Father: .... What! a novelist! One of those long-haired, sloppy-collared
ragamuffins without any soles to their boots! Do you think that because
I've given you a motor-car I'm going to treat you to a husband? A bar
loafer ... (we are always intemperate) ... A man whom your mother and
sisters ... (our morals are atrocious) ... I should not wonder if the
police ... (we are all dishonest, and yet we never have any money) ... I
was talking to the Bishop ... (we practise no religion, except that
occasionally we are Mormons)....
And so on, and so on. Father won't have it, and if in the end Father
does have it he finds that Angeline's eyes are _not_ blacked, but that
Angeline's husband's boots _are_ blacked, that the wretched fellow keeps
a balance at the bank, can ride a horse, push a perambulator, drive a
nail; but he does not believe it for a long time. For it is, if not
against all experience, at any rate against all theory that a novelist
should be eligible. The bank clerk is eligible, the novelist is not; we
are not 'safe,' we are adventurers, we have theories, and sometimes the
audacity to live up to them. We are often poor, which happens to other
men, and this is always our own fault, while it is often their
misfortune. Of late years, we have grown still more respectable than our
forefathers, who were painfully such: Dickens lived comfortably in
Marylebone; Thackeray reigned in a luxurious house near Kensington
Square and in several first-class clubs; Walter Scott reached a terrible
extreme of respectability; he went bankrupt, but later on paid his debts
in full. Yet we never seem quite respectable, perhaps because
respectability is so thin a varnish. Even the unfortunate girls whom we
'entice away from good homes' into the squalor of the arts, do not think
us respectable. For them half the thrill of marrying a novelist consists
in the horror of the family which must receive him; it is like marrying
a quicksand, and the idea is so bitter that a novelist who wears his
hair long might do well to marry a girl who wears hers short. He will
not find her in the bourgeoisie.
The novelist is despised because he produces a commodity not recognised
as 'useful.' There is no definition of usefulness, yet everybody is
clear that the butcher, the railway porter, the stock jobber are useful;
that they fulfil a function necessary for the maintenance of the State.
The pugilist, the dancer, the music hall actor, the novelist, produce
nothing material, while the butcher does. To live, one wants meat, but
not novels. We need not pursue this too far and ask the solid classes to
imagine a world without arts, presumably they could not. It is enough to
point the difference, and to suggest that we are deeply enthralled by
the Puritan tradition which calls pleasure, if not noxious, at any rate
unimportant; the maintenance of life is looked upon as more essential
than the enjoyment thereof, so that many people picture an ideal world
as a spreading cornfield dotted with cities that pay good rents,
connected by railways which pay good dividends. They resemble the
revolutionary, who on the steps of the guillotine said to Lavoisier:
'_La Republique n'a pas besoin de savants._' This is obvious when the
average man (which includes many women) alludes to the personality of
some well-known writer. One he has come to respect: Mr Hall Caine,
because popular report says that his latest novel brought him in about a
hundred thousand pounds, but those such as Mr Arnold Bennett and Mr H.
G. Wells leave strange shadows upon his memory. Of Mr Bennett he says:
'Oh, yes, he writes about the North Country, doesn't he? Or is it the
West Country? Tried one of his books once. I forget its name, and now I
come to think of it, it may have been by somebody else. He must be a
dreary sort of chap, anyhow, sort of methodist.'
Mr H. G. Wells is more clearly pictured: 'Wells? the fellow who writes
about flying machines and men in the moon. Jules Verne sort of stuff,
isn't it? He's a Socialist.'
And so out with Mr Bennett, one of our best modern stylists, who in
spite of an occasional crowding of the canvas has somehow fixed for us
the singular and ferocious tribe from which he springs; so out with Mr
Wells, with his restless, impulsive, combative, infinitely audacious
mind. The average man says: 'Flying machines,' and the passion of Mr
Wells for a beautiful, if somewhat over-hygienic world is swept away.
