Vanishing Roads and Other Essays Part 6

When we come to consider the operation of gossip in the lives of individuals, the disposition of human nature to relish discrediting rumour is pitifully conspicuous. We know _Hamlet's_ opinion on the matter:

Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

And again:

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, Thou shalt not escape calumny.

This, it is to be feared, is merely the sad truth, for mankind, while it admires both greatness and goodness, would seem to resent the one and only half believe in the other. At all events, nothing is more to its taste than the rumour that detracts from the great or sullies the good; and so long as the rumour be entertaining, it has little concern for its truth.

Froude, in writing of Caesar, has this to say admirably to our purpose:

In ages which we call heroic, the saint works miracles, the warrior performs exploits beyond the strength of natural man. In ages less visionary, which are given to ease and enjoyment, the tendency is to bring a great man down to the common level, and to discover or invent faults which shall show that he is or was but a little man after all. Our vanity is soothed by evidence that those who have eclipsed us in the race of life are no better than ourselves, or in some respects worse than ourselves; and if to these general impulses be added political or personal animosity, accusations of depravity are circulated as surely about such men, and are credited as readily as under other influences are the marvellous achievements of a Cid or a St. Francis.

The absurdity of a calumny may be as evident as the absurdity of a miracle; the ground for belief may be no more than a lightness of mind, and a less pardonable wish that it may be true. But the idle tale floats in society, and by and by is written down in books and pa.s.ses into the region of established realities.

The proportion of such idle tales seriously printed as history can never, of course, be computed. Sometimes one is tempted to think that history is mainly "whole cloth." Certainly the lives of such men as Caesar are largely made up of what one might term ill.u.s.trative fictions rather than actual facts. The story of Caesar and Cleopatra is probably such an "ill.u.s.trative fiction," representing something that might very well have happened to Caesar, whether it did so or not. At all events, it does his fame no great harm, unlike another calumny, which, as it does not seem "ill.u.s.trative"--that is, not in keeping with his general character--we are at liberty to reject. Both alike, however, were the product of the gossip, the embodied littleness of human nature endeavouring then, as always, to minimize and discredit the strong man, who, whatever his actual faults, at least strenuously shoulders for his fellows the hard work of the world.

The great have usually been strong enough to smile contempt on their traducers--Caesar's answer to an infamous epigram of the poet Catullus was to ask him to dinner--but even so, at what extra cost, what "expense of spirit in a waste of shame," have their achievements been bought, because of these curs that bark forever at the heels of fame!

And not always have they thus prevailed against the pack. Too often has the sorry spectacle been seen of greatness and goodness going down before the poisonous tongues and the licking jaws. Even Caesar himself had to fall at last, his strong soul perhaps not sorry to escape through his dagger-wounds from so pitiably small a world; and the poison in the death-cup of Socrates was not so much the juice of the hemlock as the venom of the gossips of Athens.

In later times, no service to his country, no greatness of character, can save the n.o.ble Raleigh from the tongues determined to bring him to the block; and, when the haughty head of Marie Antoinette must bow at last upon the scaffold, the true guillotine was the guillotine of gossip. It was such lying tales as that of the diamond necklace that had brought her there. All Queen Elizabeth's popularity could not save her from the ribaldry of scandal, nor Shakespeare's genius protect his name from the foulest of stains.

In our own time, the mere mention of the name of Dreyfus suffices to remind us of the terrible nets woven by this dark spinner. Within the last year or two, have we not seen the loved king of a great nation driven to seek protection from the spectre of innuendo in the courts of law? But gossip laughs at such tribunals. It knows that where once it has affixed its foul stain, the mark remains forever, indelible as that imaginary stain which not all the mult.i.tudinous seas could wash from the little hand of Lady Macbeth. The more the stain is washed, the more persistently it reappears, like Rizzio's blood, as they say, in Holyrood Palace. To deny a rumour is but to spread it. An action for libel, however it may be decided, has at least the one inevitable result of perpetuating it.

