vi
vi
As a playwright Mr. Maugham is quite as well known as he is for his novels. The author ofLady Frederick,Mrs. Dot, andCaroline—the creator of Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty inThe Circle—writes his plays because it amuses him to do so and because they supply him with an excellent income. Here is a good story:
It seems that Maugham had peddled his first play,Lady Frederick, to the offices of seventeen well-known London managers, until it came to rest in the Archives of the Court Theatre. The Court Theatre, standing in Sloane Square near the Tube station, is definitely outside the London theatre area, but as the scene of productions by the Stage Society, it is kept in the running. However, it might conceivably be the last port of call for a worn manuscript.
It so happened that Athole Stewart, the manager of the Court Theatre, found himself needing a play very badly during one season. The theatre had to be kept open and there was nothing to keep it open with. From a dingy pile of play manuscripts he choseLady Frederick. He had no hopes of its success—or so it is said—but the success materialised. At the anniversary ofLady Frederickin London, Maugham thought of asking to dinner the seventeen managers who rejected the play, but realising that no man enjoyed being reminded of a lost opportunity he decided to forgo the pleasure.
The circumstances in whichCarolinewas written give an interesting reflex on Maugham as an artist. This delicious comedy was put on paperwhile Maugham was acting as British agent in Switzerland during the war. Some of its more amusing lines were written in some haste while a spy (of uncertain intentions toward Maugham) stood outside in the snow.
vii
vii
Someone, probably the gifted Hector MacQuarrie, whom I fear I have guiltily been quoting in almost every sentence of this chapter, has said that Maugham writes “transcripts, not of life as a tolerable whole, but of phases which suit his arbitrary treatment.” It is an enlightening comment.
But Maugham himself is the keenest appraiser of his own intentions in his work, as when he spoke of the stories in his book,The Trembling of a Leaf, as not short stories, but “a study of the effect of the Islands of the Pacific on the white man.”
The man never stays still. When you think the time is ripe for him triumphally to tour America—whenThe Moon and Sixpencehas attracted the widest attention—he insists on going immediately to China. This may be because, though well set up, black-eyed, broad-framed and excessively handsome in evening clothes, he is rather diffident.
Booksby W. Somerset Maugham
Books
by W. Somerset Maugham
Novels:LIZA OF LAMBETHTHE MAKING OF A SAINTORIENTATIONSTHE HEROMRS. CRADDOCKTHE MERRY-GO-ROUNDTHE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGINTHE BISHOP’S APRONTHE EXPLORERTHE MAGICIANOF HUMAN BONDAGETHE MOON AND SIXPENCETHE TREMBLING OF A LEAFON A CHINESE SCREENPlays:SCHIFFBRÜCHIGA MAN OF HONOURLADY FREDERICKJACK STRAWMRS. DOTTHE EXPLORERPENELOPESMITHTHE TENTH MANGRACELOAVES AND FISHESTHE LAND OF PROMISECAROLINELOVE IN A COTTAGECAESAR’S WIFEHOME AND BEAUTYTHE UNKNOWNTHE CIRCLEEAST OF SUEZ
Novels:
LIZA OF LAMBETH
THE MAKING OF A SAINT
ORIENTATIONS
THE HERO
MRS. CRADDOCK
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
THE LAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN
THE BISHOP’S APRON
THE EXPLORER
THE MAGICIAN
OF HUMAN BONDAGE
THE MOON AND SIXPENCE
THE TREMBLING OF A LEAF
ON A CHINESE SCREEN
Plays:
SCHIFFBRÜCHIG
A MAN OF HONOUR
LADY FREDERICK
JACK STRAW
MRS. DOT
THE EXPLORER
PENELOPE
SMITH
THE TENTH MAN
GRACE
LOAVES AND FISHES
THE LAND OF PROMISE
CAROLINE
LOVE IN A COTTAGE
CAESAR’S WIFE
HOME AND BEAUTY
THE UNKNOWN
THE CIRCLE
EAST OF SUEZ
Sourceson W. Somerset Maugham
Sources
on W. Somerset Maugham
Who’s Who[In England].Somerset Maugham in Tahiti:Hitherto unpublished article byHector MacQuarrie.THE BOOKMAN (London).Private information.
Who’s Who[In England].
Somerset Maugham in Tahiti:Hitherto unpublished article by
Hector MacQuarrie.
