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[Illustration]
[Illustration: AT TWENTY.]
It is a far cry back to 1853, when dreams of writing a book had almost
reached the boundary line of "probable events." I was then a pale,
long-haired, consumptive-looking youth, who had been successful in prize
poems--for there were prize competitions even in those far-off days--and
in acrostics, and in the acceptance of one or two short stories, which
had been actually published in a magazine that did not pay for
contributions (it was edited by a clergyman of the Church of England,
too, and the chaplain to a real Duke), and which magazine has gone the
way of many magazines, and is now as extinct as the Dodo. It was in the
year 1853, or a month or two earlier, that I wrote my first
novel--which, upon a moderate computation, I think, would make four or
five good-sized library volumes, but I have never attempted to "scale"
the manuscript. It is in my possession still, although I have not seen
it for many weary years. It is buried with a heap more rubbish in a
respectable old oak chest, the key of which is even lost to me. And yet
that MS. was the turning-point of my small literary career. And it is
the history of that manuscript which leads up to the publication of my
first novel; my first step, though I did not know it, and hence it is
part and parcel of the history of my first book--a link in the chain.
[Illustration: ELMORE HOUSE.]
When that manuscript was completed, it was read aloud, night after
night, to an admiring audience of family members, and pronounced as fit
for publication as anything of Dickens or Thackeray or Bulwer, who were
then in the full swing of their mighty capacities. Alas! I was a better
judge than my partial and amiable critics. I had very grave
doubts--"qualms," I think they are called--and I had read that it was
uphill work to get a book published, and swagger through the world as a
real live being who had actually written a novel. There was a faint
hope, that was all; and so, with my MS. under my arm, I strolled into
the palatial premises of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett ("successors to
Henry Colburn" they proudly designated themselves at that period), laid
my heavy parcel on the counter, and waited, with fear and trembling, for
someone to emerge from the galleries of books and rows of desks beyond,
and enquire the nature of my business. And here ensued my first
surprise--quite a dramatic coincidence--for the tall, spare, middle-aged
gentleman who advanced from the shadows towards the counter, proved, to
my intense astonishment, to be a constant chess antagonist of mine at
Kling's Chess Rooms, round the corner, in New Oxford Street--rooms which
have disappeared long ago, along with Horwitz, Harrwitz, Loewenthal,
Williams, and other great chess lights of those far-away times, who were
to be seen there, night after night, prepared for all comers. Kling's
was a great chess house, and I was a chess enthusiast, as well as a
youth who wanted to get into print. Failing literature, I had made up my
mind to become a chess champion, if possible, although I knew already,
by quiet observation of my antagonists, that in that way madness lay,
sheer uncontrollable, raging madness--for me at any rate. And the grave,
middle-aged gentleman behind the counter of 13, Great Marlborough
Street, proved to be the cashier of the firm, and used--being chess-mad
like the rest of us--to spend his evenings at "Kling's." He was a player
of my own strength, and for twelve months or so had I skirmished with
him over the chessboard, and fought innumerable battles with him. He had
never spoken of his occupation, or I of my restless ambitions--chess
players never go far beyond the chequered board.
[Illustration: AT THIRTY.]
"Hallo, Robinson!" he exclaimed, in his surprise, "you don't mean to say
that you----"
And then he stopped and regarded my youthful appearance very critically.
"Yes, Mr. Kenny--it's a novel," I said, modestly; "my first."
"There's plenty of it," he remarked, drily. "I'll send it upstairs at
once. And I'll wish you luck too; but," he added, kindly, preparing to
soften the shock of a future refusal, "we have plenty of these come
in--about seven a day--and most of them go back to their writers again."
"Ye-es, I suppose so," I answered, with a sigh.
For awhile, however, I regarded the meeting as a happy augury--a lucky
coincidence. I even had the vain, hopeless notion that Mr. Kenny might
put in a good word for me, ask for special consideration, out of that
kindly feeling which we had for each other, and which chess antagonists
have invariably for each other, I am inclined to believe. But though we
met three or four times a week, from that day forth not one word
concerning the fate of my manuscript escaped the lips of Mr. Kenny. It
is probable the incident had passed from his memory; he had nothing to
do with the novel department itself, and the delivery of MSS. was a very
common everyday proceeding to him. I was too bashful, perhaps too proud,
an individual to ask any questions of him; but every evening that I
encountered him I used to wonder "if he had heard anything," if any news
of the book's fate had reached him, directly or indirectly; occasionally
even, as time went on, I was disposed to imagine that he was letting me
win the game out of kindness--for he was a gentle, kindly soul
always--in order to soften the shock of a disappointment which he knew
perfectly well was on its way towards me.
[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON'S LIBRARY.]
[Illustration: THE GARDEN.]
