New Grub Street. George Gissing

Don’t refuse it!’

      ‘But I have done nothing of the kind.’

      ‘You begin to speak very coldly. And I understand your feeling of disappointment. The mere fact of your urging me to do anything that will sell is a proof of bitter disappointment. You would have looked with scorn at anyone who talked to me like that two years ago. You were proud of me because my work wasn’t altogether common, and because I had never written a line that was meant to attract the vulgar. All that’s over now. If you knew how dreadful it is to see that you have lost your hopes of me!’

      ‘Well, but I haven’t — altogether,’ Amy replied, meditatively. ‘I know very well that, if you had a lot of money, you would do better things than ever.’

      ‘Thank you a thousand times for saying that, my dearest.’

      ‘But, you see, we haven’t money, and there’s little chance of our getting any. That scrubby old uncle won’t leave anything to us; I feel too sure of it. I often feel disposed to go and beg him on my knees to think of us in his will.’ She laughed. ‘I suppose it’s impossible, and would be useless; but I should be capable of it if I knew it would bring money.’

      Reardon said nothing.

      ‘I didn’t think so much of money when we were married,’ Amy continued. ‘I had never seriously felt the want of it, you know. I did think — there’s no harm in confessing it — that you were sure to be rich some day; but I should have married you all the same if I had known that you would win only reputation.’

      ‘You are sure of that?’

      ‘Well, I think so. But I know the value of money better now. I know it is the most powerful thing in the world. If I had to choose between a glorious reputation with poverty and a contemptible popularity with wealth, I should choose the latter.’

      ‘No!’

      ‘I should.’

      ‘Perhaps you are right.’

      He turned away with a sigh.

      ‘Yes, you are right. What is reputation? If it is deserved, it originates with a few score of people among the many millions who would never have recognised the merit they at last applaud. That’s the lot of a great genius. As for a mediocrity like me — what ludicrous absurdity to fret myself in the hope that half-a-dozen folks will say I am “above the average!” After all, is there sillier vanity than this? A year after I have published my last book, I shall be practically forgotten; ten years later, I shall be as absolutely forgotten as one of those novelists of the early part of this century, whose names one doesn’t even recognise. What fatuous posing!’

      Amy looked askance at him, but replied nothing.

      ‘And yet,’ he continued, ‘of course it isn’t only for the sake of reputation that one tries to do uncommon work. There’s the shrinking from conscious insincerity of workmanship — which most of the writers nowadays seem never to feel. “It’s good enough for the market”; that satisfies them. And perhaps they are justified.

      I can’t pretend that I rule my life by absolute ideals; I admit that everything is relative. There is no such thing as goodness or badness, in the absolute sense, of course. Perhaps I am absurdly inconsistent when — though knowing my work can’t be first rate — I strive to make it as good as possible. I don’t say this in irony, Amy; I really mean it. It may very well be that I am just as foolish as the people I ridicule for moral and religious superstition. This habit of mine is superstitious. How well I can imagine the answer of some popular novelist if he heard me speak scornfully of his books. “My dear fellow,” he might say, “do you suppose I am not aware that my books are rubbish? I know it just as well as you do. But my vocation is to live comfortably. I have a luxurious house, a wife and children who are happy and grateful to me for their happiness. If you choose to live in a garret, and, what’s worse, make your wife and children share it with you, that’s your concern.” The man would be abundantly right.’

      ‘But,’ said Amy, ‘why should you assume that his books are rubbish? Good work succeeds — now and then.’

      ‘I speak of the common kind of success, which is never due to literary merit. And if I speak bitterly, well, I am suffering from my powerlessness. I am a failure, my poor girl, and it isn’t easy for me to look with charity on the success of men who deserved it far less than I did, when I was still able to work.’

      ‘Of course, Edwin, if you make up your mind that you are a failure, you will end by being so. But I’m convinced there’s no reason that you should fail to make a living with your pen. Now let me advise you; put aside all your strict ideas about what is worthy and what is unworthy, and just act upon my advice. It’s impossible for you to write a three-volume novel; very well, then do a short story of a kind that’s likely to be popular. You know Mr Milvain is always saying that the long novel has had its day, and that in future people will write shilling books. Why not try?

      Give yourself a week to invent a sensational plot, and then a fortnight for the writing. Have it ready for the new season at the end of October. If you like, don’t put your name to it; your name certainly would have no weight with this sort of public. Just make it a matter of business, as Mr Milvain says, and see if you can’t earn some money.’

      He stood and regarded her. His expression was one of pained perplexity.

      ‘You mustn’t forget, Amy, that it needs a particular kind of faculty to write stories of this sort. The invention of a plot is just the thing I find most difficult.’

      ‘But the plot may be as silly as you like, providing it holds the attention of vulgar readers. Think of “The Hollow Statue”, what could be more idiotic? Yet it sells by thousands.’

      ‘I don’t think I can bring myself to that,’ Reardon said, in a low voice.

      ‘Very well, then will you tell me what you propose to do?’

      ‘I might perhaps manage a novel in two volumes, instead of three.’

      He seated himself at the writing-table, and stared at the blank sheets of paper in an anguish of hopelessness.

      ‘It will take you till Christmas,’ said Amy, ‘and then you will get perhaps fifty pounds for it.’

      ‘I must do my best. I’ll go out and try to get some ideas. I— ’

      He broke off and looked steadily at his wife.

      ‘What is it?’ she asked.

      ‘Suppose I were to propose to you to leave this flat and take cheaper rooms?’

      He uttered it in a shamefaced way, his eyes falling. Amy kept silence.

      ‘We might sublet it,’ he continued, in the same tone, ‘for the last year of the lease.’

      ‘And where do you propose to live?’ Amy inquired, coldly.

      ‘There’s no need to be in such a dear neighbourhood. We could go to one of the outer districts. One might find three unfurnished rooms for about eight-and-sixpence a week — less than half our rent here.’

      ‘You must do as seems good to you.’

      ‘For Heaven’s sake, Amy, don’t speak to me in that way! I can’t stand that! Surely you can see that I am driven to think of every possible resource. To speak like that is to abandon me. Say you can’t or won’t do it, but don’t treat me as if you had no share in my miseries!’

      She was touched for the moment.

      ‘I didn’t mean to speak unkindly, dear. But think what it means, to give up our home and position. That is open confession of failure. It would be horrible.’

      ‘I won’t think of it. I have three months before Christmas, and I will finish a book!’

      ‘I really can’t see why you shouldn’t. Just do a certain number of pages every day. Good or bad, never mind; let the pages be finished. Now you have got two