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."

And they shunned it accordingly.

That was the end of Herminia Barton's literary aspirations. She
had given the people of her best, and the people rejected it. Now
she gave them of her most mediocre; the nearest to their own level
of thought and feeling to which her hand could reduce itself. And
the people accepted it. The rest of her life was hack-work; by
that, she could at least earn a living for Dolores. Her "Antigone,
for the Use of Ladies' Schools" still holds its own at Girton and
Somerville.

XIV.

I do not propose to dwell at any length upon