This May Amuse You
Williams, Michael
October 20, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 577 THIS MAY AMUSE YOU A PREFACE:...
...What was the answer to the question other than one more effort to delay the task-work of Oedipus asked the Sphinx...
...delectable thing, but writing one is the deuce and all So I know that although I hate to work, work I of a job...
...You say to me: "But why do you tell us the ivory tower mood...
...compelled to write it by an irresistible inspiration...
...to the world...
...many innocent victims-in short, I shall find again as And that's all there is, in my opinion, to the writing of many times before, that dreaming about a book is a of a book, this or any other...
...Where are the snows of yesteryear...
...I have made notes...
...Being suddenly and violently possessed by that Which surely ought to be the hors d'oeuvre and the desire of seizing all opportunities for pushing one's cocktail before dinner...
...He may be interested...
...to myself a hundred times, some day I shall have too He will have to wait for some time...
...some day, I have said "Very well...
...Is it because I have a message to give "Possibly, but why...
...No, cerso popped into my head while my friend was telling tainly not...
...in that mo- of his irresoluteness, of his perverse desire when he ment I married it...
...every writer knows so well-the voice of his laziness, I had often before flirted with the idea...
...must till I have written down, somehow or other, these Then, is it for money that I undertake it...
...ing this book...
...Adequately to have a new book coming along...
...Who was the Man in I wonder 1 I do not know...
...personal interests which (I am told) is the secret of But perhaps I mistake your meaning...
...Flaubert's work, we violently praised (even when we Helpful question ! It gives me an opportunity to did not precisely live up to) his mode of work-days explain that what I am setting before you now is the and weeks of laboring on a paragraph: words cut and preface to my book-and if one cannot write, just polished, colored subtly through deft arrangements, as one likes, about one's own book in a preface, thus tautologies tirelessly hunted down to be exterminated 578 THE COMMONWEAL October 20, 1926 through page after page...
...Most men proofs, he, too, belonged to the Pantheon of Prose...
...Writers who cheerfully and persistently work, read me, you who are the dearly beloved of all writers day after day after day on into the unnumbered years because you are the heart and the soul of their pub- -who do not merely dream, but work ! lic, the makers and keepers of their cult, and even When I was young and learning my trade, Flaubert sometimes the providers of their bread and butter, was greatly admired (for I belonged to the generato you, I say, I turn, and I put a question in your tion that thought highly of style : le mot juste, and mouth...
...times, and then gave up the job...
...Indeed, moods and memories...
...Balzac, ruining his constitu- may be interested, or amused, or moved by things, tion with coffee to keep awake and his fortunes by people, places, and happenings that I have known and the cost of his incessant correcting of his printers' loved or feared or enjoyed or disliked...
...Then he added : "His first question still, as in his time, of the making of books there is will be, how long is the book...
...writing the book...
...How shall I ever be able will help me over some of the many hard places and to tell the real story of that night under the stars on spots of slow-going that I will meet as I proceed...
...book itself, what in the world is the use of a preface...
...And its title...
...but at least as charming (even in the same mode) as the the writer's life is three-fold...
...Who struck Billy Patterson...
...Am I, then, simply many worse ones...
...In that case, Answer me, and I will answer you...
...so may help me on with this preface...
...First, let me see if I myself know why I am writ"This May Amuse You...
...All I know is that there are moods and memo- hope it will amuse you...
...I'll wait...
...October 20, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 577 THIS MAY AMUSE YOU A PREFACE: FOR ALMOST ANY BOOK By MICHAEL WILLIAMS N OT long ago-in fact, it was today-a friend whipping up an appetite (if one is successful) for the told me that he was to lunch with a publisher...
...For to do words when it is finished...
...We not only worshipped all this stuff about why and how you began your book...
...it may be the success of millionaires, chorus girls, politicians, that you wish to know why I should write a book best-sellers, and thieves, and which moves even me (never mind the preface) this book or any other...
...Where is Charley Ross...
...I have thought of at least six "You'll have to wait for the book itself to answer titles for it...
...there are to write and for you to read...
...Let me ask you something of this palavering l After all, is this preface anything in my turn...
...but you do not the preface will become really an introduction-on know the answers, you cannot tell me nor can I tell that day I may say: "Dear reader, meet my book 1 I you...
...For I am write that book-but such vacillating impulses are not only now beginning the book...
...answer such a question (which has been asked by so My friend (even so good a friend) looked dubious, many readers and writers since the consideration of perhaps also a little nettled...
...Not by a long shot I True, I have carried the idea "Yes, but what things...
...and women lead a double life, one of action and of But when I found out that writers whose style was the exterior, the other of memory and reflection...
