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MY FIRST BOOK
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
[Illustration: signed: Yours sincerely,
Jerome K. Jerome]
MY FIRST BOOK
THE EXPERIENCES OF
WALTER BESANT
JAMES PAYN
W. CLARK RUSSELL
GRANT ALLEN
HALL CAINE
GEORGE R. SIMS
RUDYARD KIPLING
A. CONAN DOYLE
M. E. BRADDON
F. W. ROBINSON
H. RIDER HAGGARD
R. M. BALLANTYNE
I. ZANGWILL
MORLEY ROBERTS
DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY
MARIE CORELLI
JEROME K. JEROME
JOHN STRANGE WINTER
BRET HARTE
'Q.'
ROBERT BUCHANAN
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
JEROME K. JEROME
_AND 185 ILLUSTRATIONS_
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1894
INTRODUCTION
By JEROME K. JEROME
'Please, sir,' he said, 'could you tell me the right time?'
'Twenty minutes to eight,' I replied, looking at my watch.
'Oh,' he remarked. Then added for my information after a pause: 'I
haven't got to be in till half-past eight.'
After that we fell back into our former silence, and sat watching the
murky twilight, he at his end of the park seat, I at mine.
'And do you live far away?' I asked, lest, he having miscalculated, the
short legs might be hard put to it.
'Oh no, only over there,' he answered, indicating with a sweep of his
arm the northern half of London where it lay darkening behind the
chimney-fringed horizon; 'I often come and sit here.'
It seemed an odd pastime for so very small a citizen. 'And what makes
you like to come and sit here?' I said.
'Oh, I don't know,' he replied, 'I think.'
'And what do you think about?'
'Oh--oh, lots of things.'
He inspected me shyly out of the corner of his eye, but, satisfied
apparently by the scrutiny, he sidled up a little nearer.
'Mama does not like this evening time,' he confided to me; 'it always
makes her cry. But then,' he went on to explain, 'Mama has had a lot of
trouble, and that makes anyone feel different about things, you know.'
I agreed that this was so. 'And do you like this evening time?' I
enquired.
'Yes,' he answered; 'don't you?'
'Yes, I like it too,' I admitted. 'But tell me why you like it, then I
will tell you why I like it.'
'Oh,' he replied, 'things come to you.'
'What things?' I asked.
Again his critical eye passed over me, and it raised me in my own
conceit to find that again the inspection contented him, he evidently
feeling satisfied that here was a man to whom another gentleman might
speak openly and without reserve.
He wriggled sideways, slipping his hands beneath him and sitting on
them.
'Oh, fancies,' he explained; 'I'm going to be an author when I grow up,
and write books.'
Then I knew why it was that the sight of his little figure had drawn me
out of my path to sit beside him, and why the little serious face had
seemed so familiar to me, as of some one I had once known long ago.
So we talked of books and bookmen. He told me how, having been born on
the fourteenth of February, his name had come to be Valentine, though
privileged parties, as for example Aunt Emma, and Mr. Dawson, and Cousin
Naomi, had shortened it to Val, and Mama would sometimes call him
Pickaniny, but that was only when they were quite alone. In return I
confided to him my name, and discovered that he had never heard it,
which pained me for the moment, until I found that of all my confrères,
excepting only Mr. Stevenson, he was equally ignorant, he having lived
with the heroes and the heroines of the past, the new man and the new
woman, the new pathos and the new humour being alike unknown to him.
Scott and Dumas and Victor Hugo were his favourites. 'Gulliver's
Travels,' 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'Don Quixote,' and the 'Arabian Nights,' he
knew almost by heart, and these we discussed, exchanging many pleasant
and profitable ideas upon the same. But the psychological novel, I
gathered, was not to his taste. He liked '_real_ stories,' he told me,
naïvely unconscious of the satire, 'where people did things.'
'I used to read silly stuff once,' he confessed humbly, 'Indian tales
and that sort of thing, you know, but Mama said I'd never be able to
write if I read that rubbish.'
'So you gave it up,' I concluded for him.
'Yes,' he answered. But a little sigh of regret, I thought, escaped him
at the same time.
'And what do you read now?' I asked.
'I'm reading Marlowe's plays and De Quincey's Confessions (he called him
Quinsy) just now,' was his reply.
'And do you understand them?' I queried.
'Fairly well,' he answered. Then added more hopefully, 'Mama says I'll
get to like them better as I go on.'
'I want to learn to write very, very well indeed,' he suddenly added
after a long pause, his little earnest face growing still more serious,
'then I'll be able to earn heaps of money.'
It rose to my lips to answer him that it was not always the books
written very, very well that brought in the biggest heaps of money; that
if heaps of money were his chiefest hope he would be better advised to
devote his energies to the glorious art of self-advertisement and the
gentle craft of making friends upon the Press. But something about the
almost baby face beside me, fringed by the gathering shadows, silenced
my middle-aged cynicism. Involuntarily my gaze followed his across the
strip of foot-worn grass, across the dismal-looking patch of ornamental
water, beyond the haze of tangled trees, beyond the distant row of
stuccoed houses, and, arrived there with him, I noticed many men and
women clothed in the garments of all ages and all lands, men and women
who had written very, very well indeed and who notwithstanding had
earned heaps of money, the hire worthy of the labourer, and who were not
ashamed; men and women who had written true words which the common
people had read gladly; men and women who had been raised to lasting
fame upon the plaudits of their day; and before the silent faces of
these, made beautiful by Time, the little bitter sneers I had counted
truth rang foolish in my heart, so that I returned with my young friend
to our green seat beside the foot-worn grass, feeling by no means so
sure as when I had started which of us twain were the better fitted to
teach wisdom to the other.
'And what would you do, Valentine, with heaps of money?' I asked.
