WHEN I went back to Trübner, after Bogue had failed, I had a talk with
him and his partner. I could see they had lost all faith in my literary
prospects. Trübner told me I was a _homo unius libri_, meaning
_Erewhon_. He said I was in a very solitary position. I replied that I
knew I was, but it suited me. I said:
“I pay my way; when I was with you before, I never owed you money; you
find me now not owing my publisher money, but my publisher in debt to me;
I never owe so much as a tailor’s bill; beyond secured debts, I do not
owe £5 in the world and never have” (which is quite true). “I get my
summer’s holiday in Italy every year; I live very quietly and cheaply,
but it suits my health and tastes, and I have no acquaintances but those
I value. My friends stick by me. If I was to get in with these literary
and scientific people I should hate them and they me. I should fritter
away my time and my freedom without getting a _quid pro quo_: as it is, I
am free and I give the swells every now and then such a facer as they get
from no one else. Of course I don’t expect to get on in a commercial
sense at present, I do not go the right way to work for this; but I am
going the right way to secure a lasting reputation and this is what I do
care for. A man cannot have both, he must make up his mind which he
means going in for. I have gone in for posthumous fame and I see no step
in my literary career which I do not think calculated to promote my being
held in esteem when the heat of passion has subsided.”
Trübner shrugged his shoulders. He plainly does not believe that I shall
succeed in getting a hearing; he thinks the combination of the religious
and cultured world too strong for me to stand against.
If he means that the reviewers will burke me as far as they can, no doubt
he is right; but when I am dead there will be other reviewers and I have
already done enough to secure that they shall from time to time look me
up. They won’t bore me then but they will be just like the present ones.
[1882.]