Has a novelist a right to alter his novel after its publication, to
condense it, to add to it, to modify or to heighten its situations, and
otherwise so to change it that to all outward appearance it is
practically a new book? I leave this point in literary ethics to the
consideration of those whose business it is to discuss such questions,
and content myself with telling the reader the history of the present
story.
About ten years ago I went to Russia with some idea (afterwards
abandoned) of writing a book that should deal with the racial struggle
which culminated in the eviction of the Jews from the holy cities of
that country, and the scenes of tyrannical administration which I
witnessed there made a painful and lasting impression on my mind. The
sights of the day often followed me through the night, and after a more
than usually terrible revelation of official cruelty, I had a dream of a
Jewish woman who was induced to denounce her husband to the Russian
police under a promise that they would spare his life, which they said
he had forfeited as the leader of a revolutionary movement. The husband
came to know who his betrayer had been, and he cursed his wife as his
worst enemy. She pleaded on her knees that fear for his safety had been
the only motive for her conduct, and he cursed her again. His cause was
lost, his hopes were dead, his people were in despair, because the one
being whom heaven had given him for his support had delivered him up to
his enemies out of the weakness of her womanly love. I awoke in the
morning with a vivid memory of this new version of the old story of
Samson and Delilah, and on my return to England I wrote the draft of a
play with the incident of husband and wife as the central situation.
How from this germ came the novel which was published last year under
the title of "The Eternal City" would be a long story to tell, a story
of many personal experiences, of reading, of travel, of meetings in
various countries with statesmen, priests, diplomats, police
authorities, labour leaders, nihilists and anarchists, and of the
consequent growth of my own political and religious convictions; but it
will not be difficult to see where and in what way time and thought had
little by little overlaid the humanities of the early sketch with many
extra interests. That these interests were of the essence, clothing, and
not crushing the human motive, I trust I may continue to believe, and
certainly I have no reason to be dissatisfied with the reception of my
book at the hands of that wide circle of general readers who care less
for a contribution to a great social propaganda than for a simple tale
of love.
But when the time came to return to my first draft of a play, the tale
of love was the only thing to consider, and being now on the point of
producing the drama in England, America, and elsewhere, and requested to
prepare an edition of my story for the use of the audiences at the
theatre, I have thought myself justified in eliminating the politics and
religion from my book, leaving nothing but the human interests with
which alone the drama is allowed to deal. This has not been an easy
thing to do, and now that it is done I am by no means sure that I may
not have alienated the friends whom the abstract problems won for me
without conciliating the readers who called for the story only. But not
to turn my back on the work of three laborious years, or to discredit
that part of it which expressed, however imperfectly, my sympathy with
the struggles of the poor, and my participation in the social problems
with which the world is now astir, I have obtained the promise of my
publisher that the original version of "The Eternal City" shall be kept
in print as long as the public calls for it.
In this form of my book, the aim has been to rely solely on the
humanities and to go back to the simple story of the woman who denounced
her husband in order to save his life. That was the theme of the draft
which was the original basis of my novel, it is the central incident of
the drama which is about to be produced in New York, and the present
abbreviated version of the story is intended to follow the lines of the
play in all essential particulars down to the end of the last chapter
but one. H. C.
Isle of Man, Sept. 1902.
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