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Elisha Cuthbert Photos Books: Martin Eden The Pickwick Papers The Sea Wolf |
of clod. It was his story, "Adventure," which had dragged with
Ruth, that Martin believed had achieved his ideal of the true in fiction;
and it was in an essay, "God and Clod," that he had expressed his views
on the whole general subject.
But "Adventure," and all that he deemed his best work, still went begging
among the editors. His early work counted for nothing in his eyes except
for the money it brought, and his horror stories, two of which he had
sold, he did not consider high work nor his best work. To him they were
frankly imaginative and fantastic, though invested with all the glamour
of the real, wherein lay their power. This investiture of the grotesque
and impossible with reality, he looked upon as a trick--a skilful trick
at best. Great literature could not reside in such a field. Their
artistry was high, but he denied the worthwhileness of artistry when
divorced from humanness. The trick had been to fling over the face of
his artistry a mask of humanness, and this he had done in the half-dozen
or so stories of the horror brand he had written before he emerged upon
the high peaks of "Adventure," "Joy," "The Pot," and "The Wine of Life."
The three dollars he received for the triolets he used to eke out a
precarious existence against the arrival of the White Mouse check. He
cashed the first check with the suspicious Portuguese grocer, paying a
dollar on account and dividing the remaining two dollars between the
baker and the fruit store. Martin was not yet rich enough to afford
meat, and he was on slim allowance when the White Mouse check arrived. He
was divided on the cashing of it. He had never been in a bank in his
life, much less been in one on business, and he had a naive and childlike
desire to walk into one of the big banks down in Oakland and fling down
his indorsed check for forty dollars. On the other hand, practical
common sense ruled that he should cash it with his grocer and thereby
make an impression that would later result in an increase of credit.
Reluctantly Martin yielded to the claims of the grocer, paying his bill
with him in full, and receiving in change a pocketful of jingling coin.
Also, he paid the other tradesmen in full, redeemed his suit and his
bicycle, paid one months rent on the type-writer, and paid Maria the
overdue month for his room and a month in advance. This left him in his
pocket, for emergencies, a balance of nearly three dollars.
In itself, this small sum seemed a fortune. Immediately on recovering
his clothes he had gone to see Ruth, and on the way he could not refrain
from jingling the little handful of silver in his pocket. He had been so
long without money that, like a rescued starving man who cannot let the
unconsumed food out of his sight, Martin could not keep his hand off the
silver. He was not mean, nor avaricious, but the money meant more than
so many dollars and cents. It stood for success, and the eagles stamped
upon the coins were to him so many winged victories.
It came to him insensibly that it was a very good world. It certainly
appeared more beautiful to him. For weeks it had been a very dull and
sombre world; but now, with nearly all debts paid, three dollars jingling
in his pocket, and in his mind the consciousness of success, the sun
shone bright and warm, and even a rain-squall that soaked unprepared
pedestrians seemed a merry happening to him. When he starved, his
thoughts had dwelt often upon the thousands he knew were starving the
world over; but now that he was feasted full, the fact of the thousands
starving was no longer pregnant in his brain. He forgot about them, and,
being in love, remembered the countless lovers in the world. Without
deliberately thinking about it, motifs for love-lyrics began to agitate
his brain. Swept away by the creative impulse, he got off the electric
car, without vexation, two blocks beyond his crossing.
He found a number of persons in the Morse home. Ruths two girl-cousins
were visiting her from San Rafael, and Mrs. Morse, under pretext of
entertaining them, was pursuing her plan of surrounding Ruth Martin Eden page 108 Martin Eden page 110 |