or Books, progressed. Meantime, I was breaking out into poetry in the
magazines, and writing "criticism" by the yard. At last the time came
when I remembered another friend with whom I had corresponded, and whose
advice I thought I might now ask with some confidence. This was George
Henry Lewes, to whom, when I was a boy in Glasgow, I had sent a bundle
of manuscript, with the blunt question, "Am I, or am I not, a Poet?" To
my delight he had replied to me with a qualified affirmative, saying
that in the productions he had "discerned a real faculty, and _perhaps_
a future poet. I say perhaps," he added, "because I do not know your
age, and because there are so many poetical blossoms which never come to
fruit." He had, furthermore, advised me "to write as much as I felt
impelled to write, but to publish nothing"--at any rate, for a couple of
years. Three years had passed, and I had neither published
anything--that is to say, in book form--nor had I had any further
communication with my kind correspondent. To Lewes, then, I wrote,
reminding him of our correspondence, telling him that I _had_ waited,
not two years, but three, and that I now felt inclined to face the
public. I soon received an answer, the result of which was that I went,
on Lewes's invitation, to the Priory, North Bank, Regent's Park, and met
my friend and his partner, better known as "George Eliot."
But, as the novelists say, I am anticipating. Sick to death, David Gray
had returned to the cottage of his father, the hand-loom weaver, at
Kirkintilloch, and there had peacefully passed away, leaving as his
legacy to the world the volume of beautiful poems published under the
auspices of Lord Houghton. I knew of his death the hour he died; awaking
in my bed, I was certain of my loss, and spoke of it (long before the
formal news reached me) to a temporary companion. This by the way; but
what is more to the purpose is that my first grief for a beloved comrade
had expressed itself in the words which were to form the "proem" of my
first book--
Poet gentle hearted,
Are you then departed,
And have you ceased to dream the dream we loved of old so well?
Has the deeply-cherish'd
Aspiration perished,
And are you happy, David, in that heaven where you dwell?
Have you found the secret
We, so wildly, sought for,
And is your soul enswath'd at last in the singing robes you fought for?
[Illustration: THE DRAWING ROOM.]
Full of my dead friend, I spoke of him to Lewes and George Eliot,
telling them the piteous story of his life and death. Both were deeply
touched, and Lewes cried, "Tell that story to the public"; which I did,
immediately afterwards, in the _Cornhill Magazine_. By this time I had
my Twins ready, and had discovered a publisher for one of them,
_Undertones_. The other, _Idyls and Legends of Inverburn_, was a
ruggeder bantling, containing almost the first _blank verse_ poems ever
written in Scottish dialect. I selected one of the poems, "Willie
Baird," and showed it to Lewes. He expressed himself delighted, and
asked for more. I then showed him the "Two Babes." "Better and better!"
he wrote; "publish a volume of such poems and your position is assured."
More than this, he at once found me a publisher, Mr. George Smith, of
Messrs. Smith and Elder, who offered me a good round sum (such it seemed
to me then) for the copyright. Eventually, however, after "Willie Baird"
had been published in the _Cornhill_, I withdrew the manuscript from
Messrs. Smith and Elder, and transferred it to Mr. Alexander Strahan,
who offered me both more liberal terms and more enthusiastic
appreciation.
It was just after the appearance of my story of David Gray in the
_Cornhill_ that I first met, at the Priory, North Bank, with Robert
Browning. It was an odd and representative gathering of men, only one
lady being present, the hostess, George Eliot. I was never much of a
hero-worshipper; but I had long been a sympathetic Browningite, and I
well remember George Eliot taking me aside after my first _tete-a-tete_
with the poet, and saying, "Well, what do you think of him? Does he come
up to your ideal?" He _didn't_ quite, I must confess, but I afterwards
learned to know him well and to understand him better. He was delighted
with my statement that one of Gray's wild ideas was to rush over to
Florence and "throw himself on the sympathy of Robert Browning."
Phantoms of these first books of mine, how they begin to rise around me!
