I avoided approaching the dread machine and instead turned and looked around at the graceful room with tall, curtained windows on two sides and the sounds of the rain streaming down outside. I liked the small fire already glowing in the tile-rimmed fireplace. There was an easy chair placed nearby and two large writing desks, one set before the window, one against the wall. Every other bit of wall was filled with waist-high bookcases. I went closer to where the light fell on the titles. There were books by Edith Wharton, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Conrad, Turgenev, other Russians, the French—everyone.
I could not resist—I took down one delicious novel, then another, only to be amazed to discover that each one had been signed by its famous author, dedicated, and autographed with effusive notes for Mr. James; his collection was immense and personal at the same time. I was delighted to come upon a book by Paul Bourget, someone I had always wanted to read. As I turned the curious pages, with their texture like felt and the ruffled edges where they had been torn with a paper knife, their thick weight and pale ink pressed deep, and the soft words, it all seemed so different from our crisp, English-made books. I tried my French on the first paragraph and was glad to see I could read it—Oh, thank you, Mlle. Brun.
I was startled by the sound of a metal clang against the grate; Mr. James was leaning over the fire and giving it a poke, which only made the sullen flames disappear. He looked up as if appealing for help and found me guiltily trying to stuff Bourget’s book with its bright yellow wrapper back onto the shelf, afraid it might not seem proper for me to be looking at such writings. Mr. James, in an expansive gesture with the poker, waved me on as if he wanted me to keep the book.
“Oh, good. Good old Paul Bourget, I see. Perhaps you can use my books here to help you through the pauses in dictation. Sometimes I can’t go straight through a piece of writing but, instead, must think for a bit. The man who first took my dictation would read the newspaper during the intervals. My dear Miss Weld would knit while she waited for me. You don’t knit, do you, Miss Bosanquet?”
“No, I never could—I didn’t have the patience.”
“Well, then, please help yourself to any of my books at any time, and you can read through the intervals. Now, tell me, what do you think of my machine?” He left the poker and walked to the mysterious, cloth-covered mound. As he swept off the cover with a flourish, I was startled to see how shining and new, how large and complicated this Remington looked. It was not at all like the old model I had practised on back at Miss Petherbridge’s. I went over to it and said in my best business voice, “It’s fine, sir, such a new one.” I tried touching a key, and it flew up alarmingly.
Mr. James brought a plain wooden chair over for me. “Well, we might as well begin and see how it goes.” He pointed to a large stack of fresh, white paper on the writing desk. “Here is the paper. I don’t pretend to have the slightest idea how this glorious machinery works. Please take your time getting ready for me to begin. I’ve written out for myself what we will be doing today, so let me know when you’re ready.”
I moved the chair to what seemed the best angle for hearing him, sat down, and began by tucking two pieces of his beautiful, heavy paper between the rollers. Everything was different, but I knew that with my good understanding of machines, I could do this. I looked for the tab key and the space bar—at least they were in the right place. The rollers moved silently, and the return lever was not the same as on the machine I knew. But, yes, I could do this.
“Yes, I’m ready.”
“At the top, please put Capital V, Volume, Capital I. New Line—the widest space between the lines, if you please, Double Double Space.”
There was a pause while I struggled to find the lever that adjusted the lines. Finally, I had to stand up and walk around the machine to look and feel blindly, desperately, until I located the lever on the far side. Mr. James was still waiting patiently for me, a sheaf of paper in hand. He cleared his throat and in his warm, clear voice slowly began to dictate:
“All Capitals, PREFACE, Double Space, Capital I I profess a certain vagueness of remembrance in respect to the origin and growth of Quotation, Capital T “The Capital T Tragic Capital M Muse Comma, End Quotation,” which appeared in the Quotation, Capital A “Atlantic Capital M Monthly End Quotation” again Comma, beginning Capital J January 1-8-8-9 and . . .”
Here, there was a pause in the tapping of my keys while I hunted for the numbers 8 and 9. I had not practised numbers, and they did not come easily to my hand. There!—But he had gone on.
“I’m sorry, sir.” I interrupted the flow. “Could you please go back?—I lost some of the words . . .”
“Go back? Where? What?”
“I stopped at the date, at 1889.”
“Oh, yes, I see. Well, I will slow down, I must not rush you along so—this is your first day. I hope it will come easier when you are more accustomed to the machine.” And he went back again: “January 1-8-8-9 and running on Comma, in-or-din-ate-ly Comma, several months beyond its proper twelve—”
Mr. James stopped his pacing to look at me. I glanced up, waiting for a full stop or more words. Was that to be the end of his long first sentence?
He went on. “Full Stop. Capital I If it be ever of interest and profit . . .”
Oh! This was a new sentence—Or was he talking to me?
“. . . to put one’s finger” (I began typing furiously to catch up) “on the productive germ of a work of art Comma, . . .”
The work went on in fits and starts to the bottom of the page—my page, for his page seemed to be bottomless.
As he passed behind my chair, he continued, “. . . and I remember well the particular chill Comma, at last Comma, of the sense of my having launched it in a great grey void from which no echo or message whatever would come back Full Stop.”
He paused, as he seemed to notice that it was time for a new sheet of paper.
“Let’s halt here,” he said, “and see how it’s going. By the way, at least for some months, you and I will be working on prefaces for a New York edition of my collected works in more than twenty volumes. Since the publisher is in the United States, we’ll use American double inverted commas—what the Americans call ‘quotation marks’—as a small concession, but wouldn’t you agree that we should honour accepted British spelling and use a space before semicolons and colons?”
I was very glad to have that breather with his directions and his nod to our British style, for I was feeling terribly out of sorts, perspiring, even shaking from the strain of working his new machine and from the hugeness of Mr. James’ presence. I hurriedly rolled out the sheet, glad to be done with that page at least. But in looking over the typed sheet, I was horrified to find so many misspelt words, over-struck letters, uneven and faint letters, and smudges.
Mr. James took the sheet from my hand and made an unconscious grimace at the messy page. I looked away and bent to the machine, struggling to put a fresh sheet in place.
“It feels good,” he said, “to be dictating again this way after so long. I lost my last amanuensis, Miss Weld—perhaps you know her—when she decided to marry. And then I went travelling for many months without being settled enough to dictate. It is a great relief to me now to hear the tap-tap of the typewriting machine, Miss Bosanquet. I have become accustomed to this method. In the old days when I would be writing a serial like ‘The Tragic Muse,’ I would write out my text in longhand with my favourite dip-pen and inkwell and send out a section of it as it was written, off on the first boat to the New York publishers, and they would have it typeset and send the galleys back by return boat.
“And