第43章 A NEW ARRIVAL(3)

"How interesting!But I never heard of Louise Colet.Who was she?

"My man was pleased to gi-ve me a piece of literary information.

"'Louise the lioness!Never heard of her?You have heard of Alphonse Karr?'

"Why,--yes,--more or less.To tell the truth,I am not very well up in French literature.What had he to do with your lioness?

"'A good deal.He satirized her,and she waited at his door with a case-knife in her hand,intending to stick him with it.By and by he came down,smoking a cigarette,and was met by this woman flourishing her case-knife.He took it from her,after getting a cut in his dressing-gown,put it in his pocket,and went on with his cigarette.

He keeps it with an inscription :

Donne a Alphonse Karr Par Madame Louise Colet....

Dans le dos.

Lively little female!'

"I could n't help thinking that I should n't have cared to interview the lively little female.He was evidently tickled with the interest I appeared to take in the story he told me.That made him feel amiably disposed toward me.

"I began with very general questions,but by degrees I got at everything about his family history and the small events of his boyhood.Some of the points touched upon were delicate,but I put a good bold face on my most audacious questions,and so I wormed out a great deal that was new concerning my subject.He had been written about considerably,and the public wouldn't have been satisfied without some new facts;and these I meant to have,and I got.No matter about many of them now,but here are some questions and answers that may be thought worth reading or listening to:

"How do you enjoy being what they call 'a celebrity,'or a celebrated man?

"'So far as one's vanity is concerned it is well enough.But self-love is a cup without any bottom,and you might pour the Great Lakes all through it,and never fill it up.It breeds an appetite for more of the same kind.It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism.It generates a craving for high-seasoned personalities which is in danger of becoming slavery,like that following the abuse of alcohol,or opium,or tobacco.Think of a man's having every day,by every post,letters that tell him he is this and that and the other,with epithets and endearments,one tenth part of which would have made him blush red hot before he began to be what you call a celebrity!'

"Are there not some special inconveniences connected with what is called celebrity?

"'I should think so!Suppose you were obliged every day of your life to stand and shake hands,as the President of the United States has to after his inauguration:how do you think your hand would feel after a few months'practice of that exercise?Suppose you had given you thirty-five millions of money a year,in hundred-dollar coupons,on condition that you cut them all off yourself in the usual manner:

how do you think you should like the look of a pair of scissors at the end of a year,in which you had worked ten hours a day every day but Sunday,cutting off a hundred coupons an hour,and found you had not finished your task,after all?Yon have addressed me as what you are pleased to call "a literary celebrity."I won't dispute with you as to whether or not I deserve that title.I will take it for granted I am what you call me,and give you some few hints on my experience.

"'You know there was formed a while ago an Association of Authors for Self-Protection.It meant well,and it was hoped that something would come of it in the way of relieving that oppressed class,but Iam sorry to say that it has not effected its purpose.'

"I suspected he had a hand in drawing up the Constitution and Laws of that Association.Yes,I said,an admirable Association it was,and as much needed as the one for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

I am sorry to hear that it has not proved effectual in putting a stop to the abuse of a deserving class of men.It ought to have done it;it was well conceived,and its public manifesto was a masterpiece.

(I saw by his expression that he was its author.)"'I see I can trust you,'he said.'I will unbosom myself freely of some of the grievances attaching to the position of the individual to whom you have applied the term "Literary Celebrity.""'He is supposed to be a millionaire,in virtue of the immense sales of his books,all the money from which,it is taken for granted,goes into his pocket.Consequently,all subscription papers are handed to him for his signature,and every needy stranger who has heard his name comes to him for assistance.

"'He is expected to subscribe for all periodicals,and is goaded by receiving blank formulae,which,with their promises to pay,he is expected to fill up.

"'He receives two or three books daily,with requests to read and give his opinion about each of them,which opinion,if it has a word which can be used as an advertisement,he will find quoted in all the newspapers.

"'He receives thick masses of manuscript,prose and verse,which he is called upon to examine and pronounce on their merits;these manuscripts having almost invariably been rejected by the editors to whom they have been sent,and having as a rule no literary value whatever.

"'He is expected to sign petitions,to contribute to journals,to write for fairs,to attend celebrations,to make after-dinner speeches,to send money for objects he does not believe in to places he never heard of.

"'He is called on to keep up correspondences with unknown admirers,who begin by saying they have no claim upon his time,and then appropriate it by writing page after page,if of the male sex;and sheet after sheet,if of the other.