She had chosen her man well. He was a thinker himself, and he
sympathized with thinkers. Though doubtful as to the venture, he
took all the risk himself with that generosity one so often sees in
the best-abused of professions. In three or four weeks' time "A
Woman's World" came out, and Herminia waited in breathless anxiety
for the verdict of the reviewers.
For nearly a month she waited in vain. Then, one Friday, as she
was returning by underground railway from the Strand to Edgeware
Road, with Dolores in her arms, her eye fell as she passed upon the
display-bill of the "Spectator." Sixpence was a great deal of
money to Herminia; but bang it went recklessly when she saw among
the contents an article headed, "A Very Advanced Woman's Novel."
She felt sure it must be hers, and she was not mistaken.
Breathlessly she ran over that first estimate of her work.
It was with no little elation that she laid down the number.
Not that the critique was by any means at all favorable. How could
Herminia expect it in such a quarter? But the "Spectator" is at
least conspicuously fair, though it remains in other ways an
interesting and ivy-clad mediaeval relic. "Let us begin by
admitting," said the Spectatorial scribe, "that Miss Montague's
book" (she had published it under a pseudonym) "is a work of
genius. Much as we dislike its whole tone, and still more its
conclusions, the gleam of pure genius shines forth undeniable on
every page of it. Whoever takes it up must read on against his
will till he has finished the last line of this terrible tragedy; a
hateful fascination seems to hold and compel him. Its very purity
makes it dangerous. The book is mistaken; the book is poisonous;
the book is morbid; the book is calculated to do irremediable
mischief; but in spite of all that, the book is a book of
undeniable and sadly misplaced genius."
If he had said no more, Herminia would have been amply satisfied.
To be called morbid by the "Spectator" is a sufficient proof that
you have hit at least the right tack in morals. And to be accused
of genius as well was indeed a triumph. No wonder Herminia went
home to her lonely attic that night justifiably elated. She
fancied after this her book must make a hit. It might be blamed
and reviled, but at any rate it was now safe from the ignominy of
oblivion.
Alas, how little she knew of the mysteries of the book-market! As
little as all the rest of us. Day after day, from that afternoon
forth, she watched in vain for succeeding notices. Not a single
other paper in England reviewed her. At the libraries, her romance
was never so much as asked for. And the reason for these phenomena
is not far to seek by those who know the ways of the British public.
For her novel was earnestly and sincerely written; it breathed a
moral air, therefore it was voted dull; therefore nobody cared for
it. The "Spectator" had noticed it because of its manifest
earnestness and sincerity; for though the "Spectator" is always on
the side of the lie and the wrong, it is earnest and sincere, and
has a genuine sympathy for earnestness and sincerity, even on the
side of truth and righteousness. Nobody else even looked at it.
People said to themselves, "This book seems to be a book with a
teaching not thoroughly banal, like the novels-with-a-purpose after
which we flock; so we'll give it a wide berth."