Perhaps the mildest form of persecution is that of the autographomaniacs. "They send me my own books," one of the most popular authors in England complained to me pathetically the other day, "and they ask me to write in them. But to write in them is all that you can do for the books of your friends. If you do this for strangers, what is there left for your friends?" Although far less beloved of the book-buyer than the illustrious novelist, I could yet offer him the sympathy of a minor fellow-sufferer. It is the American reader who is the main persecutor. He is not "gentle," forsooth-a very bully, rather. But why do I say "he," when it is generally "she"? "You have eluded all my wiles hitherto," she wrote me the other day: "now I ask you straight out for your autograph." This honesty would have softened me had I not just had to pay fivepence on the letter-and for the second time that day! Of course her request was not accompanied by a stamped envelope either, though, if it had been, the stamp would have been an American; invalid, a pictorial irony. She has a trick, moreover, of addressing you-most economically-care of your American publishers, who expedite the letter with vengeful empressement, so that you pay double at your end of the Atlantic. And when everything else is in order, her epistle is insufficiently stamped, and your income is frittered away in futile fivepences. It is too much. The cup is full. We must no longer bow our necks beneath the oppressor's yoke, no longer tremble at the postman's knock. We must strike, instead-we other men of letters. For authors, too, are human: manual labourers, overworked and underpaid, with no hope of an eight hours' day. Their pay must not be still further reduced by this monstrous stamp-tax. Will not some Burns-more poetical than John-raise the banner of revolt? Perhaps William Morris may reconcile his hitherto contradictory roles by placing himself at the head of the movement. Henceforward no author is to despatch his autograph to an admirer, charm she never so cunningly. Beshrew these admirers! a man's personality is in his books, not in his scrawl. Whosoever violates this prescription shall be accounted a blackleg. On one condition only shall autographs be sent-to wit, that they be paid for.
I do not, indeed, propose that the author shall pocket the money, though I see no shame in the deed: everything is worth what it can fetch, and if an adventitious value comes to attach to a signature, the author were amply justified in pocketing this legitimate supplement to the scanty rewards of his travail of soul and body-just as he were justified, should locks of his hair come into demand, in alternating the scissors and the hair-restorer. But as a suspicion still prevails that authors live on ambrosia and nectar (carriage paid), that the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker tumble over one another in their eagerness to offer their goods at the shrine of genius, it may be unwise to shock one's admirers too much by pocketing their oboli; and I would suggest-in all seriousness-that a charge be made in the future for all autographs: each celebrity could fix it according to the special demand, and the returns should go for charitable purposes. An "Autograph Fund" should be founded in every profession admitting of notoriety. Among actors the fund could be devoted to that excellent charity the Dramatic and Musical Benevolent Fund; among writers, to the support of decayed critics and neglected novelists. Why not? In days when men cannot bear to see even Niagara wasting its energies in misdirected roars, why should so prolific a source of profit as autographomania be neglected? The authors' strike must be initiated at once: the Autograph Fund demands an instant Treasurer. I don't mind contributing ten signatures to start it, if twelve other writers, of equal eminence and illegibility, will guarantee a like amount.
What profits it to woo the thankless Muse, or to appeal to the autograph-huntress? In a foolish moment of unpardonable sentimentality, I suggested that she should pay for her treasure by a charity contribution; at the very least let her refrain, I prayed, from American stamps. But she does not read me, alas! though my writings are the sole solace of her days and nights; there is no way of attracting her attention. Still, still her stamps flow in. I cry Oyez, Oyez, but she is bent over "Trilby," and I am but the shadow of a name-of a name that is interesting enough tacked on to my favourite motto or a brief autobiography, and may serve to round off her autographic alphabet. Will not Mr. Du Maurier cry aloud to her on behalf of his brother-authors, he whose housetop is the sun, whose voice reaches from the summits of the Rockies to the pampas of La Plata, and echoes from the ice-floes of Labrador to the cliffs of Cape Horn? Will he not tell her that even as "the crimes of Clapham" are "chaste in Martaban," so the stamps of the States are the waste-paper of the London mails. Mr. Kipling, whom I have just quoted, is more fortunate. Breathing the air of Brattleboro', Vermont, he is supplied with native stamps to carry on his correspondence withal. For Mr. Kipling-so he has confided to me in an amusing narrative of his autograph experiences, designed for the warning of fellow-craftsmen to whom my project may have sounded seductive-had actually anticipated my plan: he had sent out two hundred circulars to the admiring crew who ranked him before Shakespeare, proposing that they should send him a donation for a charity in return for his signature. Then the flood-gates-not of heaven-were opened. For weeks abuse rained in upon him, and "thief" seems to have been the mildest rebuke he received. To be asked for an autograph was an honour (even with the stamps omitted). He bowed his head beneath the deluge, praying perhaps-
Of the two hundred grant but two
To take a charitable view.