Faces of friends and counsellors that have flown for ever; the sibylline
Marian Evans with her long, weird, dreamy face; Lewes, with his big brow
and keen thoughtful eyes; Browning, pale and spruce, his eye like a
skipper's cocked-up at the weather; Peacock, with his round, mellifluous
speech of the old Greeks; David Gray, great-eyed and beautiful, like
Shelley's ghost; Lord Houghton, with his warm worldly smile and
easy-fitting enthusiasm. Where are they all now? Where are the roses of
last summer, the snows of yester year? I passed by the Priory to-day,
and it looked like a great lonely Tomb. In those days, the house where I
live now was not built; all up here Hampstead-ways was grass and fields.
It was over these fields that Herbert Spencer and George Eliot used to
walk on their way to Hampstead Heath. The Sibyl has gone, but the great
Philosopher still remains, to brighten the sunshine. It was not my luck
to know him _then_--would it had been!--but he is my friend and
neighbour in these latter days, and, thanks to him, I still get glimpses
of the manners of the old gods.
[Illustration: THE STUDY.]
With the publication of my two first books, I was fairly launched, I may
say, on the stormy waters of literature. When the _Athenaeum_ told its
readers that "this was _poetry_, and of a noble kind," and when Lewes
vowed in the _Fortnightly Review_ that even if I "never wrote another
line, my place among the pastoral poets would be undisputed," I suppose
I felt happy enough--far more happy than any praise could make me now.
Poor little pigmy in a cockle-boat, I thought Creation was ringing with
my name! I think I must have seemed rather conceited and "bounceable,"
for I have a vivid remembrance of a _Fortnightly_ dinner at the Star and
Garter, Richmond, when Anthony Trollope, angry with me for expressing a
doubt about the poetical greatness of Horace, wanted to fling a decanter
at my head! It was about this time that an omniscient publisher, after
an interview with me, exclaimed (the circumstance is historical), "I
don't like that young man; he talked to me as if he was God Almighty, or
_Lord Byron!_" But in sober truth, I never had the sort of conceit with
which men credited me; I merely lacked gullibility, and saw, at the
first glance, the whole unmistakable humbug and insincerity of the
Literary Life. I think still that, as a rule, the profession of letters
narrows the sympathy and warps the intelligence. When I saw the
importance which a great man or woman could attach to a piece of
perfunctory criticism, when I saw the care with which this Eminent
Person "humoured his reputation," and the anxiety with which that
Eminent Person concealed his true character, I found my young illusions
very rapidly fading. On one occasion, when George Eliot was very much
pestered by an unknown lady, an insignificant individual, who had thrust
herself somewhat pertinaciously upon her, she turned to me and asked,
with a smile, for my opinion? I gave it, rudely enough, to the effect
that it was good for "distinguished people" to be reminded occasionally
of how very small consequence they really were, in the mighty life of
the World!
From that time until the present I have pursued the vocation into which
fatal Fortune, during boyhood, incontinently thrust me, and have
subsisted, ill sometimes, well sometimes, by a busy pen. I may,
therefore, with a certain experience, if with little authority, imitate
those who have preceded me in giving reminiscences of their first
literary beginnings, and offer a few words of advice to my younger
brethren--to those persons, I mean, who are entering the profession of
Literature. To begin with, I entirely agree with Mr. Grant Allen in his
recent avowal that Literature is the poorest and least satisfactory of
all professions; I will go even further, and affirm that it is one of
the least ennobling. With a fairly extensive knowledge of the writers of
my own period, I can honestly say that I have scarcely met one
individual who has not deteriorated morally by the pursuit of literary
Fame. For complete literary success among contemporaries, it is
imperative that a man should either have no real opinions, or be able to
conceal such as he possesses, that he should have one eye on the market
and the other on the public journals, that he should humbug himself into
the delusion that book-writing is the highest work in the Universe, and
that he should regulate his likes and dislikes by one law, that of
expediency. If his nature is in arms against anything that is rotten in
Society or in Literature itself, he must be silent. Above all, he must
lay this solemn truth to heart, that when the World speaks well of him
the World will demand the _price_ of praise, and that price will
possibly be his living Soul. He may tinker, he may trim, he may succeed,
he may be buried in Westminster Abbey, he may hear before he dies all
the people saying, "How good and great he is! how perfect is his art!
how gloriously he embodies the Tendencies of his Time!"[4] but he will
know all the same that the price has been paid, and that his living Soul
has gone, to furnish that whitewashed Sepulchre, a Blameless Reputation.
