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pubOne.info present you this new edition. The success of Verrian did not come early, and it did not come easily. He had been trying a long time to get his work into the best magazines, and when he had won the favor of the editors, whose interest he had perhaps had from the beginning, it might be said that they began to accept his work from their consciences, because in its way it was so good that they could not justly refuse it. The particular editor who took Verrian's serial, after it had come back to the author from the editors of the other leading periodicals, was in fact moved mainly by the belief that the story would please the better sort of his readers. These, if they were not so numerous as the worse, he felt had now and then the right to have their pleasure studied.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	06 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819947868
Langue	English

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FENNEL AND RUE
By William Dean Howells
I.
The success of Verrian did not come early, and itdid not come easily. He had been trying a long time to get his workinto the best magazines, and when he had won the favor of theeditors, whose interest he had perhaps had from the beginning, itmight be said that they began to accept his work from theirconsciences, because in its way it was so good that they could notjustly refuse it. The particular editor who took Verrian's serial,after it had come back to the author from the editors of the otherleading periodicals, was in fact moved mainly by the belief thatthe story would please the better sort of his readers. These, ifthey were not so numerous as the worse, he felt had now and thenthe right to have their pleasure studied.
It was a serious story, and it was somewhat bitter,as Verrian himself was, after his struggle to reach the public withwork which he knew merited recognition. But the world which doesnot like people to take themselves too seriously also likes them totake themselves seriously, and the bitterness in Verrian's storyproved agreeable to a number of readers unexpectedly great. Itintimated a romantic personality in the author, and the world stilllikes to imagine romantic things of authors. It likes especially toimagine them of novelists, now that there are no longer poets; andwhen it began to like Verrian's serial, it began to write him allsorts of letters, directly, in care of the editor, and indirectlyto the editor, whom they asked about Verrian more than about hisstory.
It was a man's story rather than a woman's story, asthese may be distinguished; but quite for that reason women seemedpeculiarly taken with it. Perhaps the women had more leisure ormore courage to write to the author and the editor; at any rate,most of the letters were from women; some of the letters were sillyand fatuous enough, but others were of an intelligence which wasnone the less penetrating for being emotional rather than critical.These maids or matrons, whoever or whichever they were, knewwonderfully well what the author would be at, and their interest inhis story implied a constant if not a single devotion. Now and thenVerrian was tempted to answer one of them, and under favor of hismother, who had been his confidant at every point of his literarycareer, he yielded to the temptation; but one day there came aletter asking an answer, which neither he nor his mother feltcompetent to deal with. They both perceived that they must refer itto the editor of the magazine, and it seemed to them so importantthat they decided Verrian must go with it in person to the editor.Then he must be so far ruled by him, if necessary, as to give himthe letter and put himself, as the author, beyond an appeal whichhe found peculiarly poignant.
The letter, which had overcome the tacit misgivingsof his mother as they read it and read it again together, was froma girl who had perhaps no need to confess herself young, or to ownher inexperience of the world where stories were written andprinted. She excused herself with a delicacy which Verrian'scorrespondents by no means always showed for intruding upon him,and then pleaded the power his story had over her as the onlyshadow of right she had in addressing him. Its fascination, shesaid, had begun with the first number, the first chapter, almostthe first paragraph. It was not for the plot that she cared; shehad read too many stories to care for the plot; it was the probleminvolved. It was one which she had so often pondered in her ownmind that she felt, in a way she hoped he would not thinkconceited, almost as if the story was written for her. She hadnever been able to solve the problem; how he would solve it she didnot see how she could wait to know; and here she made him aconfidence without which, she said, she should not have the courageto go on. She was an invalid, and her doctor had told her that,though she might live for months, there were chances that she mightdie at any moment suddenly. He would think it strange, and it wasstrange that she should tell him this, and stranger still that sheshould dare to ask him what she was going to ask. The story had yetfour months to run, and she had begun to have a morbid forebodingthat she should not live to read it in the ordinary course. She wasso ignorant about writers that she did not know whether such athing was ever done, or could be done; but if he could tell her howthe story was to come out he would be doing more for her thananything else that could be done for her on earth. She had readthat sometimes authors began to print their serial stories beforethey had written them to the end, and he might not be sure of theend himself; but if he had finished this story of his, and couldlet her see the last pages in print, she would owe him thegratitude she could never express.
