The Certain Hour (Dizain des Poëtes) Read online

  II

  And this much said, it is permissible to hope, at least, that here andthere some reader may be found not wholly blind to this book's goal,whatever be his opinion as to this book's success in reaching it. Yetmany honest souls there be among us average-novel-readers in whose eyesthis volume must rest content to figure as a collection of shortstories having naught in common beyond the feature that each deals withthe _affaires du coeur_ of a poet.

  Such must always be the book's interpretation by mental indolence. Thefact is incontestable; and this fact in itself may be taken assufficient to establish the inexpediency of publishing _The CertainHour_. For that "people will not buy a volume of short stories" isnotorious to all publishers. To offset the axiom there are no doubtincongruous phenomena--ranging from the continued popularity of theBible to the present general esteem of Mr. Kipling, and embracing therather unaccountable vogue of "O. Henry";--but, none the less, thesuperstition has its force.

  Here intervenes the multifariousness of man, pointed out somewhere byMr. Gilbert Chesterton, which enables the individual to be at once avegetarian, a golfer, a vestryman, a blond, a mammal, a Democrat, andan immortal spirit. As a rational person, one may debonairly consider_The Certain Hour_ possesses as large license to look like a volume ofshort stories as, say, a backgammon-board has to its customary guise ofa two-volume history; but as an average-novel-reader, one must voteotherwise. As an average-novel-reader, one must condemn the very bookwhich, as a seasoned scribbler, one was moved to write through longconsideration of the drama already suggested--that immemorial drama ofthe desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings, and the obscuremartyrdom to which this desire solicits its possessor.

  Now, clearly, the struggle of a special temperament with a fixed forcedoes not forthwith begin another story when the locale of combatshifts. The case is, rather, as when--with certainly an interveningchange of apparel--Pompey fights Caesar at both Dyrrachium andPharsalus, or as when General Grant successively encounters General Leeat the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and Appomattox. Thecombatants remain unchanged, the question at issue is the same, thetragedy has continuity. And even so, from the time of Sire Raimbaut tothat of John Charteris has a special temperament heart-hungrilyconfronted an ageless problem: at what cost now, in this fleet hour ofmy vigor, may one write perfectly of beautiful happenings?

  Thus logic urges, with pathetic futility, inasmuch as weaverage-novel-readers are profoundly indifferent to both logic and goodwriting. And always the fact remains that to the mentally indolentthis book may well seem a volume of disconnected short stories. All ofus being more or less mentally indolent, this possibility constitutes adire fault.

  Three other damning objections will readily obtrude themselves: _TheCertain Hour_ deals with past epochs--beginning before the introductionof dinner-forks, and ending at that remote quaint period when peopleused to waltz and two-step--dead eras in which we average-novel-readersare not interested; _The Certain Hour_ assumes an appreciable amount ofculture and information on its purchaser's part, which weaverage-novel-readers either lack or, else, are unaccustomed to employin connection with reading for pastime; and--in our eyes the crowningmisdemeanor--_The Certain Hour_ is not "vital."

  Having thus candidly confessed these faults committed as the writer ofthis book, it is still possible in human multifariousness to considertheir enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictionalreading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-reader--by arepresentative of that potent class whose preferences dictate thenature and main trend of modern American literature. And to do this,it may be, throws no unsalutary sidelight upon the still-existentproblem: at what cost, now, may one attempt to write perfectly ofbeautiful happenings?