Arts and Letters

Since we did not see much of each other in Gilbert's later years, let me talk about the times when I saw him almost daily, and under conditions that were an exacting test. I refer to the period in the early Twenties when Gilbert was managing editor of The Dial, and I was working as his assistant, primarily concerned with proofreading (in which he joined) and with the mechanics of make-up.

My memory of him in those days is of a highly companionable fellow who never gave the slightest impression of bossiness. Each of us had his work to do. And since neither Scofield Thayer nor Sibley Watson was regularly in the office, Gilbert was in command. I recall that his ways of being in command were both gracious and vivacious. It was really good fun to work with Gilbert, and to share his bright metropolitan interest in the daily vicissitudes of the literary marketplace.

Whatever his personal involvements (and he mentioned them almost not at all), he brought to the office each day much the same companionableness and bubbling good-nature. He must have been grouchy sometimes, but I don't recall such times. I think of him as unfailingly zestful, and as setting such a tone for each day's doings.

I realize: I spontaneously came to expect of him a kind of ebullience as unsinkable as a cork on the waves, if ebullience can properly be called unsinkable. And there was always the brisk interlude when, each afternoon, he got the Hearst edition with the latest Krazy Kat cartoons, and we took time off to admire Herriman's civilized ingenuities. We all believed in this lore as much as he did. But he was to be the one who made the first Grand Presentation of those cartoons and of the many exhibits in line with his prophetic exhortings as regards the "lively arts."

Later on, when Gilbert's health began to fail him, I got the impression that he himself may have quite forgotten his ebullience in those early Dial days when I knew him best, and saw him operating so vivaciously.

Yes, Gilbert was a charming colleague to work with. Already he was building up the kind of material that he was later to be best known by. Yet at the same time he was quite at home in the heavier stuff. And I was particularly impressed by his professionalism as manifested many times on the day when we made up the magazine. If we found out, for instance, that a review of a certain length was still called for, Gilbert would go into the back office, close the door, you'd hear the typewriter clicking almost without hesitation—and after a fitting interval he would emerge with copy of the exact amount needed. Gilbert was indeed a pro.

But when I speak of his unfailing ebullience in those years when I knew him best, I don't want to give the impression that there were never times of strain. For instance, I remember an occasion when Gilbert happened to have been considerably less concerned with matters around the office than with his relations elsewhere to life-in-general. As a result things had been delayed a bit so that his make-up man (that is, one K. Burke) had to stay in New York until Saturday morning, whereas, it being summer, we usually cleared out on Friday for the weekend. Gilbert's wayward ways then had so interfered with my plans for my weekend in the country that I had grown quite glum—and all the more so, since Gilbert was as frisky as ever.

Finally, I got all the proof shipped off. But just before leaving thus belatedly, I paused at the door, turned back, looked Gilbert firmly in the eye and said: "I want it understood. I shall be taking the 2:15 train. The conductor knows me. I'll be seen at the other end by people who know me, and I'll be met by people who can account for my whereabouts all the remaining part of this weekend. So, if anyone sets this office on fire between now and Monday I'll be able to prove conclusively that I didn't do it"—at which point I slammed the door and started clumping down the stairs. Of a sudden the door opened, Gilbert came out, leaned over the banister and shouted, "Mr. Burke, I want it understood: you have never set this office on fire yet." Thus, even in a mean moment, things turned out brightly.

And I have many times quoted Gilbert's theory of culture. "Culture began when A wanted to hit B over the head, but instead of doing it himself hired C to do the job for him." Quite some years later, I reminded him of his wisecrack. But though I had treasured it all that time, he had forgot it.

After the Dial years, I saw Gilbert only now and then (once, I remember, on a deal in Brooklyn, once in Philadelphia, both occasions being under his auspices). But whatever had intervened, we just took up where we had left off—and that's always a good feeling.

I think of Gilbert in this spirit. His work is in its essence warm. I still see him in that very office that I couldn't set on fire. And after all the intervening years, and all that they have done to us all, even in a solemn time such as this, I can spontaneously smile, and for a bit feel good, when I think of those times, and of Gilbert so friendly, so quickly competent, and so contagiously expectant. Yes, for me, the memories of The Dial are magic—and Gilbert is a delightful strand among those magic memories.