when a play makes a tremendous hit the author is called before the curtain and after bowing and allowing his heart (and his head) to swell more and more, he generously points to the actors and actresses who are grouped around him as much as to say, “they did it.”
and then the audience goes wild at such unselfishness and cries of “speech, speech!” rend the air and the author has arrived at the happiest moment of his life. he feels that all creation was evolved just for this supreme moment and his knees shake and (in a voice surcharged with emotion) he says things that do not read well in print, but which rouse the house to greater enthusiasm, and he wishes that william shakespeare could have lived to see this night, and goes home to dream happy dreams.
sometimes he can’t contain his speech any longer than the end of the third act, and with comparatively little applause, and, it may be, only one solitary call of “author” (from his devoted brother in the front row) he rushes to the footlights and delivers himself of his pent up eloquence. and then perhaps the critics jump on the piece and kill it, and the next day he wishes he hadn’t spoken.
but no dramatic author would think of going out before the gray asbestos curtain had been raised on the overture to say to the cold, sternly critical audience that this was the proudest moment of his life and that he hoped the actors would see their duty and do it. that would be considered assurance.
and yet we writers of—novels—do rush on before the first chapter has been reached and sometimes we tell how it is going to end and sometimes we give the names of the authorities from whom we lifted our central idea, and sometimes we strike an attitude of timid uncertainty and bespeak the indulgence of the reader—but always without response of any kind.
not a hand, not a cry of “author”: nothing but the gray asbestos curtain of silence.
of course there are cases when a book runs into the “six best selling class” and people get into the habit of buying it and the habit is not broken for weeks and weeks; and then, after the twentieth edition is exhausted the author comes out with a “preface to the twenty-first edition,” and as he smells the fragrance of the bouquets that the critics have handsomely handed out and hears the plaudits of those who have thronged to read him he says brokenly, “i thank you. you have raised me from a point where i was living on my brother in the front row to a position where i can take my pick of motor cars” (not automobiles, mind you), “and while i never thought of money while i was writing the book, now i both think and have a good deal of it. thank you! thank you!”
but i, (rather than not come out at all) am going to squeeze before the gray asbestos and say “thank you. critics, readers; gentle and otherwise, i thank you from the bottom of my heart.
“if there is anything good in this book, believe me it is the characters who are responsible for it.
“and let me take this occasion to say that the book would never have been written if i had not been encouraged by one who has the faculty of making a man do his best. she is here to-night, but i am not permitted to mention her.
“i have had great fun writing ‘minerva’s man?uvres,’ and this is really the proudest moment of my life. (cheers.) my heroine, minerva, is a good girl and i can give her a fine character if she should ever seek a place—in your hearts.
“thank you! thank you!”
(curtain goes up.)
c. b. l.
