man. His piety distinctly "pays." His "God bless you!" has saved him
many an extra twenty or fifty pounds; his "my dear" and "dear fellow"
have helped to make suspicious novelists accept without a murmur his
statements of their royalties. He knows all this perfectly well. He
reads all the poor, pitiful, yet beautiful human weakness of men and
women thoroughly, and makes his capital out of it while he can. God,
we are told, compassionates human weakness; the pious publisher lives
by it. He uses the sad little vanities of the would-be "genius" as so
many channels of speculation. He has an agreeable way of reminding the
very small writer of the gloriously self-denying manner in which the
very great writers managed to exist--those writers of old historic time
who served Art for Art's sake, and were content to live upon a crust
of bread for the sake of future glory. That noble Crust! The pious
publisher wishes all authors would live upon it. "My dear boy," he
says, "it is the modern thirst of gold that kills Art. Now you are a
true 'artist.'" (Here probably the small writer thus addressed cannot
restrain a nervous wriggle of satisfaction.) "Yes, yes! a true artist!
I can see that at a glance. To you money weighs as nothing compared
with high ambition and attainment." (The small writer is perhaps not
quite sure about this, still he is unable to look stern, so he smiles
feebly.) "To grind out literature for the mere sake of accumulating
cash would be distasteful to a man of your lofty spirit. You were made
for better things. The notorieties of the day who allow themselves to
be paragraphed and 'boomed' and all the rest of it, and command for the
moment large sales, are really mere ephemera. Now, my dear boy, let
me advise you not to hamper your evident genius by over-anxiety about
money. Do your work, the great work that is in you to do; and if the
rewards come slowly, never mind! in your old age you will look back
to these days of effort as the sweetest of your life! Yes!" and the
pious publisher's eyes moisten at his own eloquence, "in the sunset of
your career, when you have made an assured name, and, let us hope, an
assured fortune also, you will remember this time of grand struggle
and endeavour! God bless you!"
The benediction is here uttered abruptly, as if the pious publisher
couldn't help it. It bursts from his manly bosom like a bomb-shell.
His pent-up emotion finds vent in it; his swelling liberality of
disposition is relieved by it. Meanwhile, the small author sits silent,
curiously disconcerted, and uncomfortably conscious that his face wears
a somewhat foolish expression. He doesn't want to look foolish, but
he knows he does. He is aware that the pious publisher has flattered
him, but somehow he does not like to admit that the flattery is more
than kindly and judicious praise. But, all the same, he ponders in a
dismal sort of way on those phrases "in your old age" and "the sunset
of your career." What! Is he, then, not to experience any of the joys
or luxuries of life till he is such a doddering old idiot as to be
only fit to jabber "reminiscences"? Is he to have no rest or physical
comfort in existence till his strength fails and his mental faculties
decay? Is his fortune only to be "assured" at a time when his chief
needs are a bed, an armchair, and a basin of gruel or "infant's food"?
The pious publisher implies as much. It is strange, and perhaps
wickedly ungrateful of the poor small author, but he does not care
about the "sunset" prospect in the least. He would rather be happy and
well fed while it is full day. And for the life of him he cannot help
thinking how very excellently the pious publisher himself is housed.
Pictures, books, statuary, horses--even a yacht--all these things have
come to the pious publisher long before "sunset." And yet what can he,
the poor small author, do? Nothing. He must consider himself lucky if
he gets his work accepted on any terms. He can't afford to be his own
publisher (not because of the expenses incurred in actually printing
and binding, for these are slight), but because he would be considered
an intruder and would have all the "publishers' rings" against him; and
not only the publishers' rings, but the Circulating Library Ring and
the Bookstall Ring; for England is a "free" country, and as a first
consequence of its glorious liberty, every one that does honest work
and seeks honest pay for the same, is the veriest slave that ever wore
chains and manacles.
There are many publishers, of course, who are not pious, and these
are generally among the most honest of their class. They do not
pretend to be anything but tradesmen, with an eye to business, and no
taste whatever for literature _as_ literature. They would as soon be
cheesemongers if the book-trade failed. They affect nothing; they are
brusque, commonplace men, and they often play a losing game by their
lack of proper urbanity. The pious publisher never loses a farthing.
