MY FIRST SUCCESS.
1849-1855.
I had at once gone to work on a third novel, and had nearly completed
it, when I was informed of the absolute failure of the former. I find
however that the agreement for its publication was not made till
1850, by which time I imagine that Mr. Colburn must have forgotten
the disastrous result of _The O'Kellys_, as he thereby agrees to give
me £20 down for my "new historical novel, to be called _La Vendée_."
He agreed also to pay me £30 more when he had sold 350 copies, and
£50 more should he sell 450 within six months. I got my £20, and then
heard no more of _La Vendée_, not even receiving any account. Perhaps
the historical title had appeared more alluring to him than an Irish
subject; though it was not long afterwards that I received a warning
from the very same house of business against historical novels,--as I
will tell at length when the proper time comes.
I have no doubt that the result of the sale of this story was
no better than that of the two that had gone before. I asked no
questions, however, and to this day have received no information. The
story is certainly inferior to those which had gone before;--chiefly
because I knew accurately the life of the people in Ireland, and
knew, in truth, nothing of life in the La Vendée country, and also
because the facts of the present time came more within the limits of
my powers of story-telling than those of past years. But I read the
book the other day, and am not ashamed of it. The conception as to
the feeling of the people is, I think, true; the characters are
distinct; and the tale is not dull. As far as I can remember, this
morsel of criticism is the only one that was ever written on the
book.
I had, however, received £20. Alas! alas! years were to roll by
before I should earn by my pen another shilling. And, indeed, I
was well aware that I had not earned that; but that the money had
been "talked out of" the worthy publisher by the earnestness of
my brother, who made the bargain for me. I have known very much
of publishers and have been surprised by much in their mode of
business,--by the apparent lavishness and by the apparent hardness to
authors in the same men;--but by nothing so much as by the ease with
which they can occasionally be persuaded to throw away small sums of
money. If you will only make the payment future instead of present,
you may generally twist a few pounds in your own or your client's
favour. "You might as well promise her £20. This day six months will
do very well." The publisher, though he knows that the money will
never come back to him, thinks it worth his while to rid himself of
your importunity at so cheap a price.
But while I was writing _La Vendée_ I made a literary attempt in
another direction. In 1847 and 1848 there had come upon Ireland the
desolation and destruction, first of the famine, and then of the
pestilence which succeeded the famine. It was my duty at that time
to be travelling constantly in those parts of Ireland in which the
misery and troubles thence arising were, perhaps, at their worst.
The western parts of Cork, Kerry, and Clare were pre-eminently
unfortunate. The efforts--I may say the successful efforts--made
by the Government to stay the hands of death will still be in the
remembrance of many:--how Sir Robert Peel was instigated to repeal
the Corn Laws; and how, subsequently, Lord John Russell took measures
for employing the people, and supplying the country with Indian corn.
The expediency of these latter measures was questioned by many. The
people themselves wished of course to be fed without working; and
the gentry, who were mainly responsible for the rates, were disposed
to think that the management of affairs was taken too much out of
their own hands. My mind at the time was busy with the matter, and,
thinking that the Government was right, I was inclined to defend
them as far as my small powers went. S. G. O. (Lord Sydney Godolphin
Osborne) was at that time denouncing the Irish scheme of the
Administration in the _Times_, using very strong language,--as
those who remember his style will know. I fancied then--as I still
think--that I understood the country much better than he did; and I
was anxious to show that the steps taken for mitigating the terrible
evil of the times were the best which the Minister of the day could
have adopted. In 1848 I was in London, and, full of my purpose, I
presented myself to Mr. John Forster--who has since been an intimate
and valued friend--but who was at that time the editor of the
_Examiner_. I think that that portion of the literary world which
understands the fabrication of newspapers will admit that neither
before his time, nor since, has there been a more capable editor of
a weekly newspaper. As a literary man, he was not without his faults.
That which the cabman is reported to have said of him before the
magistrate is quite true. He was always "an arbitrary cove." As a
critic, he belonged to the school of Bentley and Gifford,--who would
always bray in a literary mortar all critics who disagreed from
them, as though such disagreement were a personal offence requiring
personal castigation. But that very eagerness made him a good editor.
