CORRESPONDENCE.
A COMMENTARY IN AN EASY-CHAIR:
RETURNING TO THE WORLD-A NEW FORM OF ADVERTISE.. lifENT-THE AUTHOR'S OPINION OF HIMSELF.
THERE is something curious in returning to the world after a long illness or a long absence, during which much has hap- pened to ourselves contradictory of the ordinary tenor of life, and probably tending to make ourselves more important in our own eyes. Illness has this effect in a remarkable degree. Why it should give to the sufferer the sensation of superiority it does, the conviction of being more interesting than he was before, more worthy of discussion, the natural object not only
of the cares and attentions of everybody immediately sur- rounding him, but of inquiry and thought on the part of a much wider circle, would seem strange if it were not • so common. After all, there is no moral superiority in the fact of being ill ; yet it is a sensation which we all share. The remembrance of the pain often goes completely from the mind, but seldom the slight yet agreeable complaisance with which we all talk of the time "when I was ill." It raises us somehow in our own esteem, perhaps because it makes us an object for the time of much more importance to our friends. The time when" I was at the worst ; " when there were so many inquiries at the door every day ; when the anxious doctor, or even doctors, came back twice or thrice in the twenty-four hours, and the very world seemed to stand still to watch the crisis,—what a sense of almost pleasure it leaves behind ! And all who care for us are so grateful to us for getting well ! The steps we take towards recovery are so applauded, as if we had some merit in them ! This is one of those unconsidered compensations which are mingled with all evil, and which make one feel the impossibility of saying even of suffering that it is an unmixed harm.
And how curious to find that during that time of seclusion, so full of importance to us, the world has gone upon its trivial way in its usual routine, bustling, hurrying, doing an infinite deal of nothing, having made scarcely any progress in what it was about when we were withdrawn from our share in the busy scene ! This probably heightens a little our complaisance of convalescence, enhancing the consciousness that we have been distinguishing ourselves by all that we have gone through, while the other people have wasted their time so culpably. We have looked in the face of death, perhaps, with a calm and heroism very reassuring to ourselves to remember, and highly edifying to all our friends. We have come off victorious in many conflicts with that black knight called Pain. What have you been doing, all you well people ? Pretending to do business in Parliament, and only succeeding in preventing any business from being done,—pretending to amuse yourselves in society, and only boring yourselves to the utmost possibility of human endurance. You have got "no forrader " than when we were withdrawn from your company. Money has been turned over in great quantities from one hand to another, but no real riches have been added to the universal well-being. Yes, the Forth Bridge has been opened, with a present highly satisfac- tory result of two hours' additional time lost between London and the North ; and Mr. Stanley has got a few honorary degrees, and the freedom of a few enlightened cities. How much less dignified, how much less interesting than the proceedings in the sick-chamber, where we in the meantime have been proving what mettle we were of, and how we could meet some of the ills that flesh is heir to,like a man.
I note with much amusement one of the first things that comes to light as the landscape clears, and its outlines become distinct once more, an altogether novel and clever form of advertisement, which seems to have been used with immense success in the columns of an evening paper. In this paper, according to the light thrown by after-events, there must have appeared an unfavourable notice of a recent novel or novelette. That I may not aid in the promulgation of the puff, I will not name its name,—all the more that I have not seen either the book or the article. The author, however, is a man who has attained considerable note, chiefly by eccentricity and a masterly assumption of being somebody, to which the world is very ready to give in. For my own part, I think that this too has been a clever way of advertising, and that the gentleman in question is a man of real ability, though he has condescended to attract public attention by posing more or less as a charlatan. However, that is unimportant to the immediate incident in hand. An unfavourable review is a thing to which every writer exposes himself in the course of nature, and though it is an antiquated and a silly thing to suppose that such a missile is aimed at him by private spite or malice, still there are circumstances in which it is difficult not to do so. Perhaps the critic has been out of temper, out of spirits, cross—to use an expressive feminine word—and has accordingly treated the harmless book which happened to fall in his way at that inauspicious moment as if it were a personal enemy. The majority of writers, when they pass through such an experience, are angry, but hold their tongues. They are silent, though the fire burns—perhaps they look forward with grim satisfaction
to another moment in the future when it shall be in their power to catch him, the cross critic, tripping----and they console themselves with this thought, or with the other very banal but comforting sentiment, that a critic is a man who has failed in doing anything himself, and therefore is full of gall for those who have done something,—a theory from which many (literary) gentlemen derive much satisfaction. But in the present instance, the very clever author has done far better than this. He has made his critic fulfil the part for him which several fine artists have filled for certain enterprising soap-dealers. The hostile newspaper has become his advertising medium. He has written letter after letter—duly, in the interest of fair play, printed in the columns of the offending journal—defending himself and his book. Nobody has been able for several days to take up that. paper without finding in it nearly a column of rather piquant writing about—let us say, "The Statue of John Smith." I confess that, though I am considerably acquainted with the tricks of the trade, a faint desire to send to the library for "John Smith" has stirred in my mind, and when it comes to the bookstalls and the price of is., I shall certainly buy it. It is the newest and most refined and ingenious mode of " puffing " that has yet been invented. There is something quite masterly and, on the broad ground of human interest, delightful in thus making your adversary into a sort of sandwich-man to carry your advertisement about the world. We clap our hands at the ingenuity of the device.
But it is also a suggestion, as most of the expedients of genius are. The soap-dealers in question are, I believe, the greatest advertisers known, and have been feasted in consequence as patrons, if not of Literature, yet of the Press, in this supreme character. But they must often be at their wits' end for a new method. Would not this be worth their attention P I should not myself mind, for a consideration, taking the part of the bitter critic, and running amuck against the superlative soap,—that it was not matchless, either for the hands or complexion ; that I could no more shave with it than with a piece of Edinburgh Rock, &c. And though the Spectator would not open its pages to the ensuing controversy, there are other vehicles of public opinion which no doubt would do so with the happiest results. The controversy might be made one of the brightest and most amusing possible. Everybody would read it, especially if the advocates on both sides threw a little mud at each other in the intervals of attack and defence ; and if there remains any appreciable part of the public which does not already, seduced by art and impelled by posters, employ their remarkable soap, no doubt that obstinate section of the community would give in at last.
On the whole, I think there is something to be said for the principle of taking an author's opinion as to the work he has produced in preference to a critic's. He (the former) must know so much more about it. Has he not lived with it, elaborated every line, gone over and over it with loving care, probably for weeks or months, in all moods ? Whereas the latter has only read it once (perhaps not even that), and probably when he was cross. A man has a hundred things to make him cross which have nothing to do with the work he is called upon to review. His wife may have been aggravating, his children noisy, his banker disagreeable : bankers have a way of being very disagreeable sometimes, without giving a poor man any excuse for knocking them down : and to be savage with the first book that comes to hand after, and wreak one's vengeance upon it for the sake of that other book where one's name figures on the wrong side of the page, is so natural. Whereas, if such a thing should happen to the author, he has all the more reason for caressing his own production and setting forth its beauties. "The book is neither dull nor tedious," says the manly writer. I feel a respect for the man who has the courage of his convictions, and says this boldly. "My God ! what a genius I had when I wrote that book," said Swift, half-mad and wholly miserable, going back upon the work of his youth; and there is nothing more pathetic, more tragic, in all literature. Wordsworth, without any miserable- ness or despair, was, we all know, of the same opinion ; and there are other great poets who hold similar views. Should not they know best P Down with the critics ! But yet one must allow that a new and most ingenious way has been thus discovered for making use and capital out of even that objec- tionable craft.
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