## Chapter 197: The Rejection Storm
From Trafalgar Square, through Strand Street in Westminster, past St. Mary’s Church and St. Clement’s Church, eastward along this street that almost paralleled the Thames, looking up towards the south, the Thames-side mansions stood in rows. Since William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings and took over London, Strand Street had gradually become a gathering place for the bigwigs of London’s political and religious circles.
Archbishops, who held 26 seats in the House of Lords, owned property here, and many former Cabinet Ministers or current members of the Cabinet also bought property here.
Because there were so many dignitaries living here, whenever the local parish held a parish meeting to elect respected church elders, it was not uncommon to see former Prime Ministers or a group of former Cabinet Ministers on the list of candidates.
Due to Strand Street’s important political position in London’s political and religious circles, other gathering areas naturally emerged nearby.
For example, the Temple Church in London, founded in the 12th century, located in the heart of London’s financial district, Westminster Palace and Whitehall, but adjacent to Strand Street, the headquarters of the Knights Templar in England.
However, because Henry VIII had a falling out with the Roman Catholic Church in order to divorce, this Catholic Knights Templar property was naturally confiscated by him, and he leased the Temple Church to the London lawyer group who valued the special location advantage.
Although there were many twists and turns later, the priests and lawyers tugged at each other for centuries over the ownership of the Temple Church, but finally the two groups reached an agreement under the mediation of James I – the church’s autonomous ownership was given to the lawyers, but the lawyers must forever bear the cost of maintaining the church and ensure that it does not interfere with its function of providing various religious services.
After obtaining the ownership, lawyers not only opened law firms here, but also held legal education in the Temple Church, two of the four Inns of Court in London, the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple, originated from here.
Lawyers were the first to occupy the Temple Church, and after the improvement of printing technology, various large and small newspapers sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain in the streets of London. Naturally, newspaper reporters, who were highly sensitive to the timeliness of news, also smelled the opportunity and moved to the side of Strand Street, where political figures gathered, in order to get first-hand reliable information. If they couldn’t get it, they could still get some gossip news.
They fully utilized the excellent tradition of Western reporters being quick on their feet. As early as the 17th century, they began to gather in Fleet Street, east of Strand Street, and in the 19th century, Fleet Street became the heart of the entire British news and magazine industry.
Almost every British newspaper you can name had its headquarters here, and even those whose headquarters were not in London had to set up a permanent office in Fleet Street.
And Blackwood’s, the pioneer of British literary magazines originating from Edinburgh, was naturally not to be outdone. They also set up a London office here, with professional literary editors, cashiers, accountants and other staff.
At this time, in the editor-in-chief’s office, Arthur and Eld sat on the chairs, looking at the middle-aged man with a pot belly and gold-rimmed glasses sitting at the desk.
The middle-aged man possessed all the necessary characteristics of a British gentleman: a neat white shirt and black trousers, a pocket watch with half a gold chain sticking out, and a shiny, bald head with three stubborn hairs that looked like the Royal Navy fleet flags fluttering in the wind.
Eld winked at Arthur, signaling him to look at the three hairs that seemed to flutter like the Royal Navy fleet flags when blown by the wind. But Arthur ignored his hint. This was not because he didn’t value their friendship, but because he was afraid that even if he looked at it one more time, he would be blinded by the three hairs and forget the purpose of his visit today.
The middle-aged man leaned back in his chair, holding Dumas’ manuscript and flipping it back and forth. In the end, he shook his head with some regret.
Seeing his expression, Arthur felt uneasy and couldn’t help but ask, “Mr. Wallace, do you think this manuscript looks okay?”
Wallace put down the manuscript, rested his hands on the table and shook his head, “Before answering this question, I want to ask you, are you a loyal reader of Blackwood’s? Or have you done any preliminary research on our magazine?”
If Wallace had asked this question earlier, Arthur wouldn’t have known how to answer him. Because he really didn’t buy Blackwood’s. As a Scotland Yard police officer with a meager income and a mortgage to pay, he had to be frugal when buying books.
When he was a patrol officer, most of Arthur’s salary went to political and entertainment publications, such as The Scourge, Police Chronicle, and The Poor Man’s Political Monthly, which were also related to his work.
For magazines like Blackwood’s, which emphasized literary quality and literary criticism, he didn’t really have the time or energy to care about them.
After all, few people would be willing to spend their precious rest time after working 14 or 15 hours to explore the connection between Romanticism and Realistic literature. The main readership of Blackwood’s basically explained this point. Most of those who bought it were gentlemen and ladies from the middle class and above.
However, fortunately, Arthur had recently bought several issues of Blackwood’s from a second-hand bookstore in order to investigate the life of Mr. Disraeli, which had severely attacked him. So when Wallace asked now, he didn’t have to be clueless.
After a few simple questions, Wallace folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, “It seems you do know what kind of magazine we are. In that case, you should know that in the last few issues, I personally wrote a scathing criticism of novels like The Count of Monte Cristo in the magazine.”
