It has often struck me that the relation of two important members of
the social body to one another has never been sufficiently considered,
or treated of, so far as I know, either by the philosopher or the poet.
I allude to that which exists between the omnibus driver and his
conductor. Cultivating literature as I do upon a little oatmeal, and
driving, when in a position to be driven at all, in that humble
vehicle, the 'bus, I have had, perhaps, exceptional opportunities for
observing their mutual position and behaviour; and it is very peculiar.
When the 'bus is empty, these persons are sympathetic and friendly to
one another, almost to tenderness; but when there is much traffic, a
tone of severity is observable upon the side of the conductor. 'What
are yer a-driving on for just as a party's getting in? Will nothing
suit but to break a party's neck?' 'Wake up, will yer? or do yer want
that ere Bayswater to pass us?' are inquiries he will make in the most
peremptory manner. Or he will concentrate contempt in the laconic but
withering observation: 'Now then, stoopid!'
When we consider that the driver is after all the driver—that the 'bus
is under his guidance and management, and may be said _pro tem_, to be
his own—indeed, in case of collision or other serious extremity, he
calls it so: 'What the infernal regions are yer banging into my 'bus
for?' etc., etc.,—I say, this being his exalted position, the injurious
language of the man on the step is, to say the least of it,
disrespectful.
On the other hand, it is the conductor who fills the 'bus, and even
entices into it, by lures and wiles, persons who are not voluntarily
going his way at all. It is he who advertises its presence to the
passers-by, and spares neither lung nor limb in attracting passengers.
If the driver is lord and king, yet the conductor has a good deal to do
with the administration: just as the Mikado of Japan, who sits above
the thunder and is almost divine, is understood to be assisted and even
'conducted' by the Tycoon. The connection between those potentates is
perhaps the most exact reproduction of that between the 'bus driver and
his cad; but even in England there is a pretty close parallel to it in
the mutual relation of the author and the professional critic.
While the former is in his spring-time, the analogy is indeed almost
complete. For example, however much he may have plagiarised, the book
does belong to the author: he calls it, with pardonable pride (and
especially if anyone runs it down), 'my book.' He has written it, and
probably paid pretty handsomely for getting it published. Even the
right of translation, if you will look at the bottom of the title-page,
is somewhat superfluously reserved to him. Yet nothing can exceed the
patronage which he suffers at the hands of the critic, and is compelled
to submit to in sullen silence. When the book-trade is slack—that is,
in the summer season—the pair get on together pretty amicably. 'This
book,' says the critic, 'may be taken down to the seaside, and lounged
over not unprofitably;' or, 'Readers may do worse than peruse this
unpretending little volume of fugitive verse;' or even, 'We hail this
new aspirant to the laurels of Apollo.' But in the thick of the
publishing season, and when books pour into the reviewer by the
cartful, nothing can exceed the violence, and indeed sometimes the
virulence, of his language. That 'Now then, stoopid!' of the 'bus
conductor pales beside the lightnings of his scorn.
'Among the lovers of sensation, it is possible that some persons may be
found with tastes so utterly vitiated as to derive pleasure from this
monstrous production.' I cull these flowers of speech from a wreath
placed by a critic of the _Slasher_ on my own early brow. Ye gods, how
I hated him! How I pursued him with more than Corsican vengeance;
traduced him in public and private; and only when I had thrust my knife
(metaphorically) into his detested carcase, discovered I had been
attacking the wrong man. It is a lesson I have never forgotten; and I
pray you, my younger brothers of the pen, to lay it to heart. Believe
rather that your unfriendly critic, like the bee who is fabled to sting
and die, has perished after his attempt on your reputation; and let the
tomb be his asylum. For even supposing you get the right sow by the
ear—or rather, the wild boar with the 'raging tooth'—what can it profit
you? It is not like that difference of opinion between yourself and
twelve of your fellow-countrymen which may have such fatal results. You
are not an Adonis (except in outward form, perhaps), that you can be
ripped up with his tusk. His hard words do not break your bones. If
they are uncalled for, their cruelty, believe me, can hurt only your
vanity. While it is just possible—though indeed in your case in the
very highest degree improbable—that the gentleman may have been right.