He is always lining and re-lining his nest. He issues a larger number
of works by women than by men, for the reason that women are more
unbusinesslike than their lords, and more easily persuaded to accept
starvation prices. It may be said, and rightly, that women's work is
not frequently worth much, but there are, at the present time, two or
three women in literature whose success is indubitable and whose names
alone are of market value. These are they whom the pious publisher
loves to secure. The more gifted they are, the more unpractical; the
more engrossed in imaginative conception, the more unconscious of
treachery. They perhaps feel the pious publisher is even as a father
to them. He is invariably kind and courteous, and is always able
to "explain" troublesome things with the involved eloquence of a
Gladstone. Indeed, it can never be said that either to man or woman at
any time has the pious publisher been dictatorial or unfriendly. He
is too bland, too conscious of rectitude, too innocent of the world's
evil to be capable of anything but the truest Christian behaviour. If
a long-suffering author were to quarrel with him, he would only mildly
"regret the rupture of friendly terms," while quietly letting all his
particular "ring" know of the "rupture," and warning them against
having to do with the quarrelsome author in question; for the pious
publisher has no scruple in "boycotting" an author who deserts him for
a rival house. He can do so if he likes, and he frequently does like.
Did you not know this before, O ye unworldly, simple-minded Pensters?
Then know it now on the faith of a wandering truth-teller, and beware
of getting twisted in the pious publisher's silken coils. Stand firm
without yielding under his friendly shoulder-blow; turn his terms of
endearment into terms of ready cash, and if you succeed in making a
good bargain you may be sure he will _not_ say, "God bless you!" He
will probably sigh and tell you he is a poor man. This is a promising
sign for you, and you can bless _him_ if you like. But, unless you are
willing to be "done," never under any circumstances allow him to bless
_you_. Most casual benedictions are of doubtful value, but the blessing
of the pious publisher is, financially speaking, an author's damnation.
Beware it therefore; go on unblessed, and prosper!
XIV.
OF CERTAIN GREAT POETS.
Stop, stop, my dear Lord Tennyson! Whither away so fast? Why turn
your back churlishly upon me?--why spoil dignity by hastening your
steps?--why hide that venerable and honoured head in a hermit's cowl
of distrust for all human kind? I am not the "ubiquitous interviewer";
I do not want a lock of your hair or your autograph, for the autograph
I have in your own letters, and certainly you cannot spare any hair
just now. Fear me not, then, O great but crusty Poet; my silver domino
conceals the features of a friend; I will do no more than render you
distant but most absolute homage. I would not pry into your garden
solitudes at Haslemere--no, not for the '_World_.' I would not
force my way into your little kingdom at Freshwater for anything an
enterprising editor might offer me; for I love you as all England
loves you, and the utmost I can wish is that you would be friends with
both me and England. What have we done to you, my dear Lord--peer of
the realm and Peer of Poets--that you should disdain us, every one,
and take so much precaution to avoid our company? Have we not, as it
were, fallen at your feet in worship?--marked you out in our hearts and
histories as the greatest poet of the Victorian Era, and taken pride
in the splendour of your fame? Despise us not, noble Singer of sweet
idylls, for remember we have never despised _you_. In our troubles and
losses we have dropped soft tears over "In Memoriam"; in our loves
and hopes we have wandered among the woods and fields, singing in
thought the songs of "Maud" and "The Princess"; in our dreamy moods we
have pored over "The Lotus-Eaters," "The Palace of Art," "Tithonus,"
or "Ænone"; in our passionate moments we have felt all the scorn
and burning sorrow pent up in "Locksley Hall." You are the divine
melodist who has set our deep-hidden English romance and sentiment
to most tenderly expressed music; we are grateful, and we have shown
our gratitude. We have given you such fond hearing as few poets ever
win; we have lodged you in fair domains, and guarded you as a precious