[Illustration: MR ROBERT BUCHANAN AND HIS FAVOURITE DOG.]
For one other thing, also, the Neophyte in Literature had better be
prepared. He will never be able to subsist by creative writing unless it
so happens that the form of expression he chooses is popular in form
(fiction, for example), and even in that case, the work he does, if he
is to live by it, must be in harmony with the social and artistic
_status quo_. Revolt of any kind is always disagreeable. Three-fourths
of the success of Lord Tennyson (to take an example) was due to the fact
that this fine poet regarded Life and all its phenomena from the
standpoint of the English public school, that he ethically and
artistically embodied the sentiments of our excellent middle-class
education. His great American contemporary, Whitman, in some respects
the most commanding spirit of this generation, gained only a few
disciples, and was entirely misunderstood and neglected by contemporary
criticism. Another prosperous writer, to whom I have already alluded,
George Eliot, enjoyed enormous popularity in her lifetime, while the
most strenuous and passionate novelist of her period, Charles Reade, was
entirely distanced by her in the immediate race for Fame. In Literature,
as in all things, manners and costume are most important; the hall-mark
of contemporary success is perfect Respectability. It is not respectable
to be too candid on any subject, religious, moral, or political. It is
very respectable to say, or imply, that this country is the best of all
possible countries, that War is a noble institution, that the Protestant
Religion is grandly liberal, and that social evils are only diversified
forms of social good. Above all, to be respectable, one must have
"beautiful ideas." "Beautiful ideas" are the very best stock-in-trade a
young writer can begin with. They are indispensable to every complete
literary outfit. Without them, the short cut to Parnassus will never be
discovered, even though one starts from Rugby.
_BALDER'S BALL._
BY P. VON SCHOeNTHAN.
ILLUSTRATED BY J. GUeLICH.
Balder had begged me to give him a bed for the night. He was going to a
ball that evening, and had business early the following morning in
Berlin. He lived in such an out-of-the-way suburb that it would be quite
impossible for him to go home to sleep. I was only too delighted to be
of service to him. Although I could not offer him a bed, it would be
easy to improvise a shakedown on which he could have a few hours' rest.
I set to work at once, and did the best I could for him, using a bundle
of rags for the pillows, and my old dressing-gown for the mattress. When
Balder saw it, he declared that nothing could be more to his taste.
[Illustration: "WALKED INTO MY ROOM."]
It was long past midnight, when I was awakened from a refreshing sleep
by somebody fumbling with a key at the lock of my door. Several bungling
attempts were made before the key was fitted into the lock successfully.
At last, Balder walked into my room. He presented rather a comical
appearance, with his crush-hat on one side of his head like the leaning
tower of Pisa, and a short overcoat, with his long tail-coat peeping
beneath. His face was flushed, partly with excitement, and he appeared
possessed of a burning desire to relate his adventures to somebody. I
had been looking at him with one eye; the other, nearest him, I kept
tight shut, and did not move, for I had no desire to enter into
conversation with him. But my friend was not so easily shaken in his
purpose; he came close to my bedside, stepping on my boot-jack, so that
it fell over with a terrible noise, and held the lighted candle within a
few inches of my nose. It was impossible for even the most shameless
shammer of sleep to hold out any longer. I opened my eyes, and said in
the sleepiest tone I could assume:
"Enjoyed yourself?"
[Illustration: "ON THE SIDE OF MY BED."]