Those are leading instances. Others, such as Mr Conrad, Miss Edith
Wharton, O. Henry, Mr Galsworthy, are not mentioned at all; if the name
of Mr Henry James is spoken, it leads up to a gibe at long sentences.
The attitude is simple; we are not taken seriously. Novelists have to
take mankind seriously because they want to understand it; mankind is
exempt from the obligation because it does not conceive the desire. We
are not people who take degrees, who can be scheduled and classified. We
are not Doctors of Science, Licentiates of Music Schools. We are just
men and women of some slight independence, therefore criminals, men who
want to observe and not men who want to do, therefore incredible. And
so, because we cannot fall into the classes made for those who can be
classified, we are outside class, below class. We are the mistletoe on
the social oak.
It is perhaps in search of dignity and status that the modern novelist
has taken to journalism. Journalism raises a novelist's status, for a
view expressed by a fictitious character is not taken seriously, while
the same view fastened to an event of the day acquires importance,
satisfies the specific function of the press, which is more and more
that of a champion of found causes. The newspaper is a better
jumping-off ground than the pulpit or the professorial chair; it enjoys
a vast circulation, which the novel does not; it conveys an idea to
millions of people who would never think of buying a newspaper for the
sake of an idea, but who buy it for news, murder cases or corn market
reports; it is a place where a writer may be serious, _because the
newspaper is labelled as serious, while the novel is labelled as
frivolous_.
This is vital to the proposition, and explains why so many novelists
have sought refuge in the press. It is not exactly a question of money.
Journalism rewards a successful novelist better than does the novel,
though successful novelists make very good incomes; they often earn as
much as the red-nosed comedian with the baggy trousers and the battered
bowler. Thackeray, Washington Irving, Kingsley, and notably Dickens,
knew the value of journalism. Dickens was the most peculiar case, for it
is fairly clear that _Nicholas Nickleby_ helped to suppress the ragged
schools and that _Oliver Twist_ was instrumental in reforming workhouse
law; both works were immensely successful, but Dickens felt that he
wanted a platform where he could be always wholly serious: for this the
_Daily News_ was born in 1846. Likewise Mr Wells has written enormously
upon the war and economics; Mr Arnold Bennett has printed many political
articles; Mr Galsworthy has become more direct than a novelist can be
and written largely on cruelty to animals, prison reform, etc. It is the
only way in which we can be taken seriously. We must be solemn, a little
dull, patriotic or unpatriotic, socialistic or conservative; there is
only one thing we may not be, and that is creative and emotional.
It should be said in passing that even the press does not think much of
us. Articles on solid subjects by novelists are printed, well paid for,
sought after; it does a paper good to have an article on Imperial
Federation by Mr Kipling, or on Feminism by Mr Zangwill. The novelist
amounts to a poster; he is a blatant advertisement; he is a curiosity,
the man who makes the public say: 'I wonder what the _Daily_ ---- is up
to now.' Be assured that Mr Zangwill's views on Feminism do not command
the respectful treatment that is accorded a column leader in the
_Times_; he is too human; he sparkles too much; he has not the matchless
quality of those leaders which compels you to put on an extra stamp if
you have to send the paper through the post.
The newspapers court the novelist as the people of a small town court
the local rich man, but neither newspaper nor little town likes very
much the object of its courtship. Except when they pay us to express
them, the newspapers resent our having any views at all; the thought
behind is always: 'Why can't the fellows mind their own business, and go
on writing about love and all that sort of stuff?' During the war,
references to novelists who express their views have invariably been
sneering; it is assumed that because we are novelists we are unable to
comprehend tactics, politics, in fact any 'ics,' except perhaps the
entirely unimportant aesthetics. But the peculiarity of the situation is
that not a voice has been raised against professors of philology, who
write on finance, against Bishops dealing with land settlement, against
doctors when they re-map Europe, against barristers, businessmen....
These may say anything they like; they are plain, hard-headed men, while
our heads are soft enough to admit a new idea.