Take the historical case of the Man with the Iron Mask. Out of pure deviltry, it would appear, Voltaire started the story, as mere a fiction as one of his written romances, that the mysterious prisoner was no less than a half-brother of Louis XIV; and Dumas, seeing the dramatic possibilities of the legend, picturesquely elaborates it in _Le Vicomte de Bragelonne_. Never, probably, was so impudent an invention, and surely never one so successful; for it is in vain that historians expose it over and over again. Learned editors have proved with no shadow of a doubt that the real man of the mask was an obscure Italian political adventurer; but though scholars may be convinced, the world will have nothing of your Count Matthioli, and will probably go on believing Voltaire's story to the end of time.

"At least there must have been something in it" is always the last word on such debatable matters; and the curious thing is that, whenever a doubt of the truth is expressed, it is never the victim, but always the scandal, to which the benefit of the doubt is extended. Whatever the proven fact, the world always prefers to hold fast by the disreputable doubt.

All that is necessary is to find the dog a bad name. The world will see that he never loses it. In this regard the oft-reiterated confidence of the dead in the justice of posterity is one of the most pathetic of illusions. "Posterity will see me righted," cries some poor victim of human wrong, as he goes down into the darkness; but of all appeals, the appeal to posterity is the most hopeless.

What posterity relishes is rather new scandals about its immortals than tiresome belated justifications. It prefers its villains to grow blacker with time, and welcomes proof of fallibility and frailty in its immortal exemplars. For rehabilitation it has neither time nor inclination, and it pursues certain luckless reputations beyond the grave with a mysterious malignity.

Such a reputation is that of Edgar Allan Poe. One would have thought that posterity would be eager to make up to his shade for the criminal animus of Rufus Griswold, his first biographer. On the contrary, it prefers to perpetuate the lying portrait; and no consideration of the bequests of Poe's genius, or of his tragic struggles with adverse conditions, no editorial advocacy, or doc.u.mentary evidence in his favour, has persuaded posterity to reverse the unduly harsh judgment of his fatuous contemporaries.

Fortunately, it all matters nothing to Poe now. It is only to us that it matters.

Saddening, surely, it is, to say the least, to realize that the humanity of which we are a part is tainted with so subtle a disease of lying, and so depraved an appet.i.te for lies. Under such conditions, it is surprising that greatness and goodness are ever found willing to serve humanity at all, and that any but scoundrels can be found to dare the risks of the high places of the world. For this social disease of gossip resembles that distemper which, at the present moment, threatens the chestnut forests of America. It first attacks the n.o.blest trees. Like it, too, it would seem to baffle all remedies, and like it, it would seem to be the work of indestructible microscopic worms.

It is this vermicular insignificance of the gossip that makes his detection so difficult, and gives him his security. A great reputation may feel itself worm-eaten, and may suddenly go down with a crash, but it will look around in vain for the social vermin that have brought about its fall. It is the cowardice of gossip that its victims have seldom an opportunity of coming face to face with their destroyers; for the gossip is as small as he is ubiquitous--

Not half so big as a round little worm p.r.i.c.k'd from the lazy finger of a maid.

In all societies, there are men and women who are vaguely known as gossips; but they are seldom caught red-handed. For one thing, they do not often speak at first hand. They profess only to repeat something that they have heard--something, they are careful to add, which is probably quite untrue, and which they themselves do not believe for a moment.

Then the fact stated or hinted is probably no concern of ours. It is not for us to sift its truth, or to bring it to the attention of the individual it tarnishes. Obviously, society would become altogether impossible if each one of us were to const.i.tute ourselves a sort of social police to arraign every accuser before the accused. We should thus, it is to be feared, only make things worse, and involuntarily play the gossip's own game. The best we can do is as far as possible to banish the tattle from our minds, and, at all events, to keep our own mouths shut.

Even so, however, some harm will have been done. We shall never be quite sure but that the rumour was true, and when we next meet the person concerned, it will probably in some degree colour our att.i.tude toward him.

