1855.
Publication of "The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems."--Their sale.
--Advice to poetic aspirants.--Mistake in illustrating my book of
verse.--Its subsequent history.--Want of art in the book.--Too much
reality.--Abandonment of verse.--A critic in "Fraser."--Visit to Paris
in 1855.--Captain Turnbull.--Ball at the Hôtel de Ville.--Louis
Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel.
My volume, "The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems," appeared the day I
came of age, September 10, 1855. It was published at my own expense, in
an edition of two thousand copies, of which exactly eleven were sold in
the real literary market. The town of Burnley took thirty-six copies,
from a friendly interest in the author, and deserves my deepest
gratitude--not that the thirty-six copies quite paid the expenses of
publication!
Perhaps some poetic aspirant may read these pages, and if he does, he
may accept a word of advice.
The difficulty in publishing poems is to get them fully and fairly read
and considered by some publisher of real eminence in the trade. It is
difficult to appreciate poetry in manuscript, and there is such a
natural tendency to refuse anything in the form of metre, that it is
well to smooth the way for it as much as possible. I would, therefore,
if I had to begin again, get my poems put into type, and a private
edition of one hundred copies should be printed. A few of these being
sent to the leading publishers, I should very soon ascertain whether any
one of them was inclined to bring out the work. If they all declined, my
loss would be the smallest possible, and I should possess a few copies
of a rare book. If one publisher accepted, I should get an appeal to the
public, which is all that a young author wants. [Footnote: A single copy
clearly printed by the type-writing machine would now be almost as good
for the purpose as a small privately printed edition.]
I committed a great error in illustrating my book of verse. The
illustrations only set up a conflict of interest with the poetry, and
did no good whatever to the sale, whilst they vastly increased the cost
of publication. Poetry is an independent art, and if it cannot stand on
its own merits, the reason must be that it is destitute of vitality.
The subsequent history of this volume of poems is worth telling to those
who take an interest in books. It was published at six shillings, and as
the sale had been extremely small, I reduced the price to half-a-crown.
The reduction brought on a sale of about three hundred copies, and there
it stopped. I then disposed of the entire remainder to a wholesale buyer
of "remainders" for the modest sum of sixpence per copy. Since I have
become known as a writer of prose, many people have sought out this book
of verse, with the wonderful and unforeseen result that it has resumed
its original price. I myself have purchased copies for five shillings
each that I had sold for sixpence (not a profitable species of
commerce), and I have been told that the book is now worth six
shillings, exactly my original estimate of its possible value to an
enlightened and discriminating public.
Emerson wrote that the English had many poetical writers, but no poet,
and this at a time when Tennyson was already famous. The same spirit of
exclusion, in a minor degree, will deny the existence of all poets
except three, or perhaps four, in a generation. It would be presumptuous
to hope to be one of the three; but I do not think it was presumptuous
in me to hope for some readers for my verse. As this autobiography
approached that early publication, I read the volume over again, with a
fresh eye, after an interval of many years, exactly as if it had been
written by somebody else. There is poetry in the verse, and there is
prose also, my fault having been, at that time, that I was unable to
discriminate between the two. I had not the craft and art to make the
most of such poetical ideas as were really my own. These defects are
natural enough in a very young writer who could not possibly have much
literary skill. Amongst other marks of its absence, or deficiency, must
be reckoned the facility with which I allowed the mere matter-of-fact to
get into my verse, not being clearly aware that the matter-of-fact is
death to poetic art, and that nothing whatever is admissible into poetry
without being first idealized. Another cause of inferiority was that my
emotions were too real. The consequence of reality in emotion is very
curious, being exactly the contrary of what one would naturally expect.
Real emotion expresses itself simply and briefly, and often quite feebly
and inadequately. [Footnote: Amongst the uneducated genuine emotion is
often voluble; but poets usually belong to the educated classes.] The
result, of course, is that the reader's feelings are not played upon
sufficiently to excite them. Feigned, or artistic emotion, on the
contrary, leaves the poetic artist in the fullest possession of all his
means of influence, and he works upon the reader's feelings by slow or
by sudden effects at his own choice. [Footnote: Two diametrically
opposite opinions on this subject are held by actors, some of whom think
that in their profession emotion ought to be real, others that it ought
to be feigned. I know nothing about acting; but have always found in
literature and art, and even in the intercourse of life, that my own
real emotions expressed themselves very inadequately.]
The failure of "The Isles of Loch Awe" occasioned me rather a heavy
loss, which had the effect of making me economical for two or three
years, during which I did not even keep a horse. I also came to the
conclusion that nobody wanted my verses, and (not having either the
inspiration of Shelley and Keats, or the dogged determination of
Wordsworth) I gave up writing verse altogether, and that with a
suddenness and completeness that astonishes me now. Young men are
extreme in their hopes and in their discouragements. I had expected to
sell two thousand copies of a book of poetry by a totally unknown
writer, and because I did not immediately succeed in the hopeless
attempt I must needs break with literature altogether! It did not occur
to me to pursue the art of prose composition, which is quite as
interesting as that of verse, and ten times more rewarding in every
sense.