THE BOOKMAN (London).
Private information.
Chapter XVIIIBOOKS WE LIVE BY
i
i
The Parallel New Testamentis by Dr. James Moffatt, whoseNew Translation of the New Testamenthas excited such wide admiration and praise.The Parallel New Testamentpresents the Authorised Version and Professor Moffatt’s translation in parallel columns, together with a brief introduction to the New Testament.
I suppose there is no sense in my expending adjectives in praise of Dr. Moffatt’s translation of the New Testament. I could do so very easily. But what I think would be more effective would be to ask you to take a copy of the Authorised Version and read in it some such passage as Luke, 24th chapter, 13th verse, to the close of the chapter and then—and not before!—read the same account from Dr. Moffatt’sNew Translation, as follows:
“That very day two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were conversing about allthese events, and during their conversation and discussion Jesus himself approached and walked beside them, though they were prevented from recognising him. He said to them, ‘What is all this you are debating on your walk?’ They stopped, looking downcast, and one of them, called Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you a lone stranger in Jerusalem, not to know what has been happening there?’ ‘What is that?’ he said to them. They replied, ‘All about Jesus of Nazaret! To God and all the people he was a prophet strong in action and utterance, but the high priests and our rulers delivered him up to be sentenced to death and crucified him. Our own hope was that he would be the redeemer of Israel; but he is dead and that is three days ago! Though some women of our number gave us a surprise; they were at the tomb early in the morning and could not find his body, but they came to tell us they had actually seen a vision of angels who declared he was alive. Some of our company did go to the tomb and found things exactly as the women had said, but they did not see him.’ He said to them, ‘Oh, foolish men, with hearts so slow to believe, after all the prophets have declared! Had not the Christ to suffer thus and so enter his glory?’ Then he began with Moses and all the prophets and interpreted to them the passages referring to himself throughout the scriptures. Now they approached the village to which they were going. He pretended to be going further on, but theypressed him, saying ‘Stay with us, for it is getting towards evening and the day has now declined.’ So he went in to stay with them. And as he lay at the table with them he took the loaf, blessed it, broke it and handed it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, but he vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, ‘Did not our hearts glow within us when he was talking to us on the road, opening up the scriptures for us?’ So they got up and returned that very hour to Jerusalem, where they found the eleven and their friends all gathered, who told them that the Lord had really risen and that he had appeared to Simon. Then they related their own experience on the road and how they had recognised him when he broke the loaf. Just as they were speaking He stood among them [and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’]. They were scared and terrified, imagining it was a ghost they saw; but he said to them, ‘Why are you upset? Why do doubts invade your mind? Look at my hands and feet. It is I! Feel me and see; a ghost has not flesh and bones as you see I have.’ [With these words he showed them his hands and feet.] Even yet they could not believe it for sheer joy; they were lost in wonder. So he said to them, ‘Have you any food here?’ And when they handed him a piece of broiled fish, he took and ate it in their presence. Then he said to them, ‘When I was still with you, this is what I told you, that whatever is written about me in the lawof Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. ‘Thus,’ he said, ‘it is written that the Christ has to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and the remission of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To this you must bear testimony. And I will send down on you what my Father has promised; wait in the city till you are endued with power from on high.’ He led them out as far as Bethany; then, lifting his hands, he blessed them. And as he blessed them, he parted from them [and was carried up to heaven]. They [worshipped him and] returned with great joy to Jerusalem, where they spent all their time within the temple, blessing God.”
I am particularly glad to say that Dr. Moffatt is at work now on aNew Translation of the Old Testament. No man living is fitter for this tremendously important and tremendously difficult task than James Moffatt. Born in Glasgow in 1870, Dr. Moffatt has been Professor of Church History there since 1915. Of his many published studies in Bible literature, I now speak only ofThe Approach to the New Testament, which he modestly describes as “a brief statement of the general situation created by historical criticism,” aiming to “bring out the positive value of the New Testament literature for the world of today as a source of guidance in social reconstruction,so that readers might be enabled to recover or retain a sense of its lasting significance for personal faith and social ideals.”
ii
ii
With Alfred Dwight Sheffield’sJoining in Public Discussionwas begun publication of a unique collection of books suitable alike for general reading and for use in trade union colleges. This is the Workers’ Bookshelf Series. These books, in many instances, are being written by the chief authorities on their subjects—men who have dealt exhaustively with their specialties in two and three-volume treatises, and who now bring their great knowledge to a sharp focus and a simple, condensed statement in small but wholly authoritative new books.
