A DIALOGUE
Persons: Gilbert and Algernon. Scene: the drawing room of a house in Piccadilly, overlooking Green Park.
Algernon plays the piano; Gilbert reads a book.
Algernon: Gilbert my dear fellow, what is that book that has you so absorbed?
Gilbert: Oh, I’m just reading the latest from Christopher Crouch. Sorry, as I understand it, seeing anyone enjoy an author you thoroughly detest is torture.
Algernon: You like Crouch’s work? That’s fine, you’re perfectly entitled to bad taste. Although I find that getting angry at Christopher Crouch is rather like being enraged by a blank sheet of paper, what’s there to hate?
Gilbert: You think him bland? You’re pathologically unable to agree with anyone, and since Crouch has won a slew of awards and earned the love of critics and readers alike, you’re required to despise him. I suspect, however since he’s a writer and you fell back as a mere publisher, it’s almost certainly a case of professional jealousy.
Algernon: Jealousy? If I am jealous, then my jealousy has a certain righteousness to it. I don’t envy his talent because he has none, of his success certainly, for I loathe seeing the underserving succeed. Crouch has been rewarded with deification, whilst greater talents are punished with obscurity. The public are incredibly forgiving where mediocrity is concerned, Gilbert. They can tolerate anything except genius.
Gilbert: I met Christopher Crouch last year in Kensington Gardens, he struck me as an abnormality because he’s a thoroughly decent human being, a quality which is often lacking in great men, particularly those you praise.
Algernon: Well as a writer, Crouch is merely adequate, as a human being, he’s utterly inoffensive which is perhaps the most offensive thing one can be. What worries me is that he may be as decent as you claim. Recall Joshua Vaughan, the literary darling of his day, with a few of us going so far as to call him the next Shakespeare. But then of course Vaughan strangled his wife, a fair number of women spoke of his aggressive and sordid seductions, and it was all downhill from there. After the dust had settled, we were finally free to admit the simple truth: Vaughan was never a good writer, he just told everyone he was, and we all believed it because we couldn’t help but admire him. I pray for another scandal to expose Christopher Crouch in a similar fashion, and finally…
Gilbert: Everyone will agree with you?
Algernon: I live in terror of being agreed with Gilbert.