As he spoke, Wallace directly pulled out an issue from the pile of magazines on the table, flipped to the marked page, and quoted from it.
“Thousands of readers open their wallets, spend their money on paid reading, anxiously waiting for one after another poorly made, whining, disgusting fabricated product to be produced like garbage from the ‘literary factory’. These fashionable novels, which claim to encompass the essence of elegant life and are written by talented masters, are messing up Britain’s literary circle.”
After finishing, Wallace couldn’t help but criticize a few more words, “Sir, we mainly publish poetry, prose, insightful literary criticism, reflections and satires on social phenomena.
Perhaps, you find this The Count of Monte Cristo interesting, but in my eyes, it’s a piece of garbage rushed out.
There’s no thought in the book. It starts with a French sailor’s love story, is it going to describe a few families’ love-hate entanglements later? Come on! That’s the way it was written in Shakespeare’s time. Times have changed. We don’t need you to have new ideas, but at least we need to write new plots.
Secondly, the language of the article is not gorgeous, it can even be said to be bad. The sentence structure used in this book is so simple that I doubt it was written by a child still studying grammar. But to cover up, the author used a lot of short sentences, but this can fool others, but it can’t fool me.
Moreover, this guy doesn’t pay attention to the length of the article. He often uses a lot of descriptions where it’s not necessary. A simple dinner, is it necessary to describe the lobster shell so clearly? He likes lobster shell so much, why not become a chef? I strongly suspect that he did this just to print two more pages so that he could sell it at a good price.
Of course, if you still insist on submitting after hearing all this, I won’t continue to persuade you, but I suggest you should change magazines. For the sake of your being Mrs. Norton’s friend, I’ll recommend a suitable one for you. You can try to submit to The Monthly Magazine. The requirements there are relatively loose.”
If Arthur hadn’t been cramming literary magazines recently, he might have really thought Wallace was helping him.
But according to his understanding, The Monthly Magazine was Blackwood’s main competitor. The two sides often ridiculed each other in their own magazines. Wallace’s subtext was actually the same as telling him to get out with his manuscript.
He was about to argue with him, but Eld spoke first, “You’re right, Mr. Wallace. I think Blackwood’s should indeed maintain its high standard of manuscript acceptance. I support you on this point. That The Count of Monte Cristo, I also didn’t see anything good about it. And I specifically wrote a piece of literary criticism about it, what do you think?”
After speaking, Eld happily handed the manuscript over.
Wallace originally didn’t plan to review it, but for the sake of Eld agreeing with him, he had to pinch his nose and scan it twice.
After a while, his brows furrowed, and he slapped the manuscript on the table, “Now I feel maybe The Count of Monte Cristo is not that bad after all.”
“What did you say?” Eld jumped up from his chair, grabbed the man’s collar, and almost punched him twice, “Do you believe me if I throw you out of the window and into the Fleet River next door?”
Wallace was startled by Eld’s Royal Navy temper, and he warned, “I… I advise you to calm down, we’re at a literary magazine, not a gangster fight club. If you insist on doing this, I’m calling the police!”
“Police? Even if you call the Chief Inspector today, it won’t work!”
Eld seemed to be really angry. He was about to raise his hand to slap the fat man twice, but before he could do so, Arthur stopped him.
Arthur grabbed his collar and pulled him back to his chair, “Forget it, since he doesn’t want to make money, then we don’t have to force him.”
After speaking, he turned to Wallace and said, “So, sir, we’ll see you again.”
He dragged a grumpy Eld out of the door. As soon as they opened the door, Arthur and Eld were both stunned. They looked at the little man standing outside the door and raised their eyebrows in surprise, “Charles, what are you doing here?”
Dickens held a manuscript of The Pickwick Papers in his hand and looked at the two in surprise, “Arthur, Eld, are you two also here to submit?”
Arthur shrugged, he got up and took the manuscript from Dickens’ hand and scanned it. Then he joked, “Charles, don’t bother, I just heard that they don’t accept fashionable novels here.”
“Is that so… Well, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll just submit to another magazine.”
Dickens was a little disappointed when he heard this, but he quickly accepted reality, after all, he had experienced many things more frustrating than this over the years.
He turned to a young man sitting in the hall and shouted, “Mr. Tennyson, I was rejected, it’s your turn next.”
“Tennyson?”
Eld heard the name, stuck his head out and took a look. As soon as his eyes met that face, he couldn’t help but spit, “What a damn bad day today! It’s really that Cambridge kid!”
But Arthur saw Tennyson, and he didn’t react as violently as Eld. He first glanced at the The Count of Monte Cristo in his hand, then at Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers, and finally his wandering gaze focused on Tennyson, who had a reserved smile.
Suddenly, Arthur slapped his hand, and he couldn’t help but shout, “Got it.”
(End of Chapter)