Again for a moment his old shyness of me returned. Perhaps it was not
quite a legitimate question from a friend of such recent standing. But
his frankness wrestled with his reserve and once more conquered.
'Mama need not do any work then,' he answered. 'She isn't really strong
enough for it, you know,' he explained, 'and I'd buy back the big house
where she used to live when she was a little girl, and take her back to
live in the country--the country air is so much better for her, you
know--and Aunt Emma, too.'
But I confess that as regards Aunt Emma his tone was not enthusiastic.
I spoke to him--less dogmatically than I might have done a few minutes
previously, and I trust not discouragingly--of the trials and troubles
of the literary career, and of the difficulties and disappointments
awaiting the literary aspirant, but my croakings terrified him not.
'Mama says that every work worth doing is difficult,' he replied, 'and
that it doesn't matter what career we choose there are difficulties and
disappointments to be overcome, and that I must work very hard and say
to myself "I _will_ succeed," and then in the end, you know, I shall.'
'Though of course it may be a long time,' he added cheerfully.
Only one thing in the slightest daunted him, and that was the weakness
of his spelling.
'And I suppose,' he asked, 'you must spell very well indeed to be an
author.'
I explained to him, however, that this failing was generally met by a
little judicious indistinctness of caligraphy, and all obstacles thus
removed, the business of a literary gent seemed to him an exceptionally
pleasant and joyous one.
'Mama says it is a noble calling,' he confided to me, 'and that anyone
ought to be very proud and glad to be able to write books, because they
give people happiness and make them forget things, and that one ought to
be awfully good if one's going to be an author, so as to be worthy to
help and teach others.'
'And do you try to be awfully good, Valentine?' I enquired.
'Yes,' he answered; 'but it's awfully hard, you know. I don't think
anybody could ever be _quite_ good--until,' he corrected himself, 'they
were grown up.'
'I suppose,' he added with a little sigh, 'it's easy for grown-up people
to be good.'
It was my turn to glance suspiciously at him, this time wondering if the
seeds of satire could have taken root already in that tiny brain. But
his eyes met mine without flinching, and I was not loath to drift away
from the point.
'And what else does your Mama say about literature, Valentine?' I asked.
For the strangeness of it was that, though I kept repeating under my
breath 'Copy-book maxims, copy-book maxims,' hoping by such shibboleth
to protect myself from their influence, the words yet stirred within me
old childish thoughts and sentiments that I, in my cleverness, had long
since learnt to laugh at, and had thought forgotten. I, with my years of
knowledge and experience behind me, seemed for the nonce to be sitting
with Valentine at the feet of this unseen lady, listening, as I again
told myself, to 'copy-book maxims' and finding in them in spite of
myself a certain element of truth, a certain amount of helpfulness, an
unpleasant suggestion of reproach.
He tucked his hands underneath him, as before, and sat swinging his
short legs.
'Oh--oh lots of things,' he answered vaguely.
'Yes?' I persisted.
'Oh, that--' he repeated it slowly, recalling it word for word as he
went on, 'that he who can write a great book is greater than a king;
that a good book is better than a good sermon; that the gift of being
able to write is given to anybody in trust, and that an author should
never forget that he is God's servant.'
I thought of the chatter of the clubs, and could not avoid a smile. But
the next moment something moved me to take his hand in mine, and,
turning his little solemn face towards mine, to say:
'If ever there comes a time, little man, when you are tempted to laugh
at your mother's old-fashioned notions--and such a time may
come--remember that an older man than you once told you he would that he
had always kept them in his heart, he would have done better work.'
Then growing frightened at my own earnestness, as we men do, deeming it,
God knows why, something to be ashamed of, I laughed away his answering
questions, and led the conversation back to himself.
'And have you ever tried writing anything?' I asked him.
Of course he had, what need to question! And it was, strange to say, a
story about a little boy who lived with his mother and aunt, and who
went to school.
'It is sort of,' he explained, 'sort of auto--bio--graphical, you know.'
'And what does Mama think of it?' was my next question, after we had
discussed the advantages of drawing upon one's own personal experiences
for one's material.
'Mama thinks it is very clever--in parts,' he told me.
'You read it to her?' I suggested.
'Yes,' he acknowledged, 'in the evening, when she's working, and Aunt
Emma isn't there.'
The room rose up before me, I could see the sweet-faced lady in her
chair beside the fire, her white hands moving to and from the pile of
sewing by her side, the little flushed face of the lad bending over his
pages written in sprawling schoolboy hand. I saw the love light in her
eyes as every now and then she stole a covert glance across at him, I
heard his childish treble rising and falling, as his small finger moved
slowly down the sheet.
Suddenly it said, a little more distinctly:
'Please, sir, could you tell me the time?'
'Just over the quarter, Valentine,' I answered, waking up and looking at
my watch.
He rose and held out his hand.
'I didn't know it was so late,' he said, 'I must go now.'
But as our hands met another question occurred to him.
'Oh,' he exclaimed, 'you said you'd tell me why you liked to come and
sit here of an evening, like I do. Why?'
'So I did, Valentine,' I replied, 'but I've changed my mind. When you
are a big man, as old as I am, you come and sit here and you'll know.
But it isn't so pleasant a reason as yours, Valentine, and you wouldn't
understand it. Good-night.'
He raised his cap with an old-fashioned courtesy and trotted off,
looking however a little puzzled. Some distance down the path, he turned
and waved his hand to me, and I watched him disappear into the twilight.
I sat on for a while, thinking many thoughts, until across the rising
mist there rang a hoarse, harsh cry, 'All out, All out,' and slowly I
moved homeward.
