventuresses for breakfast, adventuresses for dinner, tea and supper; adventuresses in all sorts of gowns, brand-new or shabby, and adventuresses in all sorts of difficult situations at all sorts of seasons—this is the "four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" kind of dish, which is what we must expect from Mr. Philips in the future. This and no more, since he considers it enough. And among "groovy" men, alas! must be reckoned one of the most delightful of writers, Bret Harte. The "groove" he chose was at first so new and freshthat we all felt as if we could never have enough of it; but even in excess of love there is satiety, and such satiety is our sad experience with the gifted author of "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and the pathetic "Outcasts of Poker Flat." We know exactly the sort of thing he will write for us now—and the charm is broken.
I lay no claim to being possessed of any literary taste, so it will matter to no one when I say I can see no beauty and no art in Mr. Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." It is an entirely hateful book in my opinion. Neither can I endure Mrs. Ward's "David Grieve," and as this lady has undoubted literary gifts, I hope she will for the future avoid the religious "groove." It is extremely uninteresting, and is enough to cramp any author's style. Mr. Gladstone, who "boomed" "Robert Elsmere," apparently has nothing to say for "David Grieve," though it seems he can admire such crude performances as "Mdlle. Ixe" and "Some Emotions and a Moral." But it would never do for us to go by the taste ofthe Grand Old Man in these things. He is as variable as a chameleon. He might call our attention to the splendours of Dante on one occasion, and directly afterwards assure us that nothing could be finer in literature than the nursery rhyme of "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man." Dear old Gladdy! He is the greatest "leader" ever born in his quality ofmisleading.
It is difficult indeed to find a writer who is not more or less "groovy"—that is, one who will not only give us different stories, but different "styles." And as a rule the men writers are more "groovy" than the women, though the women are bad enough in their own particular way. Miss Braddon, for example, is, as every one knows, the "grooviest" of novelists going—her canvas is always prepared in the same manner, and the same familiar figures stand out upon it in only slightly altered attitudes. Her books always remind me of a child's marionette theatre, having the same set of puppets, who can be placed in position to enact over and over again the samesort of play. And it is a play that always amuses one for an hour, when one has nothing better to do. "Ouida," though she tells all sorts of different stories (of which her short ones are by far the best), has no difference of style—she is always the same old "Ouida"—and so will be to the end of her life's chapter. There are always the same wicked, but exquisitely lovely, ladies, to whom the marriage tie is frailer and less to be considered than a hair, and always the same good, pure, andtherefore(according to "Ouida") stupid girls who are just sixteen. There are always the bold, bad men with "mighty chests" and "Herculean limbs," who covet their neighbour's wives, or play havoc with the hearts of trusting maidens—and all these things are told with a gorgeousness of colour and picturesqueness of description that is not only brilliant, but very marvellously poetical. "Ouida" holds a pen such as many a man has good secret reason to envy. There are rich suggestions for both poets and painters in many of her books—butthere is no convincing portrait of life, except in "Friendship," which was a satiricalexposéof the actual lives of some very questionable and unpleasant people. Yet "Ouida's" gift was one which might have been turned to rare account had she studied more arduously in her earlier years; but now, across her little garden of genius, in which all the flowers have run wild, are written the fatal words "Too Late."
Another very "groovy" lady novelist is Rhoda Broughton. The not-particularly-good-looking and "loose-jointed" young man (all Miss Broughton's heroes are "loose-jointed"—I don't know why) puts in his appearance in all her books without fail—and there is always the same sort of distressing hitch in the love-business. The liberties she takes with the English language are frequently vulgar and unpardonable. Familiarity with "slang" is no doubt delightful, but some people would prefer a familiarity with grammar.