Into whatever he did he put his very heart and soul. During his time
the _Examiner_ was almost all that a Liberal weekly paper should be.
So to John Forster I went, and was shown into that room in Lincoln's
Inn Fields in which, some three or four years earlier, Dickens had
given that reading of which there is an illustration with portraits
in the second volume of his life.
At this time I knew no literary men. A few I had met when living
with my mother, but that had been now so long ago that all such
acquaintance had died out. I knew who they were as far as a man could
get such knowledge from the papers of the day, and felt myself as in
part belonging to the guild, through my mother, and in some degree
by my own unsuccessful efforts. But it was not probable that any one
would admit my claim;--nor on this occasion did I make any claim. I
stated my name and official position, and the fact that opportunities
had been given me of seeing the poor-houses in Ireland, and of
making myself acquainted with the circumstances of the time. Would
a series of letters on the subject be accepted by the _Examiner_?
The great man, who loomed very large to me, was pleased to say
that if the letters should recommend themselves by their style
and matter, if they were not too long, and if--every reader will
know how on such occasions an editor will guard himself--if this
and if that, they should be favourably entertained. They were
favourably entertained,--if printing and publication be favourable
entertainment. But I heard no more of them. The world in Ireland did
not declare that the Government had at last been adequately defended,
nor did the treasurer of the _Examiner_ send me a cheque in return.
Whether there ought to have been a cheque I do not even yet know. A
man who writes a single letter to a newspaper of course is not paid
for it,--nor for any number of letters on some point personal to
himself. I have since written sets of letters to newspapers, and have
been paid for them; but then I have bargained for a price. On this
occasion I had hopes; but they never ran high, and I was not much
disappointed. I have no copy now of those letters, and could not
refer to them without much trouble; nor do I remember what I said.
But I know that I did my best in writing them.
When my historical novel failed, as completely as had its
predecessors, the two Irish novels, I began to ask myself whether,
after all, that was my proper line. I had never thought of
questioning the justice of the verdict expressed against me. The
idea that I was the unfortunate owner of unappreciated genius never
troubled me. I did not look at the books after they were published,
feeling sure that they had been, as it were, damned with good reason.
But still I was clear in my mind that I would not lay down my pen.
Then and therefore I determined to change my hand, and to attempt a
play. I did attempt the play, and in 1850 I wrote a comedy, partly in
blank verse, and partly in prose, called _The Noble Jilt_. The plot
I afterwards used in a novel called _Can You Forgive Her?_ I believe
that I did give the best of my intellect to the play, and I must
own that when it was completed it pleased me much. I copied it, and
re-copied it, touching it here and touching it there, and then sent
it to my very old friend, George Bartley the actor, who had when I
was in London been stage-manager of one of the great theatres, and
who would, I thought, for my own sake and for my mother's, give me
the full benefit of his professional experience.
I have now before me the letter which he wrote to me,--a letter which
I have read a score of times. It was altogether condemnatory. "When I
commenced," he said, "I had great hopes of your production. I did not
think it opened dramatically, but that might have been remedied." I
knew then that it was all over. But, as my old friend warmed to the
subject, the criticism became stronger and stronger, till my ears
tingled. At last came the fatal blow. "As to the character of your
heroine, I felt at a loss how to describe it, but you have done it
for me in the last speech of Madame Brudo." Madame Brudo was the
heroine's aunt. "'Margaret, my child, never play the jilt again; 'tis
a most unbecoming character. Play it with what skill you will, it
meets but little sympathy.' And this, be assured, would be its
effect upon an audience. So that I must reluctantly add that, had
I been still a manager, _The Noble Jilt_ is not a play I could have
recommended for production." This was a blow that I did feel. The
neglect of a book is a disagreeable fact which grows upon an author
by degrees. There is no special moment of agony,--no stunning
violence of condemnation. But a piece of criticism such as this, from
a friend, and from a man undoubtedly capable of forming an opinion,
was a blow in the face! But I accepted the judgment loyally, and said
not a word on the subject to any one. I merely showed the letter to
my wife, declaring my conviction, that it must be taken as gospel.
