LITMIR.BIZ

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himself out in this one book? — that he’ll never be able to write another?”

      “No. I think nothing of the sort. I can’t say, of course. They may kill him, as they often do ——”

      “(God, what a gloomy Gus the fellow is!)”

      “— but on the basis of this book, I should say there’s no danger of his running dry. He should have fifty books in him.”

      “But —(Good Lord! What is the catch?)— but then you mean you don’t think it’s time for such a book as this in America yet?”

      “No, I don’t mean that. I think it is time.”

      “Why?”

      “Because it has happened. Iris always time when it happens.”

      “But some of our best critics say it’s not time.”

      “I know they do. However, they are wrong. It is simply not their time, that’s all.”

      “How do you mean?”

      “I mean, their time is critic’s time. The book is creator’s time. The two times are not the same.”

      “You think, then, that the critics are behind the time?”

      “They are behind creator’s time, yes.”

      “Then they may not see this book as the work of genius which you say it is. Do you think they will?”

      “I can’t say. Perhaps not. However, it doesn’t matter.”

      “Doesn’t matter! Why, what do you mean?”

      “I mean that the thing is good, and cannot be destroyed. Therefore it doesn’t matter what anyone says.”

      “Then — Good Lord, Hauser! — if what you say is true, we’ve made a great discovery!”

      “I think you have. Yes.”

      “But — but — is that all you have to say?”

      “I think so, yes. What else is there to say?”

      Baffled: “Nothing — only, I should think you would be excited about it!” Then, completely defeated and resigned: “Oh, all right! All right, Hauser! Thanks very much!”

      The people at Rodney’s couldn’t understand it. They didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, they had given up trying, all except Fox Edwards — and Fox would never give up trying to understand anything. Fox still came by Hauser’s office — his little cell — and looked in on him. Fox’s old grey hat would be pushed back on his head, for he never took it off when he worked, and there would be a look of troubled wonder in his sea-pale eyes as he bent over and stooped and craned and stared at Hauser, as if he were regarding for the first time some fantastic monster from the marine jungles of the ocean. Then he would turn and walk away, hands hanging to his coat lapels, and in his eyes there would be a look of utter astonishment.

      Fox couldn’t understand it yet. As for Hauser himself, he had no answers, nothing to tell them.

      It was not until George Webber had become well acquainted with both men that be began to penetrate the mystery. Foxhall Edwards and Otto Hauser — to know them both, to see them working in the same office, each in his own way, was to understand them both as perhaps neither could have been understood completely by himself. Each man, by being what he was, revealed to George the secret springs of character which had made the two of them so much alike — and so utterly different.

      There may have been a time when an intense and steady flame had been alive in the quiet depths of Otto Hauser’s spirit. But that was before he knew what it was like to be a great editor. Now he had seen it for himself, and he wanted none of it. For ten years he had watched Fox Edwards, and he well knew what was needed: the pure flame living in the midst of darkness; the constant, quiet, and relentless effort of the will to accomplish what the pure flame burned for, what the spirit knew; the unspoken agony of that constant effort as it fought to win through to its clear purpose and somehow to subdue the world’s blind and brutal force of ignorance, hostility, prejudice, and intolerance which were opposed to it — the fools of age, the fools of prudery, the fools of genteelness, fogyism, and nice-Nellyism, the fools of bigotry, Philistinism, jealousy, and envy, and, worst of all, the utter, sheer damn fools of nature!

      Oh, to burn so, so to be consumed, exhausted, spent by the passion of this constant flame! And for what? For what? And why? Because some obscure kid from Tennessee, some tenant farmer’s son from Georgia, or some country doctor’s boy in North Dakota — untitled, unpedigreed, unhallowed by fools’ standards — had been touched with genius, and so had striven to give a tongue to the high passion of his loneliness, to wrest from his locked spirit his soul’s language and a portion of the tongue of his unuttered brothers, to find a channel in the blind immensity of this harsh land for the pent tides of his creation, and to make, perhaps, in this howling wilderness of life some carving and some dwelling of his own — all this before the world’s fool-bigotry, fool-ignorance, fool-cowardice, fool-faddism, fool-mockery, fool-stylism, and fool-hatred for anyone who was not corrupted, beaten, and a fool had either quenched the hot, burning passion with ridicule, contempt, denial, and oblivion, or else corrupted the strong will with the pollutions of fool-success. It was for this that such as Fox must burn and suffer — to keep that flame’ of agony alive in the spirit of some inspired and stricken boy until the world of fools had taken it into their custody, and betrayed it!

      Otto Hauser had seen it all.

      And in the end what was the reward for such a one as Fox? To achieve the lonely and unhoped-for victories one by one, and to see the very fools who had denied them acclaim them as their own. To lapse again to search, to silence, and to waiting while fools greedily pocketed as their own the coin of one man’s spirit, proudly hailed as their discovery the treasure of another’s exploration, loudly celebrated their own vision as they took unto themselves the fulfilment of another’s prophecy. Ah, the heart must break at last — the heart of Fox, as well as the heart of genius, the lost boy; the frail, small heart of man must falter, stop at last from beating; but the heart of folly would beat on for ever.

      So Otto Hauser would have none of it. He would grow hot over nothing. He would try to see the truth for himself, and let it go at that.

      This was Otto Hauser as George came to know him. In the confidence of friendship Otto held up a mirror to his own soul, affording a clear, unposed reflection of his quiet, unassuming, and baffling integrity; but in the same mirror he also revealed, without quite being aware of it, the stronger and more shining image of Fox Edwards.

      George knew how fortunate he was to have as his editor a man like Fox. And as time went on, and his respect and admiration for the older man warmed to deep affection, he realized that Fox had become for him much more than editor and friend. Little by little it seemed to George that he had found in Fox the father he had lost and had long been looking for. And so it was that Fox became a second father to him — the father of his spirit.

      3. The Microscopic Gentleman from Japan

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      In the old house where George lived that year Mr. Katamoto occupied the ground floor just below him, and in a little while they got to know each other very well. It might be said that their friendship began in mystification and went on to a state of security and staunch understanding.

      Not that Mr. Katamoto ever forgave George when he erred. He was always instantly ready to inform him that he had taken a false step again (the word is used advisedly), but he was so infinitely patient, so unflaggingly hopeful of George’s improvement, so unfailingly good-natured and courteous, that no one could possibly have been angry or failed to try to mend his ways. What saved the situation was Katamoto’s gleeful, childlike sense of humour. He was one of those microscopic gentlemen from Japan, scarcely five

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