New Grub Street, George Gissing [10 best books of all time TXT] 📗

come plump on to the floor, if I don’t mind. My word, what a day I have had! I’ve just been trying what I really could do in one day if I worked my hardest. Now just listen; it deserves to be chronicled for the encouragement of aspiring youth. I got up at 7:30, and whilst I breakfasted I read through a volume I had to review. By 10:30 the review was written⁠—three-quarters of a column of the Evening Budget.”

“Who is the unfortunate author?” interrupted Maud, caustically.

“Not unfortunate at all. I had to crack him up; otherwise I couldn’t have done the job so quickly. It’s the easiest thing in the world to write laudation; only an inexperienced grumbler would declare it was easier to find fault. The book was Billington’s ‘Vagaries’; pompous idiocy, of course, but he lives in a big house and gives dinners. Well, from 10:30 to 11, I smoked a cigar and reflected, feeling that the day wasn’t badly begun. At eleven I was ready to write my Saturday causerie for the Will-o’-the-Wisp; it took me till close upon one o’clock, which was rather too long. I can’t afford more than an hour and a half for that job. At one, I rushed out to a dirty little eating-house in Hampstead Road. Was back again by a quarter to two, having in the meantime sketched a paper for The West End. Pipe in mouth, I sat down to leisurely artistic work; by five, half the paper was done; the other half remains for tomorrow. From five to half-past I read four newspapers and two magazines, and from half-past to a quarter to six I jotted down several ideas that had come to me whilst reading. At six I was again in the dirty eating-house, satisfying a ferocious hunger. Home once more at 6:45, and for two hours wrote steadily at a long affair I have in hand for The Current. Then I came here, thinking hard all the way. What say you to this? Have I earned a night’s repose?”

“And what’s the value of it all?” asked Maud.

“Probably from ten to twelve guineas, if I calculated.”

“I meant, what was the literary value of it?” said his sister, with a smile.

“Equal to that of the contents of a mouldy nut.”

“Pretty much what I thought.”

“Oh, but it answers the purpose,” urged Dora, “and it does no one any harm.”

“Honest journey-work!” cried Jasper. “There are few men in London capable of such a feat. Many a fellow could write more in quantity, but they couldn’t command my market. It’s rubbish, but rubbish of a very special kind, of fine quality.”

Marian had not yet spoken, save a word or two in reply to Jasper’s greeting; now and then she just glanced at him, but for the most part her eyes were cast down. Now Jasper addressed her.

“A year ago, Miss Yule, I shouldn’t have believed myself capable of such activity. In fact I wasn’t capable of it then.”

“You think such work won’t be too great a strain upon you?” she asked.

“Oh, this isn’t a specimen day, you know. Tomorrow I shall very likely do nothing but finish my West End article, in an easy two or three hours. There’s no knowing; I might perhaps keep up the high pressure if I tried. But then I couldn’t dispose of all the work. Little by little⁠—or perhaps rather quicker than that⁠—I shall extend my scope. For instance, I should like to do two or three leaders a week for one of the big dailies. I can’t attain unto that just yet.”

“Not political leaders?”

“By no means. That’s not my line. The kind of thing in which one makes a column out of what would fill six lines of respectable prose. You call a cigar a ‘convoluted weed,’ and so on, you know; that passes for facetiousness. I’ve never really tried my hand at that style yet; I shouldn’t wonder if I managed it brilliantly. Some day I’ll write a few exercises; just take two lines of some good prose writer, and expand them into twenty, in half-a-dozen different ways. Excellent mental gymnastics!”

Marian listened to his flow of talk for a few minutes longer, then took the opportunity of a brief silence to rise and put on her hat. Jasper observed her, but without rising; he looked at his sisters in a hesitating way. At length he stood up, and declared that he too must be off. This coincidence had happened once before when he met Marian here in the evening.

“At all events, you won’t do any more work tonight,” said Dora.

“No; I shall read a page of something or other over a glass of whisky, and seek the sleep of a man who has done his duty.”

“Why the whisky?” asked Maud.

“Do you grudge me such poor solace?”

“I don’t see the need of it.”

“Nonsense, Maud!” exclaimed her sister. “He needs a little stimulant when he works so hard.”

Each of the girls gave Marian’s hand a significant pressure as she took leave of them, and begged her to come again as soon as she had a free evening. There was gratitude in her eyes.

The evening was clear, and not very cold.

“It’s rather late for you to go home,” said Jasper, as they left the house. “May I walk part of the way with you?”

Marian replied with a low “Thank you.”

“I think you get on pretty well with the girls, don’t you?”

“I hope they are as glad of my friendship as I am of theirs.”

“Pity to see them in a place like that, isn’t it? They ought to have a good house, with plenty of servants. It’s bad enough for a civilised man to have to rough it, but I hate to see women living in a sordid way. Don’t you think they could both play their part in a drawing-room, with a little experience?”

“Surely there’s no doubt of it.”

“Maud would look really superb if she were handsomely dressed. She hasn’t a