MIDDLEMEN AND THE DIGNITY OF LITERATURE.
SOMETHING has vexed the soul of " Ouida," and caused it to overflow to the extent of two columns of the Times. "Ouida," as many people are aware, is the nom-de-plume of a lady who has produced a profusion of novels treating of the very best and most expensive society; and she has been vexed, it appears, by a "literary factor." Who the literary factor is, and what the nature of his sinning, it is more difficult to say. Even when one has waded through all this flood of indigna- tion, one seems to have learnt but little of the person in question, except that he is a "new " factor, an " unnecessary " factor, and a " noxious " factor ; he is also a "middleman," an "esoteric body," and a "maggot." "He comes up like a mushroom, and flourishes like a toadstool." Here is wickedness, truly. Imagine the deceitful cunning of the thing that comes up pretending to be a good and wholesome mushroom, and then coolly flaunts itself a distasteful toadstool. He rejoices in pseudonyms, as if he himself were an eminent author: some- times he calls himself a "Syndicate," sometimes a "Fic- tion Bureau," and sometimes an "Associated Literary Press." He buys and runs authors as if they were young colts. Nay, he will even deal with them as though they were pigs. In his hands, "the author, like the pig, is purchased, shot through a tube, and delivered in the shape of a wet sheet (as the pig is in the shape of a ham) north, south, east, and west, wherever there is a demand for him." We fancy, by-the-way, that there must be some mistake here ; we have known authors, it is true, who might have been called "wet blankets," but never have we seen one in the shape of a wet sheet. However that may be, there is no end to the villainy of the " factor :" not content with buying his authors like pigs, he strings together their works as though they were sausages, and will actually advertise upon the same page and under the same heading, the most illustrious and the most plebeian names. "'Philippe, Comte de Paris,' figures as a famous contributor' side by side with 'Ben Perley Poore' and Bill Nye,' whoever they may be." We cannot tell whoever they may be, though we fancy we have heard of "Bill Nye" before ; but the names are certainly dreadfully common. It is not " Ouida " who would ever offend in this way, and we can well understand her indig- nation at such a levelling, degrading practice. Unfortunately, we must admit that the practice does exist ; we ourselves remember to have once seen the name of the Right Honourable George Gordon, Lord Byron, side by side with that of a man called Hogg, quite a common person, a shepherd, or some- thing of that kind, we believe. But the crowning offence of this " factor " consists in his acting as a kind of agent- provocateur, and inducing people to write novels who have no business to play with pen and ink at all ; people who have no idea of the "culture, talent, self-restraint, and original thought which are required to produce any good work ;" people who
have no knowledge, that is to say, of really good society, who know nothing of Russian Princes, English Dukes, and French Countesses, and are probably incapable of quoting either Latin or French,—the result being that "the closing years of the nineteenth century witness a breathless and useless competi- tion in the production of utterly worthless books," and that the world is flooded with "sickening rubbish," with "un- speakable trash." "The scores of worthless stories which are poured from the press in London every month are absolutely scandalous,—a shame to the nation which makes it possible to bring out such trash and waste good print and paper on them." What a thing it is to possess culture and self- restraint 1
It seems hardly credible, but really, as far as we can ascer- tain from this cultured and chastened indictment, it would appear that this noxious thing, this new literary factor, is simply a literary agent,—a gentleman who makes it his business to find publishers for authors, to give authors advice, to find them a market for their wares, and to transact all that busi- ness for them in the conduct of which authors themselves take so little pleasure, and, as a rule, show so little capacity. We have no intention of undertaking the defence of this very harmless and useful personage whom " Ouida," with that fine profusion of metaphors that characterises all her work, describes as a pig-dealer, a maggot, and a toadstool. In the first place, the gentleman in question will probably be more amused than grieved at the picture that has been drawn of him,—indeed, he may be a little envious of his "counterfeit presentment," and may wish that authors were as amenable as the pigs of Chicago. And secondly, Mr. Besant has taken up the cudgels on his behalf so earnestly and vigorously, that he has left nothing to be said. Mr. Besant's serious indignation is really rather amusing, though it is difficult to reconcile it with the sense of humour of which his own novels give such abundant signs. We should have thought that "Ouida's " letter would have been a source of unmixed delight to him, and instead of that, it seems to have annoyed him exceedingly, so much, indeed, that he too was compelled to unburden himself at great length in the columns of the Times, for the sake of proving to its readers that "Ouida" had been guilty of "sham indignation and froth." Vraiment, ce n'gtait pas la prime. (An occasional French phrase is an excellent sign of culture.) But though we do not feel called upon to judge between " Ouida " and the middleman, there are one or two things which we should really like to explain to her, and one thing at least that we should still more like to have explained to us. To begin with the last, why is it that the public