I had written two long articles on _Animals in Fable and Art_ and the
_Fauna of Fancy_, asked my consent to re-publishing them in their
_Country House Library_. To this I gladly agreed, adding my article in
the _Quarterly Review_ on the _Consciousness of Dogs_; and that in _the
Cornhill_: “_Dogs whom I have met_.” The volume was prettily got up, and
published under the name of “_False Beasts and True_.”
From the close of 1874, when I undertook the Anti-vivisection crusade,
my literary activity dwindled down rapidly to small proportions. In the
course of eight years I wrote enough magazine articles to fill one
volume, published in 1882, and containing essays on _Magnanimous
Atheism_; _Pessimism and One of its Professors_, and a few other papers,
of which the most important,—the _Peak in Darien_,—gives its name to the
book. It is an argument, (with many facts cited in its support,) for
believing that the dying, as they are passing the threshold, not seldom
become aware of the presence of beloved ones waiting for them in the new
state of existence which they are actually entering.
After this book I wrote little for some years, but in 1888 I was asked
to contribute an article to the _Universal Review_ on the _Scientific
Spirit of the Age_. I gladly acceded, but the Editor desired to cut down
my MS., so I published it as a book with a few other older papers;
notably one on the _Town Mouse and the Country Mouse_; a half-humorous
study of the _pros_ and _cons_ of Life in London, and Life in a Country
house.
After this, again, I published two editions of a little compilation, the
“_Friend of Man and His Friends the Poets_;” a collection (with running
commentary) of Poems of all ages and countries relating to Dogs, which
were likely, I thought, to aid my poor, four-footed friends’ claims to
sympathy and respect.
Of my remaining books, the _Duties of Women_, and _The Modern Rack_ I
shall speak in the chapters which respectively concern my work for
Women, and the Anti-vivisection movement.
CHAPTER
XVI.
_MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES_
_JOURNALISM._
Journalism is, to my thinking, a delightful profession, full of
interest, and promise of ever-extending usefulness. During the years in
which I was a professional Journalist, when I had occasion to go into a
Bank or a lawyer’s office, I always pitied the clerks for their dull,
monotonous, ugly work, as compared with mine. If not carried on too long
or continuously,—so that the brain begins to _churn_ leaders sleeping or
waking (a dreadful state of things into which we _may_ fall),—it is
pre-eminently healthy, being so full of variety and calling for so many
different mental faculties one after another. Promptitude, clear and
quick judgment as to what is, and is not, expedient and decorous to say;
a ready memory well stored with illustrations and unworn quotations, a
bright and strong style; and, if it can be attained, a playful (not
saturnine) humour superadded,—all these qualities and attainments are
called for in writing for a daily newspaper; and the practice of them
cannot fail to sharpen their edge. To be in touch with the most striking
events of the whole world, and enjoy the privilege of giving your
opinion on them to 50,000 or 100,000 readers within a few hours, this
struck me, when I first recognised that such was my business as a
leader-writer, as something for which many prophets and preachers of old
would have given a house full of silver and gold. And I was to be _paid_
for accepting it! It is one thing to be a “Vox clamantis in Deserto,”
and quite another to speak in Fleet Street, and, without lifting up
one’s voice, to reach all at once, as many men as formed the population
of ancient Athens, not to say that of Jerusalem! But I must not “magnify
mine office” too fondly!
From the time of my second journey to Italy I obtained employment, as I
have mentioned, as Correspondent to the _Daily News_, with whose Italian
politics I was in sympathy. I also wrote all sorts of miscellaneous
papers and descriptions for the _Spectator_, the _Reader_, the
_Inquirer_, the _Academy_, and the _Examiner_. When in London I was
engaged on the staff of the short-lived _Day_ (1867); and much lamented
its untimely eclipse, when my friend Mr. Haweis, unkindly “chaffed” me
by mourning over it:—
“_Sweet_ Day!
How _cool_! how bright!”