In the good old times we are told that a buffet from the hand of an
Edinburgh or Quarterly Reviewer would lay a young author dead at his
feet. If it was so, he must have been naturally very deficient in
vitality. It certainly did not kill Byron, though it was a knock-down
blow; he rose from that combat from earth, like Antæus, all the
stronger for it. The story of its having killed Keats, though embalmed
in verse, is apocryphal; and if such blows were not fatal in those
times, still less so are they nowadays. On the other hand, if authors
are difficult to slay, it is infinitely harder work to give them life
by what the doctors term 'artificial respiration'—puffing. The amount
of breath expended in the days of 'the Quarterlies' in this hopeless
task would have moved windmills. Not a single favourite of those
critics—selected, that is, from favouritism, and apart from merit—now
survives. They failed even to obtain immortality for the writers in
whom there was really something of genius, but whom they extolled
beyond their deserts. Their pet idol, for example, was Samuel Rogers.
And who reads Rogers's poems now? We remember something about them, and
that is all; they are very literally 'Pleasures of Memory.'
And if these things are true of the past, how much more so are they of
the present! I venture to think, in spite of some voices to the
contrary, that criticism is much more honest than it used to be:
certainly less influenced by political feeling, and by the interests of
publishing houses; more temperate, if not more judicious, and—in the
higher literary organs, at least—unswayed by personal prejudice. But
the result of even the most favourable notices upon a book is now but
small. I can remember when a review in the _Times_ was calculated by
the 'Row' to sell an entire edition. Those halcyon days—if halcyon days
they were—are over. People read books for themselves now; judge for
themselves; and buy only when they are absolutely compelled, and cannot
get them from the libraries. In the case of an author who has already
secured a public, it is indeed extraordinary what little effect
reviews, either good or bad, have upon his circulation. Those who like
his works continue to read them, no matter what evil is written of
them; and those who don't like them are not to be persuaded (alas!) to
change their minds, though his latest effort should be described as
though it had dropped from the heavens. I could give some statistics
upon this point not a little surprising, but statistics involve
comparisons—which are odious. As for fiction, its success depends more
upon what Mrs. Brown says to Mrs. Jones as to the necessity of getting
that charming book from the library while there is yet time, than on
all the reviews in Christendom.
O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases
Than to see the bright eyes of those dear ones discover
They thought that I was not unworthy—
of a special messenger to Mr. Mudie's.
Heaven bless them! for, when we get old and stupid, they still stick by
one, and are not to be seduced from their allegiance by any blaring of
trumpets, or clashing of cymbals, that heralds a new arrival among the
story-tellers.
On the other hand, as respects his first venture, the author is very
dependent upon what the critics say of him. It is the conductor, you
know (I wouldn't call him a 'cad,' even in fun, for ten thousand
pounds), on whom, to return to our metaphor, the driver is dependent
for the patronage of his vehicle, and even for the announcement of its
existence. A good review is still the very best of advertisements to a
new author; and even a bad one is better than no review at all. Indeed,
I have heard it whispered that a review which speaks unfavourably of a
work of fiction, upon moral grounds, is of very great use to it. This,
however, the same gossips say, is mainly confined to works of fiction
written by female authors for readers of their own sex—'_by_ ladies
_for_ ladies,' as a feminine _Pall Mall Gazette_ might describe itself.
Nor would I be understood to say that even a well-established author is
not affected by what the critics may say of him; I only state that his
circulation is not—albeit they may make his very blood curdle. I have a
popular writer in my mind, who never looks at a newspaper unless it
comes to him by a hand he can trust, for fear his eyes should light
upon an unpleasant review. His argument is this: 'I have been at this
work for the last twelve months, thinking of little else and putting my
best intelligence (which is considerable) at its service. Is it humanly
probable that a reviewer who has given his mind to it for a less number
of hours, can suggest anything in the way of improvement worthy of my
consideration? I am supposing him to be endowed with ability and
actuated by good faith; that he has not failed in my own profession and
is not jealous of my popularity; yet even thus, how is it possible that
his opinion can be of material advantage to me? If favourable, it gives
me pleasure, because it flatters my _amour propre_, and I am even not
quite sure that it does not afford a stimulating encouragement; but if
unfavourable, I own it gives me considerable annoyance. [This is his
euphemistic phrase to express the feeling of being in a hornets' nest
without his clothes on.] On the other hand, if the critic is a mere
hireling, or a young gentleman from the university who is trying his
'prentice hand at a lowish rate of remuneration upon a veteran like
myself, how still more idle would it be to regard his views!'
And it appears to me that there is really something in these arguments.