The work of preparing these little masterpieces has been undertaken by an editorial board chosen with the aid of the Workers’ Education Bureau of America. The board consists of Charles A. Beard, Miss Fannia Cohn, H. W. L. Dana, John P. Frey, Arthur Gleason, Everitt Dean Martin, Spencer Miller, Jr., George W. Perkins and Robert Wolf.
Trade union colleges now exist all over the United States, training armies of workers. The lack of suitable texts for use in these colleges has been a serious obstacle to the training they desire to give.
This obstacle the Workers’ Bookshelf overcomes. The books that compose it will each be distinguished for (a) scholarship, (b) a scientific attitude toward facts, and (c) simplicity of style.
Each volume is beginning as a class outline and will receive the benefit of every suggestion, and criticism through its gradual growth into the written book.
Each book will be brief. Its references will help the reader to more detailed sources of information.
By binding the books in paper as well as in cloth, the volumes will be brought within the reach of all.
The Workers’ Bookshelf will contain no volumes on vocational guidance, nor any books which give “short cuts” to moneymaking success.
The series will not be limited to any set number of volumes nor to any programme of subjects. Art, literature and the natural sciences, as well as the social sciences, will be dealt with. New titles will be added as the demand for treatment of a topic becomes apparent.
The first use of these books will be as texts to educate workers; the intermediate use of the books will be as the nucleus of workingmen’s libraries, collective and personal, and the last use of the Workers’ Bookshelf will be to instruct and delight all readers of serious books everywhere.
In our modern industrial society, knowledge—things to know—increases much more rapidly thanour understanding. The worker finds it increasingly difficult to comprehend the world he has done most to create. The education of the worker consists in showing him in a simple fashion the interrelations of that world and all its aspects as they are turned toward him. On the education of the worker depends the future of industrialism, and, indeed, of all human society.
The author ofJoining in Public Discussionis professor of rhetoric in Wellesley College and instructor in the Boston Trade Union College. His book “is a study of effective speechmaking, for members of labour unions, conferences, forums and other discussion groups.” The first section is upon “Qualifying Oneself to Contribute” to any discussion and the second section is upon “Making the Discussion Group Co-operate.” A brief introduction explains “What Discussion Aims to Do.”
The following titles of the Workers’ Bookshelf are in preparation:
Trade Union Policy, by Dr. Leo Wolman, lecturer at the New School for Social Research and instructor in the Workers’ University of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.
Women and the Labor Movement, by Alice Henry, editor of Life and Labour, director of the Training School for Women Workers in Industry.
Labor and Health, by Dr. Emery Hayhurst ofOhio State University, author of “Industrial Health Hazards and Occupational Diseases.”
Social Forces in Literature, by Dr. H. W. L. Dana, formerly teacher of comparative literature at Columbia, now instructor at Boston Trade Union College.
The Creative Spirit in Industry, by Robert B. Wolf, vice-president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, member of the Federated American Engineering Society.
Cooperative Movement, by Dr. James B. Warbasse, president of the Cooperative League of America and instructor at the Workers’ University.
iii
iii
Side by side in Esme Wingfield-Stratford’sFacing Realityare chapters with these titles: “Thinking in a Passion” and “Mental Inertia.” Those chapter titles seem to me to signify the chief dangers confronting the world today—perhaps confronting the world in any day—and the main reasons why we do not face reality as we should. I regardFacing Realityas an important book and I am not alone in so regarding it. What do we mean by reality? The answer is explicit in a sentence in Mr. Wingfield-Stratford’s introduction, where he says:
“But if we are to get right with reality or, in the time-honoured evangelical phrase, with God, it must be by a ruthless determination to get thetruth in religion, even if we have to break down Church walls to attain it.”