I was paid, however, handsomely for all I had written for it, and a few
months later I received an invitation from Mr. Arthur Arnold (since M.P.
for Salford) to join his staff on the newly-founded _Echo_. It was a
great experiment on the part of the proprietors, Messrs. Petter &
Galpin, to start a half-penny paper. Such a thing did not then exist in
England, and the ridicule it encountered, and boycotting from the
news-agents who could not make enough profit on it to satisfy
themselves, were very serious obstacles to success. Nevertheless Mr.
Arnold’s great tact and ability cleared the way, and before many months
our circulation, I believe, was very large indeed. My share in the
undertaking was soon arranged after a few interviews and experiments. It
was agreed that I should go on three mornings every week at ten o’clock,
to the office in Catherine Street, Strand, and there in a private room
for my own use only, write a leading article on some social subject
after arranging with the editor what it should be. I am proud to say
that for seven years from that time till I retired, I never once failed
to keep my engagement. Of course I took a few weeks’ holiday every year;
but Mr. Arnold never expected his contributor in vain. Sometimes it was
hard work for me; I had a cold, or was otherwise ill, or the snow lay
thick and cabs from South Kensington were not to be had. Nevertheless I
made my way to my destination punctually; and, when there, I wrote my
leader, and as many “Notes” as were allotted to me, and thus proved, I
hope, once for all, that a woman may be relied on as a journalist no
less than a man. I do not think indeed, that very many masculine
journalists could make the same boast of regularity as I have done. My
first article appeared in the third number of the _Echo_, December 10th,
1868, and the last on, or about, March, 1875. Of course at first I found
it a little difficult to write exactly what, and how much was wanted,
neither more nor less; but practice made this easier. I wrote, of
course, on all manner of subjects, politics excepted; but chose in
preference those which offered some ethical interest,—or (on the other
hand) an opening for a little fun! The reader may see specimens of both,
_e.g._, the papers on the great _Divorce Case_; _Lent in Belgravia_; and
on _Fat People_; _Sweeping under the Mats_, &c., in _Re-echoes_, a
little book compiled from a selection of my _Echo_ articles which
Tauchnitz reproduced in his library. A few incidents in my experience in
Catherine Street recur to me, and may be worth recording.
Terrible stories of misery and death were continuously cropping up in
the reports of Coroners’ Inquests, and I found that if I took these
reports as they were published and wrote leading articles on them, we
were almost sure next day to receive several letters begging the Editor
to forward money (enclosed) to the surviving relations. It became a duty
for me to satisfy myself of the veracity of these stories before setting
them forth with claims for public sympathy; and in this way I came to
see some of the sadder sides of poverty in London. There was one case I
distinctly recall, of a poor lady, daughter of a country rector, who was
found (after having been missed for several days, but not sought for)
lying dead, scarcely clothed, on the bare floor of a room in a miserable
lodging-house in Drury Lane. I went to the house and found it a filthy
coffee-house, frequented by unwashed customers. The mistress, though
likewise unwashed, was obviously what is termed “respectable.” She told
me that her unhappy lodger was a woman of 40 or 50, perfectly sober and
well conducted in every way. She had been a governess in very good
families, but had remained unemployed till her clothes grew shabby. She
walked all day long over London for many weeks, seeking any kind of work
or means of support, and selling by degrees everything she possessed for
food. At last she returned to her wretched room in that house into which
it was a pain for any lady to enter,—and having begged a last cup of tea
from her landlady, telling her she could not pay for it, she locked her
door, and was heard of no more. Many days afterwards the busy landlady
noticed that she had not seen her going in or out, and finding her door
locked, called the police to open it. There was hardly an atom of flesh
on the poor worn frame, scarcely clothes for decency, no food, no coals
in the grate. “_Death from Starvation_” was the only possible verdict.
When the case had been made public, relatives, obviously belonging to a
very good class of society, came hastily and took away the corpse for
burial in some family vault. The sight, the sounds, the fetid smells of
that sordid lodging-house as endured by that lonely, dying, starving
lady, will haunt me while I live.
