_THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON_--_CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?_--_RACHEL
RAY_--AND THE _FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW_.
During the early months of 1862 _Orley Farm_ was still being brought
out in numbers, and at the same time _Brown, Jones, and Robinson_ was
appearing in the _Cornhill Magazine_. In September, 1862, the _Small
House at Allington_ began its career in the same periodical. The work
on North America had also come out in 1862. In August, 1863, the
first number of _Can You Forgive Her?_ was published as a separate
serial, and was continued through 1864. In 1863 a short novel was
produced in the ordinary volume form, called _Rachel Ray_. In
addition to these I published during the time two volumes of stories
called _The Tales of All Countries_. In the early spring of 1865
_Miss Mackenzie_ was issued in the same form as _Rachel Ray_; and
in May of the same year _The Belton Estate_ was commenced with the
commencement of the _Fortnightly Review_, of which periodical I will
say a few words in this chapter.
I quite admit that I crowded my wares into the market too
quickly,--because the reading world could not want such a quantity
of matter from the hands of one author in so short a space of
time. I had not been quite so fertile as the unfortunate gentleman
who disgusted the publisher in Paternoster Row,--in the story of
whose productiveness I have always thought there was a touch of
romance,--but I had probably done enough to make both publishers and
readers think that I was coming too often beneath their notice. Of
publishers, however, I must speak collectively, as my sins were, I
think, chiefly due to the encouragement which I received from them
individually. What I wrote for the _Cornhill Magazine_, I always
wrote at the instigation of Mr. Smith. My other works were published
by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in compliance with contracts made by me
with them, and always made with their good-will. Could I have been
two separate persons at one and the same time, of whom one might have
been devoted to Cornhill and the other to the interests of the firm
in Piccadilly, it might have been very well;--but as I preserved my
identity in both places, I myself became aware that my name was too
frequent on title-pages.
Critics, if they ever trouble themselves with these pages, will, of
course, say that in what I have now said I have ignored altogether
the one great evil of rapid production,--namely, that of inferior
work. And of course if the work was inferior because of the too great
rapidity of production, the critics would be right. Giving to the
subject the best of my critical abilities, and judging of my own work
as nearly as possible as I would that of another, I believe that the
work which has been done quickest has been done the best. I have
composed better stories--that is, have created better plots--than
those of _The Small House at Allington_ and _Can You Forgive Her?_
and I have portrayed two or three better characters than are to be
found in the pages of either of them; but taking these books all
through, I do not think that I have ever done better work. Nor would
these have been improved by any effort in the art of story telling,
had each of these been the isolated labour of a couple of years. How
short is the time devoted to the manipulation of a plot can be known
only to those who have written plays and novels;--I may say also,
how very little time the brain is able to devote to such wearing
work. There are usually some hours of agonising doubt, almost of
despair,--so at least it has been with me,--or perhaps some days. And
then, with nothing settled in my brain as to the final development
of events, with no capability of settling anything, but with a most
distinct conception of some character or characters, I have rushed
at the work as a rider rushes at a fence which he does not see.
Sometimes I have encountered what, in hunting language, we call a
cropper. I had such a fall in two novels of mine, of which I have
already spoken--_The Bertrams_ and _Castle Richmond_. I shall have to
speak of other such troubles. But these failures have not arisen from
over-hurried work. When my work has been quicker done,--and it has
sometimes been done very quickly--the rapidity has been achieved by
hot pressure, not in the conception, but in the telling of the story.
Instead of writing eight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead
of working five days a week, I have worked seven. I have trebled my
usual average, and have done so in circumstances which have enabled
me to give up all my thoughts for the time to the book I have been
writing. This has generally been done at some quiet spot among the
mountains,--where there has been no society, no hunting, no whist, no
ordinary household duties. And I am sure that the work so done has
had in it the best truth and the highest spirit that I have been able
to produce. At such times I have been able to imbue myself thoroughly
with the characters I have had in hand. I have wandered alone
among the rocks and woods, crying at their grief, laughing at
their absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying their joy. I have been
impregnated with my own creations till it has been my only excitement
to sit with the pen in my hand, and drive my team before me at as
quick a pace as I could make them travel.
