opposed? Ha!
ha!’
Gradually he had passed from quiet appreciation of the joke to undisguised mirth and pleasure. His utterance of the name ‘Mr Fadge’ sufficiently intimated that he had some cause of personal discontent with the editor of The Study.
‘The author,’ remarked Milvain, ‘ought to make a good thing out of this.’
‘Will, no doubt. Ought to write at once to the papers, calling attention to this sample of critical impartiality. Ha! ha!’
He rose and went to the window, where for several minutes he stood gazing at vacancy, the same grim smile still on his face. Jasper in the meantime amused the ladies (his sisters had heard him on the subject already) with a description of the two antagonistic notices. But he did not trust himself to express so freely as he had done at home his opinion of reviewing in general; it was more than probable that both Yule and his daughter did a good deal of such work.
‘Suppose we go into the garden,’ suggested Miss Harrow, presently. ‘It seems a shame to sit indoors on such a lovely afternoon.’
Hitherto there had been no mention of the master of the house. But Mr Yule now remarked to Jasper:
‘My brother would be glad if you would come and have a word with him. He isn’t quite well enough to leave his room to-day.’
So, as the ladies went gardenwards, Jasper followed the man of letters upstairs to a room on the first floor. Here, in a deep cane chair, which was placed by the open window, sat John Yule. He was completely dressed, save that instead of coat he wore a dressing-gown. The facial likeness between him and his brother was very strong, but John’s would universally have been judged the finer countenance; illness notwithstanding, he had a complexion which contrasted in its pure colour with Alfred’s parchmenty skin, and there was more finish about his features. His abundant hair was reddish, his long moustache and trimmed beard a lighter shade of the same hue.
‘So you too are in league with the doctors,’ was his bluff greeting, as he held a hand to the young man and inspected him with a look of slighting good-nature.
‘Well, that certainly is one way of regarding the literary profession,’ admitted Jasper, who had heard enough of John’s way of thinking to understand the remark.
‘A young fellow with all the world before him, too. Hang it, Mr Milvain, is there no less pernicious work you can turn your hand to?’
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Yule. After all, you know, you must be held in a measure responsible for my depravity.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I understand that you have devoted most of your life to the making of paper. If that article were not so cheap and so abundant, people wouldn’t have so much temptation to scribble.’
Alfred Yule uttered a short laugh.
‘I think you are cornered, John.’
‘I wish,’ answered John, ‘that you were both condemned to write on such paper as I chiefly made; it was a special kind of whitey-brown, used by shopkeepers.’
He chuckled inwardly, and at the same time reached out for a box of cigarettes on a table near him. His brother and Jasper each took one as he offered them, and began to smoke.
‘You would like to see literary production come entirely to an end?’ said Milvain.
‘I should like to see the business of literature abolished.’
‘There’s a distinction, of course. But, on the whole, I should say that even the business serves a good purpose.’
‘What purpose?’
‘It helps to spread civilisation.’
‘Civilisation!’ exclaimed John, scornfully. ‘What do you mean by civilisation? Do you call it civilising men to make them weak, flabby creatures, with ruined eyes and dyspeptic stomachs? Who is it that reads most of the stuff that’s poured out daily by the ton from the printing-press? Just the men and women who ought to spend their leisure hours in open-air exercise; the people who earn their bread by sedentary pursuits, and who need to live as soon as they are free from the desk or the counter, not to moon over small print. Your Board schools, your popular press, your spread of education! Machinery for ruining the country, that’s what I call it.’
‘You have done a good deal, I think, to counteract those influences in Wattleborough.’
‘I hope so; and if only I had kept the use of my limbs I’d have done a good deal more. I have an idea of offering substantial prizes to men and women engaged in sedentary work who take an oath to abstain from all reading, and keep it for a certain number of years. There’s a good deal more need for that than for abstinence from strong liquor. If I could have had my way I would have revived prize-fighting.’
His brother laughed with contemptuous impatience.
‘You would doubtless like to see military conscription introduced into England?’ said Jasper.
‘Of course I should! You talk of civilising; there’s no such way of civilising the masses of the people as by fixed military service. Before mental training must come training of the body. Go about the Continent, and see the effect of military service on loutish peasants and the lowest classes of town population. Do you know why it isn’t even more successful? Because the damnable education movement interferes. If Germany would shut up her schools and universities for the next quarter of a century and go ahead like blazes with military training there’d be a nation such as the world has never seen. After that, they might begin a little book-teaching again—say an hour and a half a day for everyone above nine years old. Do you suppose, Mr Milvain, that society is going to be reformed by you people who write for money? Why, you are the very first class that will be swept from the face of the earth as soon as the reformation really begins!’