Another incident (in January, 1869) had a happier conclusion. There was
a case in the law Reports one day of a woman named Susannah Palmer, who
was sent to Newgate for stabbing her husband. The story was a piteous
one as I verified it. Her husband was a savage who had continually
beaten her; had turned her out of the house at night; brought in a bad
woman in her place; and then had deserted her for months, leaving her to
support herself and their children. After a time he would suddenly
return, take the money she had earned out of her pocket (as he had then
a legal right to do), sell up any furniture she possessed; kick and beat
her again; and then again desert her. One day she was cutting bread for
the children when he struck her, and the knife in her hand cut him;
whereupon he gave her in charge for “feloniously wounding”; and she was
sent to jail. The Common Sergeant humanely observed as he passed
sentence that “Newgate would be ten times better for her than the hell
in which she was compelled to live.” It was the old epitaph exemplified:
“Here lies the wife of Matthew Ford,
Whose soul we hope is with the Lord;
But if for Hell she’s changed this life
‘’Tis better than being Mat. Ford’s wife!’”
Having obtained through John Locke (the well-known Member for Southwark,
who had married my cousin) a special permit from the Lord Mayor, I saw
the poor, pale creature in Newgate and heard her long tale of wrong and
misery. The good Ordinary of the jail felt deeply with me for her; and
when I had seen the people who employed her as charwoman (barbers and
shoemakers in Cowcross Street) and received the best character of her, I
felt justified in appealing, in the _Echo_, for help for her, and also
in circulating a little pamphlet on her behalf. Eventually, when Mrs.
Palmer left Newgate a few weeks later, it was to take possession, as
_caretaker for the chaplain_, of nice, tidy rooms where she and her
children could live in peace, and where her brutal husband could not
follow her, since the place belonged legally to the chaplain.
When there was a dearth of interesting news on the mornings of my
leader-writing, it was my custom to send for a certain newspaper, the
organ of the extreme Ritualistic party, and out of this I seldom failed
to extract _Pabulum_ for a cheerful article! One day, just after the
29th of September, I found such a record of folly,—vestments,
processions, thuribles, and what not, that I proceeded with glee to
write a leader on _Michaelmas Geese_. Next day, to my intense amusement,
there was a letter at the office addressed to the author of the article,
in which one of the “Geese,” whom I had particularly attacked and who
naturally supposed me to be a man, invited me to come and dine with him,
and “talk of these matters over a good glass of sherry and a cigar!” The
worldly wisdom which induced the excellent clergyman to try and thus
“silence my guns” by inducing me to share his salt; and his idea of the
irresistible attractions of sherry and cigars to a “poor devil” (as he
obviously supposed) of a contributor to a half-penny paper, made a
delightful joke. I had the greatest mind in the world to accept the
invitation without betraying my sex till I should arrive at his door in
the fullest of my feminine finery, and claim his dinner; but I was
prudent, and he never knew who was the midge who had assailed him.
The incident reminds me of another journalistic experience not connected
with the _Echo_, which throws some light on certain charges recently
discussed about “commissions” given to newspaper writers who puff the
goods of tradesmen under the guise of instructing the public in the
latest fashions in dress, furniture and _bric-à-brac_. It was the only
case in which any bribe of the kind ever came to my door. Some _grandes
dames_ anxious for the health of work-girls, had opened a millinery
establishment in Clifford Street on purely philanthropic lines, and
begged me to write an appeal in the _Times_ for support for it. After
visiting the beautiful, airy workrooms and dormitories, I did this with
a clear conscience (of course gratuitously) to oblige my friends on the
Committee. Next day a smart brougham drove to my door in Hereford
Square, and an exquisitely dressed lady got out of it, and sent in her
card, “Madame D——.” I was so grossly ignorant of fashionable millinery,
that I did not know that my visitor was then at the very apex of that
lofty commerce. She remonstrated on my injustice in praising the