Then the author proceeds to assess the social and ethical conditions which threaten the world with spiritual bankruptcy. As he says:
“Whether Germany can be fleeced of a yearly contribution, of doubtful advantage to the receiver, for forty years or sixty, what particular economic laws decree that Poles should be governed by Germans or vice-versa, whose honour or profit demands the possession of the town of Fiume or the district of Tetschen or the Island of Yap, why all the horses and men of the Entente are necessary to compel the Port of Dantzig to become a free city, what particular delicacy of national honour requires that the impartial distribution of colonies should be interpreted as meaning the appropriation of the whole of them by the victors—all these things are held by universal consent to be more urgent and interesting than the desperate necessity that confronts us all.”
And yet, for some, reality is not immanent in the affairs of this world but only in those of the next. Among the men who, with Sir Oliver Lodge, have gone most deeply and earnestly into the whole subject we call “spiritualism,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is now the most widely known as he has always been the most persuasive. The overflowing crowds which came out to hear him lecture on psychic evidences during his recenttour of America testify to the unquenchable hope of mankind in a life beyond ours. Sir Arthur has written three books on this subject closest to his heart.The New RevelationandThe Vital Messageare both short books presenting the general case for spiritualists;The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, the result of a lecture tour in India and Australia, commingles incidents of travel with discussions of psychic phenomena. I believe Sir Arthur has in preparation a more extensive work, probably to be published under the titleSpiritualism and Rationalism.
In recent years there has been something like a consensus honouring Havelock Ellis as the ablest living authority on the subject of sex; or perhaps I should say that Mr. Ellis and his wife are the most competent writers on this difficult and delicate subject, so beset by fraudulent theories and so much written upon by charlatans. Let me recommend to you Havelock Ellis’s slender book,Little Essays of Love and Virtue, for a sane, attractive and, at the same time, authoritative handling of sex problems.
iv
iv
Little Essays of Love and Virtue, however, is, after all, only upon a special subject, even though of extreme importance. There are others among the books we live by which I must speak of here. It is tiresome to point out that we are allself-made men or women, consciously or unconsciously, in the sense that if we gain control of our habits, to a very large extent we acquire control of our lives. If, inSome Things That MatterLord Riddell did no more than point out this old truth, his book would not be worth mentioning. What makes it so well worth mentioning, so much more deserving of discussion than any I can enter upon here, is the fact that Lord Riddell tells how to observe, how to read, and how to think—or perhaps I should say how to develop the habit of thought. I think, so able are his instructions, so pointed and so susceptible of carrying out by any reader, that his book would carry due weight even if it were anonymous. But for those who want assurance that the author ofSome Things That Matteris himself somebody who matters, let me point out that he is one of the largest newspaper proprietors in the world, a man whose grasp on affairs has twice placed him at the head of news service for two continents—once at the Peace Conference in Paris and afterward at the Disarmament Conference in Washington.
Some Things That Matteris the best book of its kind since Arnold Bennett’sHow to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day, a little book of trenchant advice to which it is a pleasure again to call attention. Of all Mr. Bennett’s pocket philosophies—Self and Self-Management,Friendship and Happiness,The Human Machine,Mental EfficiencyandMarried Life—How to Live onTwenty-four Hours a Dayis easily of the greatest service to the greatest number of people.
v
v
I read Dr. George L. Perin’sSelf-Healing Simplifiedin manuscript and enthusiastically recommended its acceptance for publication. Dr. Perin was the founder of the Franklin Square House for Girls in Boston, a home-hotel from which 70,000 girls, most of whom Dr. Perin knew personally, have gone forth all over these United States. His death at the end of 1921 was felt by thousands of people as a personal loss. He left, in the manuscript of this book, the best and simplest volume I know of on what is generally called autosuggestion. And I have examined a great many books of the sort.
Discarding all extreme claims, Dr. Perin says in the first place that the mind can heal; that it may not be able to heal alone; that obviously no form of healing can be successful without a favourable mental state; that the favourable mental state can usually be acquired by the sincere and conscious effort of the sufferer. This effort should take the form of certain affirmations.
It is at this point that the ordinary book on autosuggestion breaks down—so far as any practical usefulness is concerned. Either it degenerates into a purely technical treatise or it becomes lost in a mysticism which is to the averagereader incomprehensible. What has long been needed has been a book likeSelf-Healing Simplified, readable by the ordinary person who has his own troubles to contend with and who knows not how to contend with them; who is willing to believe that he can do his part by cheerful resolutions and faith toward getting well, but who has no idea what to do.