As regards the latter part of them, by-the-bye, I had the pleasure of
seeing my own last immortal story spoken of in an American magazine—the
_Atlantic Monthly_—as the work of 'a bright and prosperous young
author.' The critic (Heaven bless his young heart, and give him a happy
Whitsuntide) evidently imagined it to be my first production. In
another Transatlantic organ, a critic, speaking of the last work of
that literary veteran, the late Mr. Le Fanu, observes: 'If this young
writer would only model himself upon the works of Mr. William Black in
his best days, we foresee a great future before him.'
There is one thing that I think should be set down to the credit of the
literary profession—that for the most part they take their 'slatings'
(which is the professional term for them) with at least outward
equanimity. I have read things of late, written of an old and popular
writer, ten times more virulent than anything Mr. Ruskin wrote of Mr.
Whistler: yet neither he, nor any other man of letters, thinks of
flying to his mother's apron-string, or of setting in motion old Father
Antic, the Law. Perhaps it is that we have no money, or perhaps, like
the judicious author of whom I have spoken, we abstain from reading
unpleasant things. I wish to goodness we could abstain from hearing of
them; but the 'd——d good-natured friend' is an eternal creation. He has
altered, however, since Sheridan's time in his method of proceeding. He
does not say, 'There is a very unpleasant notice of you in the
_Scorpion_, my dear fellow, which I deplore.' The scoundrel now affects
a more light-hearted style. 'There is a review of your last book in the
_Scorpion_', he says, 'which will amuse you. It is very malicious, and
evidently the offspring of personal spite, but it is very clever.' Then
you go down to your club, and take the thing up with the tongs, when
nobody is looking, and make yourself very miserable; or you buy it,
going home in the cab, and, having spoilt your appetite for dinner with
it, tear it up very small, throw it out of window, and swear you have
never seen it.
One forgives the critic—perhaps—but never the good-natured friend. It
is always possible—to the wise man—to refrain from reading the
lucubration of the former, but he cannot avoid the latter: which brings
me to the main subject of this paper—the Critic on the Hearth. One can
be deaf to the voice of the public hireling, but it is impossible to
shut one's ears to the private communications of one's friends and
family—all meant for our good, no doubt, but which are nevertheless
insufferable.
In Miss Martineau's Autobiography there is a passage expressing her
surprise that whereas in all other cases there is a certain modest
reticence in respect to other people's business when it is of a special
kind, the profession of literature is made an exception. As there is no
one but imagines that he can poke a fire and drive a gig, so everyone
believes he can write a book, or at all events (like that blasphemous
person in connection with the Creation) that he can give a wrinkle or
two to the author.
I wonder what a parson would say, if a man who never goes to church
save when his babies are christened, or by accident to get out of a
shower, should volunteer his advice about sermon-making? or an artist,
to whom the man without arms, who is wheeled about in the streets for
coppers, should recommend a greater delicacy of touch? Indeed, metaphor
fails me, and I gasp for mere breath when I think of the astounding
impudence of some people. If I possessed a tithe of it, I should surely
have made my fortune by this time, and be in the enjoyment of the
greatest prosperity. It must be remembered, too, that the opinion of
the Critics on the Hearth is always volunteered (indeed, one would as
soon think of asking for it as for a loan from the Sultan of Turkey),
and in nine cases out of ten it is unfavourable. One has no objection
to their praise, nor to any amount of it; what is so abhorrent is their
advice, and still more their disapproval. It is like throwing 'half a
brick' at you, which, utterly valueless in itself, still hurts you when
it hits you. And the worst of it is that, apart from their rubbishy
opinions, one likes these people; they are one's friends and relatives,
and to cut one's moorings from them altogether would be to sail over
the sea of life without a port to touch at.
The early life of the author is especially embittered by the utterances
of these good folks. As a prophet is of no honour in his own country,
so it is with the young aspirant for literary fame with his folks at
home. They not only disbelieve in him, but—generally, however, with one
or two exceptions, who are invaluable to him in the way of
encouragement—'make hay' of him and his pretensions in the most
heartless style. If he produces a poem, it achieves immortality in the
sense of his 'never hearing the last of it;' it is the jest of the
family till they have all grown up. But this he can bear, because his
noble mind recognises its own greatness; he regards his jeering
brethren in the same light as the philosophic writer beholds 'the vapid
and irreflective reader.' When they tell him they 'can't make head or
tail of his blessed poetry,' he comforts himself with the reflection of
the great German (which he has read in a translation) that the clearest
handwriting cannot be read by twilight. It is when his literary talents
have received more or less recognition from the public at large, that
home criticism becomes so painful to him. His brethren are then boys no
longer, but parsons, lawyers, and doctors; and though they don't
venture to interfere with one-another as regards their individual
professions, they make no sort of scruple about interfering with _him_.