Clifford Street establishment, when _her_ girls were exactly as well
lodged and fed. “Would I not come and see for myself, and then write and
say so equally publicly?” I agreed that this would be only fair, and
fixed an hour for my inspection; on which she gracefully thanked me and
departed, murmuring as she disappeared that she would be happy to
present me with “_Une jolie toilette!_” Poor woman! She had come to the
only gentlewoman perhaps in London to whom a “toilette” by Madame D——
offered no attractions at all, and to whom (even if I would have
accepted one) it would have been useless, seeing that I never wore
anything but the simply-made skirts and jackets of my maid’s
manufacture. Of course I visited and justly praised her establishment,
as I had promised; and I suppose she long expected me to come and claim
her “_jolie toilette!_”
There was another story of which the memory is in my mind closely
associated with a dear young friend,—Miss Letitia Probyn, who helped me
ardently in my efforts, very shortly before her untimely death, while
bathing, at Hendaye near Arcachon. The case of a woman named Isabel
Grant moved us deeply. The poor creature, in a drunken struggle with her
husband at supper, had cut him with the bread knife in such manner that
he died next day. Her remorse was most genuine and extreme. She was
sentenced to be hanged; and just at the same time an Irishman who had
murdered his wife under circumstances of exceptional brutality and who
had from first to last gloried in his crime, was set free after a week’s
imprisonment! We got up a Memorial for Isabel Grant, Miss Probyn’s
family interest enabling her to obtain many influential signatures; and
we contrived that both the cases of exceptional severity to the
repentant woman and that of lenity to the unrepentant man, should be set
forth in juxtaposition in a score of newspapers. In the end Isabel Grant
obtained a commutation of her sentence.
In 1875 the proprietors of the _Echo_ sold the paper to Baron Grant; and
Mr. Arnold and I at once resigned our positions as Editor and
Contributor. He had created the paper,—I may say even more,—had created
first-class, half-penny journalism altogether; and it was deeply
regretted that his able and judicious guidance was lost to the _Echo_.
After an interval, the paper was redeemed from the first purchaser’s
hands by that generous gentleman, Mr. Passmore Edwards, than whom it
could have no better Proprietor.
I wrote on the whole more than 1,000 leading articles, and a vast number
of Notes, for the _Echo_ during the seven years in which I worked upon
its staff. The contributors who successively occupied the same columns
of second leaders on my off-days were willing, (as I believe Mr. Arnold
desired), to adopt on the whole the general line of sentiment and
principle which my articles maintained; and thus I had the comfort of
thinking that, as regarded social ethics, my work had given in some
measure the tone to the paper. It was _my pulpit_, with permission to
make in it (what other pulpits lack so sadly!) such jokes as pleased me;
and to put forward on hundreds of matters my views of what was right and
honourable. We did not profess to be “written by gentlemen for
gentlemen.” The saturnine jests, the snarls and the pessimisms of the
clubs were not in our way; and we did not affect to be _blasés_, or to
think the whole world was going to the dogs. There were of course
subjects on which a Liberal like Mr. Arnold and a Tory like myself
differed widely; and then I left them untouched, for (I need scarcely
say) I never wrote a line in that or any other paper not in fullest
accordance with my own opinions and convictions, on any subject small or
great. The work, I think, was at all events wholesome and harmless. I
hope that it also did, now and then, a little good.
After the sudden and unexpected termination of my connection with the
_Echo_ I accepted gladly an engagement, not requiring personal
attendance, on the staff of the _Standard_, and wrote two or three
leaders a week for that newspaper, for a considerable time. At last the
Vivisection controversy came in the way, when I resigned my post in
consequence of the appearance of a pro-vivisecting paragraph. The editor
assured me generally of his approval of my crusade, and I wrote a few
articles more, but the engagement finally dropped. My time had indeed
become too much absorbed by the other work to carry on regular
Journalism with the needful vigour.