Dr. Perin tells himwhatto do,whatto say,whatto think and how to order his daily life. Actually Dr. Perin does much more than this; his own confidence and personal success inspire confidence and give the impulsion toward one’s own personal success. However, excellent as the book might be, it would be worthless if it were not clearly and simply expressed. It is. I remember no book of the kind so direct and so lucid.
vi
vi
It is a pleasure to feel that his new book,Poets and Puritans, introduces T. R. Glover to a wider audience. The author ofThe Pilgrim,Essays on Religion,The Nature and Purpose of a Christian Society,Jesus in the Experience of ManandThe Jesus of Historyis a scholar and somewhat of a recluse whom one finds after much groping about dim halls at Cambridge. A highly individual personality! It is this personality, though, that makes the fascination ofPoets and Pilgrims—a volume of studies in which the subjects areSpenser, Milton, Evelyn, Bunyan, Boswell, Crabbe, Wordsworth and Carlyle. Mr. Glover notes at the foot of the table of contents: “An acute young critic, who saw some of the proofs, has asked me, with a hint of irony, whether Evelyn and Boswell were Puritans or Poets. Any reader who has a conscience about the matter must omit these essays.” There you have the flavour of the man! It is expressed further in the short preface ofPoets and Puritans:—
“Wandering among books and enjoying them, I find in a certain sense that, the more I enjoy them, the harder becomes the task of criticism, the less sure one’s faith in critical canons, and the fewer the canons themselves. Of one thing, though, I grow more and more sure—that the real business of the critic is to find out what is right with a great work of art—book, song, statue, or picture—not what is wrong. Plenty of things may be wrong, but it is what is right that really counts. If the critic’s work is to be worth while, it is the great element in the thing that he has to seek and to find—to learn what it is that makes it live and gives it its appeal, so that, as Montaigne said about Plutarch, men ‘cannot do without’ it; why it is that in a world, where everything that can be ‘scrapped’ is ‘scrapped,’ is thrown aside and forgotten, this thing, this book or picture, refuses to be ignored, but captures and charms men generations after its maker has passed away.
“With such a quest a man must not be in a hurry, and he does best to linger in company with the great men whose work he wishes to understand, and to postpone criticism to intimacy. This book comes in the end to be a record of personal acquaintances and of enjoyment. But one is never done with knowing the greatest men or the greatest works of art—they carry you on and on, and at the last you feel you are only beginning. That is my experience. I would not say that I know these men, of whom I have written, thoroughly—a man of sense would hardly say that, but I can say that I have enjoyed my work, and that, whatever other people may find it, to me it has been a delight and an illumination.”
Another welcome book is E. V. Lucas’sGiving and Receiving, a new volume of essays. Since the appearance ofRoving East and Roving West, Mr. Lucas has been looking back at America from London with its fogs and (yes!) its sunshine. The audience for his new book will include not only those readers he has had for such volumes in the past but all those personal friends that he made in a visit that took him from California to the Battery.
Chapter XIXROBERT W. CHAMBERS AND THE WHOLE TRUTH
i
i
Once a man came to Robert W. Chambers and said words to this effect:
“You had a great gift as a literary artist and you spoiled it. For some reason or other, I don’t know what, but I suppose there was more money in the other thing, you wrote down to a big audience. Don’t you think, yourself, that your earlier work—those stories of Paris and those novels of the American revolution—had something that you have sacrificed in your novels of our modern day?”
Mr. Chambers listened politely and attentively. When the man had finished, Chambers said to him words to this effect:
“You are mistaken. I have heard such talk. I am not to blame if some people entertain a false impression. I have sacrificed nothing, neither for money nor popularity nor anything else.
“Sir, I am a story-teller. I have no other gift. Those who imagine that they have seen in myearlier work some quality of literary distinction or some unrealised possibility as an artist missing from my later work, are wrong.
“They have read into those stories their own satisfaction in them and their first delight. I was new, then. In their pleasure, such as it was, they imagined the arrival of someone whom they styled a great literary artist. They imagined it all; it was not I.
“A story-teller I began, and a story-teller I remain. I do pride myself on being a good story-teller; if the verdict were overwhelmingly against me as a good story-teller that would cast me down. I have no reason to believe that the verdict is against me.
“And that is the ground I myself have stood upon. I am not responsible for the delusion of those who put me on some other, unearthly pinnacle, only to realise, as the years went by, that I was not there at all. But they can find me now where they first found me—where I rather suspect they found me first with unalloyed delight.”