The critics will again say that all this may be very well as to the
rough work of the author's own brain, but it will be very far from
well in reference to the style in which that work has been given to
the public. After all, the vehicle which a writer uses for conveying
his thoughts to the public should not be less important to him than
the thoughts themselves. An author can hardly hope to be popular
unless he can use popular language. That is quite true; but then
comes the question of achieving a popular--in other words, I may
say, a good and lucid style. How may an author best acquire a mode
of writing which shall be agreeable and easily intelligible to the
reader? He must be correct, because without correctness he can be
neither agreeable nor intelligible. Readers will expect him to obey
those rules which they, consciously or unconsciously, have been
taught to regard as binding on language; and unless he does obey
them, he will disgust. Without much labour, no writer will achieve
such a style. He has very much to learn; and, when he has learned
that much, he has to acquire the habit of using what he has learned
with ease. But all this must be learned and acquired,--not while he
is writing that which shall please, but long before. His language
must come from him as music comes from the rapid touch of the great
performer's fingers; as words come from the mouth of the indignant
orator; as letters fly from the fingers of the trained compositor;
as the syllables tinkled out by little bells form themselves to the
ear of the telegraphist. A man who thinks much of his words as he
writes them will generally leave behind him work that smells of oil.
I speak here, of course, of prose; for in poetry we know what care
is necessary, and we form our taste accordingly.
Rapid writing will no doubt give rise to inaccuracy,--chiefly because
the ear, quick and true as may be its operation, will occasionally
break down under pressure, and, before a sentence be closed, will
forget the nature of the composition with which it was commenced. A
singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, because other
pluralities have intervened and have tempted the ear into plural
tendencies. Tautologies will occur, because the ear, in demanding
fresh emphasis, has forgotten that the desired force has been already
expressed. I need not multiply these causes of error, which must have
been stumbling-blocks indeed when men wrote in the long sentences of
Gibbon, but which Macaulay, with his multiplicity of divisions, has
done so much to enable us to avoid. A rapid writer will hardly avoid
these errors altogether. Speaking of myself, I am ready to declare
that, with much training, I have been unable to avoid them. But the
writer for the press is rarely called upon--a writer of books should
never be called upon--to send his manuscript hot from his hand to the
printer. It has been my practice to read everything four times at
least--thrice in manuscript and once in print. Very much of my work
I have read twice in print. In spite of this I know that inaccuracies
have crept through,--not single spies, but in battalions. From
this I gather that the supervision has been insufficient, not
that the work itself has been done too fast. I am quite sure that
those passages which have been written with the greatest stress of
labour, and consequently with the greatest haste, have been the most
effective and by no means the most inaccurate.
_The Small House at Allington_ redeemed my reputation with the
spirited proprietor of the _Cornhill_, which must, I should think,
have been damaged by _Brown, Jones, and Robinson_. In it appeared
Lily Dale, one of the characters which readers of my novels have
liked the best. In the love with which she has been greeted I have
hardly joined with much enthusiasm, feeling that she is somewhat of
a French prig. She became first engaged to a snob, who jilted her;
and then, though in truth she loved another man who was hardly
good enough, she could not extricate herself sufficiently from the
collapse of her first great misfortune to be able to make up her
mind to be the wife of one whom, though she loved him, she did not
altogether reverence. Prig as she was, she made her way into the
hearts of many readers, both young and old; so that, from that time
to this, I have been continually honoured with letters, the purport
of which has always been to beg me to marry Lily Dale to Johnny
Eames. Had I done so, however, Lily would never have so endeared
herself to these people as to induce them to write letters to the
author concerning her fate. It was because she could not get over
her troubles that they loved her. Outside Lily Dale and the chief
interest of the novel, _The Small House at Allington_ is, I think,
good. The De Courcy family are alive, as is also Sir Raffle Buffle,
who is a hero of the Civil Service. Sir Raffle was intended to
represent a type, not a man; but the man for the picture was soon
chosen, and I was often assured that the portrait was very like. I
have never seen the gentleman with whom I am supposed to have taken
the liberty. There is also an old squire down at Allington, whose
life as a country gentleman with rather straitened means is, I think,
well described.
Of _Can You Forgive Her?_ I cannot speak with too great affection,
though I do not know that of itself it did very much to increase my
reputation. As regards the story, it was formed chiefly on that of
the play which my friend Mr. Bartley had rejected long since, the
circumstances of which the reader may perhaps remember. The play had
been called _The Noble Jilt_; but I was afraid of the name for a
novel, lest the critics might throw a doubt on the nobility. There
was more of tentative humility in that which I at last adopted. The
character of the girl is carried through with considerable strength,
but is not attractive. The humorous characters, which are also
taken from the play,--a buxom widow who with her eyes open chooses
the most scampish of two selfish suitors because he is the better
looking,--are well done. Mrs. Greenow, between Captain Bellfield and
Mr. Cheeseacre, is very good fun--as far as the fun of novels is. But
that which endears the book to me is the first presentation which I
made in it of Plantagenet Palliser, with his wife, Lady Glencora.