To define the attitude of the press is in modern times to define the
attitude of the State. From our point of view this is frigid. In
America, there are no means of gauging a novelist's position, for
American classification rests upon celebrity and fortune. Ours rests
upon breeding and reliability. America is more adventurous; Britannia
rides in a chariot, while the American national emblem foreshadowed the
aeroplane. And so, in the United States it may profit a man as well to
be a Jack London as an Elihu Root. America has no means of recognising
status, while in England we have honours. We distribute a great many
honours, and indeed the time may come, as Mr Max Beerbohm says, when
everybody will be sentenced to a knighthood without the option of a
fine. Honours are rather foolish things, monuments that create a need
for circumspection; they are often given for merits not easily
perceived, but still they are a _rough_ test of status. Setting aside
money, which is the primary qualification, and justifies Racine in
saying that without money honour is nothing but a disease, a title is a
fairly clear sign of distinction. Sir Edward Shackleton, Sir Douglas
Haig, Sir Frederick Treves, Lord Reading, Sir William Crookes, Lord
Lister, all those titles are obvious recognition of prominence in Polar
Exploration, the Army, the Law, Medicine, Research, as the case may be;
there are scores of Medical Knights, many Law Lords, many Major Generals
and Admirals endowed with the Knight Commandership of the Bath. We do
not complain. They deserve their honours, most of them. They deserve
them more than the politicians who have received for long service
rewards that ability could not give them, than the Lord Mayors who are
titled because they sold, for instance, large quantities of kitchen
fenders. When we consider the arts, we observe a discrepancy. The arts
do not ask for honours; they are too arrogant, and know that born
knights cannot be knighted. Only they claim that an attempt should be
made to honour them, to grant them Mr Gladstone's and Mr Chamberlain's
privilege of refusing honours.
Consider, for instance, the Order of Merit, one of the highest honours
that the British Crown can confer. At the end of last year it numbered
twenty-one members. Among them were some distinguished foreigners,
Prince Oyama, Prince Yamagata and Admiral Togo; historians, pro-consuls,
four Admirals ... and one novelist. Mr Thomas Hardy. We do not complain
that only Mr Thomas Hardy was chosen, for there is nobody else to set at
his side ... only we do complain that in this high order four admirals
find a place. Are we then so rich in admiralty, so poor in literature?
The same is still truer when we come to the inferior orders, which are
still fairly high, such as the Commandership of the Bath. That ancient
order is almost entirely recruited from amongst soldiers, sailors,
politicians, and civil servants; it does not hold the name of a single
novelist. No novelist is a Privy Councillor, though the position is
honorific and demands no special knowledge. On the Privy Council you
find labour members of Parliament, barristers, coal owners, sellers of
chemicals and other commodities, but no novelists. In all the other
orders it is the same thing; for novelists there are neither
commanderships of the Bath, nor of the Victorian Order, nor of St
Michael and St George, no honours great or minor; no man has ever in
England been offered a peerage _because_ he wrote novels; and yet he has
been offered a peerage because he sold beer. George Meredith was not
offered a peerage, even though some think that his name will live when
those of captains and kings have melted into dust. Our little band of
recognised men, such as Sir James Barrie, Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, Sir
Rider Haggard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, small is the toll they have taken
of public recognition; perhaps they should not expect it; perhaps they
have been recognised only because of certain political activities; but
must we really believe that so many lawyers and so few writers are
worthy of an accolade? Is the novelist worthless until he is dead?
This picture may seem too black, but it is that of Great Britain, where
contempt for literature has risen to a peculiar degree. Make an
imaginative effort; see yourself in the drawing-room of some social
leader, where a 'crush' of celebrities is taking place. A flunkey at the
head of the stairs announces the guests. He announces: 'Lord Curzon! ...