CONTENTS
PAGE
READY-MONEY MORTIBOY. BY WALTER BESANT 3
THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE. BY JAMES PAYN 15
THE WRECK OF THE 'GROSVENOR.' BY W. CLARK
RUSSELL 29
PHYSIOLOGICAL ÆSTHETICS AND PHILISTIA. BY GRANT
ALLEN 43
THE SHADOW OF A CRIME. BY HALL CAINE 53
THE SOCIAL KALEIDOSCOPE. BY GEORGE R. SIMS 75
DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES. BY RUDYARD KIPLING 91
JUVENILIA. BY A. CONAN DOYLE 99
THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. BY M. E. BRADDON 109
THE HOUSE OF ELMORE. BY F. W. ROBINSON 123
DAWN. BY H. RIDER HAGGARD 135
HUDSON'S BAY. BY R. M. BALLANTYNE 151
THE PREMIER AND THE PAINTER. BY I. ZANGWILL 163
THE WESTERN AVERNUS. BY MORLEY ROBERTS 181
A LIFE'S ATONEMENT. BY DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 193
A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS. BY MARIE CORELLI 206
ON THE STAGE AND OFF. BY JEROME K. JEROME 221
CAVALRY LIFE. By 'JOHN STRANGE WINTER' (MRS. ARTHUR
STANNARD) 239
CALIFORNIAN VERSE. BY BRET HARTE 257
DEAD MAN'S ROCK. BY 'Q.' 269
UNDERTONES AND IDYLS AND LEGENDS OF INVERBURN.
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN 283
TREASURE ISLAND. BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 297
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
JEROME K. JEROME _Frontispiece_
WALTER BESANT 2
JAMES RICE 5
JULIA 7
MR. BESANT'S STUDY 9
THE OYSTER SHOP 12
A BOOK PLATE 13
A WICKED SISTER 16
JAMES PAYN 17
IT 'TOOK OFF' FROM HIS SHOULDER 18
MR. PAYN'S STUDY 19
COUNT GOTSUCHAKOFF 21
'WOULD YOU MIND JUST READING A BIT OF IT?' 22
THE SERVANT CAME TO PUT COALS ON THE FIRE 23
MR. PAYN'S OFFICE AT WATERLOO PLACE 24
KILLED BY LIONS 25
CLARK RUSSELL 28
CLARK RUSSELL AS A MIDSHIPMAN OF SEVENTEEN 29
I WAS A CHILD OF THIRTEEN 30
NEATBY 31
ANCHORED IN THE DOWNS 32
SOME OF THE CREW 33
THE MAGISTRATES 34
THE WRECK OF THE 'GROSVENOR' 35
MRS. CLARK RUSSELL 37
THE BOATSWAIN OF THE 'GROSVENOR' 38
THE 'HOUGOUMONT' 39
POOR JACK! 40
GRANT ALLEN 42
FICTION 44
SCIENCE 45
ANDREW CHATTO 49
A SHELF IN THE STUDY 50
'THANK YOU, SIR' 51
I LEFT IT 54
HALL CAINE 55
MY MS. WENT SPRAWLING OVER THE TABLE 56
DERWENTWATER 57
STY HEAD PASS 58
WASTWATER FROM STY HEAD PASS 59
THE HORSE BROKE AWAY 60
SOMETHING STRAPPED ON ITS BACK 61
THE CASTLE ROCK, ST. JOHN'S VALE 62
THIRLMERE 63
ROSSETTI WALKING TO AND FRO 64
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 65
MR. HALL CAINE IN HIS STUDY 68
MRS. HALL CAINE 69
COMING UP IN THE TRAIN 71
12 CLARENCE TERRACE 75
THE HALL 76
GEORGE R. SIMS 77
GEORGE R. SIMS 78
THE 'SOCIAL KALEIDOSCOPE' 79
THE SNUGGERY 80
MR. SIMS'S 'LITTLE DAWG' 81
THE DINING-ROOM 82
THE LIBRARY 83
'SIR HUGO' 84
THE BALCONY 85
'BEAUTY,' AN OLD FAVOURITE, TWENTY YEARS OLD 86
THE DRAWING-ROOM 87
'FAUST UP TO DATE' 88
MR. SIMS'S DINNER PARTY 89
THE NEWSPAPER FILES 91
'YOUR POTERY VERY GOOD, SIR; JUST COMING PROPER LENGTH TO-DAY.' 92
RUDYARD KIPLING 93
SUNG TO THE BANJOES ROUND CAMP FIRES 96
DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES 97
A. CONAN DOYLE 98
I WAS SIX 99
ON THE PRAIRIES AND THE OCEANS 100
MY DÉBUT AS A STORY-TELLER 101
'WITH THE EDITOR'S COMPLIMENTS' 102
'HAVE YOU SEEN WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU?' 103
'MRS. THURSTON'S LITTLE BOY WANTS TO SEE YOU, DOCTOR' 105
MR. ANDREW LANG 107
LICHFIELD HOUSE, RICHMOND 110
THE HALL 111
THE DINING-ROOM 112
THE DRAWING-ROOM 113
THE EVENING-ROOM 115
THE SMOKING-ROOM 116
THE LIBRARY 117
MISS BRADDON'S FAVOURITE MARE 119
THE ORANGERY 120
MISS BRADDON'S COTTAGE AT LYNDHURST 121
MISS BRADDON'S INKSTAND 122
AT TWENTY 124
F. W. ROBINSON 125
ELMORE HOUSE 126
AT THIRTY 127
MR. ROBINSON'S LIBRARY 128
THE GARDEN 129
THE DRAWING-ROOM 130
AT FORTY 131
MR. ROBINSON AT WORK 132
H. RIDER HAGGARD 134
THE FRONT GARDEN 135
MR. RIDER HAGGARD AND HIS DAUGHTERS 137
THE HALL 139
MR. RIDER HAGGARD'S STUDY 141
SOME CURIOS 143
A STUDY CORNER 145
MR. RIDER HAGGARD 147
THE FARM 149
WHERE I WROTE MY FIRST BOOK 151
R. M. BALLANTYNE 153
MR. BALLANTYNE'S HOUSE AT HARROW 155
TROPHIES FROM MR. BALLANTYNE'S TRAVELS 157
THE STUDY 159
MR. R. M. BALLANTYNE 161
LOOKING FOR TOOLE 164
I. ZANGWILL 165
I SAT DOWN AND WROTE SOMETHING 166
ARTHUR GODDARD 167
IT WAS HAWKED ABOUT THE STREETS 168
A POLICEMAN TOLD HIM TO GET DOWN 169
SUCH STUFF AS LITTLE BOYS SCRIBBLE UPON WALLS 171
LIFE IN BETHNAL GREEN 173
WE SENT IT ROUND 175
MR. ZANGWILL AT WORK 177
EDITING A COMIC PAPER 178
A FAME LESS WIDESPREAD THAN A PRIZEFIGHTER'S 179
MR. MORLEY ROBERTS 180