By no amount of description or asseveration could I succeed in making
any reader understand how much these characters with their belongings
have been to me in my latter life; or how frequently I have used them
for the expression of my political or social convictions. They have
been as real to me as free trade was to Mr. Cobden, or the dominion
of a party to Mr. Disraeli; and as I have not been able to speak from
the benches of the House of Commons, or to thunder from platforms, or
to be efficacious as a lecturer, they have served me as safety-valves
by which to deliver my soul. Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had appeared
in _The Small House at Allington_, but his birth had not been
accompanied by many hopes. In the last pages of that novel he is made
to seek a remedy for a foolish false step in life by marrying the
grand heiress of the day;--but the personage of the great heiress
does not appear till she comes on the scene as a married woman in
_Can You Forgive Her?_ He is the nephew and heir to a duke--the
Duke of Omnium--who was first introduced in _Doctor Thorne_, and
afterwards in _Framley Parsonage_, and who is one of the belongings
of whom I have spoken. In these personages and their friends,
political and social, I have endeavoured to depict the faults and
frailties and vices,--as also the virtues, the graces, and the
strength of our highest classes; and if I have not made the strength
and virtues predominant over the faults and vices, I have not painted
the picture as I intended. Plantagenet Palliser I think to be a very
noble gentleman,--such a one as justifies to the nation the seeming
anomaly of an hereditary peerage and of primogeniture. His wife is
in all respects very inferior to him; but she, too, has, or has been
intended to have, beneath the thin stratum of her follies a basis of
good principle, which enabled her to live down the conviction of the
original wrong which was done to her, and taught her to endeavour to
do her duty in the position to which she was called. She had received
a great wrong,--having been made, when little more than a child, to
marry a man for whom she cared nothing;--when, however, though she
was little more than a child, her love had been given elsewhere. She
had very heavy troubles, but they did not overcome her.
As to the heaviest of these troubles, I will say a word in
vindication of myself and of the way I handled it in my work.
In the pages of _Can You Forgive Her?_ the girl's first love is
introduced,--beautiful, well-born, and utterly worthless. To save a
girl from wasting herself, and an heiress from wasting her property
on such a scamp, was certainly the duty of the girl's friends. But
it must ever be wrong to force a girl into a marriage with a man she
does not love,--and certainly the more so when there is another whom
she does love. In my endeavour to teach this lesson I subjected
the young wife to the terrible danger of overtures from the man to
whom her heart had been given. I was walking no doubt on ticklish
ground, leaving for a while a doubt on the question whether the lover
might or might not succeed. Then there came to me a letter from a
distinguished dignitary of our Church, a man whom all men honoured,
treating me with severity for what I was doing. It had been one of
the innocent joys of his life, said the clergyman, to have my novels
read to him by his daughters. But now I was writing a book which
caused him to bid them close it! Must I also turn away to vicious
sensation such as this? Did I think that a wife contemplating
adultery was a character fit for my pages? I asked him in return,
whether from his pulpit, or at any rate from his communion-table, he
did not denounce adultery to his audience; and if so, why should it
not be open to me to preach the same doctrine to mine. I made known
nothing which the purest girl could not but have learned, and ought
not to have learned, elsewhere, and I certainly lent no attraction
to the sin which I indicated. His rejoinder was full of grace,
and enabled him to avoid the annoyance of argumentation without
abandoning his cause. He said that the subject was so much too long
for letters; that he hoped I would go and stay a week with him in the
country,--so that we might have it out. That opportunity, however,
has never yet arrived.
Lady Glencora overcomes that trouble, and is brought, partly by her
own sense of right and wrong, and partly by the genuine nobility
of her husband's conduct, to attach herself to him after a certain
fashion. The romance of her life is gone, but there remains a
rich reality of which she is fully able to taste the flavour. She
loves her rank and becomes ambitious, first of social, and then
of political ascendancy. He is thoroughly true to her, after
his thorough nature, and she, after her less perfect nature, is
imperfectly true to him.