...No, not in this book anyhow...
...sailed in a boat out of a mist and suddenly saw three Well, then, if I have no message to deliver, and palm trees above slow surf breaking on a waste of if I am not impelled by the madness of inspiration, and sand...
...The notion of doing the voice of the divine muse, Inspiration...
...swer such a question, I say, would be just as easy (that "Sixty thousand words...
...How shall I capture the grotesque thrill of the tune herself, fair but frail and often false...
...Of course, there are who (I hope) are now reading me, but more especially other writers...
...I have begun it several that question...
...But he generously promised to do has been satisfactorily answered by no one, so that what I asked...
...Walter Pater-with his ries of my life that I must (as best I may) invoke almost equally toilsome patience and scrupulous artis- once more, and chronicle, sharing them with those who try-also was an idol...
...Nevertheless, I will try...
...is formed of that mysterious inborn thing which is For myself, if I can manage to get to the end of in each son and daughter of Adam, but which not all that minimum number of words which some publisher of them (perhaps not most in these our bewildered will consider necessary to make a book (and if those modern days) are conscious of, the thing that we words are of a sort he will judge to be sufficiently call vocation...
...but a California hill when I saw the moon bow over the hope (especially money hope) is like Mistress For- sea...
...Gautier wrote scenes he may invent...
...Or so I have heard, I have never met you twice-to-be-praised ones who may tell others to them...
...Happy and fortunate is that man or interesting to justify the gambling of enough of his woman who really knows what he or she wants to capital to print and bind and peddle the things in do, and knowing, is able to do it, and, being able, does numbers providing him his profit) it will only be by it 1 There are men and women who must write, just dint of using up heaps of time that I might use much as there are others who must paint, or carve wood, more agreeably doing lots of other less laborious or build houses, or dig in the earth, or sail the seas, things...
...He has a book of his the same problem depressed poor Solomon, and which own on the stocks...
...But enough-perhaps there is more than enoughReader, you annoy me...
...If about once a lustrum, I said to my friend: "If the so, dear reader, you might just as well ask me why chance offers, please tell your publisher that I, too, does anybody write any books at all...
...And his inescapable desire to Mlle...
...How all too well, and her sweet enchantments, her magic may I conjure up the true quality of that mystic mood which may be white but is often black, or, what is I knew that morning on the coast of Mexico when I worse, merely grey...
...with my idea, it ought to be an amusement for me "Oh, I see...
...To the life of action best of Flaubert or Pater followed no such methods, and that of memory and reflection he adds a third but simply wrote down what they had to say (having sort of life, namely, the recording of his actions and things worth while the saying) and there was an end of his memories and moods...
...bad books or good books...
...no end under the sun, in saecula saeculorum) to an"Urn," I said, "what length does he prefer...
...Moreover, I shall only get to the end of the or sit in laboratories...
...I know her charm but who could put out fire merely by looking at it...
...this is what they are born to job by whipping myself along, screwing myself up to do, and if thwarted by circumstances, they will be uncreation pitch, undergoing the nuisance of chronic nerv- happy all their days, no matter what riches, or fame, ous irritability and inflicting the sad results thereof on or glory, or even what happy love may come to them...
...de Maupin, and a dozen of other books, with- give forth once more in words his memories and his out needing to correct one page in a score, in the moods, plainly and openly, or partially transformed as print-shop between dinner and the opera, the composi- fiction or drama, essays or poetry, this desire of his tors snatching away each sheet as it left his fluent pen...
...What's the book about...
...Well, it's not so bad a title...
...What I heard was merely the voice which me about his luncheon engagement with the publisher...
...is, it would be just as hard) as to tell you why I am "By a singular coincidence my book will be 6o,ooo writing this one...
...Neither will you unthe Iron Mask...
...thinks of something to write, to put off the actual toil At this point I turn directly to you, my readers, you of his craft as long as possible...
...Some, I fear, will be bruised I hope I shall make some money by it, and this hope and broken in the process...
...I don't trust adventure of the man in the valley of walnut trees her, though I know her charm...
...perish "Well, I hope it may, for that will be its title, and the thought i If this book is to be at all in keeping a book really should live up to its title, if it can...
...Then there is the story of the man who prayed if my expectations of cash (as well as those concerned for death and how death answered him-and many, with glory) are dubious to a degree, still the question many others...
...stands : Why do I write...
...less or until I really do write the book...
...Things that may amuse you...
...Even when he uses the (and a good one) of the matter, I gave up the cult masks and scenery of what is called fiction, he himof Flaubert, Pater, Balzac, George Moore, Henry self lives and moves behind all the masks and all the James, and all the other constipates...
...in my head for years...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 24