BEFORE THE MAST 181
I MARRIED THEM ALL OFF AT THE END 182
AN AMERICAN SAW-MILL WHERE MR. ROBERTS WORKED 183
DEFYING THE UNIVERSE 185
COWBOY ROBERTS 186
THE VERY PRAIRIE DOGS TAUGHT ME 187
THE CALIFORNIA COAST RANGE 189
BY THE CAMP FIRE 190
D. CHRISTIE MURRAY 192
I HANDED HIM TWO CHAPTERS 194
I SENT ALL MY PEOPLE INTO A COAL-MINE 195
THEY INVESTED HIM WITH THE MEDAL 197
CONSULTING OLD ALMANACS 199
SHE DREW FROM IT A BROWN-PAPER PARCEL 201
IF THERE HAD BEEN NO 'DAVID COPPERFIELD' 202
THE STOCK WAS TRANSFERRED 203
SOME NOVELS 204
THE DRAWING-ROOM 209
THE LIBRARY 211
THE STUDY 213
FACSIMILE OF MARIE CORELLI'S MS. AS PREPARED FOR THE PRESS 217
MY FIRST-BORN 222
JEROME K. JEROME 223
'HE AND YOU HAD TO CARRY LISA WEBER ACROSS THE STAGE' 226
THAT BRILLIANT IDEA 227
I HATED THE DISMAL LITTLE 'SLAVEY' 230
THE STUDY 231
I AM REMEMBERING 234
MR. JEROME K. JEROME 237
THREE SOLDIERS AND A PIG 239
JOHN STRANGE WINTER 241
MR. ARTHUR STANNARD 243
'THE FIRM' CONSIDERING 246
HE SQUINTED! 247
MISS STANNARD 248
'THE TWINS'--BOOTLES AND BETTY 249
LONG-LEGGED SOLDIERS 251
CAVALRY LIFE 253
I TOOK UP THE 'SATURDAY REVIEW' 255
BRET HARTE 256
WE SETTLED TO OUR WORK 258
A CIRCULATION IT HAD NEVER KNOWN BEFORE 259
'CONSIDER THEM AT YOUR SERVICE' 261
I WAS INWARDLY RELIEVED 263
THE BOOK SOLD TREMENDOUSLY 265
A. T. QUILLER COUCH 268
'Q.' JUNIOR 269
'THE HAVEN,' FOWEY 273
MR. AND MRS. QUILLER COUCH 275
FOWEY GRAMMAR SCHOOL CREW AND MR. QUILLER COUCH 277
THE OLD STUDY 279
MR. AND MRS. QUILLER COUCH IN A CANADIAN CANOE 281
ROBERT BUCHANAN 285
MR. BUCHANAN'S HOUSE 287
THE STUDY 291
MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN AND HIS FAVOURITE DOG 295
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 299
MR. STEVENSON'S HOUSE IN SAMOA 301
MRS. R. L. STEVENSON 305
STEVENSON TELLING 'YARNS' 307
[Illustration: drawing, signed: Walter Besant]
MY FIRST BOOK
'_READY MONEY MORTIBOY_'
BY WALTER BESANT
[Illustration]
Not the very first. That, after causing its writer labour infinite, hope
exaggerated, and disappointment dire, was consigned, while still in
manuscript, to the flames. My little experience, however, with this work
of Art, which never saw the light, may help others to believe, what is
so constantly denied, that publishers _do_ consider MSS. sent to them.
My MS. was sent anonymously, without any introduction, through a friend.
It was not only read--and refused--but it was read very conscientiously
and right through. So much was proved by the reader's opinion, which not
only showed the reasons--good and sufficient reasons--why he could not
recommend the manuscript to be published, but also contained,
indirectly, certain hints and suggestions, which opened up new ideas as
to the Art of Fiction, and helped to put a strayed sheep in the right
way. Now it is quite obvious that what was done for me must be
constantly and consistently done for others. My very first novel,
therefore, was read and refused. Would that candidates for literary
honours could be made to understand that refusal is too often the very
best thing that can happen to them! But the gods sometimes punish man by
granting his prayers. How heavy may be the burden laid upon the writer
by his first work! If anyone, for instance, should light upon the first
novels written by Richard Jefferies, he will understand the weight of
that burden.
My first MS., therefore, was destined to get burned or somehow
destroyed. For some years it lay in a corner--say, sprawled in a
corner--occupying much space. At dusk I used to see a strange, wobbling,
amorphous creature in that corner among those papers. His body seemed
not made for his limbs, nor did these agree with each other, and his
head was out of proportion to the rest of him. He sat upon the pile of
papers, and he wept, wringing his hands. 'Alas!' he said: 'Not another
like me. Don't make another like me. I could not endure another like
myself.' Finally, the creature's reproaches grew intolerable; so I threw
the bundle of papers behind the fire, and he vanished. One had
discovered by this time that for the making even of a tolerable novel it
is necessary to leave off copying other people, to observe on your own
account, to study realities, to get out of the conventional groove, to
rely upon one or other of the great emotions of human nature, and to try
to hold the reader by dramatic presentation rather than by talk. I do
not say that this discovery came all at once, but it came gradually, and
it proved valuable.
