LITMIR.BIZ

      During the last six weeks Lady Carbury had lived a life of very mixed depression and elevation. Her great work had come out — the ‘Criminal Queens,’— and had been very widely reviewed. In this matter it had been by no means all pleasure, inasmuch as many very hard words had been said of her. In spite of the dear friendship between herself and Mr Alf, one of Mr Alf’s most sharp-nailed subordinates had been set upon her book, and had pulled it to pieces with almost rabid malignity. One would have thought that so slight a thing could hardly have been worthy of such protracted attention. Error after error was laid bare with merciless prolixity. No doubt the writer of the article must have had all history at his finger-ends, as in pointing out the various mistakes made he always spoke of the historical facts which had been misquoted, misdated, or misrepresented, as being familiar in all their bearings to every schoolboy of twelve years old. The writer of the criticism never suggested the idea that he himself, having been fully provided with books of reference, and having learned the art of finding in them what he wanted at a moment’s notice, had, as he went on with his work, checked off the blunders without any more permanent knowledge of his own than a housekeeper has of coals when she counts so many sacks into the coal-cellar. He spoke of the parentage of one wicked ancient lady, and the dates of the frailties of another, with an assurance intended to show that an exact knowledge of all these details abided with him always. He must have been a man of vast and varied erudition, and his name was Jones. The world knew him not, but his erudition was always there at the command of Mr Alf — and his cruelty. The greatness of Mr Alf consisted in this, that he always had a Mr Jones or two ready to do his work for him. It was a great business, this of Mr Alf’s, for he had his Jones also for philology, for science, for poetry, for politics, as well as for history, and one special Jones, extraordinarily accurate and very well posted up in his references, entirely devoted to the Elizabethan drama.

      There is the review intended to sell a book — which comes out immediately after the appearance of the book, or sometimes before it; the review which gives reputation, but does not affect the sale, and which comes a little later; the review which snuffs a book out quietly; the review which is to raise or lower the author a single peg, or two pegs, as the case may be; the review which is suddenly to make an author, and the review which is to crush him. An exuberant Jones has been known before now to declare aloud that he would crush a man, and a self-confident Jones has been known to declare that he has accomplished the deed. Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most popular, as being the most readable. When the rumour goes abroad that some notable man has been actually crushed — been positively driven over by an entire Juggernaut’s car of criticism till his literary body be a mere amorphous mass — then a real success has been achieved, and the Alf of the day has done a great thing; but even the crushing of a poor Lady Carbury, if it be absolute, is effective. Such a review will not make all the world call for the ‘Evening Pulpit’, but it will cause those who do take the paper to be satisfied with their bargain. Whenever the circulation of such a paper begins to slacken, the proprietors should, as a matter of course, admonish their Alf to add a little power to the crushing department.

      Lady Carbury had been crushed by the ‘Evening Pulpit.’ We may fancy that it was easy work, and that Mr Alf’s historical Mr Jones was not forced to fatigue himself by the handling of many books of reference. The errors did lie a little near the surface; and the whole scheme of the work, with its pandering to bad tastes by pretended revelations of frequently fabulous crime, was reprobated in Mr Jones’s very best manner. But the poor authoress, though utterly crushed, and reduced to little more than literary pulp for an hour or two, was not destroyed. On the following morning she went to her publishers, and was closeted for half an hour with the senior partner, Mr Leadham. ‘I’ve got it all in black and white,’ she said, full of the wrong which had been done her, ‘and can prove him to be wrong. It was in 1522 that the man first came to Paris, and he couldn’t have been her lover before that. I got it all out of the “Biographie Universelle.” I’ll write to Mr Alf myself — a letter to be published, you know.’

      ‘Pray don’t do anything of the kind, Lady Carbury.’

      ‘I can prove that I’m right.’

      ‘And they can prove that you’re wrong.’

      ‘I’ve got all the facts — and the figures.’

      Mr Leadham did not care a straw for facts or figures — had no opinion of his own whether the lady or the reviewer were right; but he knew very well that the ‘Evening Pulpit’ would surely get the better of any mere author in such a contention. ‘Never

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