jewel of the realm. What can we do more to satisfy you? Is there any
grander guerdon for a poet's labour than the whole English-speaking
people's honour? And that you have; and yet you manifest a soured
discontent that sadly misfits your calling. What is it all about? You
do not want to be looked at--"stared at" is your own way of expressing
it--you do not wish to be spoken to--you desire to ignore those who
most reverence you, and you treat with ill-mannered, "touch-me-not"
disdain the very people whose faithful admiration gives you all the
good things of this life which you enjoy. Oh, petulant Poet-peer! Do
no memories of the great dead bards (greater in genius than yourself,
but less fortunate in their reward) sometimes flit like ghosts across
the horizon of your dreams? Of Chatterton, self-slain through biting
poverty; of Keats, dying before he reached his prime, while on the
very verge of the promised land of Fame; of Byron, self-exiled, his
splendid muse embittered by private woes; of Shelley, piteously drowned
before he had time to measure his own vast intellectual forces?--while
you, my good Lord, fostered by a nation's love and recognition, have
experienced no such cutting cruelties at the hand of destiny. Perhaps,
indeed, you have been too fortunate, and continuous prosperity has made
you careless and over-easily satisfied with the lightest trifle of
verse that suggests itself to your fancy. But if you are careless, you
need not be crusty. The British Public has been likened unto an Ass by
many, but to my thinking it is more like a dog--an honest, good-natured
dog who never bites except under the severest and most repeated
provocation. As a dog it has fawned at your footstool, looked up in
your eyes affectionately and wagged its tail persistently--have you no
other response to such fidelity save a kick or a blow? Oh, fie on such
ill-humour--such uncalled-for cantankerousness! Why should you seek
to be "protected" from those who would fain do you honour? We should
all like to see you sometimes, in society, at theatre or opera, at
flower-show and harmless festival; we should like to say to one another
on beholding you, "There is our Laureate--our grand old Tennyson, one
of the glories of England!" We should not harm you by our affection. We
have no design upon your life, save to pray that it may be guarded and
prolonged. Believe me, it would be far more natural, and, let me add,
more Christian (for I knew by your noble lines "Across the Bar" that
you have not smirched your white flag of song with the ugly blot of
atheism) if you could persuade the world to understand that a journey
or a sea-voyage in the company of England's Laureate, were it possible
to devise such an out-of-the-way form of pleasure, would be one of the
most cheery, prosperous, and ideal trips ever made; that the heart of
the great poet-thinker was so expansive and warm, that even the tiny,
toddling children adored him; that his sympathy was so vast that the
poorest and most unhappy scribbler alive was sure to have a genial
word from the "singing lips that speak no guile"--in brief, that every
soul on board the good ship sailing sunwards, must needs be better,
happier, wiser, and more full of the milk of human kindness for those
few days passed in the near presence of the golden-voiced Minstrel of
the legended Arthur's court. Why, good my Lord Alfred, should you, of
all people in the world, preach and not practise? You, whose majestic
figure seems already receding from us through the opening portals of
the Unknown--why should you not stretch out hands of benediction on us
ere you go? You are leaving us for other lands, dear Poet, and we all
stand gazing after you sorrowfully, waving "farewell!" while the fond
and foolish women we love, waft you kisses amid their tears; praise and
thanks and blessings to the last from us, my Lord--and will you give us
nothing better at parting than a frown? Of a truth there are countless
worlds in the universe beside this one; only we cannot follow you where
you are going, and so we know not whether you may find a kingdom in
the stars better than Shakespeare's England. But whatsoever is deemed
the highest reward among high Immortals, that reward we desire may be
yours; for all the happiness which pure thoughts, sweet music, and
tender song can give, you have given to the little country you are soon
to see the last of. The end is not yet indeed, but it is nigh.
