 | I. One Week an Editor |  |
1. I.
TO preach a sermon or edit a newspaper were the two things in life which I always felt I could do with credit to myself and benefit to the world, if I only had the chance. As a lawyer I knew I had not been a success; as a member of society I weighed little weight; as librarian for the Antiquarian Society I was but a drudge, earning bread and meat; my one chance, I was assured, lay in the pulpit or editor's desk. The chance was slow in coming. Clergymen in even the broadest of churches are not apt to open their pulpits to lay old bachelors. Years ago I lobbied in one newspaper office and another through New York to get a footing as manager, city or financial editor, or even reporter; my friends pushed me as a young man of "fine literary tastes," but all to no purpose.
"We don't want fine literary tastes," growled one chief after another. "We want a man who knows the business. Mr. Cibber may have fine taste for his dinner, but it does not follow that he can cook it until he has learned how to roast and boil."
"Journalism, I perceive," I said to my friend Craik one day, in talking over my old rebuffs, "must be studied as an art; as one would study medicine, law, cabinet-making."
"So far as newspapers are concerned, probably you are right; but—" he paused, nibbling the ends of his moustache and eying me thoughtfully. Now, Craik was the editor of the New York "Northern Light"; and Craik, I saw, felt for my disappointment.
"But—" he said dubiously again. My heart or my windpipe swelled in my throat. "I don't know that a particular training would be needed for a monthly magazine like ours. Good common sense, and business tact, and a—your literary taste is fine, eh, Cibber? Well, now," recklessly hitching his chair closer, "what do you say to running the 'Northern Light' for a month? One number, you see? It's too bad you should be cheated always of your whim." Craik was a sanguine fellow; nothing could be heartier than the laugh on his fat cheeks, but there was an uneasy gravity already in his black eyes above them. His generosity had taken the bit in its mouth, but his judgment was in hot pursuit after it. I ought to have come to his help. But the chance—the chance! Had I not been waiting for it all my life? Besides, I knew I could do better with the magazine than Craik, who accepted half the trash that came to him because he never had learned to say no.
"Much obliged," I said as coolly as was possible; "I'll do what I can for you. When did you—"
"Well, it was a hasty idea. We'll talk it over. But I really think it might answer. I want to take my wife for a run over the Pacific road in August, and that's the time to get up the November number. I might trust it to you, Cibber—with instructions. That number is of little importance at any rate," half to himself. "The first months decided the race for the year, against our rival magazines."
This was not flattering, to be sure. But what did Craik know of my editorial ability? When he saw the November number he would tune his pipes to a different key. The matter was decided then and there. Craik went off with a droop in his back and a sagging of his heavy cheeks, and his cigar quite gone out in his mouth, precisely as though a weight had been laid on his shoulders. For me, I walked up Broadway as though I had Mercury's wings on my boot-heels. I am not what is called a leaky fellow about my personal affairs, yet when I was seated at Mrs. Butterworth's well-lighted, genial board that evening, I could not help dropping a hint of my good fortune, in a careless way, to my next neighbor. There being a pause, the information was heard by every one at the table. Mrs. Butterworth's house is in one of the most exclusive of neighborhoods, and her boarders are all, according to her showing, of blue blood in the world of society or literature; I was assured, therefore, that my confidence was not misplaced.
My next neighbor happened to be little Susan Fleming. When she heard the news she laid down her fork and turned to me:
"But now I am glad! Glad for thee and for the magazine!" holding out her hand.
A hearty, frank manner draws me to man or woman as no beauty or intellect can do; but now, in this fair, fine little creature just out of childhood, it somehow suddenly set me and my task apart from common work, and ennobled us both. I had been amused all winter by watching how Miss Fleming mistook every one who came near her for better men and women than they were, and how they invariably tried for the time to make real her fancy of them. She was a very young girl, the orphan daughter of Isaac Fleming of Philadelphia, long known as a notable preacher among the Friends. The child, after she was left alone in the world, fancied she had a vocation for art, and had come to New York to learn modelling in clay. Everybody in the house knew her Quaker origin, and accounted by it for her manner, which was innocent and fearless as a child's. But I happened to have been an old friend of Isaac Fleming's, and to know one or two other facts about his daughter, which for the present I kept carefully to myself. There were two or three rare and precious specimens of young ladyhood in the house; with manners ruled to order; stately, or brilliant, or gracious at the proper seasons and to the proper people—just as they dressed with fine simplicity for breakfast and lavish display for dinner. They were guarded and duennaed at every step by mothers and governesses and maids; but poor little Susy, with her fair curly hair and night-blue eyes, went in and out alone, shut in from us all by a certain unmistakable royalty of youth and innocence.
She was waiting for me when I came out. "The 'Northern Light's' is the office where Hugh Blake is employed as book-keeper?" she asked.
I said yes, sorry that she had asked the question. A month or two ago she would not have asked it. The mere mention of Blake's name would have paralyzed her tongue and dyed her pretty pale cheeks red. Now the pink on them was faint as a plum blossom, and her voice was quite steady.
Yes, I repeated with emphasis, and that I was quite sure the office had no man in its employ so patient or thorough, or sure to rise in the long run. Scotch blood told there.
She agreed with me; was very cordial and frank about it; altogether too cordial and frank. Mr. Digby, she said—and then the maidenly pink fled and the hot blood rushed up—Mr. Digby was warm in his commendation of Hugh Blake. He had met few young men in this country with such plain, practical force or good working qualities.
Now Digby was the soul of generosity. I should have suspected any other man of damning her lover with faint praise for a purpose to Susy Fleming—it somehow placed poor Hugh, who was a trifle dull, in such forcible contrast to Digby himself, with his broad cosmopolitan habit of thought and brilliant heats and fervors.