This does not pretend to be an actual transcription of the conversation between Mr. Chambers and his visitor. I asked Mr. Chambers recently if he recalled this interview. He said at this date he did not distinctly recollect it and he added:
“Probably I said what is true, that I write the sort of stories which at the moment it amuses me to write; I trust to luck that it may also amuse the public.
“If a writer makes a hit with a story the public wants him to continue that sort of story. It does not like to follow the moods of a writer from gay to frivolous, from serious to grave, but I have always liked to change, to experiment—just as I used to like to change my medium in painting, aquarelle, oil, charcoal, wash, etc.
“Unless I had a good time writing I’d do something else. I suit myself first of all in choice of subject and treatment, and leave the rest to the gods.”
As a human creature Chambers is strikingly versatile. It must always be remembered that he started life as a painter. There is a story that Charles Dana Gibson and Robert W. Chambers sent their first offerings to Life at the same time. Mr. Chambers sent a picture and Mr. Gibson sent a bit of writing. Mr. Gibson’s offering was accepted and Robert W. Chambers received a rejection slip.
Not only was he a painter but Chambers has preserved his interest in art, and is a welcome visitor in the offices of curators and directors of museums because he is one of the few who can talk intelligently about paintings.
He knows enough about Chinese and Japanese antiques to enable him to detect forgeries. He knows more about armour than anyone, perhaps, except the man who made the marvellous collection of mediæval armour for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
One of his varieties of knowledge, observable by any reader of his novels, is lepidoptery—the science of butterflies. He collects butterflies with exceeding ardour. But then, he is a good deal of an outdoor man. He knows horses and books; he has been known to hunt; he has been seen with a fishing rod in his hand.
His knowledge of out-of-the-way places in different parts of the world—Paris, Petrograd—is not usual.
Will you believe me if I add that he is something of an expert on rare rugs?
Of course, I am, to some extent, taking Rupert Hughes’s word for these accomplishments; and yet they are visible in the written work of Robert W. Chambers where, as a rule, they appear without extrusion.
ii
ii
And here is the newest Robert W. Chambers novel,Eris. Mr. Chambers’sThe Flaming Jewel, a melodrama of the maddest character, was published last spring.Erisis really a story of the movie world, and reaches its most definite conclusion, possibly, in a passage where the hero says to Eris Odell:
“Whether they are financing a picture, directing it, releasing it, exhibiting it, or acting in it, these vermin are likely to do it to death. Your profession is crawling with them. It needs delousing.”
But I am not really anxious, in this chapter, to discuss the justice or injustice of the view of motion pictures thus forcibly presented. I have readEriswith an interest sharpened by the fact that its hero is a writer. I seem to see in what is said about and by Barry Annan expressions of Mr. Chambers’s own attitude of more than casual importance.
Barry Annan is obsessed with the stupidity of the American mass and more particularly with the grossness (as he sees it) of New York City.
“Annan went on with his breakfast leisurely. As he ate he read over his pencilled manuscript and corrected it between bites of muffin and bacon.
“It was laid out on the lines of those modern short stories which had proven so popular and which had lifted Barry Annan out of the uniform ranks of the unidentified and given him an individual and approving audience for whatever he chose to offer them.
“Already there had been lively competition among periodical publishers for the work of this newcomer.
“His first volume of short stories was now in preparation. Repetition had stencilled his name and his photograph upon the public cerebrum. Success had not yet enraged the less successful in the literary puddle. The frogs chanted politely in praise of their own comrade.
“The maiden, too, who sips the literary soupthat seeps through the pages of periodical publications, was already requesting his autograph. Clipping agencies began to pursue him; film companies wasted his time with glittering offers that never materialised. Annan was on the way to premature fame and fortune. And to the aftermath that follows for all who win too easily and too soon.
“There is a King Stork for all puddles. His law is the law of compensations. Dame Nature executes it—alike on species that swarm and on individuals that ripen too quickly.
“Annan wrote very fast. There was about thirty-five hundred words in the story of Eris. He finished it by half past ten.