Mr Joseph Conrad! ... The Bishop of London!' Who caused a swirl in the
'gilded throng?' The cleric? The politician? Or the novelist? Be honest
in your reply, and you will know who, at that hypothetical reception,
created a stir. The stir, according to place or period, greeted the
politician or the bishop, and only in purely literary circles would Mr
Conrad have been preferred.... For the worship of crowds goes to power
rather than to distinction, to the recognised functionary of the State,
to him whose power can give power, to all the evanescent things, and
seldom to those stockish things, the milestones on the road to eternity.
The attitude of the crowd is the attitude of the State, for the State
is only the crowd, and often just the mob; it is the chamberlain of
ochlocracy, the leader who follows. In all times, the State has shown
its indifference, its contempt, for the arts, and particularly for
literature. Now and then a prince, such as Louis of Bavaria, Philip of
Spain, Lorenzo the Magnificent, has given to literature more than
respect. He has given love, but that only because he was a man before a
prince. The prince must prefer the lawyer, the politician, the general,
and indeed, of late years what prince was found to patron George
Meredith or Henry James?
The attitude of the State to the novelist defines itself most clearly
when a royal commission is appointed. In England, royal commissions are
_ad hoc_ bodies appointed by the government from among men of political
influence and special knowledge, to investigate a special question.
As a rule they are well composed. For instance, a royal commission on
water supply would probably comprise two or three members of Parliament
of some standing, the President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, a
professor of sanitation, a canal expert, one or two trade unionists, one
or two manufacturers, and a representative of the Home Office or the
Board of Trade. Any man of position who has shown interest in public
affairs may be asked to sit on a royal commission ... provided he is not
a novelist. Only one novelist has attained so giddy a height: Sir Rider
Haggard; how it happened is not known: it must have been a mistake. We
are not weighty enough, serious enough to be called on, even if our
novels are so weighty and so serious that hardly anybody can read them.
We are a gay tribe of Ariels, too light to discuss even our own trade.
For royal commissions concern themselves with our trade, with copyright
law, with the restrictions of the paper supply. You might think that,
for instance, paper supply concerned us, for we use cruel quantities,
yet no recognised author sat on the commission; a publisher was the
nearest approach. Apparently there were two great consumers of paper,
authors and grocers, but alone the grocers were consulted. What is the
matter with us? Is our crime that we put down in indecent ink what we
think and feel, while other people think and feel the same, but
prudently keep it down? Possibly our crimes are our imagination and our
tendency to carry this imagination into action. Bismarck said that a
State conducted on the lines of the Sermon on the Mount would not last
twenty-four hours; perhaps it is thought that a State in the conduct of
which a novelist had a share would immediately resolve itself into a
problem play. Something like that, though in fact it is unlikely that
Ariel come to judgment would be much more fanciful in his decrees than
the historic Solomon.
All this because we lack solidity ... and yet the public calls us
commercial, self-advertisers, money-grubbers. It is thought base that we
should want three meals a day, though nobody suggests that we can hope
to find manna in the street, or drink in our parks from the fountain
Hippocrene. We are told that we make our contracts too keenly, that we
are grasping, that we are not straight ... and yet we are told that we
are not business men. What are we to do? Shall we form a trade union and
establish a piece rate? Shall we sell our novels by the yard? May we not
be as commercial and respected as the doctor who heals with words and
the lawyer who strangles with tape? Now and then the defences of
society and state are breached, and a novelist enters Parliament. Mr
Hilaire Belloc, Mr A. E. W. Mason, followed Disraeli into the House of
Commons, but it is very extraordinary. No one knows how these gentlemen
managed to convince the electors that with their eye 'in fine frenzy
rolling' they would not scandalise their party by voting against it.
(Those writing chaps, you know, they aren't _safe_!)
It must be said that in Parliament the novelists did not have a very
good time; they were lucky in having been preferred to a landowner or a
pawnbroker, but once in they had not the slightest chance of being
preferred to those estimable members of society. It was not a question
of straight votes; it never came to that, for Mr Belloc soon disagreed
with both sides and became a party of one, while Mr A. E. W. Mason as a
rushlight flickered his little flicker and went out. It is as well; they
would never have been taken seriously. It is almost a tradition that
they should not be taken seriously, and it is on record in most of the
worldly memoirs of the nineteenth century that the two main objections
to Disraeli were his waistcoats and his authorship of _Contarini
Fleming_. Nero liked to see people burnt alive; Disraeli wrote novels.