A very promising creature was the fair American, Amelie Rives. I say "was" because she ismarried now, and I'm afraid she will not write so well with a "worser half" looking over her "copy." Her story, "Virginia of Virginia," was a delicious study—quite a little work of genius in its way—though I must own her novel, "The Quick or the Dead," was a mere boggle of wild sentiment and scarcely-repressed sensualism. Some critics were very hard down upon her, because she threatened to be "original" all the time, and critics hate that sort of thing. That is why they invariably "go" for one of our newest inflictions, Marie Corelli, of whom it may be truly said that she has written no two books alike, either in plot or style; and the graveSpectatoron one occasion forgot itself so far as to say that her romance entitled "Ardath" had actually beaten Beckford's renowned "Vathek" out of the field. But all the same, with every respect for theSpectator'sopinion, I, personally speaking, find her a distinctly exasperating writer, who is neither here, there, nor anywhere—a "will-o'-the-wisp" sort of being, of whom it isdevoutly to be wished that she would settle into a "groove," as she would be less of a trial to the (in her case) always savage reviewer.
Nothing is more irritating to a critic than to have to chronicle the reckless flights of this young woman's unbridled and fantastic imagination. She tells us about heaven and hell as if she had been to them both, and had rather enjoyed her experiences. Valiant attempts to "quash" her have been made, but apparently in vain, and most of my brethren in the critical faculty consider her a positive infliction. Why does she not take the advice tendered her by theWorld, and other sensible journals, and retire altogether from literature? I am sure she would be much happier "picking geranium leaves"à laBecky Sharp, with a husband and two thousand a-year. As it is, her very name is, to the men of the press, what a red rag is to a bull. They are down upon it instantly with a fury that is almost laughable in its violence. But I suppose she is like the rest of her sex—obstinate, andthat she will hold on her wild career, regardless of censure. Only, as I say, I wish she would elect a "groove" to run in, for I, among many others, shall be relieved as well as delighted when we are all quite certain beyond a doubt as to what sort of book we are to expect from her. At present she is a mere vexation to any well-ordered mind.
Poor Mrs. Henry Wood! What a wonderfully "groovy" womanshewas! always writing, as one of my brother-critics has aptly remarked, "in the style of an educated upper housemaid." And yet her books sell largely—partly because Bentley and Son advertise them perpetually, and partly because they "will not bring a blush to the cheek of the Young Person." This latter reason accounts for the popularity (in the pious provinces) of that astoundingly dull writer, Edna Lyall. Patience almost fails me when I think of that lady's closely-printed, bulky volumes, all about nothing. "Groove"? ye gods! I should think itwasa "groove"—a religious, goody-goody"groove," out of which there is never the smallest possibility of an escape. But perhaps one of the circumstances that surprises me most in the fate of all the mass of fiction produced weekly, is the curious placidity with which the public take it up, scan it, lay it aside, and forget it instantly. Scarce one out of all the writers writing, male and female, has a book remembered by Mudie's supporters after a year. If any novel is still thought of and talked of after that period, you may be sure it is not "groovy," but that it runs in a directly contrary current to all "grooves" of preconceived opinion—that it has something vaguely irritating about it as well as pleasing—hence its success. But on the whole I am not sure that I do not prefer "groovy" writers after all. There is a comfortable certainty in their literary manœuvres. They are not going to frighten you by exploding a big fiery bomb of Imagination or Truth (both these things are abhorrent to me) on the reader unawares. It is really quite a weird sensation to take upthe latest book by a writer who has the reputation of being able to tell you something different each time, because, of course, you never know what he or she may be at. You may have your very soul racked by painful or pathetic surprises—and why should we have our souls racked? The persistently "original" man may take us to the brink of a hell and force us to look down when we would rather not; he may suddenly exert all his forces to drag our leaden minds after him up to a heaven where we are not quite ready to go. Then, again, he may give us descriptions of human passion such as will make us grow quite hot and anon quite cold with the most curious feelings; what have we done that we should be afflicted with literary ague? No; it is better, it is safer, to have our novelists all arranged in "grooves" or "sets" ready to hand, so that we shall know exactly where to find the chroniclers of rural stories, sporting stories, detective stories, ghost