The World of Chance by William Dean Howells

Ray followed Hughes to his grave in the place where Denton and his / children were already laid. It did not seem as if the old man were more / related to them in death than he had been in life by their propinquity; / but it satisfied a belated maternal and conjugal sentiment in Mrs. / Denton. She did not relinquish the leading place in the family affairs / which she had taken in her father's last days. She decided against / staying in their present apartment after their month was out, and found / a tiny flat of three rooms in a better neighborhood down-town, where she / had their scanty possessions established, including the cat.

Kane did not go to the funeral because of a prejudice which he said he / had against such events; David Hughes, he said, would have been the / first to applaud his sincerity in staying away. But he divined that / there might be need of help of another kind in the emergency, and he / gave it generously and delicately. He would not suffer Mr. Brandreth to / render any part of this relief; he insisted that it was his exclusive / privilege as Hughes's old friend. Now that David was gone, he professed / a singularly vivid sense of his presence; and he owned that he had / something like the pleasure of carrying a point against him in / defraying his funeral expenses.

Hughes's daughters accepted his help frankly, each after her kind: Mrs. / Denton as a gift which it must long continue to be; Peace as a loan / which must some day be repaid. The girl went back to her work in due / time, and whenever Ray visited his publisher he saw her at her desk.

He did not always go to speak to her, for he had a shamefaced fear that / she was more or less always engaged in working up hints from Mr. / Brandreth into paragraphs about a _A Modern Romeo_. His consciousness / exaggerated the publisher's activity in this sort; and at first he / shunned all these specious evidences of public interest in the / forthcoming novel. Then he began jealously to look for them, and in his / mind he arraigned the journals where they did not appear for envy and / personal spite. It would have been difficult for him to prove why there / should have been either in his case, unless it was because their / literary notes were controlled by people whose books had been ignored or / censured by _Every Evening_, and this theory could not hold with all. / Most of the papers, however, published the paragraphs, with that / munificence which journalism shows towards literature. The author found / the inspired announcements everywhere; sometimes they were varied by the / office touch, but generally they were printed exactly as Mr. Brandreth / framed them; however he found them, they gave Ray an insensate joy. Even / the paragraphs in the trade journals, purely perfunctory as they were, / had a flavor of sincere appreciation; the very advertisements which / accompanied them there affected him like favorable expressions of / opinion. His hunger for them was inappeasable; in his heart he accused / Mr. Brandreth of a stinted proclamation.

The publisher was hurrying the book forward for the summer trade, and / was aiming it especially at the reader going into the country, or / already there. He had an idea that the summer resorts had never been / fully worked in behalf of the better sort of light literature, and he / intended to make any sacrifice to get the book pushed by the news / companies. He offered them rates ruinously special, and he persuaded Ray / to take five per cent. on such sales if they could be made. He pressed / forward the printing, and the author got his proofs in huge batches, / with a demand for their prompt return. The nice revision which he had / fancied himself giving the work in type was impossible; it went from his / hand with crudities that glared in his tormented sense, till a new / instalment eclipsed the last. He balanced the merits and defects against / one another, and tried to believe that the merits would distract the / attention of criticism from the defects. He always knew that the story / was very weak in places; he conceived how it could be attacked in these; / he attacked it himself with pitiless ridicule in a helpless / impersonation of different reviewers; and he gasped in his / self-inflicted anguish. When the last proof left his hands the feeblest / links were the strength of the whole chain, which fell to pieces from / his grasp like a rope of sand.

There was some question at different times whether the book had not / better be published under a pseudonym, and Ray faithfully submitted it / to the editor of _Every Evening_, as something he was concerned in. It / was to be considered whether it was advisable for a critic to appear as / an author, and whether the possible failure of the book would not react / unfavorably upon the criticisms of the journal. The chief decided that / it would make no difference to him, and at the worst it could do no more / than range Ray with the other critics who had failed as authors. With / the publisher it was a more serious matter, and he debated much whether / the book, as a stroke of business, had not better go to the public / anonymously. They agreed that P. B. S. Ray on the title-page would be / rather formidable from the number of the initials which the reader would / have to master in speaking of the author. Shelley Ray, on the other / hand, would be taken for a sentimental pseudonym. They decided that / anonymity was the only thing for it.

"But then, it will be losing the interest of your money, if the book / goes," Mr. Brandreth mused. "You have a right to the cumulative / reputation from it, so that if you should write another" --

"Oh, don't be afraid of there ever being another! " said Ray, with his / distracted head between his hands. He suddenly lifted it. "What is the / matter with the Spartan severity of S. Ray?"

"S. Ray might do," Mr. Brandreth assented, thoughtfully. "Should you / mind my asking Mrs. Brandreth how it strikes her?"