is so angry with a bad hook? Nobody is moved to wrath when a man paints a bad picture ; but should he write a silly and feeble book, he is immediately hooted and railed at as though he had committed a crime against society. And yet the offence is quite a common one ; there are plenty of silly books published every year. Even if there were not, we still fail to see the reason of the deep disgrace that an un- successful and unlucky author brings upon himself. It may sound paradoxical, but it is nevertheless true, that if there were no bad books, there would be no good books either. To suppose that a multitude of bad books glut the market and prevent the sale of really good and desirable publications, is to credit the reading public with an utter want of discrimina- tion, or even to deny the existence of a public at all that reads for its own pleasure. One might as well suppose that a glut of damaged turnips at Covent Garden would take away an appetite for strawberries and bring them down in price. As a matter of fact, the number of very bad books will probably be found not to exceed the number of very good ones; and it is out of the great bulk of the books published, books of average merit, that the really good work is gradually formed. Let us be more charitable to the man who fails. He may be an ass—indeed, he very often is—but he meant no harm, and the injury that he does to the world is infinitesimal. Then we should like to explain to " Ouida," though we fear that it would be difficult, that literature does not, as she seems to imagine, consist solely of novels and novel-writing; nor is the circulating library the sole repository of its productions. And, again, we should like to convince her that there is nothing so particularly noble and glorious in the practice of letters as to lift the author above all human considerations, and justify him in being disdainful of the practices of other men. It is sheer nonsense to say that "everything which assimilates
literature to a trade, a commerce, a profession, injures its .quality and dwarfs its standard ; " or that "the question of pounds, shillings, and pence must always chafe and jar when brought into connection with the children of thought. The feeling of Byron must be the feeling of every true poet and scholar," The less that is said of Byron's feelings in this matter, the better for his credit. If he really believed that money received in payment soiled his hands, he must have .done considerable violence to that belief. The doctor's profession, if not, as it seems to us, nobler, is at least as noble as that of the poet or novelist, and he has no scruples nor feels shame in stretching out his own hand for his fee: shame rather upon the heads of those who think the less of him on that account ! Because a man has a happy gift of speech or song, because he can clothe his nobler thoughts in fitting prose or verse, is he any more than a man, in any way more noble than those who can only feel and remain dumb P It is this miserable, tawdry, vulgar pretension on behalf of literature that does more to degrade its character than all the shoals of nonsense that are published in its name.
The matter is hardly worthy of a serious remonstrance, still there is a passage in " Ouida's " letter that cannot be passed over without comment. In falling foul of the "so-called criticism in England," she remarks that "a young man has of late been hailed by it as a fine writer, when he has neither knowledge of style nor common acquaintance with grammar, .and should be whipped and put in a corner like a naughty ehild, for his impudence in touching pen and ink without knowing how to use them." It is not very difficult to guess who this young man is who has so raised her ire. This little outburst of spite is so exquisitely ludicrous, that one willingly forgives its naughtiness. Still, that is a kind of criticism in which one author should not indulge at the expense of another. Time, in the fullness of its wisdom, will some day judge between the fashionable " Ouida " and this ink-stained child, the object of her aversion ; we will pass no opinion. Though this at least we might say, that the rough private of a Line regiment, redolent of bad tobacco, bad language, and barrack-room slang, has been sometimes known in the course of nature to survive the dandy officer in the Guards who bathes in eau-de-Cologne, and has gold tops to his boot-trees. And why is " Ouida " so unkind to her public P "The public is so uneducated," she says ; and again, she talks of "their frightful ignorance ; " and yet again, she complains : "But the public is not educated, and has no intellectual palate." It has been, we should think, a very good public to her. We cannot help thinking of an American story—either told by "Bill Nye," or that other vulgar person, Bret H arte—of two men, once the nearest and dearest friends, who fell out about some trifling matter, and parted after a bitter and irreparable quarrel. Both of them were standing for the same office, and met to urge their claims before their fellow-townsmen. One of them denounced the other as a drunkard, a horse-thief, a sluice-robber, and a murderer ; denounced him as a man stained from his youth upwards with every crime and villainy. Then the other rose.
Gentlemen," he said, "you have heard what this man has said, and what he has said is true. I am a drunkard, a sluice- robber, and all the rest of it. But one thing he has forgotten to tell you. For twenty years I was his friend and partner." Supposing that the public answered " Ouida " thus :—" It is true—we are uneducated, our ignorance is frightful, and we 'have no intellectual palate. But for twenty years we have bought your books, and—we have read them."
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