“Re-reading it, he realised it had all the concentrated brilliancy of an epigram. Whether or not it would hold water did not bother him. The story of Eris was Barry Annan at his easiest and most persuasive. There was the characteristic and ungodly skill in it, the subtle partnership with a mindless public that seduces to mental speculation; the reassuring caress as reward for intellectual penetration; that inborn cleverness that makes the reader see, applaud, or pity him or herself in the sympathetic rôle of a plaything of Chance and Fate.
“And always Barry Annan left the victim of his tact and technique agreeably trapped, suffering gratefully, excited by self-approval to the verge of sentimental tears.
“‘That’ll make ’em ruffle their plumage and gulp down a sob or two,’ he reflected, his tongue in his cheek, a little intoxicated, as usual, by his own infernal facility.
“He lit a cigarette, shuffled his manuscript, numbered the pages, and stuffed them into his pocket. The damned thing was done.”
And again:—
“Considering her, now, a half-smile touching his lips, it occurred to him that here, in her, he saw his audience in the flesh. This was what his written words did to his readers. His skill held their attention; his persuasive technique, unsuspected, led them where he guided. His cleverness meddled with their intellectual emotions. The more primitive felt it physically, too.
“When he dismissed them at the bottom of the last page they went away about their myriad vocations. But his brand was on their hearts. They were his, these countless listeners whom he had never seen—never would see.
“He checked his agreeable revery. This wouldn’t do. He was becoming smug. Reaction brought the inevitable note of alarm. Suppose his audience tired of him. Suppose he lost them. Chastened, he realised what his audience meant to him—these thousands of unknown people whose minds he titivated, whose reason he juggled with and whose heart-strings he yanked, his tongue in his cheek.”
And this further on:—
“He went into his room but did not light the lamp. For a long while he sat by the open window looking out into the darkness of Governor’s Place.
“It probably was nothing he saw out there that brought to his lips a slight recurrent smile.
“The bad habit of working late at night was growing on this young man. It is a picturesque habit, and one of the most imbecile, because sound work is done only with a normal mind.
“He made himself some coffee. A rush of genius to the head followed stimulation. He had a grand time, revelling with pen and pad and littering the floor with inked sheets unnumbered and still wet. His was a messy genius. His plot-logic held by the grace of God and a hair-line. Even the Leaning Tower of Pisa can be plumbed; and the lead dangled inside Achilles’s tendon when one held the string to the medulla of Annan’s stories.”
Our young man is undergoing a variety of interesting changes:
“Partly experimental, partly sympathetically responsive, always tenderly curious, this young man drifted gratefully through the inevitable episodes to which all young men are heir.
“And something in him always transmuted into ultimate friendship the sentimental chaos, where comedy and tragedy clashed at the crisis.
“The result was professional knowledge. Which, however, he had employed rather ruthlesslyin his work. For he resolutely cut out all that had been agreeable to the generations which had thriven on the various phases of virtue and its rewards. Beauty he replaced with ugliness; dreary squalor was the setting for crippled body and deformed mind. The heavy twilight of Scandinavian insanity touched his pages where sombre shapes born out of Jewish Russia moved like anachronisms through the unpolluted sunshine of the New World.
“His were essays on the enormous meanness of mankind—meaner conditions, mean minds, mean aspirations, and a little mean horizon to encompass all.
“Out of his theme, patiently, deftly, ingeniously he extracted every atom of that beauty, sanity, inspired imagination whichmakesthe imperfect more perfect, createsbetterthan the materials permit,forcesreal life actually to assume andbewhat the passionate desire for sanity and beauty demands.”
There comes a time when Eris Odell says to Barry Annan:—
“‘I could neither understand nor play such a character as the woman in your last book.... Nor could I ever believe in her.... Nor in the ugliness of her world—the world you write about, nor in the dreary, hopeless, malformed, starving minds you analyse.... My God, Mr. Annan—are there no wholesome brains in the world you write about?’”
I think these citations interesting. I do not feel especially competent to produce from them inferences regarding Mr. Chambers’s own attitude toward his work.
Eriswill be published early in 1923, following Mr. Chambers’sThe Talkers.
iii
iii
Mr. Chambers was born in Brooklyn, May 26, 1865, the son of William Chambers and Carolyn (Boughton) Chambers. Walter Boughton Chambers, the architect, is his brother. Robert William Chambers was a student in the Julien Academy in Paris from 1886 to 1893. He married, on July 12, 1898, Elsa Vaughn Moler. He first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1889; he was an illustrator for Life, Truth, Vogue and other magazines. His first book,In the Quarter, was published in 1893; and when, in the same year, a collection of stories of Paris calledThe King in Yellowmade its appearance, Robert W. Chambers became a name of literary importance.