They write to him their unsolicited advice and strictures. This is the
parson's letter:
'MY DEAR DICK,
'I like your last book much better than the rest of them; but I
don't like your heroine. She strikes both Julia and myself [Julia
is his wife, who is acquainted with no literature but the
cookery-book] as rather namby-pamby. The descriptions, however, are
charming; we both recognised dear old Ramsgate at once. [The
original of the locality in the novel being Dieppe.] The plot is
also excellent, though we think we have some recollection of it
elsewhere; but it must be so difficult to hit upon anything
original in these days. Thanks for your kind remembrance of us at
Christmas: the oysters were excellent. We were sorry to see that
ill-natured little notice in the _Scourge_.
'Yours affectionately,
'BOB.'
Jack the lawyer writes:
'DEAR DICK,
'You are really becoming ["Becoming?" he thinks _that_ becoming]
quite a great man: we could hardly get your last book from Mudie's,
though I suppose he takes very small quantities of copies, except
from really popular authors. Marion was charmed with your heroine
[Dick rather likes Marion; and doesn't think Jack treats her with
the consideration she deserves], and I have no doubt women in
general will admire her, but your hero—you know I always speak my
mind—is rather a duffer. You should go into the world more, and
sketch from life. The Vice-Chancellor gave me great pleasure by
speaking of your early poems very highly the other day, and I
assure you it was quite a drop down for me, to find that he was
referring to some other writer of the same name. Of course I did
not undeceive him. I wish, my dear fellow, you would write stories
in one volume instead of three. You write a _short_ story
capitally.
'Yours ever,
'JACK.'
Tom the surgeon belongs to that very objectionable class of humanity,
called, by ancient writers, wags:
'MY DEAR DICK,
'I cannot help writing to thank you for the relief afforded to me
by the perusal of your last volume. I had been suffering from
neuralgia, and every prescription in the Pharmacopæia for producing
sleep had failed until I tried _that_. Dear Maggie [an odious
woman, who calls novels "light literature," and affects to be blue]
read it to me herself, so it was given every chance; but I think
you must acknowledge that it was a little spun out. Maggie assures
me—I have not read them myself, for you know what little time I
have for such things—that the first two volumes, with the exception
of the characters of the hero and heroine, which she pronounces to
be rather feeble, are first-rate. Why don't you write two-volume
novels? There is always something in analogy: reflect how seldom
Nature herself produces three at a birth: when she does, it is only
two, at most, which survive. We shall look forward to your next
effort with much interest, but we hope you will give more time and
pains to it. Remember what Horace says upon this subject (He has no
more knowledge of Horace than he has of Sanscrit, but he has read
the quotation in that vile review in the _Scourge_.) Maggie thinks
you live too luxuriously: if your expenses were less you would not
be compelled to write so much, and you would do it better. Excuse
this well-meant advice from an elder brother.
'Yours always,
'Tom.'
'One's sisters, and one's cousins, and one's aunts' also write in more
or less the same style, though, to do their sex justice, less
offensively. 'If you were to go abroad, my dear Dick,' says one, 'it
would expand your mind. There is nothing to blame in your last
production, which strikes me (what I could understand of it at least,
for some of it is a little Bohemian) as very pleasing; but the fact is,
that English subjects are quite used up.' Others discover for
themselves the originals of Dick's characters in persons he has never
dreamt of describing, and otherwise exhibit a most marvellous
familiarity with his materials. 'Hennie, who has just been here, is
immensely delighted with your satirical sketch of her husband. He,
however, as you may suppose, is _wild_, and says you had better
withdraw your name from the candidates' book at his club. I don't know
how many black balls exclude, but he has a good many friends there.'
Another writes: 'Of course we all recognised Uncle George in your Mr.
Flibbertigibbet; but we try not to laugh; indeed our sense of loss is
too recent. Seriously, I think you might have waited till the poor old
man—who was always kind to you, Dick—was cold in his grave.'
Some of these excellent creatures send incidents of real life which
they are sure will be useful to 'dear Dick' for his next
book—narratives of accidents in a hansom cab, of missing the train by
the Underground, and of Mr. Jones being late for his own wedding,
'which, though nothing in themselves, actually did happen, you know,
and which, properly dressed up, as you so well know how to do,' will,
they are sure, obtain for him a marked success. 'There is nothing like
reality,' they say, he may depend upon it, 'for coming home to people.'
After all, one need not read these abominable letters. One's relatives
(thank Heaven!) usually live in the country. The real Critics on the
Hearth are one's personal acquaintances in town, whom one cannot
escape.