And with others, less high-minded than ourselves, the gossip will have had greater success. Not, of course, meaning any harm, they will inquire of someone else if what So-and-so hinted of So-and-so can possibly be true. And so it will go on _ad infinitum_. The formula is simple, and it is only a matter of arithmetical progression for a private lie, once started on its journey, to become a public scandal, with a reputation gone, and no one visibly responsible.

Of course, not all gossip is purposely harmful in its intention. The deliberate, creative gossip is probably rare. In fact, gossip usually represents the need of a bored world to be entertained at any price, the restless _ennui_ that must be forever talking or listening to fill the vacuity of its existence, to supply its lack of really vital interests.

This demand naturally creates a supply of idle talkers, whose social existence depends on their ability to provide the entertainment desired; and nothing would seem to be so well-pleasing to the idle human ear as the whisper that discredits, or the story that ridicules, the distinction it envies, and the goodness it cannot understand.

The mystery of gossip is bound up with the mysterious human need of talking. Talk we must, though we say nothing, or talk evil from sheer lack of subject-matter. When we know why man talks so much, apparently for the mere sake of talking, we shall probably be nearer to knowing why he prefers to speak and hear evil rather than good of his fellows.

Possibly the gossip would be just as ready to speak well of his victims, to circulate stories to their credit rather than the reverse, but for the melancholy fact that he would thus be left without an audience. For the world has no anxiety to hear good of its neighbour, and there is no piquancy in the disclosure of hidden virtues.

'Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true; and the only poor consolation to be got out of it is that the victims of gossip may, if they feel so inclined, feel flattered rather than angered by its attentions; for, at all events, it argues their possession of gifts and qualities transcending the common. At least it presupposes individuality; and, all things considered, it may be held as true that those most gossiped about are usually those who can best afford to pay this tax levied by society on any form of distinction.

After all, the great and good man has his greatness and goodness to support him, though the world should unite in depreciating him. The artist has his genius, the beautiful woman has her beauty. 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus and thus; and if fame must have gossip for its seamy side, there are some satisfactions that cannot be stolen away, and some laurels that defy the worm.

XI

THE Pa.s.sING AWAY OF THE EDITOR

The word "editor" as applied to the conductors of magazines and newspapers is rapidly becoming a mere courtesy t.i.tle; for the powers and functions formerly exercised by editors, properly so called, are being more and more usurped by the capitalist proprietor. There are not a few magazines where the "editor" has hardly more say in the acceptance of a ma.n.u.script than the contributor who sends it in. Few are the editors left who uphold the magisterial dignity and awe with which the name of editor was wont to be invested. These survive owing chiefly to the prestige of long service, and even they are not always free from the encroachments of the new method. The proprietor still feels the irksome necessity of treating their editorial policies with respect, though secretly chafing for the moment when they shall give place to more manageable, modern tools.

The "new" editor, in fact, is little more than a clerk doing the bidding of his proprietor, and the proprietor's idea of editing is slavishly to truckle to the public taste--or rather to his crude conception of the public taste. The only real editors of today are the capitalist and the public. The nominal editor is merely an office-boy of larger growth, and slightly larger salary.

Innocent souls still, of course, imagine him clothed with divine powers, and letters of introduction to him are still sought after by the superst.i.tious beginner. Alas! the chances are that the better he thinks of your MS. the less likely is it to be accepted by--the proprietor; for Mr. Snooks, the proprietor, has decided tastes of his own, and a peculiar distaste for anything remotely savouring of the "literary." His broad editorial axiom is that a popular magazine should be everything and anything but--"literature." For any signs of the literary taint he keeps open a stern and ever-watchful eye, and the "editor" or "editorial a.s.sistant"--to make a distinction without a difference--whom he should suspect of literary leanings has but a short shrift. Mr. Snooks is seldom much of a reader himself. His activities have been exclusively financial, and he has drifted into the magazine business as he might have drifted into pork or theatres--from purely financial reasons. His literary needs are bounded on the north by a detective story, and on the south by a scientific article. The old masters of literature are as much foolishness to him as the old masters of painting. In short, he is just a common, ignorant man with money invested in a magazine; and who shall blame him if he goes on the principle that he who pays the piper calls the tune. When he starts in he not infrequently begins by entrusting his magazine to some young man with real editorial ability and ambition to make a really good thing. This young man gathers about him a group of kindred spirits, and the result is that after the publication of the second number Mr. Snooks decides to edit the magazine himself, with the aid of a secretary and a few typewriters. His bright young men hadn't understood "what the public wants" at all. They were too high-toned, too "literary." What the public wants is short stories and pictures of actresses; and the short stories, like the actresses, must be no better than they should be. Even short stories when they are masterpieces are not "what the public wants." So the bright young men go into outer darkness, sadly looking for new jobs, and with its third number _Snooks's Monthly_ has fallen into line with the indistinguishable ruck of monthly magazines, only indeed distinguishable one from the other by the euphonious names of their proprietors.