Weaknesses are found in all great men.
There seems in this to lie error as well as scandal; when a new
organisation is created, say for the control of lamp oil, obviously a
novelist should not be made its chairman, but why should a blotting
paper merchant be preferred? Indeed, one might side with Mr Zangwill,
who demands representation for authors in the Cabinet itself, on the
plea that they would introduce the emotion which is necessary if the
Cabinet is to manage impulsive mankind. As he finely says, we are
professors of human nature; if only some University would give us a
title and some initials to follow our name, say P.H.N., people might
believe that we knew something of it. But the attitude of the State in
these matters is steadfast enough. It recognises us as servants rather
than as citizens; if in our later years we come upon hard times, we can
be given, through the Civil List, pensions which rescue us from the
indignities of the poorhouse, but no more. Mostly these pensions benefit
our heirs, but the offering is so small that it shocks; it is like
tipping an archbishop. Thus Mr W. B. Yeats enjoys a pension of L150, Mr
Joseph Conrad, of L100. Why give us pensions at all if they must be
alms? One cannot be dignified on L100 a year; one can be dignified on
L5000 a year, because the world soon forgets that you ride a gift horse
if that horse is a fine, fat beast. The evidence is to be found in the
retiring pensions of our late Lord Chancellors, who receive L5000 a
year, of our Judges, L1000 to L3750, in the allowances made to
impoverished politicians, which attain L2000. Out of a total of L320,000
met by our civil list, literature, painting, science, research, _divide_
every year L1200. Nor do the immediate rewards show greater equality.
Lord Roberts was voted L100,000 for his services in South Africa; Mr
Thomas Hardy has not yet been voted anything for _The Dynasts_.
The shame of literature is carried on even into following generations.
The present Lord Nelson, who is not a poor man, for he owns 7000 acres
of land, is still drawing a pension of L5000 a year, earned by his
august ancestor, but the daughter of Leigh Hunt must be content with
L50. We are unknown. We are nobody. Rouget de l'Isle, author of _La
Marseillaise_, gave wings to the revolutionary chariot, but tiny,
bilious, tyrannic Robespierre rode in it, and rides in it to-day through
the pages of history, while men go to their death singing the words of
Rouget de l'Isle and know him not.
Even in our own profession of authorship the novelist is an object of
disdain. We are less than the economists, the historians, the political
writers: we amuse while they teach; they bore, and as they bore it is
assumed that they educate, dullness always having been the sorry
companion of education. Evidence is easily found; there exists a useful,
short encyclopaedia called _Books That Count_. It contains the names of
about 4000 authors, out of whom only sixty-three are novelists. Divines
whose sermons do not fetch a penny at the second-hand bookseller's,
promoters of economic theories long disproved, partisan historians,
mendacious travellers ... they crowd out of the 'books that count' the
pale sixty-three novelists, all that is left of the large assembly that
gave us _Tom Jones_ and _The Way of All Flesh_. This attitude we observe
in most reference books. We observe it, for instance, in the well-known
_Who's Who Year Book_, which, amazing as it seems, contains no list of
authors. The book contains a list of professors, including those of
dental surgery, a list of past Presidents of the Oxford Union, a list of
owners of Derby winners, but not a list of authors. The editors of this
popular reference book know what the public wants; apparently the public
wants to know that Mr Arthur H. King is General Manager of the
Commercial Bank of London Ltd. ... but the public does not want to know
that Mr Anatole France is a great man. The only evidence of notice is a
list of our pseudonyms. It matters that Mr Richard Le Gallienne should
write under the name of 'Logroller,' for that is odd. Mr Le Gallienne,
being an author, is a curiosity; it matters to nobody that he is a man.