In conducting these characters from one story to another I realised
the necessity, not only of consistency,--which, had it been
maintained by a hard exactitude, would have been untrue to
nature,--but also of those changes which time always produces. There
are, perhaps, but few of us who, after the lapse of ten years, will
be found to have changed our chief characteristics. The selfish man
will still be selfish, and the false man false. But our manner of
showing or of hiding these characteristics will be changed,--as also
our power of adding to or diminishing their intensity. It was my
study that these people, as they grew in years, should encounter the
changes which come upon us all; and I think that I have succeeded.
The Duchess of Omnium, when she is playing the part of Prime
Minister's wife, is the same woman as that Lady Glencora who almost
longs to go off with Burgo Fitzgerald, but yet knows that she will
never do so; and the Prime Minister Duke, with his wounded pride and
sore spirit, is he who, for his wife's sake, left power and place
when they were first offered to him;--but they have undergone the
changes which a life so stirring as theirs would naturally produce.
To do all this thoroughly was in my heart from first to last; but I
do not know that the game has been worth the candle. To carry out my
scheme I have had to spread my picture over so wide a canvas that I
cannot expect that any lover of such art should trouble himself to
look at it as a whole. Who will read _Can You Forgive Her?_, _Phineas
Finn_, _Phineas Redux_, and _The Prime Minister_ consecutively, in
order that they may understand the characters of the Duke of Omnium,
of Plantagenet Palliser, and of Lady Glencora? Who will ever know
that they should be so read? But in the performance of the work I had
much gratification, and was enabled from time to time to have in this
way that fling at the political doings of the day which every man
likes to take, if not in one fashion then in another. I look upon
this string of characters,--carried sometimes into other novels
than those just named,--as the best work of my life. Taking him
altogether, I think that Plantagenet Palliser stands more firmly on
the ground than any other personage I have created.
On Christmas day, 1863, we were startled by the news of Thackeray's
death. He had then for many months given up the editorship of the
_Cornhill Magazine_,--a position for which he was hardly fitted
either by his habits or temperament,--but was still employed in
writing for its pages. I had known him only for four years, but had
grown into much intimacy with him and his family. I regard him as one
of the most tender-hearted human beings I ever knew, who, with an
exaggerated contempt for the foibles of the world at large, would
entertain an almost equally exaggerated sympathy with the joys and
troubles of individuals around him. He had been unfortunate in early
life--unfortunate in regard to money--unfortunate with an afflicted
wife--unfortunate in having his home broken up before his children
were fit to be his companions. This threw him too much upon clubs,
and taught him to dislike general society. But it never affected his
heart, or clouded his imagination. He could still revel in the pangs
and joys of fictitious life, and could still feel--as he did to the
very last--the duty of showing to his readers the evil consequences
of evil conduct. It was perhaps his chief fault as a writer that he
could never abstain from that dash of satire which he felt to be
demanded by the weaknesses which he saw around him. The satirist who
writes nothing but satire should write but little,--or it will seem
that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from
the sins of the world in which he lives. I myself regard _Esmond_ as
the greatest novel in the English language, basing that judgment upon
the excellence of its language, on the clear individuality of the
characters, on the truth of its delineations in regard to the time
selected, and on its great pathos. There are also in it a few scenes
so told that even Scott has never equalled the telling. Let any one
who doubts this read the passage in which Lady Castlewood induces the
Duke of Hamilton to think that his nuptials with Beatrice will be
honoured if Colonel Esmond will give away the bride. When he went
from us he left behind living novelists with great names; but I think
that they who best understood the matter felt that the greatest
master of fiction of this age had gone.
_Rachel Ray_ underwent a fate which no other novel of mine has
encountered. Some years before this a periodical called _Good Words_
had been established under the editorship of my friend Dr. Norman
Macleod, a well-known Presbyterian pastor in Glasgow. In 1863 he
asked me to write a novel for his magazine, explaining to me that
his principles did not teach him to confine his matter to religious
subjects, and paying me the compliment of saying that he would feel
himself quite safe in my hands. In reply I told him I thought he was
wrong in his choice; that though he might wish to give a novel to
the readers of _Good Words_, a novel from me would hardly be what
he wanted, and that I could not undertake to write either with any
specially religious tendency, or in any fashion different from
that which was usual to me. As worldly and--if any one thought me
wicked--as wicked as I had heretofore been, I must still be, should
I write for _Good Words_. He persisted in his request, and I came to
terms as to a story for the periodical. I wrote it and sent it to
him, and shortly afterwards received it back--a considerable portion
having been printed--with an intimation that it would not do. A
letter more full of wailing and repentance no man ever wrote. It was,
he said, all his own fault. He should have taken my advice. He should
have known better. But the story, such as it was, he could not give
to his readers in the pages of _Good Words_. Would I forgive him? Any
pecuniary loss to which his decision might subject me the owner of
the publication would willingly make good. There was some loss--or
rather would have been--and that money I exacted, feeling that the
fault had in truth been with the editor. There is the tale now to
speak for itself. It is not brilliant, nor in any way very excellent;
but it certainly is not very wicked. There is some dancing in one
of the early chapters, described, no doubt, with that approval of
the amusement which I have always entertained; and it was this to
which my friend demurred. It is more true of novels than perhaps of
anything else, that one man's food is another man's poison.
