It must have been bad for the
furniture, but I suppose the hostess took her revenge on the
furniture of her friends when, in turn, she visited them.
Some of them were dressed fashionably, and they said they
couldn't for the life of them see why you should be dowdy just
because you had written a novel; if you had a neat figure you
might as well make the most of it, and a smart shoe on a small
foot had never prevented an editor from taking your "stuff."
But others thought this frivolous, and they wore "art fabrics"
and barbaric jewelry. The men were seldom eccentric in appearance.
They tried to look as little like authors as possible.
They wished to be taken for men of the world, and could
have passed anywhere for the managing clerks of a city firm.
They always seemed a little tired. I had never known
writers before, and I found them very strange, but I do not
think they ever seemed to me quite real.
I remember that I thought their conversation brilliant, and I
used to listen with astonishment to the stinging humour with
which they would tear a brother-author to pieces the moment
that his back was turned.
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