'My dear friend,' said one to me the other day—a most cordial and
excellent fellow, by-the-bye (only too frank)—'I like you, as you know,
beyond everything, personally, but I cannot read your books.'
'My dear Jones,' replied I, 'I regret that exceedingly; for it is you,
and men like you, whose suffrages I am most anxious to win. Of the
approbation of all intelligent and educated persons I am certain; but
if I could only obtain that of the million, I should be a happy man.'
But even when I have thus demolished Jones, I still feel that I owe him
a grudge. 'What the Deuce is it to me whether Jones likes my books or
not? and why does he tell me he doesn't like them?'
Of the surpassing ignorance of these good people, I have just heard an
admirable anecdote. A friend of a justly popular author meets him in
the club and congratulates him upon his last story in the _Slasher_ [in
which he has never written a line]. It is so full of farce and fun [the
author is a grave writer]. 'Only I don't see why it is not advertised
under the same title in the other newspapers.' The fact being that the
story in the _Slasher_ is a parody—and not a very good-natured one—upon
the author's last work, and resembles it only as a picture in _Vanity
Fair_ resembles its original.
Some Critics on the Hearth are not only good-natured, but have rather
too high, or, if that is impossible, let us say too pronounced, an
opinion of the abilities of their literary friends. They wonder why
they do not employ their gigantic talents in some enduring monument,
such as a life of 'Alexander the Great' or a popular history of the
Visigoths. To them literature is literature, and they do not concern
themselves with little niceties of style or differences of subject.
Others again, though extremely civil, are apt to affect more enthusiasm
than they feel. They admire one's works without exception—'they are all
absolutely charming'—but they would be placed in a position of great
embarrassment if they were asked to name their favourite: for, as a
matter of fact, they are ignorant of the very names of them. A novelist
of my acquaintance lent his last work to a lady cousin because she
'really could not wait till she got it from the library;' besides, 'she
was ill, and wanted some amusing literature.' After a month or so he
got his three volumes back, with a most gushing letter. It 'had been
the comfort of many a weary hour of sleeplessness,' etc. The thought of
having 'smoothed the pillow and soothed the pain' would, she felt sure,
be gratifying to him. Perhaps it would have been, only she had omitted
to cut the pages even of the first volume.
But, as a general rule, these volunteer censors plume themselves on
discovering defects and not beauties. When any author is particularly
popular and has been long before the public, they have two methods of
discoursing upon him in relation to their literary friend. In the
first, they represent him as a model of excellence, and recommend their
friend to study him, though without holding out much hope of his ever
becoming his rival; in the second, they describe him as 'worked out,'
and darkly hint that sooner or later [they mean sooner] their friend
will be in the same unhappy condition. These, I need not say, are among
the most detestable specimens of their class, and only to be equalled
by those excellent literary judges who are always appealing to
posterity, which, even if a little temporary success has crowned you
to-day, will relegate you to your proper position to-morrow. If one
were weak enough to argue with these gentry, it would be easy to show
that popular authors are not 'worked out,' but only have the appearance
of being so from their taking their work too easily. Those whose
calling it is to depict human nature in fiction are especially subject
to this weakness; they do not give themselves the trouble to study new
characters, or at first hand, as of old; they sit at home and receive
the congratulations of Society without paying due attention to that
somewhat changeful lady, and they draw upon their memory, or their
imagination, instead of studying from the life. Otherwise, when they do
not give way to that temptation of indolence which arises from
competence and success, there is no reason why their reputation should
suffer, since, though they may lack the vigour or high spirits of those
who would push them from their stools, their experience and knowledge
of the world are always on the increase.
As to the argument with regard to posterity which is so popular with
the Critic on the Hearth, I am afraid he has no greater respect for the
opinion of posterity himself than for that of his possible
great-great-granddaughter. Indeed, he only uses it as being a weapon
the blow of which it is impossible to parry, and with the object of
being personally offensive. It is, moreover, noteworthy that his
position, which is sometimes taken up by persons of far greater
intelligence, is inconsistent with itself. The praisers of posterity
are also always the praisers of the past; it is only the present which
is in their eyes contemptible. Yet to the next generation this present
will be _their_ past, and, however valueless may be the verdict of
today, how much more so, by the most obvious analogy, will be that of
to-morrow. It is probable, indeed, though it is difficult to believe
it, that the Critics on the Hearth of the generation to come will make
themselves even more ridiculous than their immediate predecessors.