And as critical gospel it has since been accepted. In later days I
have more than once read the play, and I know that he was right. The
dialogue, however, I think to be good, and I doubt whether some of
the scenes be not the brightest and best work I ever did.
Just at this time another literary project loomed before my eyes, and
for six or eight months had considerable size. I was introduced to
Mr. John Murray, and proposed to him to write a handbook for Ireland.
I explained to him that I knew the country better than most other
people, perhaps better than any other person, and could do it well.
He asked me to make a trial of my skill, and to send him a certain
number of pages, undertaking to give me an answer within a fortnight
after he should have received my work. I came back to Ireland, and
for some weeks I laboured very hard. I "did" the city of Dublin, and
the county of Kerry, in which lies the lake scenery of Killarney; and
I "did" the route from Dublin to Killarney, altogether completing
nearly a quarter of the proposed volume. The roll of MS. was sent to
Albemarle Street,--but was never opened. At the expiration of nine
months from the date on which it reached that time-honoured spot it
was returned without a word, in answer to a very angry letter from
myself. I insisted on having back my property,--and got it. I need
hardly say that my property has never been of the slightest use to
me. In all honesty I think that had he been less dilatory, John
Murray would have got a very good Irish Guide at a cheap rate.
Early in 1851 I was sent upon a job of special official work, which
for two years so completely absorbed my time that I was able to
write nothing. A plan was formed for extending the rural delivery of
letters, and for adjusting the work, which up to that time had been
done in a very irregular manner. A country letter-carrier would be
sent in one direction in which there were but few letters to be
delivered, the arrangement having originated probably at the request
of some influential person, while in another direction there was no
letter-carrier because no influential person had exerted himself.
It was intended to set this right throughout England, Ireland, and
Scotland; and I quickly did the work in the Irish district to which
I was attached. I was then invited to do the same in a portion of
England, and I spent two of the happiest years of my life at the
task. I began in Devonshire; and visited, I think I may say, every
nook in that county, in Cornwall, Somersetshire, the greater part
of Dorsetshire, the Channel Islands, part of Oxfordshire, Wiltshire,
Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and
the six southern Welsh counties. In this way I had an opportunity of
seeing a considerable portion of Great Britain, with a minuteness
which few have enjoyed. And I did my business after a fashion in
which no other official man has worked, at least for many years. I
went almost everywhere on horseback. I had two hunters of my own,
and here and there, where I could, I hired a third horse. I had an
Irish groom with me,--an old man, who has now been in my service for
thirty-five years; and in this manner I saw almost every house--I
think I may say every house of importance--in this large district.
The object was to create a postal network which should catch all
recipients of letters. In France it was, and I suppose still is, the
practice to deliver every letter. Wherever the man may live to whom
a letter is addressed, it is the duty of some letter-carrier to take
that letter to his house, sooner or later. But this, of course, must
be done slowly. With us a delivery much delayed was thought to be
worse than none at all. In some places we did establish posts three
times a week, and perhaps occasionally twice a week; but such halting
arrangements were considered to be objectionable, and we were bound
down by a salutary law as to expense, which came from our masters at
the Treasury. We were not allowed to establish any messenger's walk
on which a sufficient number of letters would not be delivered to
pay the man's wages, counted at a halfpenny a letter. But then the
counting was in our own hands, and an enterprising official might be
sanguine in his figures. I think I was sanguine. I did not prepare
false accounts; but I fear that the postmasters and clerks who
absolutely had the country to do became aware that I was anxious for
good results. It is amusing to watch how a passion will grow upon a
man. During those two years it was the ambition of my life to cover
the country with rural letter-carriers. I do not remember that in any
case a rural post proposed by me was negatived by the authorities;
but I fear that some of them broke down afterwards as being too poor,
or because, in my anxiety to include this house and that, I had sent
the men too far afield. Our law was that a man should not be required
to walk more than sixteen miles a day. Had the work to be done been
all on a measured road, there would have been no need for doubt as
to the distances. But my letter-carriers went here and there across
the fields. It was my special delight to take them by all short cuts;
and as I measured on horseback the short cuts which they would have
to make on foot, perhaps I was sometimes a little unjust to them.