The letter was written in an educated hand, andthere were no foibles of form or excesses of fashion in thestationery to mar the character of sincerity the simple wordingconveyed. The postal address, with the date, was fully given, andthe name signed at the end was evidently genuine.
Verrian himself had no question of the genuinenessof the letter in any respect; his mother, after her firstmisgivings, which were perhaps sensations, thought as he did aboutit. She said the story dealt so profoundly with the deepest thingsthat it was no wonder a person, standing like that girl betweenlife and death, should wish to know how the author solved itsproblem. Then she read the letter carefully over again, and againVerrian read it, with an effect not different from that which itsfirst perusal had made with him. His faith in his work was sogreat, so entire, that the notion of any other feeling about it wasnot admissible.
“Of course, ” he said, with a sigh of satisfaction,“I must show the letter to Armiger at once. ”
“Of course, ” his mother replied. “He is the editor,and you must not do anything without his approval. ”
The faith in the writer of the letter, which wasprimary with him, was secondary with her, but perhaps for thatreason, she was all the more firmly grounded in it.
II.
There was nothing to cloud the editor's judgment,when Verrian came to him, except the fact that he was a poet aswell as an editor. He read in a silence as great as the author'sthe letter which Verrian submitted. Then he remained pondering itfor as long a space before he said, “That is very touching. ”
Verrian jumped to his question. “Do you mean that weought to send her the proofs of the story? ”
“No, ” the editor faltered, but even in thisdecision he did not deny the author his sympathy. “You've touchedbottom in that story, Verrian. You may go higher, but you can nevergo deeper. ”
Verrian flushed a little. “Oh, thank you! ”
“I'm not surprised the girl wants to know how youmanage your problem— such a girl, standing in the shadow of theother world, which is always eclipsing this, and seeing how you'vecaught its awful outline. ”
Verrian made a grateful murmur at the praise. “Thatis what my mother felt. Then you have no doubt of the good faith—”
“No, ” the editor returned, with the same quantity,if not the same quality, of reluctance as before. “You see, itwould be too daring. ”
“Then why not let her have the proofs? ”
“The thing is so unprecedented— ”
“Our doing it needn't form a precedent. ”
“No. ”
“And if you've no doubt of its being a true case—”
“We must prove that it is, or, rather, we must makeher prove it. I quite feel with you about it. If I were to act uponmy own impulse, my own convictions, I should send her the rest ofthe story and take the chances. But she may be an enterprisingjournalist in disguise it's astonishing what women will do whenthey take to newspaper work— and we have no right to risk anything,for the magazine's sake, if not yours and mine. Will you leave thisletter with me? ”
“I expected to leave the whole affair in your hands.Do you mind telling me what you propose to do? Of course, it won'tbe anything— abrupt— ”
“Oh no; and I don't mind telling you what hasoccurred to me. If this is a true case, as you say, and I've noquestion but it is, the writer will be on confidential terms withher pastor as well as her doctor and I propose asking her to gethim to certify, in any sort of general terms, to her identity. Iwill treat the matter delicately— Or, if you prefer to write to heryourself— ”
“Oh no, it's much better for you to do it; you cando it authoritatively. ”
“Yes, and if she isn't the real thing, but merely awoman journalist trying to work us for a 'story' in her Sundayedition, we shall hear no more from her. ”
“I don't see anything to object to in your plan, ”Verrian said, upon reflection. “She certainly can't complain of ourbeing cautious. ”
“No, and she won't. I shall have to refer the matterto the house— ”
“Oh, will you? ”
“Why, certainly! I couldn't take a step like thatwithout the approval of the house. ”
“No, ” Verrian assented, and he made a note of thewriter's address from the letter. Then, after a moment spent inlooking hard at the letter, he gave it back to the editor and wentabruptly away.
He had proof, the next morning, that the editor hadacted promptly, at least so far as regarded the house. The househad approved his plan, if one could trust the romantic paragraphwhich Verrian found in his paper at breakfast, exploiting the factconcerned as one of the interesting evidences of the hold hisserial had got with the magazine readers. He recognized in theparagraph the touch of the good fellow who prepared the weeklybulletins of the house, and offered the press literary intelligencein a form ready for immediate use. The case was fairly stated, butthe privacy of the author's correspondent was perfectly guarded; itwas not even made known that she was a woman. Yet Verrian felt, inreading the paragraph, a shock of guilty dismay, as if he hadbetrayed a confidence reposed in him, and he hande