[Illustration: drawing signed: Yours faithfully James Rice]
One more point. A second assertion is continually being heard concerning
editors. It is said that they do not read contributions offered to them.
When editors publicly advertise that they do not invite contributions,
or that they will not return contributions, it is reasonable to suppose
that they do not read them. Well, you have heard my first experience
with a publisher. Hear next an experience with editors. It is, first, to
the fact that contributions _are_ read by editors that I owe my
introduction to James Rice and my subsequent collaboration with him. It
was, next, to an unsolicited contribution that I owed a connection of
many years with a certain monthly magazine. It was, lastly, through an
unsolicited contribution that I became and continued for some time a
writer of leading articles for a great London daily. Therefore, when I
hear that editors will not read contributions, I ask if things have
changed in twenty years--and why?
I sent a paper, then, unasked, and without introduction, to the editor
of _Once a Week_. The editor read it, accepted it, and sent it to the
press. Immediately afterwards he left the journal because it was sold to
Rice, then a young man, not long from Cambridge, and just called to the
Bar. He became editor as well as proprietor. The former editor forgot to
tell his successor anything about my article. Rice, finding it in type,
and not knowing who had written it, inserted it shortly after he took
over the journal, so that the first notice that I received that the
paper was accepted was when I saw it in the magazine, bristling with
printer's errors. Of course I wrote indignantly to the editor. I
received a courteous reply begging me to call. I did so, and the matter
was explained. Then for a year or two I continued to send things to
_Once a Week_. But the paper was anything but prosperous. Indeed, I
believe there was never any time during its existence of twenty years
when it could be called prosperous. After three years of gallant
struggle, Rice concluded to give it up. He sold the paper. He would
never confess how much he lost over it; but the ambition to become
proprietor and editor of a popular weekly existed no longer in his
bosom, and he was wont to grow thoughtful in after years when this
episode was recalled to his memory. During this period, however, I saw a
great deal of the management, and was admitted behind the scenes, and
saw several remarkable and interesting people. For instance, there was a
certain literary hack, a pure and simple hack, who was engaged at a
salary to furnish so many columns a week to order. He was clever,
something of a scholar, something of a poet, and could write a very
readable paper on almost any subject. In fact, he was not in the least
proud, and would undertake anything that was proposed. It was not his
duty to suggest, nor did he show the least interest in his work, nor had
he the least desire to advance himself. In most cases, I believe, he
simply 'conveyed' the matter; and if the thing was found out, he would
be the first to deplore that he had 'forgotten the quotes.' He was a
thirsty soul; he had no enthusiasm except for drink; he lived, in fact,
only for drink; in order to get more money for drink he lived in one
squalid room, and went in rags. One day he dismissed himself after an
incident over which we may drop a veil. Some time after it was reported
that he was attempting the stage as a pantomime super. But fate fell
upon him; he became ill; he was carried to a hospital; and pneumonia
opened for him the gates of the other world. He was made for better
things.
[Illustration: JULIA]
Again, it was in the editor's small back room that I made the
acquaintance of a young lady named Julia, whose biography I afterwards
related. She was a bookbinder's accountant all the day, and in the
evening she was a _figurante_ at one of the theatres. I think she was
not a very pretty girl, but she had good eyes--of the soft, sad kind,
which seem to belong to those destined to die young; and in the evening,
when she was dressed, she looked very well indeed, and was placed in the
front.
To the editor's office came in multitudes seedy and poverty-stricken
literary men; there were not, twenty-four years ago, so many literary
women as at present, but there were many more seedy literary men,
because in those days the great doors of journalism were neither so wide
nor so wide open as they are now. Every one, I remember, wanted to write
a series of articles. Each in turn proposed a series as if it was a new
and striking idea. A certain airy, rollicking, red-nosed person, who had
once walked the hospitals, proposed, I remember, to 'catch science on
the Wing--on the Wing, sir'--in a series of articles; a heavy,
conscientious person, also red-nosed, proposed, in a series of articles,
to set the world right in Economics; an irresponsible, fluttering,
elderly gentleman, with a white waistcoat and a red nose, thought that a
series of articles on--say the Vestries of our Native Land, would prove
enormously popular; if not the Vestries, then the Question of Education,
or of Emigration, or--or--something else. The main point with all was
not the subject, but the series. As it happened, nobody ever was allowed
to contribute a series at all. Then there were the people who sent up
articles, and especially the poor ladies who were on the point of
starving. Would the editor only--only take their article? Heavens! what
has become of all these ladies? It was twenty-four years ago; these
particular ladies must have perished long since; but there are more--and
more--and more--still starving, as every editor knows full well.
[Illustration: MR. BESANT'S STUDY]
Sometimes, sitting in that sanctum, I looked through their MSS. for
them. Sometimes the writers called in person, and the editor had to see
them, and if they were women, they went away crying, though he was
always as kind as possible. Poor things! Yet what could one do? Their
stuff was too--too terrible.
Another word as to the contributions. In most cases a glance at the
first page was sufficient. The MS. was self-condemned. 'Oh!' says the
contributor; 'if the editor would only tell me what is wrong, I would
alter it.' Dear contributor, no editor has time for teaching. You must
send him the paper complete, finished, and ready for press; else it
either goes back or lies on the shelf. When Rice handed over the paper
to his successor, there were piles of MSS. lying on all the shelves.