"Famously, my dear fellow," answered Balder, seating himself on the side
of my bed, although I forestalled his intention, and left hardly an inch
for him to sit on. Then he entered into a long and not very lucid
rigmarole on souls which are destined to come together. The story was
rendered all the more difficult to understand from the fact that I kept
falling asleep, and dreaming between his rhapsodies; but I gathered that
Balder had met with a young Spanish lady at the mask ball, who
apparently possessed the soul which he was fated to meet, and that she
was the only person on earth who could make him happy. He had spent the
whole evening with her, and she had promised to meet him at the next
ball. At his request she had lifted her veil for one instant, revealing
a face of Madonna-like beauty. It was a simple story, but when a man's
brain is fired with love he lingers over it. The words grace, Southern
colouring, eyes like a gazelle, etc., must have been repeated very
often, for I dreamed later on that I was repeating them to myself.
I bore it all patiently, for hospitality is a sacred duty, and, besides,
the state which Balder's mind was in demanded and deserved
consideration.
As he went on with his story, he raised his voice, perhaps to rouse my
flagging attention. Suddenly, somebody coughed in the next room. It was
not a natural cough, but an artificial one, evidently intended by my
landlady to serve as a gentle reminder that at two o'clock in the
morning all respectable people should be in bed and quiet. My room was
only separated from the apartment in which my landlady and her daughter
slept by a door, which was hidden on either side by a high wardrobe,
through which, in spite of this precaution, voices could be heard very
distinctly. I informed Balder of this fact, but, unfortunately, he
utterly refused to take my advice and go quietly to bed. He said he
could not sleep, and, unhappily, catching sight of my coffee-machine, he
added that he would like some coffee.
"Sleep if you can," he said; "I can manage it all for myself." He then
removed his coat, dressed himself in the dressing-gown which acted as
his mattress, and started to get some water from the kitchen, knocking
things down on the way, and opening and shutting all the wrong doors. I
became resigned, and made up my mind not to waste my breath on any fresh
warnings. Somebody else coughed. It was Fraeulein Lieschen this time, my
landlady's daughter. At any other time, Balder himself would have shown
more consideration.
[Illustration: "STARTED TO GET SOME WATER."]
Most extraordinary noises proceeded from the water-tap in the kitchen.
At last the kitchen door banged, and Balder re-appeared again. I
expressed my regret that I had no methylated spirit, but he said it did
not matter, and catching hold of a bottle of my expensive brandy, poured
a lot into the lamp. Then he sat gazing into the blue flame without
blinking.
Crash! went the glass globe, and the boiling water poured all over the
table and put out the fire. I sprang out of my bed. "Good gracious!" I
exclaimed, "the whole thing will explode." He said nothing, but began
to pick up the hot pieces of glass patiently. The coughing in the next
room became louder than ever.
"For heaven's sake!" I went on, "try to be quiet if you can. The people
in the next room want to go to sleep. _Don't_ you hear them coughing?"
"Well! I never heard of such impudence! That coughing has disturbed me
for some time. Anybody would think you'd got into an almshouse for old
women--Where is the sugar?"
"Up there, in the cigar-box. But don't knock that rapier down."
Balder climbed up on a cane chair. It gave way. Klirr! The rapier fell
on the floor, and Balder with it.
"Confound you, do take care. Didn't I warn you?" An energetic knocking
at the door of communication interrupted me.
"Herr Reif, I must really beg you to be quiet," called my landlady's
daughter, not by any means in her sweetest tones. "We've been kept awake
for the last hour."
"That's nothing to us," said Balder from the floor, where he was groping
for the rapier that had rolled under the wardrobe.
"Do be quiet! That is my landlady's daughter, a very respectable girl--"
"Well, is nobody respectable except her? What do you pay rent for?" His
face grew red with rage, and, placing his mouth close to the door, he
called out, "What do you want with Reif? He's in bed. I only wanted to
reach down the sugar, and the old rapier fell on my head--a thing that
might happen to anybody! Just lie down quietly and go to sleep. Such a
fuss about nothing! Are we in a hospital?"
[Illustration: "IT GAVE WAY!"]