It is not the people, my Lord, the people on whom you have bestowed
the life-long fruits of your genius, who are to blame for the grossly
ill-judged and indelicate speculations that have lately been rife as
to who shall occupy your throne and wear your crown, when you shall
have resigned both for larger labours. It is the Press, with which the
people have really nothing to do. And as to the Laureateship, I, like
every one else, have my ideas, not of putting in a claim for the post,
(though I could, at a push, write blank verse, quite as prettily and
inanely as Lewis Morris), but of making it of wider application. After
yourself I consider that no one should be permitted to hold it as you
have done for an entire lifetime. It should be given to the deserving
bard for five or seven years, no longer; and at each expiration of the
appointed period there should be a brisk competition for the right
of succession. Such an arrangement would give a great impetus to
literature generally, and the recurring competitions would waken up
society to a sense of artistic feeling and excitement. Moreover, to
keep pace with the demands of the time, when the people are supposed to
be worthy of having a voice in everything, the election of England's
Laureate should be voted for by England's Public, and not left to the
decision of a Clique. Cliquism would put an end to all possibility of
fair play or justice, as it always does. To keep this public judgment
up to a certain intellectual standard, every householder paying rent
and taxes amounting together to not less than £200 per annum, should
have a vote; and, because women are frequently the best readers and
judges of poetry, one woman in every such household should also be
entitled to a vote. The result of the plan would be that by degrees
society would become interested in Poetry, which by tradition and
heritage is distinctly the first of the Fine Arts--and would take pains
to understand it, by which piece of additional education nothing would
be lost to civilisation, but rather much might be gained in gentleness,
quick perception, and fine feeling. It would be a safer and more
respectable line of study at any rate than turf speculations. But, like
all good ideas, it will, I suppose, have no chance of acceptance, in
which case, rather than see inferior men, like Morris or Edwin Arnold,
in the position which you, my Lord, have so greatly dignified, I would
say with others whom I know, "Abolish the post, and let Tennyson be
our last Laureate." For there is no one fitted to occupy it after
you, unless it be some singer unknown to the Log-rolling community.
Therefore, it would be best for England, in losing you, to also lose
the very name of Laureate, save as a noble and unsullied memory.
You see how truly my devotion turns towards you, my dear Lord, though
you will have none of it, nor of any such "outside vulgar" sympathy.
A recent letter of yours to me contains the following sentence: "_I
sometimes wish I had never written a line_." Alas, good Nestor among
modern bards, has Fame brought no happier end than this? No more than
spleen and peevishness? Suppose, for sake of argument, this curious
wish of yours had been granted, and you had never "_written a line_."
Well? What of the glory of renown?--what of the peerage which descends,
a poet's mantle, on your heirs? what of the creature comforts of
Haslemere and Freshwater?--what of the good honest cash that is paid
for every airy rhyme that is blown from your imagination as lightly
as the winged pine-seed from its cone? If you had "_never written a
line_," would you have gained anything? Nay, surely you would have lost
much. Therefore, why carp and cavil in the radiant face of Fortune,
the smiling goddess who has never deserted you since the publication
of your first volume? Cheerly, cheerly, good heart! Lift up your head
and look frank kindness on the world! It is not a bad world after all,
and whatever its faults, it loves you. Let it see you at your best and
friendliest before you say "Good-bye!"
When I was very youthful and imaginative, I used to believe implicitly
in that old fairy legend (known to Shakespeare as well as myself) which
declares that toads "ugly and venomous" have precious jewels in their
heads. And I had a special partiality for toads in consequence. I used
to assist them respectfully with a stick when they came panting out
under the leaves in hot weather in search of water, and guide them
gently towards the object of their desires. When a toad stared at me
fixedly with his peculiarly bright eyes, I felt vaguely flattered.
I had an idea that perhaps he might be intellectually capable of
making a will and leaving me his brain-jewel. Needless to say I was
disappointed; no toad ever fulfilled the hopes I had of him. But
since those green and happy days I have gained an insight into the
hidden meaning of the fable--which is, of course, that unfascinating
and personally disappointing individuals may possess the greatest
intellectual powers. Now there is one man who is distinctly inimical
to me, personally speaking, and yet I am fain to do his "brain-jewel"
justice. I allude to Algernon Charles Swinburne, whom, to meet on his
way to and from "The Pines," Putney, serves as a revelation. The first
impression one gets is of a small man with large feet, walking as if
for a wager, arms swinging hither and thither, and fingers briskly
playing imaginary tunes in the air as he goes. Then, as the eccentric
shape comes nearer, one is aware of a stubbly beard, and peeping eyes
expressive of mingled distrust and aversion; a hideous hat is clapped
down over the broad brow, which hat when lifted displays a bald expanse
of skull bearing no sort of resemblance whatever to the counterfeit
presentments of Apollo, and yet, incongruous though it seem, this
little, nervous, impatient, querulous being is no other than the author
of the "Triumph of Time," one of the finest poems in the English
language; and these twiddling restless fingers penned the majestic,
burning, beautiful "Tristram of Lyonesse," a book which, like an
imperial jewel-casket, is literally piled with gems. To look at the man
and to think of his poems at the same time is enough to make one gasp
for breath. It appears quite impossible to realise that this solitary
biped trotting full speed to Wimbledon should have written such lines
as these:--
"I shall never be friends again with roses,
I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong
Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,
_As a wave of the sea turned back by song_."