Where are those MSS. now? To be sure, I do not believe there was one
among them all worth having.
Rice wrote a novel by himself, for his own paper. It was a work which he
did not reproduce, because there were certain chapters which he wished
to re-write. He was always going to re-write these chapters, but never
did, and the work remains still in the columns of _Once a Week_, where
it may be hunted out by those who are curious. One day, when he was
lamenting the haste with which he had been compelled to send off a
certain instalment, he told me that he had an idea of another novel,
which seemed to him not only possible, but hopeful. He proposed that we
should take up this idea together, work it out, if it approved itself to
me as it did to him, and write a novel upon it together.
His idea, in the first crude form, was simple--so simple that I wonder
it had never occurred to anybody before. The prodigal son was to come
home again--apparently repentant--really with the single intention of
feigning repentance and getting what he could out of the old man and
then going back to his old companions. That was the first germ.
When we came to hammer this out together, a great many modifications
became necessary. The profligate, stained with vice, the companion of
scoundrels, his conscience hardened and battered and reckless, had yet
left, hitherto undiscovered, some human weakness. By this weakness he
had to be led back to the better life. Perhaps you have read the story,
dear reader. One may say without boasting that it attracted some
attention from the outset I even believe that it gave an upward turn--a
last gasp--to the circulation of the dying paper.
When--to anticipate a little--the time came for publishing it, we were
faced with the fact that a new and anonymous novel is naturally regarded
with doubt by publishers. Nothing seems more risky than such a venture.
On the other hand, we were perfectly satisfied that there was no risk in
our novel at all. This, of course, we had found out, not only from the
assurances of Vanity, but also from the reception the work had met with
during its progress through the magazine. Therefore, we had it printed
and bound at our own expense, and we placed the book, ready for
publication, in the hands of Mr. William Tinsley. We so arranged the
business that the printer's bill was not due till the first returns came
from the publisher. By this artful plan we avoided paying anything at
all. We had only printed a modest edition of 600, and these all went
off, leaving, of course, a very encouraging margin. The cheap edition
was sold to Henry S. King & Co. for a period of five years. Then the
novel was purchased outright by Chatto & Windus, who still continue to
publish it--and, I believe, to sell it. As things go, a novelist has
reason to be satisfied with an immortality which stretches beyond the
twenty-first year.
In another place I am continually exhorting young writers never to pay
for production. It may be said that I broke my own rule.
But it will be observed that this case was not one in which production
was 'paid for,' in the ordinary sense of the term--it was one of
publication on commission of a book concerning which, we were quite
certain, there was neither doubt nor risk. And this is a very good way
indeed to publish, provided you have such a book, and provided your
publisher will push the book with as much vigour as his own.
Now, since the origin of the story cannot be claimed as my own, I may be
allowed to express an opinion upon it.
[Illustration: THE OYSTER SHOP]
[Illustration: A BOOK PLATE]
The profligate, with his dreadful past behind him, dragging him down;
the low woman whom he has married; the gambler, his associate; the
memory of robbery and of prison; and with the new influences around
him--the girl he loves, pure and sweet, and innocent; the boy whom he
picks out of the gutter; the wreck of his old father--form together a
group which I have always thought to be commanding, strong, attractive,
interesting, much beyond any in the ordinary run of fiction. The central
figure, which, I repeat, is not my own, but my partner's initial
conception, has been imitated since--in fiction and on the stage--which
shows how strong he is. I do not venture to give an opinion upon the
actual presentment or working out of that story. No doubt it might have
been better told. But I wish I was five-and-twenty years younger,
sitting once more in that dingy little office where we wrangled over
this headstrong hero of ours, and had to suppress so many--oh! so very
many--of the rows and troubles and fights into which he fell even after
he became respectable. The office was handy for Rule's and oysters. We
would adjourn for the 'delicious mollusc,' and then go back again to the
editor's room to resume the wrangle. Here we would be interrupted by
Julia, who brought the bookbinder's account; or by the interesting but
thirsty hack, who brought his copy, and with it an aroma of rum; or by
the airy gentleman who wanted to catch science on the Wing, sir--on the
Wing; or by the Economic man; or by the irresponsible man, ready for
anything. In the evening we would dine together, or go to a theatre, or
sit in my chambers and play cards before resuming the wrangle--we used
to take an hour of Vingt-un, by way of relaxation. And always during
that period, whatever we did, wherever we went, Dick Mortiboy sat
between us. Dear old Dick grew quiet towards the end. The wrangling was
finished. The inevitable was before him; he must pay for the past. Love
could not be his, nor honour, such as comes to most men, nor the quiet
_vie de famille_, which is all that life really has to give worth
having. His cousin Frank might have love and honour. For him--Dick's
brave eyes looked straight before--he had no illusions; for him, the end
that belongs to the nineteenth-century ruffler, the man of the West, the
sportsman and the gambler, the only end--the bullet from the revolver of
his accomplice, was certain and inevitable. So it ended. Dick died. The
novel was finished.
Dick died; our friend died; he had his faults--but he was Dick; and he
died. And alas! his history was all told and done with; the manuscript
finished; the last wrangle over; the fatal word, the melancholy word,
_Finis_, written below the last line.
'_THE FAMILY SCAPEGRACE_'
BY JAMES PAYN
[Illustration]
I had written a great many short stories and articles in all sorts of
publications, from _Eliza Cook's Journal_ to the _Westminster Review_,
before I ventured upon writing a novel; and the appearance of them I
have since had cause to regret. Not at all because they were 'immature,'
and still less because I am ashamed of them--on the contrary, I still
think them rather good--but because the majority of them were not made
the most of from a literary point of view, and also went very cheap. As
a friend observed to me, who was much my senior, and whose advice was
therefore treated with contempt, 'You are like an extravagant cook, who
wastes too much material on a single dish.' The _entrées_ of the
story-teller--his early and tentative essays in Fiction--if he has
really any turn for his calling, are generally open to this criticism.