Some months afterwards, the fateful letter came to me from the firm,
regretting their inability to make use of the MS., and expressing many
thanks for a perusal of the same--a polite, concise, all-round kind of
epistle, which a publisher is compelled to keep in stock, and to send
out when rejected literature pours forth like a waterfall from the dusky
caverns of a publishing house in a large way of business. It was all
over, then--I had failed! From that hour I would turn chess player, and
soften my brain in a quest for silver cups or champion amateur stakes. I
could play chess better than I could write fiction, I was sure. Still,
after some days of dead despair, I sent the MS. once more on its
travels--this time to Smith and Elder's, whose reader, Mr. Williams, had
leapt into singular prominence since his favourable judgment of
Charlotte Bronte's book, and to whom most MSS. flowed spontaneously for
many years afterwards. And in due course of time, Mr. Williams, acting
for Messrs. Smith and Elder, asked me to call upon him--_for the
MS._!--at Cornhill, and there I received my first advice, my first
thrill of exultation. "Presently, and probably, _and with
perseverance_," he said, "you will succeed in literature, and if you
will remember now, that to write a good novel is a very considerable
achievement. Years of short story-writing is the best apprenticeship for
you. Write and re-write, and spare no pains." I thanked him, and I went
home with tears in my eyes of gratitude and consolation, though my big
story had been declined with thanks. But I did not write again. I put
away my MS., and went on for six or eight hours a day at chess for many
idle months before I was in the vein for composition, and then, with a
sudden dash, I began "The House of Elmore." It was half finished when
another strange incident in its little way occurred. I received one
morning a letter from Lascelles Wraxall (afterwards Sir Lascelles
Wraxall, Bart., as the reader may be probably aware), informing me that
he was one of the readers for Messrs. Hurst and Blackett, and that it
had been his duty some time ago to decide unfavourably against a story
which I had submitted to the notice of his firm, but that he had
intended to write to me a private note urging me to adopt literature as
a profession. His principal object in writing at that time was to
suggest my trying the fortunes of the novel which he had already read
with Messrs. Routledge, and he kindly added a letter of introduction to
that firm in the Broadway--an introduction which, by the way, never came
to anything.
[Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM.]
Poor Lascelles Wraxall, clever writer and editor, pressman and literary
adviser, real Bohemian and true friend--indeed, everybody's friend but
his own--I never think of him but with feelings of deep gratitude. He
was a rolling stone, and when I met him for the first time in my life,
years afterwards, he had left Marlborough Street for the Crimea; he had
been given a commission in the Turkish Contingent at Kertch; he had come
back anathematising the service, and "chock full" of grievances against
the Government, and he became once more editor and sub-editor, and
publisher's hack even at last, until he stepped into his baronetcy--an
empty title, for he had sold the reversion of the estates for a mere
song long ago--and became special correspondent in Austria for the
_Daily Telegraph_. And in Vienna he died, young in years still--not
forty, I think--closing a life that only wanted one turn more of
"application," I have often thought, to have achieved very great
distinction. There are still a few writing men about who remember
Lascelles Wraxall, but they are "the boys of the old brigade."
It was to Lascelles Wraxall I sent, when finished, "The House of
Elmore," the reader may very easily guess. Wraxall had stepped so much
out of his groove--for the busy literary man that he was--to take me by
the hand, and point the way along "the perilous road"; he had given me
so many kind words, that I wrote my hardest to complete my new story
before I should fade wholly from his recollection. The book was finished
in five weeks, and in hot haste, and for months again I was left
wondering what the outcome of it all was to be--whether Wraxall was
reading my story, or whether--oh, horror!--some other reader less kindly
disposed, and more austere and critical, and hard to please, had been
told off to sit in judgment upon my second MS.
[Illustration AT FORTY.]
I went back to chess for a distraction till the fate of that book was
pronounced or sealed--it was always chess in the hours of my distress
and anxiety--and I once again faced Charles Kenny, and once again
wondered if he knew, and how much he knew, whilst he was deep in his
king's gambit or his giuoco-piano; but he was not even aware that I had
sent in a second story, I learned afterwards. And then at last came the
judgment--the pleasant, if formal, notice from Marlborough Street that
the novel had been favourably reported upon by the reader, and that
Messrs. Hurst and Blackett would be pleased to see me at Marlborough
Street to talk the matter of its publication over with me. Ah! what a
letter that was!--what a surprise, after all!--what a good omen!
And some three months afterwards, at the end of the year 1854, my first
book--but my second novel--was launched into the reading world, and I
have hardly got over the feeling yet that I had actually a right to dub
myself a novelist!
[Illustration: MR. ROBINSON AT WORK.]
When the first three notices of the book appeared, wild dreams of a
brilliant future beset me. They were all favourable notices--too
favourable; but _John Bull_, _The Press_, and _Bell's Messenger_ (I
think they were the papers) scattered favourable notices
indiscriminately at that time. Presently the _Athenaeum_ sobered me a
little, but wound up with a kindly pat on the back, and the _Saturday
Review_, then in its seventh number, drenched me with vitriolic acid,
and brought me to a lower level altogether; and finally the _Morning
Herald_ blew a loud blast to my praise and glory--that last notice, I
believe, having been written by my old friend Sir Edward Clarke, then a
very young reviewer on the _Herald_ staff, with no dreams of becoming
Her Majesty's Solicitor-General just then! And the "House of Elmore"
actually paid its publishers' expenses, and left a balance, and brought
me in a little cheque, and thus my writing life began in sober earnest.
Told by the Colonel.