Dislike isn't precisely the word to use. Uncontrollable revulsion and intense
hatred also make up my feelings towards the Dagenham Ghoul Pauper (he says
his income is only £500 a year. Hah!). But anyway, he hated me first.
Ever since he sent Walter that werewolf story with what he claimed to be
an absolutely brand new bang on nova type sure fire plot twist in the last
line. It was passed on to me in the usual way to read and comment on. Somewhere
in the middle of the fourth line I paused and remarked jocularly that I
hoped this wasn't another of those stories where the girl turns out to be
a weretiger. Walter said that was just what it was and if I could spot the
gimmick that quick the ordinary unintelligent reader might do the same so
perhaps he'd better send it back. I said yes, but to let the author down
lightly because parts of those 3 1/2 lines were quite well written and with
a little encouragement and careful cultivation he might ripen and yield
a mighty harvest of .... etc. etc.
Did Harris, when our feelings about his story and future prospects were communicated to him, take this kindly and help-criticism philosophically and with a firm and eager resolve to keep on striving until he was eventually accepted? Did he write thanking us profusely for our benign guidance and vowing eternal friendship?
No.
He was flaming mad. He wanted to commit murder, he wanted to rip and break and trample on with hobnailed boots, and he wanted a reliable sorcerer to go over the remains to see that the non-material residue got to the proper destination. And strangely enough all his wrath seemed to be directed at me! Most of his letter, where it wasn't charred, was incoherent, but he was specific in his intentions in one passage. He said he was going to fly to Belfast and wear suitable lengths of a certain Art Editor's intestinal tracts home with him to support his hosiery. (I'd like to point out that Harris's sartorial tastes also leave something to be desired. No true fan would be caught dead in garters: the proper wear is the loose drape, showing concentric folds of sock falling gently over the shoe.) Nothing came of it however and he restrained himself to casting doubts on my moral integrity, complaining of the effect of pussyfooting bluenoses on True Art, and insinuating that I am a pseudonym of Eva Firestone. Until now, that is. Those insults I could have ignored, but this dirty mean low treacherous underhanded backstabbing foul kick in the abdomen is too much.
I don't know how he got to hear of that discussion in the first place. I must have enemies. Bob and Walt were discussing my name and pointing out that I should have something between the Jas and the White. One feels sort of naked in fandom without even a single middle name, and I was treating the matter very seriously indeed. The best of the suggestions put forward, in my opinion, were Jas P. White, meaning Just Plain, and James S. White, the S standing for Snowy, chief assistant to Dick Barton and himself a handsome, broad-shouldered, clean-living intrepid type.
What business had the Tweedy One poking his nose into this thing anyway? It's no concern of his. If I could only insult him or something, but I can't. You see, he's a friend of the boss and there might be an argument. (Last time there was a disagreement here we got a new inland lough and the Irish Sea got a large menace to navigation which straightaway started producing mutant cats, so I have to be very careful.) Next Con time I'm going to call on Mr. Harris. It won't be any trouble because there are two people living in that locality who called my lovely Roger's blue cover spaceship a ballpoint pen. HIS suggestion was .... but no, it is too starkly unthinkable, too shameful, too utterly degrading to be borne. I'll not have it. I won't, I tell you!
I do not want to be called Lily White!
(data entered by Judy Bemis)
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