Later on, he becomes more economical (sometimes, indeed, a good deal too
much so, because, alas! there is so little in the cupboard), and has a
much finer sense of proportion.
I don't know how many years I went on writing narratives of school and
college life, and spinning short stories, like a literary spider, out of
my own interior, but I don't remember that it was ever borne in upon me
that the reservoir could hardly hold out for ever, and that it was time
to be doing something on a more permanent and extended scale. The cause
of that act of prudence and sagacity was owing mainly to a travelling
menagerie. I had had in my mind, for some time, to write a sort of
autobiography (of which character first novels almost always consist, or
at least partake), but had in truth abstained from doing so on the not
unreasonable ground that my life had been wholly destitute of incidents
of public interest. True, I had mended that matter by the wholly
gratuitous invention of a cheerless home and a wicked sister, but I had
hitherto found nothing more attractive to descant upon than my own
domestic wrongs. Even if they had existed, it was doubtful whether they
would have aroused public indignation, and I mistrusted my powers of
making them exist. What I wanted was a dramatic situation or two (a
'plot,' the evolution of which by no means comes by nature, though the
germ is often an inspiration, was at that time beyond me), and
especially the opportunity of observation.
[Illustration: A WICKED SISTER]
[Illustration: signed drawing: James Payne]
My own slender experiences were used up, and imagination had no material
to work upon; one can't blow even glass out of nothing at all. Just in
the nick of time arrived in Edinburgh, where I was then editing
_Chambers's Journal_, Tickeracandua, 'the African Lion Tamer.' At that
time (though I have seen a great deal of them since) lions were entirely
out of my line, and also tamers; but this gentleman was a most
attractive specimen of his class. Handsome, frank, and intelligent, he
took my fancy from the first, and we became great friends. 'His actual
height,' says my notebook, 'could scarcely have been less than six feet
two, while it was artificially increased by a circlet of cock's feathers
set in a coronet, which the majority of enraptured beholders believed to
be of virgin gold. A leopard skin, worn after the fashion of a Scotch
plaid, set off a jerkin of green leather, while his legs were encased in
huge jack boots.' This, of course, was his performing dress, and I used
to wonder how the leopards (with whom he had a great deal to do) liked
his wearing their relative's cast-off clothing. In the 'leopard-hunt'
(twice a day) these animals raced over him as he stood erect, and each,
as it 'took off' from his shoulder, left its mark there with its claws.
He was so good as to show me his shoulder, which looked as if he had
been profusely vaccinated in the wrong place. A much more dangerous, if
less painful, experience was his daily (and nightly) doings with the
lions. There were two of them, with a lioness of an uncertain temper,
who jumped through hoops at his imperious bidding with many a growl and
snarl of remonstrance.
[Illustration: IT 'TOOK OFF' FROM HIS SHOULDER]
'Are you never afraid?' I once asked him tentatively.
'If I was,' he answered, quietly, but not contemptuously, 'I might count
myself from that moment a dead man. Then, you see, I have my whip.' It
was a carter's whip, good to keep off a dog, but scarcely a lion. 'The
handle is loaded,' he explained, 'and I know exactly where to hit 'em
with it, if the worst comes to the worst.' If I remember right, it was
the tip of the nose.
[Illustration: MR. PAYN'S STUDY]
His conversation was delightful, and he often honoured me with his
company at supper, when the toils and perils of the day were o'er. Upon
the whole, though I have since known many other eminent persons, he has
left a more marked impression on me than any of them, and it is no
wonder that in those youthful days he influenced my imagination. His
autobiography, without his having the least suspicion of the
appropriation, became in fact _my_ autobiography, as may be read (if
there is anybody who has not enjoyed that treat) in 'The Family
Scapegrace.' But, as my predecessors in the field of Fiction were wont
to exclaim, 'I am anticipating.'
Another official connected with the menagerie gave daily lectures upon
the animals, so curiously dry and grave that they filled me with
admiration; he was like an embodiment of the answers to 'Mangnall's
Questions.' Whatever suspicions Tickeracandua may have subsequently
entertained of me, I am quite sure that 'Mr. Mopes' would no more have
seen himself in the portrait I drew of him than would the animals under
his charge, if their attention had been drawn to them, have recognised
their counterfeit presentments outside the show. I also became
acquainted with the Earthman and Earthwoman, the slaughterman of the
establishment, Mr. and Mrs. Tredgold (its proprietors), and other
individuals seldom met with in ordinary society.
The adventures of 'Richard Arbour' were, therefore, cut out for me in a
most convenient and unexpected fashion, but I had the intelligence to
perceive that though the interest they might excite would be dramatic
enough, they would be in danger of dealing too much with the animal
world to interest adult readers; nor would the narrative have made an
attractive book for boys, since I felt it would be too full of fun (for
my spirits were very high in those days) to suit juvenile tastes. I knew
little of the world, but had seen much of boys (though I had never
belonged to the species), and was well aware that, except as regards
practical jokes, the boy is not gifted with humour. I accordingly looked
about me for some dramatic material of a wholly different kind, and
eventually found it in the person of Count Gotsuchakoff.