_Miss Mackenzie_ was written with a desire to prove that a novel may
be produced without any love; but even in this attempt it breaks
down before the conclusion. In order that I might be strong in my
purpose, I took for my heroine a very unattractive old maid, who was
overwhelmed with money troubles; but even she was in love before the
end of the book, and made a romantic marriage with an old man. There
is in this story an attack upon charitable bazaars, made with a
violence which will, I think, convince any reader that such attempts
at raising money were at the time very odious to me. I beg to say
that since that I have had no occasion to alter my opinion. _Miss
Mackenzie_ was published in the early spring of 1865.
At the same time I was engaged with others in establishing a
periodical Review, in which some of us trusted much, and from which
we expected great things. There was, however, in truth so little
combination of idea among us, that we were not justified in our trust
or in our expectations. And yet we were honest in our purpose, and
have, I think, done some good by our honesty. The matter on which
we were all agreed was freedom of speech, combined with personal
responsibility. We would be neither conservative nor liberal, neither
religious nor free-thinking, neither popular nor exclusive;--but we
would let any man who had a thing to say, and knew how to say it,
speak freely. But he should always speak with the responsibility of
his name attached. In the very beginning I militated against this
impossible negation of principles,--and did so most irrationally,
seeing that I had agreed to the negation of principles,--by declaring
that nothing should appear denying or questioning the divinity
of Christ. It was a most preposterous claim to make for such a
publication as we proposed, and it at once drove from us one
or two who had proposed to join us. But we went on, and our
company--limited--was formed. We subscribed, I think, £1250 each.
I at least subscribed that amount, and--having agreed to bring out
our publication every fortnight, after the manner of the well-known
French publication,--we called it _The Fortnightly_. We secured
the services of G. H. Lewes as our editor. We agreed to manage our
finances by a Board, which was to meet once a fortnight, and of which
I was the Chairman. And we determined that the payments for our
literature should be made on a liberal and strictly ready-money
system. We carried out our principles till our money was all gone,
and then we sold the copyright to Messrs. Chapman & Hall for a
trifle. But before we parted with our property we found that a
fortnightly issue was not popular with the trade through whose hands
the work must reach the public; and, as our periodical had not
become sufficiently popular itself to bear down such opposition,
we succumbed, and brought it out once a month. Still it was _The
Fortnightly_, and still it is _The Fortnightly_. Of all the serial
publications of the day, it probably is the most serious, the most
earnest, the least devoted to amusement, the least flippant, the
least jocose,--and yet it has the face to show itself month after
month to the world, with so absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know
the laws of modern literature are aware, a very serious thing to
change the name of a periodical. By doing so you begin an altogether
new enterprise. Therefore should the name be well chosen;--whereas
this was very ill chosen, a fault for which I alone was responsible.
That theory of eclecticism was altogether impracticable. It was as
though a gentleman should go into the House of Commons determined to
support no party, but to serve his country by individual utterances.
Such gentlemen have gone into the House of Commons, but they have
not served their country much. Of course the project broke down.
Liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry will never object to
appear in company with their opposites, because they have the conceit
to think that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites will
not appear in conjunction with liberalism, free-thinking, and open
inquiry. As a natural consequence, our new publication became an
organ of liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry. The result has
been good; and though there is much in the now established principles
of _The Fortnightly_ with which I do not myself agree, I may safely
say that the publication has assured an individuality, and asserted
for itself a position in our periodical literature, which is well
understood and highly respected.
As to myself and my own hopes in the matter,--I was craving
after some increase in literary honesty, which I think is still
desirable, but which is hardly to be attained by the means which then
recommended themselves to me. In one of the early numbers I wrote a
paper advocating the signature of the authors to periodical writing,
admitting that the system should not be extended to journalistic
articles on political subjects. I think that I made the best of my
case; but further consideration has caused me to doubt whether the
reasons which induced me to make an exception in favour of political
writing do not extend themselves also to writing on other subjects.
