a few compliments of the guarded sort.
“But there’s no money in it, you know,” he said.
“I suppose not,” I assented. (“You are an ass for assenting to that,” I said to myself.)
“I invariably lose money over new authors,” he remarked, as if I was to blame.
“You didn’t lose much over Mrs.——,” I replied, naming one of his notorious successes.
“Oh, well!” he said, “of course——. But I didn’t make so much as you think, perhaps. Publishing is a very funny business.” And then he added: “Do you think your novel will succeed like Mrs.——’s?”
I said that I hoped it would.
“I’ll be perfectly frank with you,” the publisher exclaimed, smiling beneficently. “My reader likes your book. I’ll tell you what he says.” He took a sheet of paper that lay on the top of the manuscript and read.
I was enchanted, spellbound. The nameless literary adviser used phrases of which the following are specimens (I am recording with exactitude): “Written with great knowledge and a good deal of insight.” “Character delineated by a succession of rare and subtle touches.” “Living, convincing.” “Vigour and accuracy.” “The style is good.”
I had no idea that publishers’ readers were capable of such laudation.
The publisher read on: “I do not think it likely to be a striking success!”
“Oh!” I murmured, shocked by this bluntness.
“There's no money in it,” the publisher repeated firmly. “First books are too risky. ... I should like to publish it.”
“Well?” I said, and paused. I felt that he had withdrawn within himself in order to ponder upon the chances of this terrible risk. So as not to incommode him with my gaze, I examined the office, which resembled a small drawing-room rather than an office. I saw around me signed portraits of all the roaring lions on the sunny side of Grub Street.
“I'll publish it,” said the publisher, and I believe he made an honest attempt not to look like a philanthropist; however, the attempt failed. “I’ll publish it. But of course I can only give you a small royalty.”
“What royalty?” I asked.
“Five per cent.—on a three-and-sixpenny book.”
“Very well. Thank you!” I said.
“I’ll give you fifteen per cent, after the sale of five thousand copies,” he added kindly.
O ironist!
I emerged from the web of the spider triumphant, an accepted author. Exactly ten days had elapsed since I had first parted with my manuscript. Once again life was plagiarizing fiction. I could not believe that this thing was true. I simply could not believe it. “Oh!” I reflected, incredulous, “something’s bound to happen. It can’t really come off. The publisher might die, and then——”
Protected by heaven on account of his good deeds, the publisher felicitously survived; and after a delay of twelve months (twelve centuries—during which I imagined that the universe hung motionless and expectant in the void!) he accomplished his destiny by really and truly publishing my book.
The impossible had occurred. I was no longer a mere journalist; I was an author.
“After all, it’s nothing!” I said, with that intense and unoriginal humanity which distinguishes all of us. And in a blinding flash I saw that an author was in essence the same thing as a grocer or a duke.
IX
My novel, under a new title, was published both in England and America. I actually collected forty-one reviews of it, and there must have been many that escaped me. Of these forty-one, four were unfavourable, eleven mingled praise and blame in about equal proportions, and twenty-six were unmistakably favourable, a few of them being enthusiastic.
Yet I had practically no friends on the Press. One friend I had, a man of power, and he reviewed my book with an appreciation far too kind; but his article came as a complete surprise to me. Another friend I had, sub-editor of a society weekly, and he asked me for a copy of my book so that he might “look after it” in the paper. Here is part of the result:
“He has all the young novelist’s faults. . . These are glaring faults; for, given lack of interest, and unpleasant scenes, how can a book be expected to be popular?”
A third friend I had, who knew the chief fiction-reviewer on a great morning paper. He asked me for a special copy of my book, and quite on his own initiative, undertook to arrange the affair. Here is part of the result:
“There is not much to be said either for or against —— by Mr. ——.”
I had no other friends on the Press, or friends who had friends on the Press.
I might easily butcher the reviews for your amusement, but this practice is becoming trite. I will quote a single sentence which pleased me as much as any:—“What our hero’s fate was let those who care to know find out, but let us assure them that in its discovery they will read of London life and labour as it is, not as the bulk of romances paint it.” All the principal organs were surprisingly appreciative. And the majority of the reviewers agreed that my knowledge of human nature was exceptionally good, that my style was exceptionally good, that I had in me the makings of a novelist, and that my present subject was weak. My subject was not weak; but let that pass. When I reflect how my book flouted the accepted canons of English fiction, and how many aspects of it must have annoyed nine reviewers out of ten, I am compelled to the conclusion that reviewers are a very good-natured class of persons. I shall return to this interesting point later—after I have described how I became a reviewer myself. The fact to be asserted is that I, quite obscure and defenceless, was treated very well. I could afford to smile from a high latitude at the remark of The New York —— that “the story and characters are commonplace in the extreme.” I felt that I had not lived in vain, and that kindred spirits were abroad in the land.
My profits from this book with the exceptional style and the exceptional knowledge of human nature, exceeded the cost of having it typewritten by the sum of one sovereign. Nor was I, nor am I, disposed to grumble at this. Many a first book has cost its author a hundred pounds. I got a new hat out of mine.
What I did grumble at was the dishonour of the prophet in his own county. Here I must delicately recall that my novel was naturalistic, and that it described the career of a young man alone in London. It had no “realism” in the vulgar sense, as several critics admitted, but still it was desperately exact in places, and I never surrounded the head of a spade with the aureole of a sentimental implement. The organ of a great seaport remarked: “We do not consider the book a healthy one. We say no more.” Now you must imagine this excessively modern novel put before a set of estimable people whose ideas on fiction had been formed under the influence of Dickens and Mrs. Henry Wood, and who had never changed those ideas. Some of them, perhaps, had not read a novel for ten years before they read mine. The result was appalling, frightful, tragical. For months I hesitated to visit the town which had the foresight