It was a mistake to call such a sombre and serious individual by so
ludicrous a name, but it was a characteristic one. My disposition was at
that time lively (not to say frivolous), and the atmosphere I usually
lived in was one of mirth, but, as often happens, it had another side to
it, which was melancholy almost to melodrama. In after years I found
this to be the case in an infinitely greater story-teller, who, while he
delighted all the world with humour and pathos, in reality nourished a
taste for the weird and terrible, which, though its ghastly face but
very rarely showed itself in his writings, was the favourite topic of
his familiar and confidential talk. Tickeracandua himself was not dearer
to me than the Count, who was almost entirely the offspring of my own
invention; and though I have since seen in Nihilist novels a good many
gentlemen of the same type, I venture to think that, slightly as he is
sketched, he will bear comparison with the best of them. The conception
of his long years of enforced silence, and even of the terrible moment
in which he forgot that he was dumb, owed its origin, if I remember
right, to a child's game that was popular in our nursery. It consisted
in resisting the temptation to laugh, and the resolution to reply in
tones of gravity when such questions as 'Have you heard the Emperor of
Morocco is dead?' were put. The adaptation of it, in the substitution of
speech for laughter, suddenly suggested itself, like any other happy
thought.
[Illustration: COUNT GOTSUCHAKOFF]
Instead of writing straight ahead, as the fancy prompted, which, in my
less ambitious attempts at Fiction (like all young writers) I had
hitherto done, I had all these materials pretty well arranged in my mind
before sitting down to write my first book. It was, after all, only a
string of adventures, but it is still, and I think deservedly, a
popular book. The question with its author, however, was how, when it
was finished, he was to get it published. I took it to my friend, Robert
Chambers, and asked for his opinion about it. He looked at the
manuscript, which was certainly not in such good handwriting as his own,
and observed slyly--
'Would you mind just reading a bit of it?'
[Illustration: 'WOULD YOU MIND JUST READING A BIT OF IT?']
I had never done such a thing before, nor have I since, and the proposal
was a little staggering, not to my _amour propre,_ but to my natural
modesty. Moreover, I mistrusted my ability to do justice to it,
remembering what the poet has said about reading one's own productions:
The chariot wheels jar in the gates through which we drive them forth.
However, I started with it, and notwithstanding that we were subjected
to 'jars' (one by the servant, who came to put coals on the fire, just
at a crisis, and made me at heart a murderer), the specimen was
pronounced satisfactory.
'I think it will suit nicely for the _Journal_,' said my friend, which I
think were the pleasantest words I ever heard from the mouth of man. I
might have taken them, indeed, as a good omen; for though I have since
written more novels than I can count, I have never failed to secure
serial publication for every one of them. 'This gentleman's novels are
suitable enough for serial publication,' once wrote a critic of them,
intending to be very particularly disagreeable, but it aroused no
emotion in my breast warmer than gratitude.
[Illustration: THE SERVANT CAME TO PUT COALS ON THE FIRE]
So 'The Family Scapegrace' came out in _Chambers's Journal_. I do not
remember whether it had any effect upon its circulation, but it was well
spoken of, and there was at least one person in the world who thought it
a masterpiece. The difficulty, which no one but a young and unknown
writer can estimate, was to get a publisher to share in this belief. For
many years afterwards I published my books anonymously (_i.e._, 'by the
author' of so and so), and many a humorous interview I had with various
denizens of Paternoster Row, to whom I (very strongly) recommended them,
by proxy. 'If I were speaking to the author,' they said, 'it would be
unpleasant to say this (that, and the other of a deprecatory character),
but with _you_ we can be quite frank.' And they were sometimes very
frank; and, though I didn't much like it at the time, their candour
(when I had sold the book tolerably well) tickled me afterwards
immensely. For persons who have enjoyed this experience, mere literary
criticism has henceforth no terrors.
[Illustration: MR. PAYN'S OFFICE AT WATERLOO PLACE]
'The Family Scapegrace,' however, had appeared under my own name, so
that concealment was out of the question; it was in one volume, a form
of publication which, at that time at all events (though I see they now
affirm the contrary), was unpopular with the libraries, and I was quite
an unknown novelist. Under these circumstances, I have never forgotten
the kindness of Mr. Douglas (of the firm of Edmonston & Douglas), who
gave me fifty pounds for the first edition of the book--by which
enterprise he lost his money. There were many reasons for it, no doubt,
though the story has since done well enough, but I think the chief of
them was the alteration of the title to 'Richard Arbour,' which,
contrary to the wishes both of myself and my publisher, was insisted
upon by a leading librarian. It is difficult, nowadays, to guess his
reason, but people were more 'square-toed' in those times, and I fancy
he thought his highly respectable customers would scent something
Bohemian, if not absolutely scampish, in a Scapegrace. A mere name is
not an attractive title for a book; though many books so called--such as
'Martin Chuzzlewit' and 'Robinson Crusoe'--have become immensely
popular, they owed nothing to their baptism; and certainly 'Richard
Arbour' prospered better when he got rid of his rather commonplace name.
[Illustration: KILLED BY LIONS]
A rather curious incident took place with respect to this book, which
annoyed me greatly at the time, because I was quite unacquainted with
the queer crotchets and imaginary grievances that would-be literary
persons often take into their heads. Somebody wrote to complain that he
had written (not published) a story upon the same lines, and even
incidents, as 'The Family Scapegrace,' just before its appearance in the
columns of _Chambers's Journal_, and the delicate inference he drew was
that, whether in my capacity of editor or otherwise, I must have somehow
got hold of it. He gave the exact date of the conclusion of his own
composition, which was prior to the commencement of my story in the
_Journal_.
Conscious of innocence, but troubled by so disagreeable an imputation, I
laid the matter before Robert Chambers.
'You are not so versed in the ways of this class of person as I am,' he
said, smiling; 'but since he has been so injudicious as to give a date,
I think we can put him out of court. I am one of those methodical
individuals who keep a diary.' And on reference to it, he found that I
had read him my story long before that of my traducer, according to his
own account, had left his hands.
It was a small matter, but proved a useful lesson to me, for there is a
great deal of imposture of this kind going on in the literary world;
sometimes, as perhaps in this case, the result of mere egotistic fancy,
but also sometimes begotten by the desire to levy blackmail.