Much of the literary criticism which we now have is very bad
indeed;--so bad as to be open to the charge both of dishonesty and
incapacity. Books are criticised without being read,--are criticised
by favour,--and are trusted by editors to the criticism of the
incompetent. If the names of the critics were demanded, editors
would be more careful. But I fear the effect would be that we should
get but little criticism, and that the public would put but little
trust in that little. An ordinary reader would not care to have his
books recommended to him by Jones; but the recommendation of the
great unknown comes to him with all the weight of the _Times_, the
_Spectator_, or the _Saturday_.
Though I admit so much, I am not a recreant from the doctrine I then
preached. I think that the name of the author does tend to honesty,
and that the knowledge that it will be inserted adds much to the
author's industry and care. It debars him also from illegitimate
license and dishonest assertions. A man should never be ashamed
to acknowledge that which he is not ashamed to publish. In _The
Fortnightly_ everything has been signed, and in this way good has,
I think, been done. Signatures to articles in other periodicals have
become much more common since _The Fortnightly_ was commenced.
After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, feeling that the
work pressed too severely on his moderate strength. Our loss in him
was very great, and there was considerable difficulty in finding a
successor. I must say that the present proprietor has been fortunate
in the choice he did make. Mr. John Morley has done the work with
admirable patience, zeal, and capacity. Of course he has got around
him a set of contributors whose modes of thought are what we may call
much advanced; he being "much advanced" himself, would not work with
other aids. The periodical has a peculiar tone of its own; but it
holds its own with ability, and though there are many who perhaps
hate it, there are none who despise it. When the company sold it,
having spent about £9000 on it, it was worth little or nothing. Now I
believe it to be a good property.
My own last personal concern with it was on a matter of
fox-hunting.[9] There came out in it an article from the pen of
Mr. Freeman the historian, condemning the amusement, which I love,
on the grounds of cruelty and general brutality. Was it possible,
asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero, that any educated man should
find delight in so coarse a pursuit? Always bearing in mind my own
connection with _The Fortnightly_, I regarded this almost as a rising
of a child against the father. I felt at any rate bound to answer Mr.
Freeman in the same columns, and I obtained Mr. Morley's permission
to do so. I wrote my defence of fox-hunting, and there it is. In
regard to the charge of cruelty, Mr. Freeman seems to assert that
nothing unpleasant should be done to any of God's creatures except
for a useful purpose. The protection of a lady's shoulders from the
cold is a useful purpose; and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals
may be snared in the snow and left to starve to death in the wires,
in order that the lady may have the tippet,--though a tippet of
wool would serve the purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the
congregation and healthful amusement of one or two hundred persons,
on whose behalf a single fox may or may not be killed, is not a
useful purpose. I think that Mr. Freeman has failed to perceive that
amusement is as needful and almost as necessary as food and raiment.
The absurdity of the further charge as to the general brutality of
the pursuit, and its consequent unfitness for an educated man, is
to be attributed to Mr. Freeman's ignorance of what is really done
and said in the hunting-field,--perhaps to his misunderstanding of
Cicero's words. There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked
for space for further remarks. I could have it, the editor said,
if I much wished it; but he preferred that the subject should be
closed. Of course I was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr.
Freeman,--and against the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would
cease to exist in England. And I felt that _The Fortnightly_ was
hardly the place for the defence of the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman
kindly suggested to me that he would be glad to publish my article
in a little book to be put out by him condemnatory of fox-hunting
generally. He was to have the last word and the first word, and that
power of picking to pieces which he is known to use in so masterly a
manner, without any reply from me! This I was obliged to decline. If
he would give me the last word, as he would have the first, then, I
told him, I should be proud to join him in the book. This offer did
not however meet his views.
[Footnote 9: I have written various articles for it since,
especially two on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour.]
It had been decided by the Board of Management, somewhat in
opposition to my own ideas on the subject, that the _Fortnightly
Review_ should always contain a novel. It was of course natural that
I should write the first novel, and I wrote _The Belton Estate_. It
is similar in its attributes to _Rachel Ray_ and to _Miss Mackenzie_.
It is readable, and contains scenes which are true to life; but it
has no peculiar merits, and will add nothing to my reputation as a
novelist. I have not looked at it since it was published; and now
turning back to it in my memory, I seem to remember almost less of it
than of any book that I have written.