All this I did on horseback, riding on an average forty miles a day.
I was paid sixpence a mile for the distance travelled, and it was
necessary that I should at any rate travel enough to pay for my
equipage. This I did, and got my hunting out of it also. I have often
surprised some small country postmaster, who had never seen or heard
of me before, by coming down upon him at nine in the morning, with
a red coat and boots and breeches, and interrogating him as to the
disposal of every letter which came into his office. And in the same
guise I would ride up to farmhouses, or parsonages, or other lone
residences about the country, and ask the people how they got their
letters, at what hour, and especially whether they were delivered
free or at a certain charge. For a habit had crept into use, which
came to be, in my eyes, at that time, the one sin for which there was
no pardon, in accordance with which these rural letter-carriers used
to charge a penny a letter, alleging that the house was out of their
beat, and that they must be paid for their extra work. I think that
I did stamp out that evil. In all these visits I was, in truth,
a beneficent angel to the public, bringing everywhere with me an
earlier, cheaper, and much more regular delivery of letters. But
not unfrequently the angelic nature of my mission was imperfectly
understood. I was perhaps a little in a hurry to get on, and did
not allow as much time as was necessary to explain to the wondering
mistress of the house, or to an open-mouthed farmer, why it was that
a man arrayed for hunting asked so many questions which might be
considered impertinent, as applying to his or her private affairs.
"Good morning, sir. I have just called to ask a few questions. I am
a surveyor of the Post Office. How do you get your letters? As I am
a little in a hurry, perhaps you can explain at once." Then I would
take out my pencil and notebook, and wait for information. And in
fact there was no other way in which the truth could be ascertained.
Unless I came down suddenly as a summer's storm upon them, the very
people who were robbed by our messengers would not confess the
robbery, fearing the ill-will of the men. It was necessary to startle
them into the revelations which I required them to make for their own
good. And I did startle them. I became thoroughly used to it, and
soon lost my native bashfulness;--but sometimes my visits astonished
the retiring inhabitants of country houses. I did, however, do my
work, and can look back upon what I did with thorough satisfaction.
I was altogether in earnest; and I believe that many a farmer now has
his letters brought daily to his house free of charge, who but for me
would still have had to send to the post-town for them twice a week,
or to have paid a man for bringing them irregularly to his door.
This work took up my time so completely, and entailed upon me so
great an amount of writing, that I was in fact unable to do any
literary work. From day to day I thought of it, still purporting to
make another effort, and often turning over in my head some fragment
of a plot which had occurred to me. But the day did not come in which
I could sit down with pen and paper and begin another novel. For,
after all, what could it be but a novel? The play had failed more
absolutely than the novels, for the novels had attained the honour of
print. The cause of this pressure of official work lay, not in the
demands of the General Post Office, which more than once expressed
itself as astonished by my celerity, but in the necessity which was
incumbent on me to travel miles enough to pay for my horses, and upon
the amount of correspondence, returns, figures, and reports which
such an amount of daily travelling brought with it. I may boast that
the work was done very quickly and very thoroughly,--with no fault
but an over-eagerness to extend postal arrangements far and wide.
In the course of the job I visited Salisbury, and whilst wandering
there one midsummer evening round the purlieus of the cathedral I
conceived the story of _The Warden_,--from whence came that series of
novels of which Barchester, with its bishops, deans, and archdeacon,
was the central site. I may as well declare at once that no one at
their commencement could have had less reason than myself to presume
himself to be able to write about clergymen. I have been often asked
in what period of my early life I had lived so long in a cathedral
city as to have become intimate with the ways of a Close. I never
lived in any cathedral city,--except London, never knew anything of
any Close, and at that time had enjoyed no peculiar intimacy with
any clergyman. My archdeacon, who has been said to be life-like, and
for whom I confess that I have all a parent's fond affection, was, I
think, the simple result of an effort of my moral consciousness. It
was such as that, in my opinion, that an archdeacon should be,--or,
at any rate, would be with such advantages as an archdeacon might
have; and lo! an archdeacon was produced, who has been declared
by competent authorities to be a real archdeacon down to the very
ground. And yet, as far as I can remember, I had not then even
spoken to an archdeacon. I have felt the compliment to be very great.
