In "The Incomparable Max," American essayist Joseph Epstein observed that the "taste for the writing of Max Beerbohm is a minority taste but a strong one." Epstein then offered this "job description" of a Beerbohm reader:
The Max Beerbohm reader must have an affection for language and be pleased at witnessing it on exhibit with an always playful but ultimately serious precision . . .. Along with having an affection for language, he must enjoy seeing it artfully deployed--he must, that is, adore style, for Beerbohm was one of those writers for whom, without style, there is no message or indeed much of anything else. The Beerbohm reader must take pleasure in irony, for irony, the art of saying one thing and meaning another, was at the center of much that Beerbohm wrote. Delicate, whimsical, sly, his was irony of a kind quick readers are likely to miss.As you read Beerbohm's parodies of the letters in a how-to book, decide whether you fit Epstein's description of the ideal Max Beerbohm reader.
(Partial Payments, Norton, 1988)
How Shall I Word It?
by Max Beerbohm (1872-1956)
It would seem that I am one of those travellers for whom the railway bookstall does not cater. Whenever I start on a journey, I find that my choice lies between well-printed books which I have no wish to read, and well-written books which I could not read without permanent injury to my eyesight. The keeper of the bookstall, seeing me gaze vaguely along his shelves, suggests that I should take “Fen Country Fanny” or else “The Track of Blood” and have done with it. Not wishing to hurt his feelings, I refuse these works on the plea that I have read them. Whereon he, divining despite me that I am a superior person, says "Here is a nice little handy edition of More’s ‘Utopia’“ or “Carlyle’s ‘French Revolution’" and again I make some excuse. What pleasure could I get from trying to cope with a masterpiece printed in diminutive grey-ish type on a semitransparent little grey-ish page? I relieve the bookstall of nothing but a newspaper or two.
The other day, however, my eye and fancy were caught by a book entitled “How Shall I Word It?” and sub-entitled “A Complete Letter Writer for Men and Women.” I had never read one of those manuals, but had often heard that there was a great and constant “demand” for them. So I demanded this one. It is no great fun in itself. The writer is no fool. He has evidently a natural talent for writing letters. His style is, for the most part, discreet and easy. If you were a young man writing “to Father of Girl he wishes to Marry” or “thanking Fiancee for Present” or “reproaching Fiancee for being a Flirt,” or if you were a mother “asking Governess her Qualifications” or “replying to Undesirable Invitation for her Child,” or indeed if you were in any other one of the crises which this book is designed to alleviate, you might copy out and post the specially-provided letter without making yourself ridiculous in the eyes of its receiver--unless, of course, he or she also possessed a copy of the book. But--well, can you conceive any one copying out and posting one of these letters, or even taking it as the basis for composition? You cannot. That shows how little you know of your fellow-creatures. Not you nor I can plumb the abyss at the bottom of which such humility is possible. Nevertheless, as we know by that great and constant “demand,” there the abyss is, and there multitudes are at the bottom of it. Let’s peer down . . . No, all is darkness. But faintly, if we listen hard, is borne up to us a sound of the scratching of innumerable pens--pens whose wielders are all trying, as the author of this handbook urges them, to “be original, fresh, and interesting” by dint of more or less strict adherence to sample.
Giddily you draw back from the edge of the abyss. Come!--here is a thought to steady you. The mysterious great masses of helpless folk for whom “How Shall I Word It?” is written are sound at heart, delicate in feeling, anxious to please, most loth to wound. For it must be presumed that the author’s style of letter-writing is informed as much by a desire to give his public what it needs, and will pay for, as by his own beautiful nature; and in the course of all the letters that he dictates you will find not one harsh word, not one ignoble thought or unkind insinuation. In all of them, though so many are for the use of persons placed in the most trying circumstances, and some of them are for persons writhing under a sense of intolerable injury, sweetness and light do ever reign. Even “yours truly, Jacob Langton,” in his “letter to his Daughter’s Mercenary Fiancé,” mitigates the sternness of his tone by the remark that his “task is inexpressibly painful.” And he, Mr. Langton, is the one writer who lets the post go out on his wrath. When Horace Masterton, of Thorpe Road, Putney, receives from Miss Jessica Weir, of Fir Villa, Blackheath, a letter “declaring her Change of Feelings,” does he upbraid her? No; “it was honest and brave of you to write me so straight-forwardly and at the back of my mind I know you have done what is best. . . . I give you back your freedom only at your desire. God bless you, dear.” Not less desirable is the behaviour, in similar case, of Cecil Grant (14, Glover Street, Streatham). Suddenly, as a bolt from the blue, comes a letter from Miss Louie Hawke (Elm View, Deerhurst), breaking off her betrothal to him. Haggard, he sits down to his desk; his pen traverses the note-paper--calling down curses on Louie and on all her sex? No; “one cannot say good-bye for ever without deep regret to days that have been so full of happiness. I must thank you sincerely for all your great kindness to me. . . . With every sincere wish for your future happiness,” he bestows complete freedom on Miss Hawke. And do not imagine that in the matter of self-control and sympathy, of power to understand all and pardon all, the men are lagged behind by the women.
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