Curiously enough, among the things persistently remembered about Mr. Chambers to this day is a particular poem in a book of rollicking verse calledWith the Band, which he published in 1895. This cherished—by very many people scattered here and there—poem had to do with Irishmen parading. One stanza will identify it.
“Ses Corporal Madden to Private McFadden:
’Bedad yer a bad ’un!
Now turn out yer toes!
Yer belt is unhookit,
Yer cap is on crookit,
Yer may not be drunk,
But, be jabers, ye look it!
Wan-two!
Wan-two!
Ye monkey-faced divil, I’ll jolly ye through!
Wan-two!
Time! Mark!
Ye march like the aigle in Cintheral Park!’”
In the course of writing many books, Chambers has been responsible for one or two shows. He wrote for Ada Rehan,The Witch of Ellangowan, a drama produced at Daly’s Theatre. HisIolewas the basis of a delightful musical comedy produced in New York in 1913. He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Booksby Robert W. Chambers
Books
by Robert W. Chambers
IN THE QUARTERTHE KING IN YELLOWTHE RED REPUBLICTHE KING AND A FEW DUKESTHE MAKER OF MOONSWITH THE BANDTHE MYSTERY OF CHOICELORRAINEASHES OF EMPIRETHE HAUNTS OF MENTHE CAMBRIC MASKOUTSIDERSTHE CONSPIRATORSCARDIGANTHE MAID-AT-ARMSOUTDOOR-LANDTHE MAIDS OF PARADISEORCHARD-LANDFOREST LANDIOLETHE FIGHTING CHANCEMOUNTAIN LANDTHE TRACER OF LOST PERSONSTHE TREE OF HEAVENTHE FIRING LINESOME LADIES IN HASTETHE DANGER MARKTHE SPECIAL MESSENGERHIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLANDTHE GREEN MOUSEAILSA PAIGEBLUE-BIRD WEATHERJAPONETTETHE STREETS OF ASCALONADVENTURES OF A MODEST MANTHE BUSINESS OF LIFETHE COMMON LAWTHE GAY REBELLIONWHO GOES THERE?THE HIDDEN CHILDRENATHALIEPOLICE!!!THE GIRL PHILIPPATHE BARBARIANSTHE RESTLESS SEXTHE MOONLIT WAYIN SECRETTHE CRIMSON TIDETHE SLAYER OF SOULSTHE LITTLE RED FOOTTHE FLAMING JEWELTHE TALKERSERIS
IN THE QUARTER
THE KING IN YELLOW
THE RED REPUBLIC
THE KING AND A FEW DUKES
THE MAKER OF MOONS
WITH THE BAND
THE MYSTERY OF CHOICE
LORRAINE
ASHES OF EMPIRE
THE HAUNTS OF MEN
THE CAMBRIC MASK
OUTSIDERS
THE CONSPIRATORS
CARDIGAN
THE MAID-AT-ARMS
OUTDOOR-LAND
THE MAIDS OF PARADISE
ORCHARD-LAND
FOREST LAND
IOLE
THE FIGHTING CHANCE
MOUNTAIN LAND
THE TRACER OF LOST PERSONS
THE TREE OF HEAVEN
THE FIRING LINE
SOME LADIES IN HASTE
THE DANGER MARK
THE SPECIAL MESSENGER
HIDE AND SEEK IN FORESTLAND
THE GREEN MOUSE
AILSA PAIGE
BLUE-BIRD WEATHER
JAPONETTE
THE STREETS OF ASCALON
ADVENTURES OF A MODEST MAN
THE BUSINESS OF LIFE
THE COMMON LAW
THE GAY REBELLION
WHO GOES THERE?
THE HIDDEN CHILDREN
ATHALIE
POLICE!!!
THE GIRL PHILIPPA
THE BARBARIANS
THE RESTLESS SEX
THE MOONLIT WAY
IN SECRET
THE CRIMSON TIDE
THE SLAYER OF SOULS
THE LITTLE RED FOOT
THE FLAMING JEWEL
THE TALKERS
ERIS