Chapter XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVII

The first thing Martin did next morning was to go counter both to
Brissenden's advice and command. "The Shame of the Sun" he wrapped
and mailed to THE ACROPOLIS. He believed he could find magazine
publication for it, and he felt that recognition by the magazines
would commend him to the book-publishing houses. "Ephemera" he
likewise wrapped and mailed to a magazine. Despite Brissenden's
prejudice against the magazines, which was a pronounced mania with
him, Martin decided that the great poem should see print. He did
not intend, however, to publish it without the other's permission.
His plan was to get it accepted by one of the high magazines, and,
thus armed, again to wrestle with Brissenden for consent.

Martin began, that morning, a story which he had sketched out a
number of weeks before and which ever since had been worrying him
with its insistent clamor to be created. Apparently it was to be a
rattling sea story, a tale of twentieth-century adventure and
romance, handling real characters, in a real world, under real
conditions. But beneath the swing and go of the story was to be
something else - something that the superficial reader would never
discern and which, on the other hand, would not diminish in any way
the interest and enjoyment for such a reader. It was this, and not
the mere story, that impelled Martin to write it. For that matter,
it was always the great, universal motif that suggested plots to
him. After having found such a motif, he cast about for the
particular persons and particular location in time and space
wherewith and wherein to utter the universal thing. "Overdue" was
the title he had decided for it, and its length he believed would
not be more than sixty thousand words - a bagatelle for him with
his splendid vigor of production. On this first day he took hold
of it with conscious delight in the mastery of his tools. He no
longer worried for fear that the sharp, cutting edges should slip
and mar his work. The long months of intense application and study
had brought their reward. He could now devote himself with sure
hand to the larger phases of the thing he shaped; and as he worked,
hour after hour, he felt, as never before, the sure and cosmic
grasp with which he held life and the affairs of life. "Overdue"
would tell a story that would be true of its particular characters
and its particular events; but it would tell, too, he was
confident, great vital things that would be true of all time, and
all sea, and all life - thanks to Herbert Spencer, he thought,
leaning back for a moment from the table. Ay, thanks to Herbert
Spencer and to the master-key of life, evolution, which Spencer had
placed in his hands.

He was conscious that it was