The supposition that the world is ever in league to put a man down is
childish. Hardly less childish is it for an author to lay the blame on
reviewers. A good sturdy author is a match for a hundred reviewers. He,
I grant, knows nothing of either literature or science who does not know
that a _mot d’ordre_ given by a few wire-pullers can, for a time, make or
mar any man’s success. People neither know what it is they like nor do
they want to find out, all they care about is the being supposed to
derive their likings from the best West-end magazines, so they look to
the shop with the largest plate-glass windows and take what the shop-man
gives them. But no amount of plate-glass can carry off more than a
certain amount of false pretences, and there is no _mot d’ordre_ that can
keep a man permanently down if he is as intent on winning lasting good
name as I have been. If I had played for immediate popularity I think I
could have won it. Having played for lasting credit I doubt not that it
will in the end be given me. A man should not be held to be ill-used for
not getting what he has not played for. I am not saying that it is
better or more honourable to play for lasting than for immediate success.
I know which I myself find pleasanter, but that has nothing to do with
it.
It is a nice question whether the light or the heavy armed soldier of
literature and art is the more useful. I joined the plodders and have
aimed at permanent good name rather than brilliancy. I have no doubt I
did this because instinct told me (for I never thought about it) that
this would be the easier and less thorny path. I have more of
perseverance than of those, perhaps, even more valuable gifts—facility
and readiness of resource. I hate being hurried. Moreover I am too fond
of independence to get on with the leaders of literature and science.
Independence is essential for permanent but fatal to immediate success.
Besides, luck enters much more into ephemeral than into permanent success
and I have always distrusted luck. Those who play a waiting game have
matters more in their own hands, time gives them double chances; whereas
if success does not come at once to the ephemerid he misses it
altogether.
I know that the ordinary reviewer who either snarls at my work or
misrepresents it or ignores it or, again, who pats it sub-contemptuously
on the back is as honourably and usefully employed as I am. In the
kingdom of literature (as I have just been saying in the _Universal
Review_ about Science) there are many mansions and what is intolerable in
one is common form in another. It is a case of the division of labour
and a man will gravitate towards one class of workers or another
according as he is built. There is neither higher nor lower about it.
I should like to put it on record that I understand it and am not
inclined to regret the arrangements that have made me possible.