The waiter blushed and chuckled as though he were conscious of having gained special new dignity and importance,--and having laid the table, and set the chairs, he departed with a flourishing bow worthy of a prince's maitre-d'hotel.
"Your name must seem a curious one to these fellows"--observed Alwyn, when he had gone,--"Unusual and even mysterious?"
"Why, yes!"--returned Heliobas with a laugh--"It would be judged so, I suppose, if I ever gave it,--but I don't. It was only in England, and by an Englishman, that I was once, to my utter amazement, addressed as 'He-ly-oh-bas'--and I was quite alarmed at the sound of it! One would think that most people in these educational days knew the Greek word helios,--and one would also imagine it as easy to say Heliobas as heliograph. But now to avoid mistakes, whenever I touch British territory and come into contact with British tongues, I give my Christian name only, Cassimir--the result of which arrangement is, that I am known in this hotel as Mr. Kasmer! Oh, I don't mind in the least--why should I?--neither the English nor the Americans ever pronounce foreign names properly. Why I met a newly established young publisher yesterday, who assured me that most of his authors, the female ones especially, are so ignorant of foreign literature that he doubts whether any of them know whether Cervantes was a writer or an ointment!"
Alwyn laughed. "I dare say the young publisher may be perfectly right,"--he said--"But all the same he has no business to publish the literary emanations of such ignorance."
"Perhaps not!--but what is he to do, if nothing else is offered to him? He has to keep his occupation going somehow,--from bad he must select the best. He cannot create a great genius--he has to wait till Nature, in the course of events, evolves one from the elements. And in the present general dearth of high ability the publishers are really more sinned against than sinning. They spend large sums, and incur large risks, in launching new ventures on the fickle sea of popular favor, and often their trouble is taken all in vain. It is really the stupid egotism of authors that is the stumbling-block in the way of true literature,--each little scribbler that produces a shilling sensational thinks his or her own work a marvel of genius, and nothing can shake them from their obstinate conviction. If every man or woman, before putting pen to paper, would be sure they had something new, suggestive, symbolical, or beautiful to say, how greatly Art might gain by their labors! Authors who take up arms against publishers en masse, and in every transaction expect to be cheated, are doing themselves irreparable injury--they betray the cloven hoof,-- namely a greed for money--and when once that passion dominates them, down goes their reputation and they with it. It is the old story over again--'ye cannot serve God and Mammon,'--and all Art is a portion of God,--a descending of the Divine into Humanity."