It may interest women who are entering the profession in which I found
such pleasure and profit, to know that as regards “filthy lucre,” I
found it more remunerative than writing for the best monthly or
quarterly periodicals. I did both at the same period; often sitting down
to spend some hours of the afternoon over a “Study of Eastern Religion”
or some such subject, when I had gone to the Strand and written my
leader and notes in the forenoon. Putting all together and the profits
of my books, (which were small enough,) I made by my literary and
journalistic work at one time a fair income. This golden epoch ended,
however, when I threw myself into the Anti-vivisection movement, after
which date I do not think I have ever earned more than £100 a year, and
for the last 12 years not £20. I suppose in my whole life I have earned
nearly £5,000, rather more than my whole patrimony. What my poor father
would have felt had he known that his daughter eked out her subsistence
by going down in all weathers to write articles for a half-penny
newspaper in the Strand, I cannot guess. My brothers happily had no
objection to my industry, and the eldest—who drew, as usual with elder
sons in our class, more money every year from the family property than I
received for life,—kindly paid off my charges on the estate and added
£100 a year to the proceeds, so that I was thenceforth, for my moderate
wants, fairly well off, especially since I had a friend who shared all
expenses of housekeeping with me.
In reviewing my whole literary and journalistic life as I have done in
these two chapters, I perceive that I have been from first to last _an
Essayist_; almost _pur et simple_. I have done very little in any other
way than to try to put forward—either at large in a book or in a
magazine article, or, lastly, in a newspaper-leader—which was always a
miniature essay,—an appeal for some object, an argument for some truth,
a vindication of some principle, an exposure of what I conceived to be
an absurdity, a wrong, a falsehood, or a cruelty. At first I had
exaggerated hopes of success in these endeavours. Books had been a great
deal to me in my own solitary life, and I far over-estimated their
practical power. When editors and publishers readily accepted my
articles and books, and reviewers praised them, I fancied, (though they
never sold very freely,) that I was really given the great privilege of
moving many hearts. But by degrees as years went on I felt the sorrowful
limitation of literary influence. Sometimes I was wild with
disappointment and indignation when critics lauded the “style” of my
books while they never so much as noticed the _purpose_ for sake of
which I had laboured to make them good and strong literature.
For my own part I have shunned Review-writing; partly (as regarded
newspaper criticism) for the rather sordid reason that it involves the
double labour of reading and writing for the same pay per column, but
generally, and in all cases, because I cannot say,—as dear Fanny Kemble
used to remark in a sepulchral voice (quite falsely), “_I am nothing if
not critical_.” On the contrary, I am several other things, and very
little critical; and the pain and deadly injury I have seen inflicted by
a severe review is a form of cruelty for which I have no predilection.
It is necessary, no doubt, in the literary community that there should
be warders and executioners at the public command to birch juvenile
offenders, and flog garrotters, and hang anarchists; but I never felt
any vocation for those disagreeable offices. The few reviews I have ever
written have been properly Essays on given subjects, taking some book
which I could honestly praise for a peg. As in the old Egyptian _Book of
the Dead_ the soul of the deceased protests, among his forty-two
abjurations,—“I have not been the cause of others’ tears,”—so, I hope, I
may say, I have given no brother or sister of the pen the wound (and
often the ruinous loss) of a damaging critique of his or her books. If
my writings have given pain to any persons, it can only have been to men
whose dead consciences it would be an act of mercy to awaken, and
towards whom I feel not the smallest compunction. Briefly I conclude in
this book, (doubtless my last), a long and moderately successful
literary life, with no serious regrets, but with much thankfulness and
rejoicing for all the interest, the pleasure and the warm and precious
friendships which the profession of letters has brought to me ever since
I entered it,—just forty years ago,—when William Longman accepted my
_Intuitive Morals_.
CHAPTER
XVII.
_MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES._
_SOCIAL._
When we had settled down, as we did rapidly, into our pretty little
house in South Kensington, we began soon to enjoy many social pleasures
of a quiet kind. Into Society (with a big _S_!), we had no pretensions
to enter, but we had many friends, very genuine and delightful ones, ere
long; and a great many interesting acquaintances. Happily death has
spared not a few of these until now, and, of course, of them I shall not
write here; but of some of those who have “gone over to the majority” I
shall venture to record my recollections, interspersed in some cases
with their letters. I may premise that we were much given to dining out,
but not to attending late evening parties; and that in our small way we
gave little dinners now and then, and occasionally afternoon and evening
parties,—the former held sometimes in summer under the lime trees behind
our house. I attribute my long retention of good health to my
persistence in going to bed before eleven o’clock, and never accepting
late invitations.