But no, as one man and one woman they cast him out of grace.
And yet he seems to persevere-for'tisindeed an excellent way of circumventing the wily. In the Chicago Record I read that he wrote to an autograph-beggar that he would send his autograph on receiving proof that the autograph-hunter had deposited two and a half dollars in a certain New York fresh air fund. This is an ingenious variation of the original scheme, for it puts aside the possibility of personal peculation; but I doubt whether it answers. Each celebrity must solve for himself this harassing problem: there be those who simply stick to the stamps...great free spirits, these, the Napoleons of the pen, Jenseits von Gut mid Bose, whose names it is not for me to bewray. Others, like myself, stricken with the paralysis of a Puritan conscience, waver and vex themselves. One ought not to encourage this craze for the external accidents of greatness-the appeal may be fraudulent-and yet what right have you to the stamps?-and after all'tisflattering to be adored from Terra del Fuego; it argues taste-and taste should not go unrecognized in a Philistine world. Eureka! I have found the solution. Don't stick to the stamps, but send them to the funds of a charity.
These views of mine on autographs have greatly distressed the unfair sex. The ladies-God bless them-resent a severely logical view of anything, and to disturb their small sentimentalities is to be cold-blooded and cynical. Once, when I wasj imprudent enough to wonder if the "young person" with the well-known cheek, to which blushes were brought, existed any longer in this age of neurotic novels written by ladies for gentlemen, I received a delicious communication from an Australian damsel informing me that she had been in love with me up till the fatal day on which she read my cynical conception of her sex,-which reminds me of another well-meaning young lady who wrote me the other day from America that her epistle was prompted "neither by love nor admiration." If I hint that popular lady novelists do not invariably produce masterpieces of style and syntax, I am accused of inflicting the "tarantulous bites of envious detractors." I am driven-most reluctantly-to a suspicion that has long been faintly glimmering in my bosom, a suspicion that ladies have no sense of humour. It is gravely pointed out to me by incensed writers of incense-laden letters that the demand for a writer's autograph is a mark of veneration; that his letter is reverentially handed about on special occasions quite without a thought of its possible commercial value and that often-though here the argument itself becomes cunningly commercial-it becomes the focus of a local hero-worship that expresses itself outwardly in increased purchases of the author's books. Now, of course every author is only too aware that requests for his autographs are manifestations of reverence, and is only too apt to disregard the supposition of crude curiosity. He knows that it is only natural that people, forewarned by the scarcity of autographs of Shakespeare, should be anxious to safeguard posterity against a similar calamity. But that any author should have humour enough to see the absurdity of the autograph mania, this is what his fair clientele has not humour enough to understand. Anthony Hope-who, by the way, told me he had received a letter from an unknown lady, the object of which was to abuse me for my heresy on this heart-burning question-says that if to write his name on slips of paper adds to the sum of the world's pleasure, he is ready to do it. This is a noble attitude; but the good people do not always do the most good. Ought one to pamper this interest in mere externals? Here are the man's books, pictures, symphonies: if these have profited you, be content-you have had enough. He has shown you his soul,-why should he show you his hand? One knows into what this sort of thing degenerates-into the exploitation of celebrities by smart American journalists, to whom genius and notoriety are equally alike mere possibilities of sensational copy with screaming head-lines. A. Z. has written the opera of the century: the public is dying to know the cut of his trousers and the proportion of milk in his cafe au lait. X. Y. has murdered his uncle and vivisected his grandmother: how interesting to ascertain his favourite novel, and whether he approves of the bicycle for ladies! For one person who knows anything of the artistic output of the day there are ten who know all about the producers and how much money they are making. Even when our interest in artistic work is intellectual, we are more likely to read criticisms of it than to place ourselves vis-a-vis with the work. Not the truest criticism, not the subtlest misinterpretation, can give us anything like the sensation or the stimulus that results from direct contact with the work itself. As well enjoy the "Moonlight Sonata" through a technical analysis of its form. But this is a venial vice compared with taking your Sonata through the medium of a paragraph about Beethoven's shoe-buckles.