stories, every "male and female after their kind,"each in his or her own appointed place. To get a book by an author who is recognised as a manufacturer of "racing novels," and find him breaking out into a strain of sublimated philosophy, would be indeed an alarming circumstance to most readers. Oh, yes, it is better to be "groovy"; sometimes the public get tired and throw you over, but that sort of thing happens more frequently in restless France and Italy than in England. Had I been "groovy" I should have been famous—at least, so I have been told by a lady skilled in the fashionable science of palmistry. But being unable to play the mill-horse, and go round and round in a recognised rut, here I am—the merest un-notorious Nobody. What a pity! I cannot but heave an involuntary sigh over my lost opportunities. If I had only had the necessary ambition, I could have been made a "Celebrity at Home" for one of the leading journals. "Fancy that!" to quote from the immortal Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler." And then—proud thought!—I should have been aSomebody. Not because I had achieved something—oh, no, that isn't required of a "Celebrity at Home." Not at all. In fact, the less you do nowadays the more likely you are to become a "celebrity" of the newspapers. So that as I have done nothing, and moreover, as I have really nothing to do, I ought, by all modern rule and plan, to be "interviewed" as—well, let me modestly suggest, as a "Coming" person, perhaps? Lots of fellows are "Coming," according to the press, who never arrive. I could be advertised as one of those, without doing much harm to anybody? Won't some one back me up? I am fully aware of the extent of my loss in literature in having failed to find a "groove"—but it's never too late to mend, and perhaps I shall discover it still and settle down in it. At present I am not anxious, because, as far as my observations on the great literary raree-show have gone, I find the chief object of the modern Pen is to earn Money, not Fame. Now, of money I have enough, and of fame—well! I am a friend of Gladstone's, and that assures fame to anybody!
FOOTNOTE:[1]Miss Hannah Lynch has published a "Commentary" on the works of George Meredith.
[1]Miss Hannah Lynch has published a "Commentary" on the works of George Meredith.
[1]Miss Hannah Lynch has published a "Commentary" on the works of George Meredith.
X.
OF THE SOCIAL ELEPHANT.
Upon my word, the crowd is very dense just here! I find it more than difficult to elbow a passage through. And I know how dangerous it is to jostle literary men, even by accident—they are so touchy, that no matter how politely you apologise for the inadvertency, they never excuse it. And there is a little obstruction yonder in the person of the tame Elephant, who is a sort of grotesque pet of ours; he moves slowly on account of his bulk, and he has a big palanquin on his back in which sits the Fairy who manages him. It's quite a charming spectacle—especially the Fairy part of it—and although there is such a crush in this particular corner, it is pleasant to see how good-naturedsome of the people are, and how kindly they allow the Elephant to get along in spite of increasing scarcity of room, and how they all make light of his awkward size because he is such a nice, mild, innocent, sagacious creature.
What am I talking about?—who am I talking about? Nothing!—nobody! I am only making an allegory. It is not called "The Sunlight Lay Across my Bed," but "The Elephant Walked Across my Path." So he did on one occasion. I wasn't a bit inconvenienced by his proceedings; he thought I was, but I wasn't.
When they are at home the Elephant and the Fairy live together. The Elephant has a Trunk (or Intellectual Faculty) of the utmost delicacy and sensitiveness at the tip, and with this exquisitely formed member he is fond of picking up Pins. The Fairy watches him with a touch of melancholy interest in her lovely eyes; pins are certainly useful, and he does pick them up "beautifully." No one can be more bewitching than the Fairy; no one can be blander or more aware of his ownvalue than the Elephant. Conscious of weight and ponderous movement, he nevertheless manages to preserve a suggestion of something indefinable that is "utter." He is not without malice—note the slyness of his eye when he is at his graceful trick of Pin-lifting. He will, it is true, wave his trunk to and fro with a majestic gentleness that seems harmless, but a closer inspection of him will arouse in the timorous observer a vague sense of danger. The chances are ten to one that he will accept the sugared biscuit (or compliment) offered to him by the unsuspecting beholder, and then that he will incontinently seize the unsuspecting one suddenly round the body and dash him to bits on the flat ground of some hard journalistic matter suitable for smashing a man. But he never forgets himself so far as to trumpet forth this secret capability of his; the only warning the visitor ever receives as to his possible malicious intent is the solemn twinkle of his sly green eye. Beware that eye! it means mischief.
