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

eyes wandered, it was to rest on the beauties of the garden, the moving patches of golden sunshine, the forms of gleaming cloud. Jasper liked to observe her as she turned her head: there seemed to him a particular grace in the movement; her head and neck were admirably formed, and the short hair drew attention to this.

It was agreed that Miss Harrow and Marian should come on the second day after to have tea with the Milvains. And when Jasper took leave of Alfred Yule, the latter expressed a wish that they might have a walk together one of these mornings.

III Holiday

Jasper’s favourite walk led him to a spot distant perhaps a mile and a half from home. From a tract of common he turned into a short lane which crossed the Great Western railway, and thence by a stile into certain meadows forming a compact little valley. One recommendation of this retreat was that it lay sheltered from all winds; to Jasper a wind was objectionable. Along the bottom ran a clear, shallow stream, overhung with elder and hawthorn bushes; and close by the wooden bridge which spanned it was a great ash tree, making shadow for cows and sheep when the sun lay hot upon the open field. It was rare for anyone to come along this path, save farm labourers morning and evening.

But today⁠—the afternoon that followed his visit to John Yule’s house⁠—he saw from a distance that his lounging-place on the wooden bridge was occupied. Someone else had discovered the pleasure there was in watching the sun-flecked sparkle of the water as it flowed over the clean sand and stones. A girl in a yellow-straw hat; yes, and precisely the person he had hoped, at the first glance, that it might be. He made no haste as he drew nearer on the descending path. At length his footstep was heard; Marian Yule turned her head and clearly recognised him.

She assumed an upright position, letting one of her hands rest upon the rail. After the exchange of ordinary greetings, Jasper leaned back against the same support and showed himself disposed for talk.

“When I was here late in the spring,” he said, “this ash was only just budding, though everything else seemed in full leaf.”

“An ash, is it?” murmured Marian. “I didn’t know. I think an oak is the only tree I can distinguish. Yet,” she added quickly, “I knew that the ash was late; some lines of Tennyson come to my memory.”

“Which are those?”

“Delaying, as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself when all the woods are green,

somewhere in the Idylls.”

“I don’t remember; so I won’t pretend to⁠—though I should do so as a rule.”

She looked at him oddly, and seemed about to laugh, yet did not.

“You have had little experience of the country?” Jasper continued.

“Very little. You, I think, have known it from childhood?”

“In a sort of way. I was born in Wattleborough, and my people have always lived here. But I am not very rural in temperament. I have really no friends here; either they have lost interest in me, or I in them. What do you think of the girls, my sisters?”

The question, though put with perfect simplicity, was embarrassing.

“They are tolerably intellectual,” Jasper went on, when he saw that it would be difficult for her to answer. “I want to persuade them to try their hands at literary work of some kind or other. They give lessons, and both hate it.”

“Would literary work be less⁠—burdensome?” said Marian, without looking at him.

“Rather more so, you think?”

She hesitated.

“It depends, of course, on⁠—on several things.”

“To be sure,” Jasper agreed. “I don’t think they have any marked faculty for such work; but as they certainly haven’t for teaching, that doesn’t matter. It’s a question of learning a business. I am going through my apprenticeship, and find it a long affair. Money would shorten it, and, unfortunately, I have none.”

“Yes,” said Marian, turning her eyes upon the stream, “money is a help in everything.”

“Without it, one spends the best part of one’s life in toiling for that first foothold which money could at once purchase. To have money is becoming of more and more importance in a literary career; principally because to have money is to have friends. Year by year, such influence grows of more account. A lucky man will still occasionally succeed by dint of his own honest perseverance, but the chances are dead against anyone who can’t make private interest with influential people; his work is simply overwhelmed by that of the men who have better opportunities.”

“Don’t you think that, even today, really good work will sooner or later be recognised?”

“Later, rather than sooner; and very likely the man can’t wait; he starves in the meantime. You understand that I am not speaking of genius; I mean marketable literary work. The quantity turned out is so great that there’s no hope for the special attention of the public unless one can afford to advertise hugely. Take the instance of a successful all-round man of letters; take Ralph Warbury, whose name you’ll see in the first magazine you happen to open. But perhaps he is a friend of yours?”

“Oh no!”

“Well, I wasn’t going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He’s a clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won’t succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in literature.”

“Yes, I know it is true,” said Marian, in a low voice.

“There’s a friend of mine who writes novels,” Jasper pursued. “His books are