The Cream of the Jest

Then one propitious morning an indignant gentlewoman in Brooklyn wrote to The New York Sphere a letter which was duly printed in that journal's widely circulated Sunday supplement,

The Literary Masterpieces of This Week, to denounce the loathsome and depraved indecency of the nineteenth and twentieth chapters, in which – while treating of Sir Guiron's imprisonment in the Sacred Grove of Caer Idryn, and the worship accorded there to the sigil of Scoteia – Kennaston had touched upon some of the perverse refinements of antique sexual relations. The following week brought forth a full page of letters. Two of these, as Kennaston afterward learned, were contributed by the "publicity man" of the Baxon-Muir Company, and all arraigned obscenities which Kennaston could neither remember or on re-reading his book discover. Later in this journal, as in other newspapers, appeared still more denunciations. An up-to-the-minute bishop expostulated from the pulpit against the story's vicious tendencies, demanding that it be suppressed. Thereafter it was no longer on sale in the large department-stores alone, but was equally procurable at all the bookstands in hotels and railway stations. Even the author's acquaintances began to read it. And the Delaunays (then at the height of their vogue as exponents of the "new" dances) introduced "the Alison amble"; and from Tampa to Seattle, in certain syndicated cartoons of generally appealing idiocy, newspaper readers were privileged to see one hero of the series knock the other heels over head with a copy of Kennaston's romance. And women wore the "Alison aigrette" for a whole season; and a new brand of cheap tobacco christened in her honor had presently made her name at least familiar in saloons. Men Who Loved Alison

became, in fine, the novel of the hour. It was one of those rare miracles such as sometimes palm off a well-written book upon the vast public that reads for pastime.

And shortly afterward Mr. Booth Tarkington published another of his delightful romances: one forgets at this distance of time just which it was: but, like all the others, it was exquisitely done, and sold neck and neck with Men Who Loved Alison; so that for a while it looked almost as if the American reading public was coming to condone adroit and careful composition.

But presently the advertising columns of magazines and newspapers were heralding the year's vernal output of enduring masterworks in the field of fiction: and readers were again assured that the great American novel had just been published at last, by any number of persons: and so, the autumnal predecessors of these new chefs d'oeuvre passed swiftly into oblivion, via the brief respite of a "popular" edition. And naturally, Kennaston's romance was forgotten, by all save a few pensive people. Some of them had found in this volume food for curious speculation.

That, however, is a matter to be taken up later.

VI

Suggesting Themes of Universal Appeal

SO Felix Kennaston saw his dream vulgarized, made a low byword; and he contemplated this travestying, as the cream of a sardonic jest, with urbanity. Indeed, that hour of notoriety seemed not without its pleasant features to Felix Kennaston, who had all a poet's ordinary appetite for flattery. Besides, it was droll to read the "literary notes" which the Baxon-Muir people were industriously disseminating, by means of the daily journals, concerning Felix Kennaston's personality, ancestry, accomplishments, recreations and preferences in diet. And then, in common with the old woman famed in nursery rhyme, he was very often wont to observe, "But, lawk a mercy on me! this is none of I!"

It was droll, too, to be asked for autographs, lectures, and for donations of "your wonderful novel." It was droll to receive letters from remote mysterious persons, who had read his book, and had liked it, or else had disliked it to the point of being goaded into epistolary remonstrance, sarcasm, abuse, and (as a rule) erratic spelling. It troubled Kennaston that only riffraff seemed to have read his book, so far as he could judge from these unsolicited communications; and that such people of culture and education as might have been thrilled by it – all people whose opinions he might conceivably value – seemed never to write to authors…