As for the Fairy, it is not too much to say thatshe is one of the prettiest things alive. She does not seem to stand at all in awe of her Elephant lord. She has her own little webs to weave—silvery webs of gossamer-discussion on politics, in which, bless her heart for a charming little Radical, she works neither good nor harm. Her eyes would burn a hole through many a stern old Tory's waistcoat and make him dizzily doubtful as to what party he really belonged to for the moment. She has the prettiest hair, all loosely curling about her face, and she has a very low voice, so modulated as to seem to some folks affected in its intonation. But it isn't affected; it is a natural music, and only repulsive old spinsters with cracked vocal cords presume to cast aspersions on its dulcet sweetness. She dresses "æsthetically"—in all sorts of strange tints, and rich stuffs, made in a fashion which the masculine mind must describe as "gathered-up-anyhow"—with large and wondrous sleeves and queer mediæval adornments—it pleases her whim so to do, and it also pleases the Elephant, who is apt to get excited onthe subject of Colour. We all know what a red rag is to a bull—so we should not be surprised to find an Elephant who is calmed by some colours and enraged by others. Colour, in fact, is the only rule of life accepted by the Elephant—better to have no morality, according to him, than no sense of Colour. And so the Fairy robes herself in curious and cunningly-devised hues to soothe the Elephant's nerves (Elephants have thick hides but excessively fragile nerves, as every naturalist will tell you); and pranks herself out like a flower of grace set in a queen's garden. She does not talk much, this quaint Fairy, but she looks whole histories. Her gaze is softly wistful, and often abstracted; at certain moments her spirit seems to have gone out of her on invisible wings, miles away from the Elephant and literary Castle, and it is in such moments that she looks her very prettiest. To me she is infinitely more interesting than the Elephant himself, but as it is the Elephant whom everybody goes to see, I must try to do him justice—if I can!
To begin with, I know him very well, and he knows me. I have fed him many a time and oft with the sugared compliments he likes best—and what is really a matter worth noting he hasallowedme to feed him. This is very good of him. He is not so amiable to everybody. Few indeed are permitted the high honour of holding out a dainty morsel of flattery to that delicately-sniffing trunk which "smells a rat" too swiftly to be easily cajoled. But it has pleased the Elephant to take food from my hand, though while he ate, I noticed he never stopped winking. So that I know perfectly well who it was that lifted me up a while ago in a journal that shall be nameless, and did his utmost to smash me utterly by the force with which he threw me down again. Elephants have "nasty humours" now and then—it is their nature. But for once this particular animal found his match. He didn't hurt me though he tried; I got up from under his very feet, and—offered him another Compliment. He took it—gracefully; swallowed it "beautifully"—and does not winkquite so much now. Still, his eye is always on me—and mine on him—and we begin to understand each other.
His prettiest trick, and the one for which he is chiefly admired, is, as I said before, the delicate way in which he picks up Pins. Pins that any less sensitive creature would think worthless, he instantly perceives, selects and classes as "distinctly precious." Minute points of discussion having to do with vague subjects which (unless we could live on an Island of Dreams like the Laureate's Lotus-eaters) no one has any time to waste in considering, he (the Elephant) turns over and over and disposes of in his own peculiar fashion. He has a low estimate of man's moral responsibilities, he thinks that if the "masses" could only be brought to appreciate Colour as keenly as he himself appreciates it, the world would be both happy and wise, and would have no further need of law. He considers Natureau naturela mistake. Nature must be refined by Art.Ergo, a grand waterfall would not appeal to him, unless properlyillumined by electricity, or otherwise got up for effect. He himself is got up for effect—if he were not, according to his own showing, he would be hideous. An Elephant of the jungle is unlovely, but an Elephant in civilian attire, decently housed, with a Fairy to look after him and preside over his meals, is a very different animal. Art has refined him. Nature has nothing more to do with him.