My book had been, on the whole, very kindly received by the reviews, and
a very odd incident occurred in connection with a well-known periodical.
At that time "Fraser's Magazine" was one of the great authorities, and a
contributor to it was so pleased with my poems that he determined to
write an important article upon them. One of his friends knew of this
intention, and told me. He revealed to the contributor, accidentally,
that he had given me this piece of information, on which the contributor
at once replied that since the author of the volume had been made aware
that it was to be reviewed, it was evident that his knowledge of the
fact had made it impossible to write the article. Does the reader
perceive the impossibility? I confess that it is invisible for me.
However, by this trifling incident my book missed a most important
review, which, at that time, might have classed it amongst the
noticeable publications of the period.
My commercial non-success in poetry threw me back more decidedly upon
painting, and this in combination with the resolution to learn French
well, of which something has been already said, made me go to Paris in
the autumn of 1855. I was at that time so utterly ignorant of modern
languages, as they are spoken, that in the train between Calais and
Paris I could not be certain, until I was told by an Englishman who was
more of a linguist than myself, which of my fellow-travellers were
speaking French and which Italian. I made such good use of my time in
Paris that when returning to England on the same railway, after the
short interval of three months, I spoke French fluently (though not
correctly) for the greater part of the way, and did not miss a syllable
that was said to me.
I had no knowledge of Paris and its hotels, so let myself be guided by a
fellow-traveller. We went to the Hôtel du Louvre, then so new that it
smelt of plaster and paint. In those days, big, splendid hotels were
almost unknown in Europe. The vast dining-hall, with its palatial
decoration, impressed my inexperience very strongly. During my stay in
the Hôtel du Louvre, I made the acquaintance of some English officers.
One was a splendid-looking man of about twenty-eight, physically the
finest Englishman I was ever personally acquainted with, and another was
a much older and more experienced officer on leave of absence from
India, where he ruled over a considerable territory. His name was
Turnbull, and I have been told since by another Indian officer, that
Captain Turnbull was the original of Colonel Newcome. Certainly, he was
one of the kindest, most amiable, and most unpretending gentlemen I ever
met. These two officers were invited to the ball at the Hôtel de Ville
that was given by the Parisian municipality to the Emperor and King
Victor Emmanuel, and it happened that the young military Adonis had not
his uniform with him, whilst the idea of going to the ball without it,
and appearing only like a commonplace civilian, was so vexatious as to
be inadmissible. He therefore refused to go, and transferred his card to
me; so I went with Captain Turnbull, who had a cocked hat like a
general, and was taken for one. Some French people, by a stretch of
imagination, even took him for Prince Albert!
The Hôtel de Ville was very splendid on a night of that kind, and when,
long afterwards, I saw it as a blackened ruin, the details of that past
splendor all came back to me. The most interesting moment was when the
crowd of guests formed in two lines in the great ball-room, and the
Emperor and King took their places for a short time on two thrones,
after which they slowly walked down the open space. I happened to be
standing near a French general, who kindly spoke a few words to me, and
just after that the Emperor came and shook hands with him, asking a
friendly question. In this way I saw Louis Napoleon very plainly; but
the more interesting of the two souvenirs for me is certainly that of
the immortal leader of men who was afterwards the first King of Italy.
As for Louis Napoleon, the sight of him in his glory called to mind an
anecdote told of him by Major Towneley in our regiment. When an exile in
London, he spoke to the major of some project that he would put into
execution _quand je serai Empereur_. "Do you really still cherish hopes
of that kind?" asked the sceptical Englishman. "They are not merely
hopes," answered Louis Napoleon, "but a certainty." He believed firmly
in the re-establishment of the Empire, but had no faith whatever in its
permanence. This uneasy apprehension of a fall was publicly betrayed
afterwards by the unnecessary plebiscitum. In a conversation with a
French supporter of the Empire, Louis Napoleon said, "So long as I am
necessary my power will remain unshakable, but when my hour comes I
shall be broken like glass!" He believed himself to be simply an
instrument in the hands of Providence that would be thrown away when no
longer of any use.
We who saw the sovereigns of France and Sardinia walking down that
ball-room together, little imagined what would be the ultimate
consequences of their alliance--the establishment of the Italian
kingdom, then of the German Empire, with the siege of Paris, the
Commune, and the total destruction of the building that dazzled us by
its splendor, and of the palace where the sovereigns slept that night.
Now they sleep far apart,--one in the Pantheon of ancient Rome, in the
midst of the Italian people, who hold his name in everlasting honor; the
other in an exile's grave in England, with a name upon it that is
execrated from Boulogne to Strasburg, and from Calais to Marseilles.