"Digby means well, no doubt," I replied testily. "But he need not have limited Blake's good points to those of a Norman draught-horse."
Just then we heard Digby coming up from dinner trolling out "The Fair Land of Poland." His magnificent tenor filled the house. Miss Fleming forgot to answer me; she busied herself over her crochet, but in ten minutes I saw did not take a stitch.
So that was the end of Hugh Blake's plans! Hugh was dull in manners, as I said; an insignificant-looking fellow too, beside Digby—short and stout, with light hair and eyes, and usually dressed in cheap shop-clothes. Nobody but his old mother, who was dead now, and myself, probably, knew the tenderness and stern integrity hidden under the cheap clothes and commonplace face. He never gave me his confidence in words; but I knew how he had been doing night-work for a year or two past to buy the flowers and concert tickets with which he paid his quiet suit to Susy. I understood perfectly well what those anxious queries meant with which he persecuted me as to the rent of dwelling-houses in Flushing or Newark, the cost of marketing, servants' wages, etc. Poor Hugh was solving the problem of how he could ask the woman he loved to share his fifteen hundred dollars per annum. A knight in old time won his mistress by carrying her colors on his victorious lance against swart Turk or turbaned Moor, but now he has
After Digby came to board at the house, Hugh's quiet visits grew more quiet; he was content apparently to sit and listen to his rival, laughing good-humoredly at his jokes, and giving keen attention to his recollections. No wonder the book-keeper with his pittance, whose mother was a milliner and who had never been out of New York, should fade into obscurity beside this Englishman, with his background of noble family, university education, and a life of strange adventure in all parts of the world. Added to this, and crowning all in Susy's eyes, Digby was a clergyman, though without a charge in the Church of England.
"It was a mistake in me ever to put on the cloth," he used to say in his dashing, frank way—"almost as fatal a mistake as Swift's. I have been too much one of Fortune's spoiled children. But I try not to disgrace it."
"What does it matter," Susy said warmly, "that he has no church to preach in? The whole world can then be his parish. He teaches courage and cheerfulness wherever he goes."
Digby, coming into the room, was as cordial and eager about my good luck as though I had fallen heir to a million. He shook both my hands, looking down on me radiantly from his brawny six-feet-two. "I know it's but for a month," when I tried to explain. "But it's the opportunity you've waited for all your life! It's the opening crack for the wedge! Use it as you can, Cibber, and you will become a power in the world of literature."
"I'm quite new to the business," I stammered awkwardly. Digby's breadth and height and heat always took the breath out of my mouth and made me feel dry and dull.
"Very likely. What of that? I know absolutely nothing of literary work or workers, or I should be glad to give you any help possible. At home, I met Thackeray and Jerrold occasionally at the club, but I know no authors here. But think of the chances for good to be done! Think of preaching to an audience of fifty or a hundred thousand people! Why, you will want to distil the wisdom of your whole life into that one sermon!"
He looked so noble and enthusiastic, with the gray eyes beaming and the gas-light touching the masses of his red hair, that I was ashamed of the sordid view I had hitherto taken of my chance.
"If you would preach the sermon, Mr. Digby!" said good Mrs. Chandler, who sat tatting in her regulation black seeded silk and rows of white curls.
"I shall be glad to share my desk with you," I said with a feeble laugh.
"I? I write for the press!" He laughed, but neither accepted nor declined the offer. The truth was I began already to be perplexed to despair about that very editorial which I had been waiting all my life to write. I felt like Phaëthon when he had Apollo's reins at last in his grip. I had a complete creed of my own on the speculative and positive philosophies, and another, quite original, on the religion of Buddha, of all of which the world ought to have the benefit. But how condense them into a page of brevier? Besides, were editorials usually of that profound and heavy character? Might not Digby help to popularize my wisdom? to give sauce, piquancy, flavor, to my ragout?
One after another of the boarders had joined the group about him, but he remained close to Susy's chair.
"Cibber, I see, hesitates about mounting the editorial tripod because it is not his work," he said. "Now my rule is, let a man be himself always, simply and solely, in spite of circumstances, and circumstances will accommodate themselves to him. After I returned from Polynesia (I was missionary at Tahiti for several years, Miss Fleming, and of course dressed to suit the climate), I found it impossible to sleep in-doors, or to wear shoes and stockings—utterly impossible! I shall never forget the astonishment and horror of the rector of one of the largest churches in London when I insisted on preaching barefooted. I could not have preached otherwise. Shoes cramped not only my feet, but my brain and tongue. I had my own way at last, and the effect upon the audience was tremendous! They comprehended the situation at once. That stroke of nature made the West End men and women and the poor Tahitians kin, eh? Now, Cibber, do you go into your pulpit as I did into mine; be yourself—throw off conventionality,
Digby's hearers looked and smiled applause as usual. Unconventionality was always a favorite enthusiasm with our fashionable party, especially when preached by Digby. His suit of white linen this evening, lightened by rare and unobtrusive antique jewelry, was immaculate in cut and fit; and no man in New York was better posted in the by-laws of etiquette wherein their souls delighted.
I could not decide whether the Polynesian story was eloquence or claptrap. I did decide, however, that Digby's help would be essential in my undertaking, and taking him aside that evening asked him to write one or two short articles descriptive of life in the South seas, and an essay on the condition of the English church. "You may send a poem if you will, too," I added, "and I will consult you on the editorial pages."
"But, Cibber—really—I am absolutely ignorant as to authorship," he stammered. "You overwhelm me with your confidence." He could not see, as I did, that he had precisely the culture, the aplomb that I lacked, besides entire freshness in the literary work; and so modest was he that it was a long time before I could secure his promise of aid.
| I. One Week an Editor | |