The archdeacon came whole from my brain after this fashion;--but
in writing about clergymen generally, I had to pick up as I went
whatever I might know or pretend to know about them. But my first
idea had no reference to clergymen in general. I had been struck by
two opposite evils,--or what seemed to me to be evils,--and with an
absence of all art-judgment in such matters, I thought that I might
be able to expose them, or rather to describe them, both in one and
the same tale. The first evil was the possession by the Church of
certain funds and endowments which had been intended for charitable
purposes, but which had been allowed to become incomes for idle
Church dignitaries. There had been more than one such case brought
to public notice at the time, in which there seemed to have been an
egregious malversation of charitable purposes. The second evil was
its very opposite. Though I had been much struck by the injustice
above described, I had also often been angered by the undeserved
severity of the newspapers towards the recipients of such incomes,
who could hardly be considered to be the chief sinners in the matter.
When a man is appointed to a place, it is natural that he should
accept the income allotted to that place without much inquiry. It is
seldom that he will be the first to find out that his services are
overpaid. Though he be called upon only to look beautiful and to be
dignified upon State occasions, he will think £2000 a year little
enough for such beauty and dignity as he brings to the task. I felt
that there had been some tearing to pieces which might have been
spared. But I was altogether wrong in supposing that the two things
could be combined. Any writer in advocating a cause must do so after
the fashion of an advocate,--or his writing will be ineffective.
He should take up one side and cling to that, and then he may be
powerful. There should be no scruples of conscience. Such scruples
make a man impotent for such work. It was open to me to have
described a bloated parson, with a red nose and all other iniquities,
openly neglecting every duty required from him, and living riotously
on funds purloined from the poor,--defying as he did do so the
moderate remonstrances of a virtuous press. Or I might have painted a
man as good, as sweet, and as mild as my warden, who should also have
been a hard-working, ill-paid minister of God's word, and might have
subjected him to the rancorous venom of some daily _Jupiter_, who,
without a leg to stand on, without any true case, might have been
induced, by personal spite, to tear to rags the poor clergyman with
poisonous, anonymous, and ferocious leading articles. But neither of
these programmes recommended itself to my honesty. Satire, though
it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating
it in order that it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily become
a slander, and satire a libel. I believed in the existence neither
of the red-nosed clerical cormorant, nor in that of the venomous
assassin of the journals. I did believe that through want of care and
the natural tendency of every class to take care of itself, money
had slipped into the pockets of certain clergymen which should have
gone elsewhere; and I believed also that through the equally natural
propensity of men to be as strong as they know how to be, certain
writers of the press had allowed themselves to use language which was
cruel, though it was in a good cause. But the two objects should not
have been combined--and I now know myself well enough to be aware
that I was not the man to have carried out either of them.
Nevertheless I thought much about it, and on the 29th of July,
1853,--having been then two years without having made any literary
effort,--I began _The Warden_, at Tenbury in Worcestershire. It was
then more than twelve months since I had stood for an hour on the
little bridge in Salisbury, and had made out to my own satisfaction
the spot on which Hiram's hospital should stand. Certainly no work
that I ever did took up so much of my thoughts. On this occasion I
did no more than write the first chapter, even if so much. I had
determined that my official work should be moderated, so as to allow
me some time for writing; but then, just at this time, I was sent
to take the postal charge of the northern counties in Ireland,--of
Ulster, and the counties Meath and Louth. Hitherto in official
language I had been a surveyor's clerk,--now I was to be a surveyor.
The difference consisted mainly in an increase of income from about
£450 to about £800;--for at that time the sum netted still depended
on the number of miles travelled. Of course that English work to
which I had become so warmly wedded had to be abandoned. Other parts
of England were being done by other men, and I had nearly finished
the area which had been entrusted to me. I should have liked to ride
over the whole country, and to have sent a rural post letter-carrier
to every parish, every village, every hamlet, and every grange in
England.
We were at this time very much unsettled as regards any residence.