Sometimes the Elephant ruminates. Pins cease to interest him, and with coiled-up trunk (i.e., Intellectual Faculty), and heavy limbs at rest, he shuts his blinking emerald eyes to outer things, and thinks. Then, rising with a mighty roar of trumpeting that blares across the old world and the new, he tears up the ground beneath his feet, and throws a Production—i.e., a novel, or a play—in the face of his foes. And his foes momentarily shrink back from him, appalled at the noise he makes; but anon they rise up boldly in their puny strength to confront his ponderosity. Staves, darts, arrows and stones they get together in haste and trembling, and, shielding themselvesbehind different editor's desks, begin the wild affray. Lo, how the huge Trunk sways and the green eyes glare! Trample the Production to pieces, ye pigmy ruffians of reviewers, ye shall never crush what is "immortal!" Howl, ye spitfires of the Press, ye shall never make the Elephant's shadow diminish by one iota! For the fulminating truth of the elephantine Production, from a literary point of view, is this: That "as a work of art it is perfection, and perfection is what we artists aim at."
Thus the Elephant, with much pounding of feet, swinging of trunk, lashing of tail, and scattering of dust in the eyes of bewildered beholders. And truly he succeeds in attracting an infinite amount of attention, as why should he not? He is a lordly animal; large enough to be seen at a distance, and society pets him as it pets all creatures of whom it is vaguely afraid. Shy, retiring souls have no chance whatever of what is called "social success" nowadays. You must either be an Elephant or a Gnat; you must rend or stingbefore society will take any notice of you. And though critics curse the Elephant and wish he were well out of their way, Society fondles him; and as long as he is thus fondled, so long will he score certain victories in art and literature. It is impossible to "quash" him, he is too big. Every one is bound to look at him, and when he begins to move, albeit slowly, every one is equally bound to get out of the way.
There was once a time, however (when the Elephant was younger), in which it seemed doubtful whether he would remain an Elephant. A strange spell was upon him, a wizard-glow of the light that blinds reviewers—Genius. He stood on the confines of a sort of magic territory, wagging his delicate Trunk wistfully, and taking inquiring sniffs at the world. He was then like one of those deeply interesting animals we read about in the dear old fairy-books; he was waiting for the proper person to come and cut off his head, or throw water over him, or something, and say—"Quit thy present form and take that of a ——" What?Well, let us say "Poet," for example. Yes, that would have probably been the correct formula—"Quit thy present form and take that of a Poet." And then, hey presto! he would have skipped out of his hide, all dressed in dazzling blue and silver, a very Prince of wit and wisdom. But the magician who could or might have worked this change in him didn't turn up at the right moment, and so no one would believe he was anythingbutan Elephant at last. And when he found that this was people's fixed opinion, and that nobody could be persuaded to think otherwise, he showed a few very ugly humours. He broke into the newspaper shops and went rampaging round among the pens and the ink-pots. He knocked down a few unwary authors whom he imagined stood in his way, and when theyweredown, he stamped upon them. This was not nice of him. But he ought to have known, if he had been as wise as elephants are supposed to be, that authors, unless they are very frail indeed, take a deal of killing before being killed. And he might have foreseen the possibilityof those trampled people getting up and revenging themselves whenever they had the chance. His "perfect" work was the very thing they had waited for ever so long. And they did not spare the Elephant. Not they! They remembered the weight of his feet on themselves, and not being able to tread on him because he was so large and heavy and obstinate, they stuck things into him instead. The "barbëd arrow," you know, that kind of disagreeable small weapon that goes in deep and rankles. A whole shower of such irritating little darts went into the Elephant—just in the delicate fleshy places between the folds of his hide—and it was an amazing sight to see how badly he took them. Never was such a roaring and trumpeting heard before! In the unreasoning heat of rage he quite forgot how matters really stood, and that he was only getting thequid pro quohe actually deserved. He never gave a thought to the authors he had mangled and left for dead, and who had not been allowed to make any outcry on the subject of their wounds. He had norecollection of that Scriptural anecdote which tells how the "dry bones" came together "bone by bone," and became a "great standing army."His"dry bones" were the poor poets and novelists he had stamped upon; indeed, not only had he stamped upon them, but he had even filled his trunk with muddy water, and squirted it over their seemingly lifeless remains. But the "great army" was there, and not past fighting, and it marched straight at and around the Elephant. On one occasion it encamped a force against him in theSt. James's Gazette, and alas, for the good Elephant's vanity, he imagined he had foes there simply because he holds Radical views. Ye gods! Who that is commonly sane, cares whether an elephant be Radical, Whig, or Tory? Politics are the very last subject in the world I should consult an Elephant about. The mere idea of such a thing is enough to make a certainSt. James's Gazettereviewer I wot of, split his sides with laughter in the evil secrecy of his literary den.