"Do be quiet, Balder!" I begged, and my pleading at least had the effect
of silencing whatever else was on his tongue. He thought no more of the
sugar, but sat at the table and drank his self-brewed coffee without it.
When he had finished it he lighted a cigarette, at which he puffed away
till the room was full of smoke. As I lay and looked at him, I fell into
that peaceful state in which dreaming and reality are so much mixed that
it is hard to distinguish between them. And then Balder disappeared in
clouds of smoke, and I heard and saw no more. I was awakened again by a
light being held near my face. Balder was standing at my bedside with
the candle in his hand. "Ah! I'm glad you've been asleep again!" he
said, as I half-opened my eyes and looked at him. "I want to make a poem
to my Spaniard. Have you got a rhyming dictionary anywhere about?"
"There, on the lowest shelf of the bookcase, but _do_ be quiet."
He got the book without knocking anything down; refilled his coffee-cup,
and leant back in his chair, and murmured--
"Where shall I meet thee?
On the Guadelquiver?
"On the Sequara? On the
fair Zucar?
"Or any other far-off
Spanish river....."
Sleep again overpowered me, and I knew nothing till I was awakened by a
noisy discussion taking place close to me. Balder stood with his face to
the door, engaged in a hot dispute with my neighbours.
"The devil himself couldn't collect his thoughts with that coughing
going on," he was saying as I woke up.
"I was coughing to make you quiet, that endless murmuring made me so
nervous!" cried Fraeulein Lieschen, her voice trembling with annoyance.
[Illustration: "I'M GLAD YOU'VE BEEN ASLEEP."]
"I'm writing a poem, I tell you, and when one is composing a poem one
must murmur. If you can't sleep through it, you can't be healthy. You
must have eaten too much supper, or something. You can congratulate
yourself that you've got such a lodger as Reif. Do you understand me? If
you had me I'd teach you----"
Again and again, in as persuasive a voice as I could assume, I begged
the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering
on his views of a landlady's duties towards her tenants. At length my
patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of
authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the
light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was
trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was
due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his manuscript
carefully into my dressing-gown pocket; cast one last fiery glance at
the door, and retired to bed.
I do not know if he saw the daughter of sunny Spain, with her
gazelle-like eyes in his dreams, but I do know that he snored as if he
were dreaming of a saw-mill.
About three hours later, the winter daylight struggled into the room.
Balder got up and dressed himself as quietly as a mouse. He seemed as
though he was trying to make up for the disturbance he had made in the
night, or, rather, in the morning. He excused himself most politely for
waking me up, but said that he felt that he could not leave without
saying good-bye, and thanking me for my kind hospitality. Then he left
the room, closing the door softly behind him. At the same moment, I
heard the door of my landlady's room open. Half a minute's dead silence
followed, and then Balder fell back into my room like one stunned.
[Illustration: "IN A HOT DISPUTE."]
"Who is that girl that came out of the next room?" he asked
breathlessly.
"Fraeulein Lieschen, of course, the daughter of my landlady, to whom you
were kind enough to deliver a lecture in the middle of the night----"
"She is my Spanish girl!" he gasped, grinding his teeth, and shaking his
head disconsolately. He took a long time to recover himself. He sat down
again on the side of my bed, as he had done on his return from the
ball. But in what a different mood! He made me swear to him that I would
never reveal his name to Fraeulein Lieschen, but that I would excuse him
without giving any clue to his identity, for the disturbance he had
caused in the night. This duty I willingly undertook.
Fraeulein Lieschen, who was a good-natured girl, looked at the matter
from the comical side, and readily accepted my unknown friend's apology;
and whenever we met on the stairs after that, she would say jokingly,
"Please remember me to your funny friend!"
[Illustration: "REMEMBER ME TO YOUR FUNNY FRIEND!"]
"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."
V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.
BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.
(_PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAFAYETTE, OF DUBLIN, AND BYRNE, OF
RICHMOND._)
[Illustration: THE HON. MRS ARTHUR HENNIKER.]