One can, however, easily believe that he wrote of himself in the
following passage:--
"_But who now on earth need care how I live?_
Have the high gods anything left to give
Save dust and laurels and gold and sand?
Which gifts are goodly; but I will none."
Swinburne, like Tennyson, manifests a great abhorrence for the
society of his fellow-creatures, but his shrinking churlishness is
more accountable to the world than that of the elder bard. Tennyson's
muse is pure, refined, and ever persuasive to good; while at times
Swinburne seems possessed of a very devil of lewdness and atheism; and
lewdness and atheism are not yet openly accepted as desirable parts
of a liberal education. Of his former rank and rampant republicanism
nothing need be said; the politics of a poet are always the most absurd
and shifty part of him. And though lewdness of the pen is beginning
to be more tolerated than once it was, thanks to the importation of
such foreign trash as the "Kreutzer Sonata" and other publications of
a like free-and-easy pruriency, the love of moral filth is not yet
universal. We are dabbling in mire, but we do not willingly wallow in
it--at least, not at present. The honest British guffaw of laughter
that greets crazy old Ibsen's contemptible delineations of women,
has a jovial wholesome music in it which the caterwauling of cliques
cannot silence. And there is a strong under-current of feeling in
the peoples of nearly all countries, that whatever prose-writers may
choose to do by way of degrading themselves and their profession, poets
should draw the line somewhere. Poor paralytic old Mrs. Grundy still
pretends, in the most ridiculously senile way, to be quite shocked at
the idea of reading "Don Juan," when, as a matter of fact, she has put
on strong spectacles over her blear eyes in order to gloat upon far
worse literary provender. There is not a line that Byron ever wrote
approaching to the revolting indecency of Swinburne's "Faustine"--a
most disgusting set of bad verses, let me tell Algernon, with my
frankest compliments. The only excuse that can be offered for such
a sickening affront to the very name of poetry, is that the writer
must have been suffering at the time he wrote it from a sort of moral
disease.
From moral disease no moral health can come--and in spite of
Swinburne's unquestioned and unquestionable genius, I believe his fame
will perish as utterly and hopelessly as a brilliant torch plunged
suddenly in the sea. There is no stamina in him--nothing to hold or
to keep in all this meteor-like shower of words upon words, thoughts
upon thoughts, similes upon similes; there lacks steadiness in the
music; none of the vast eternal underthrobbings of nature give truth or
grandeur to the strain. It is the harsh raving and shrill chanting of a
man in fever and delirium; not the rich pulsing rhythm of a singer in
noble accord with life, love, and labour.
One of the most unpleasant characteristics of Swinburne's muse is the
idea conveyed therein of the sex feminine. Women are no better (and
rather worse) than wild animals according to this poet's standard; or
if not animals, passive creatures, to be "bitten" and "sucked" and
"pressed" and "crushed" as though they were a peculiar species of grape
for man's special eating. Their hair is "woven and unwoven" recklessly
till one feels it must surely be plucked out by the roots; their
"flanks" are supposed to "shine," their "eyelids" are "as sweet savour
issuing;" and the following vaguely comic lines occur in "Anactoria":--
"Ah, ah, thy beauty! _like a beast it bites_,
Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites.
Ah, sweet, and sweet again, and _seven times sweet
The paces and the pauses of thy feet_!"
More preposterously insane nonsense than this it would be difficult to
find on any printed page extant.
It will be chiefly on account of his utterly false conception of life
and the higher emotions of the human heart, that Swinburne will not
leave the great name he might have left had he recognised the full
dignity of his calling. He had the power, but not the will. I say he
"had" advisedly, because he has it no longer. His last productions are
positively puerile as compared with his first, and each new thing he
writes shows the falling-off in his skill more and more perceptibly.
His similes are heavy and confused; his strained efforts at impossible
paradox almost ludicrous. This is the kind of thing he revels in:--
The formless form of a mouthless mouth,
And the biteless bite of a tooth that has gone.