In The Attic

( Originally Published 1922 )

IN old days, in merrie England, the chapman or pamphleteer set up shop in an attic, as much for economy's sake as to be out of easy reach of the police. Commonly he bit the thumb at Government, and the bilks were his natural foes. Great men out of place lent him secret support and countenance, paying the costs of his perilous trade and supplying him with matter for his broadsides. His fidelity to his patrons was his best virtue ; in other respects of conduct he was, it is to be feared, no better than he should have been. But the life was one of constant adventure, and as such appealed to many daring spirits. Often they had to move, and quickly, too, yet they were not always quick enough for the emissaries of Government. To stand in the pillory and there submit to the nameless outrages of the London mob; to spend long years in jails fouler than a modern sewer; to be whipped and branded by the sovereign majesty of the law; to be hunted from one rookery to another—such was the lot of many a bold pamphleteer of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries.

Ah well, my lads, they had a stirring time of it, for all their hard lines, and potently, though obscurely, they made themselves felt on public opinion, which, as hath been said, is but history in the making. Peace to them !—they and their types, their plotting and pamphleteering, their ballads and broadsides, have long since vanished from the scene; but some echo of their ancient hardihood, some smack of real service to the good old cause of liberty, which to render they so bravely risked life and limb,—still linger in the world.

I therefore feel that in publishing The Papyrus from an attic I am in accord with some worthy literary traditions. To be sure, it's a very nice attic and roomy enough—well lighted, too, with walls and ceiling finished off and calcimined. Strictly speaking, The Papyrus occupies only half the attic; the other half, which by a lucky chance is quite separate and partitioned off, the younger children use for a playhouse on rainy days. Oh, and I had almost forgotten, the family linen is sometimes dried here, with great convenience.

Allah is both wise and good. He sometimes puts it into the stony heart of a landlord (Jersey landlord at that) to make unwitting pro-vision for the Children of the Dream.

The stairway leading to both attics is quite dark, and it turns sharply, but we don't feel that to be a great objection, as the Youngest is now walking and only swarms when he is going down stairs—which he does backward and with remarkable celerity.

Once a month the children have great fun carrying the little brown booklets from the lowerfloor, where the printer delivers them, to the attic; and again from the attic to the lower floor, when ready to be mailed. That is, they think it's great fun—and surely a large family is not without its compensations.

The Papyrus, by the way, is just the age of our Youngest but One, a five-year-old girl. I am not sure of which I am the fonder, but the Mother, with a touch of artistic jealousy, says she is . . .

I love this little attic room. Here I spend the only quiet hours that I may really call mine.

Here, with the world and its taskmasters shut out, I cheat myself with a dream of independence—ah, an uneasy dream at best, and a fleeting one, but yet it links day unto day with a thread of gold. The good thoughts that come only with silence—peace without and within—have here their dwelling place. Here, too, I listen oft to a Voice which speaks of the sure, though late, reward that waits on unyielding effort, on hope that springs anew from each de-feat, on faith in self that can stand against the world, on fidelity to the Dream!

Yes, even though knowing myself unworthy of the high call it would lay upon me, I do hearken to that Voice—aye, and often sigh that I may not rise to those heights of heroism to which it points me.

O little attic room, that has shared the secret of my dearest cherished hopes, that has known and ever knows something not all unworthy in me which to express is at once my joy and my despair,—who shall sit here in days to come when I am gone? Pray God it be one who may think not unkindly of him that dreamed his dreams here for a space, and was, in his fashion, happy within your quiet walls. . .

More commonly, however, I think of my literary predecessors, the old English chapmen and pamphleteers in their attics, and how the wind of time has long since blown them and their works away.

And I smile to myself, once more put off beginning my Masterpiece . . . well, till tomorrow; turn down the light, and go softly to bed.