While we were living at Clonmel two sons had been born, who certainly
were important enough to have been mentioned sooner. At Clonmel we
had lived in lodgings, and from there had moved to Mallow, a town in
the county Cork, where we had taken a house. Mallow was in the centre
of a hunting country, and had been very pleasant to me. But our house
there had been given up when it was known that I should be detained
in England; and then we had wandered about in the western counties,
moving our headquarters from one town to another. During this time we
had lived at Exeter, at Bristol, at Caermarthen, at Cheltenham, and
at Worcester. Now we again moved, and settled ourselves for eighteen
months at Belfast. After that we took a house at Donnybrook, the
well-known suburb of Dublin.
The work of taking up a new district, which requires not only that
the man doing it should know the nature of the postal arrangements,
but also the characters and the peculiarities of the postmasters and
their clerks, was too heavy to allow of my going on with my book at
once. It was not till the end of 1852 that I recommenced it, and it
was in the autumn of 1853 that I finished the work. It was only one
small volume, and in later days would have been completed in six
weeks,--or in two months at the longest, if other work had pressed.
On looking at the title-page, I find it was not published till 1855.
I had made acquaintance, through my friend John Merivale, with
William Longman the publisher, and had received from him an assurance
that the manuscript should be "looked at." It was "looked at," and
Messrs. Longman made me an offer to publish it at half profits. I had
no reason to love "half profits," but I was very anxious to have my
book published, and I acceded. It was now more than ten years since
I had commenced writing _The Macdermots_, and I thought that if any
success was to be achieved, the time surely had come. I had not been
impatient; but, if there was to be a time, surely it had come.
The novel-reading world did not go mad about _The Warden_; but I soon
felt that it had not failed as the others had failed. There were
notices of it in the press, and I could discover that people around
me knew that I had written a book. Mr. Longman was complimentary, and
after a while informed me that there would be profits to divide. At
the end of 1855 I received a cheque for £9, 8s. 8d., which was the
first money I had ever earned by literary work;--that £20 which poor
Mr. Colburn had been made to pay certainly never having been earned
at all. At the end of 1856 I received another sum of £10, 15s. 1d.
The pecuniary success was not great. Indeed, as regarded remuneration
for the time, stone-breaking would have done better. A thousand
copies were printed, of which, after a lapse of five or six years,
about 300 had to be converted into another form, and sold as
belonging to a cheap edition. In its original form _The Warden_ never
reached the essential honour of a second edition.
I have already said of the work that it failed altogether in the
purport for which it was intended. But it has a merit of its own,--a
merit by my own perception of which I was enabled to see wherein lay
whatever strength I did possess. The characters of the bishop, of the
archdeacon, of the archdeacon's wife, and especially of the warden,
are all well and clearly drawn. I had realised to myself a series of
portraits, and had been able so to put them on the canvas that my
readers should see that which I meant them to see. There is no gift
which an author can have more useful to him than this. And the style
of the English was good, though from most unpardonable carelessness
the grammar was not unfrequently faulty. With such results I had no
doubt but that I would at once begin another novel.
I will here say one word as a long-deferred answer to an item of
criticism which appeared in the _Times_ newspaper as to _The Warden_.
In an article--if I remember rightly, on _The Warden_ and _Barchester
Towers_ combined--which I would call good-natured, but that I take
it for granted that the critics of the _Times_ are actuated by
higher motives than good-nature, that little book and its sequel
are spoken of in terms which were very pleasant to the author.
But there was added to this a gentle word of rebuke at the morbid
condition of the author's mind which had prompted him to indulge in
personalities,--the personalities in question having reference to
some editor or manager of the _Times_ newspaper. For I had introduced
one Tom Towers as being potent among the contributors to the
_Jupiter_, under which name I certainly did allude to the _Times_.
But at that time, living away in Ireland, I had not even heard the
name of any gentleman connected with the _Times_ newspaper, and could
not have intended to represent any individual by Tom Towers. As I had
created an archdeacon, so had I created a journalist, and the one
creation was no more personal or indicative of morbid tendencies than
the other. If Tom Towers was at all like any gentleman then connected
with the _Times_, my moral consciousness must again have been very
powerful.