Now, a proprietor's right to have his property managed according to his own ideas needs no emphasizing. The sad thing is that such proprietors should get hold of such property. It all comes, of course, of the modern vulgarization of wealth. Time was when even mere wealth was aristocratic, and its possession, more or less implied in its possessors the possession, too, of refinement and culture. The rich men of the past knew enough to encourage and support the finer arts of life, and were interested in maintaining high standards of public taste and feeling.

Thus they were capable of sparing some of their wealth for investment in objects which brought them a finer kind of reward than the financial.

Among other things, they understood and respected the dignity of literature, and would not have expected an editor to run a literary venture in the interests of the illiterate. The further degradation of the public taste was not then the avowed object of popular magazines.

Indeed--strange as it sounds nowadays--it was rather the education than the degradation of the public taste at which the editor aimed, and in that aim he found the support of intelligent proprietors.

Today, however, all this is changed. Wealth has become democratic, and it is only here and there, in its traditional possessors, that it retains its traditional aristocracy of taste. As the commonest man can be a multi-millionaire, so the commonest man can own a magazine, and have it edited in the commonest fas.h.i.+on for the common good.

As a result, the editor's occupation, in the true sense, will soon be gone. There is, need one say, no lack today of men with real editorial individuality--but editorial individuality is the last thing the capitalist proprietors want. It is just that they are determined to stamp out. Therefore, your real editor must either swallow his pride and submit to ignorant dictation, or make way for the little band of automatic sorters of ma.n.u.script, which, as nine tailors make a man, nowadays const.i.tute a sort of composite editor under the direction of the proprietor.

With the elimination of editorial individuality necessarily follows elimination of individuality in the magazine. More and more, every day, magazines are conforming to the same monotonous type; so that, except for name and cover, it is impossible to tell one magazine from another.

Happily one or two--_rari nantes in gurgito vasto_--survive amid the democratic welter; and all who have at heart not only the interests of literature, but the true interests of the public taste, will pray that they will have the courage to maintain their distinction, unseduced by the moneyed voice of the mob--a distinction to which, after all, they have owed, and will continue to owe, their success. The names of these magazines will readily occur to the reader, and, as they occur, he cannot but reflect that it was just editorial individuality and a high standard of policy that made them what they are, and what, it is ardently to be hoped, they will still continue to be. Plutus and Demos are the worst possible editors for a magazine; and in the end, even, it is the best magazine that always makes the most money.

XII

THE SPIRIT OF THE OPEN

I often think, as I sit here in my green office in the woodland--too often diverted from some serious literary business with the moon or the morning stars, or a red squirrel who is the familiar spirit of my wood-pile, or having my thoughts carried out to sea by the river which runs so freshly and so truantly, with so strong a current of temptation, a hundred yards away from my window--I often think that the strong necessity that compelled me to do my work, to ply my pen and inkpot out here in the leafy, blue-eyed wilderness, instead of doing it by typewriter in some forty-two-storey building in the city, is one of those encouraging signs of the times which links one with the great brotherhood of men and women that have heard the call of the great G.o.d Pan, as he sits by the river--

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!