As I hinted before, the Elephant while on therampage in the newspaper-shops once chanced on my humble self, sitting back in an unobtrusive corner. One would have thought that to a lordly animal of such a size, I might have seemed too microscopic to be noticed, but not a bit of it. He "went" for me, with a good deal of unnecessary vigour—a total waste of power on his part, I considered; however, that was his look-out, not mine. He didn't know who I was then, and he doesn't quite know now, though I believe if I threw off my domino and showed him my features he would take to his old tricks again in a minute. But I don't want to irritate him, because he is really a good creature; I would much rather pet him than goad him. He can be cruel, but he can also be kind, and it is in the latter mood that everybody likes him and wants to give him sugar-candy. Moreover, as Elephant he is the living Emblem of Wisdom—a sacred being; and, if one is of an Eastern turn of mind, worthy of worship—and I never heard of any one yet who would venture to cast a doubt on his sagacity. He iswonderfully knowing; his opinion on some things is always worth having, and when he picks up Pins his movements are graceful and always worth watching. Moreover, one never gets tired of looking at the lovely Fairy who guards and guides him. We could not spare either of the twain from our midst—they form a picture "full of Colour." When we view that picture the "moral sense" of Colour enters into us—we feel twice born and twice alive. See how graceful is thecortége! how quaint and pretty and Oriental! Through the eye-holes of my domino I gaze admiringly upon the group—it makes a bright reflection on the "tablets of my memory." Move on, gentle Elephant! Move on! As slowly as you like, and at your own pleasure. Only don't try to "smash" me any more—it's useless. I am formed of that hard "virile" composition of literary ware "guaranteed unsmashable"—I am neither glass nor porcelain. Have another biscuit? Anotherbon-bonof sugared praise? Well, then, you are a poet in disguise—a genius, wrapped up andsealed down under a hopeless weight of circumstances. I know your buried qualities well, and had some brave person cut off your head—i.e.your Self-Esteem (as I previously suggested)—years ago, we might have had a Prince, nay, even a King, among us. Yet on the whole I think you are happy in your condition. Thedolce far nientesuits you very well, and the bovine repose of an almost Buddhistic meditation entirely agrees with your constitution, while as long as life lasts you may be sure you shall never lack Pins. Pass, good Elephant! I salute you profoundly, and with a still more profound reverence I kiss the hands of the Fairy!
XI.
THE STORY OF A SOUTH AFRICAN DREAM.
Elephants and Fairies suggest the "Arabian Nights." The "Arabian Nights" suggest, in their turn, the East, and the East suggests—ah! what does the East not suggest? A. P. Sinnett with his eyeglass? a vision of "Koot-Hoomi?" pretty Mrs. Besant, once atheist, now theosophist? or the marvellous fat (now dematerialised) of the marvellous Blavatsky? More, far more than these things! The very idea of the East causes me to stand still where I am, in a corner among all the literary folk, and "dream." The mood grows upon me; I am in the humour for "dreams." I feel metaphysical; don't listen to me; the fit will pass by and by. Nay, itispassing, and I feel pious instead—very pious; and I shall probably get blasphemous directly. From piety toblasphemy is but a step; from the prayer of Moses to his professing to see the Deity's "back parts" was but the hair's-breadth of a line in Holy Writ. And as I find everything in a very bad state, and as I think everybody wants reforming, I am going to tell a little story. It is a beautiful little story, and if you ask theAthenæumabout it, it will tell you that it is "like a picture by Watts"; that "it has had no forerunners in literature and probably will have no successors." So you must pay great attention to it, and you must think it over for a long time. It requires thinking over for a long time, because it is a Parable. The best people, and especially those who want to "tickle the ears" of thePall Mallgroundlings, are all going to talk and live and write in Parables for the future. So listen!