The history of a book must necessarily begin with the history of its
author, for surely in these enlightened days neither the youngest nor
the oldest of critics can believe that works of art are found under
gooseberry-bushes or in the nests of storks. In truth, I am by no
means sure that everybody knew this before the publication of "The
Man Shakespeare," and for the sake of a mystified posterity it may be
well to explain that there was once a school of criticism that
thought it indecent to pry into that treasure-house of individuality
from which, if we reject the nursery hypotheses mentioned above, it
is clearly obvious that authors derive their works. That the drama
must needs be closely related to the dramatist is just one of those
simple discoveries that invariably elude the subtle professional
mind; but in this wiser hour I may be permitted to assume that the
author was the conscious father of his novel, and that he did not
find it surprisingly in his pocket one morning, like a bad shilling
taken in change from the cabman overnight.
Before he published his novel at the ripe age of thirty-seven the
author had lived an irreproachable and gentlemanly life. Born with at
least a German-silver spoon in his mouth, he passed, after a normally
eventful childhood, through a respectable public school, and spent
several agreeable years at Cambridge without taking a degree. He then
went into his uncle's office in the City, where he idled daily from
ten to four, till in due course he was admitted to a partnership,
which enabled him to reduce his hours of idleness to eleven to three.
These details become important when we reflect that from his
childhood on the author had a great deal of time at his disposal. If
he had been entirely normal, he would have accepted the conventions
of the society to which he belonged, and devoted himself to motoring,
bridge, and the encouragement of the lighter drama. But some
deep-rooted habit of his childhood, or even perhaps some remote
hereditary taint, led him to spend an appreciable fraction of his
leisure time in the reading of works of fiction. Unlike most lovers
of light literature, he read with a certain mental concentration, and
was broad-minded enough to read good novels as well as bad ones.
It is a pleasant fact that it is impossible to concentrate one's mind
on anything without in time becoming wiser, and in the course of
years the author became quite a skilful critic of novels. From the
first he had allowed his reading to colour his impressions of life,
and had obediently lived in a world of blacks and whites, of heroes
and heroines, of villains and adventuresses, until the grateful
discovery of the realistic school of fiction permitted him to believe
that men and women were for the most part neither good nor bad, but
tabby. Moreover, the leisurely reading of many sentences had given
him some understanding of the elements of style. He perceived that
some combinations of words were illogical, and that others were
unlovely to the ear; and at the same time he acquired a vocabulary
and a knowledge of grammar and punctuation that his earlier education
had failed to give him. He read new novels at his writing-table, and
took pleasure in correcting the mistakes of their authors in ink.
When he had done this, he would hand them to his wife, who always
read the end first, and, indeed, rarely pursued her investigation of
a book beyond the last chapter.
We buy knowledge with illusions, and pay a high price for it, for the
acquirement of quite a small degree of wisdom will deprive us of a
large number of pleasant fancies. So it was with the author, who
found his joy in novel-reading diminishing rapidly as his critical
knowledge increased. He was no longer able to lose himself between
the covers of a romance, but slid his paper-knife between the pages
of a book with an unwholesome readiness to be irritated by the
ignorance and folly of the novelist. His destructive criticism of
works of fiction became so acute that it was natural that his
unlettered friends should suggest that he himself ought to write a
novel. For a long while he was content to receive the flattering
suggestion with a reticent smile that masked his conviction that
there was a difference between criticism and creation. But as he grew
older the imperfections in the books he read ceased to give him the
thrill of the successful explorer in sight of the expected, and time
began to trickle too slowly through his idle fingers. One day he sat
down and wrote "Chapter I." at the head of a sheet of quarto paper.
It seemed to him that the difficulty was only one of selection, and
he wrote two-thirds of a novel with a breathless ease of creation
that made him marvel at himself and the pitiful struggles of less
gifted novelists. Then in a moment of insight he picked up his
manuscript and realised that what he had written was childishly
crude. He had felt his story while he wrote it, but somehow or other
he had failed to get his emotions on paper, and he saw quite clearly
that it was worse and not better than the majority of the books which
he had held up to ridicule.
There was a certain doggedness in his character that might have made
him a useful citizen but for that unfortunate hereditary spoon, and
he wrote "Chapter I." at the head of a new sheet of quarto paper long
before the library fire had reached the heart of his first luckless
manuscript. This time he wrote more slowly, and with a waning
confidence that failed him altogether when he was about half-way
through. Reading the fragment dispassionately he thought there were
good pages in it, but, taken as a whole, it was unequal, and moved
forward only by fits and starts. He began again with his late
manuscript spread about him on the table for reference. At the fifth
attempt he succeeded in writing a whole novel.
In the course of his struggles he had acquired a philosophy of
composition. Especially he had learned to shun those enchanted hours
when the labour of creation became suspiciously easy, for he had
found by experience that the work he did in these moments of
inspiration was either bad in itself or out of key with the preceding
chapters. He thought that inspiration might be useful to poets or
writers of short stories, but personally as a novelist he found it a
nuisance. By dint of hard work, however, he succeeded in eliminating
its evil influence from his final draft. He told himself that he had
no illusions as to the merits of his book. He knew he was not a man
of genius, but he knew also that the grammar and the punctuation of
his novel were far above the average of such works, and although he
could not read Sir Thomas Browne or Walter Pater with pleasure, he
felt sure that his book was written in a straightforward and
gentlemanly style. He was prepared to be told that his use of the
colon was audacious, and looked forward with pleasure to an agreeable
controversy on the question.
He read his book to his friends, who made suggestions that would have
involved its rewriting from one end to the other. He read it to his
enemies, who told him that it was nearly good enough to publish; he
read it to his wife, who said that it was very nice, and that it was
time to dress for dinner. No one seemed to realise that it was the
most important thing he had ever done in his life. This quickened his
eagerness to get it published--an eagerness only tempered by a very
real fear of those knowing dogs, the critics. He could not forget
that he had criticised a good many books himself in terms that would
have made the authors abandon their profession if they had but heard
his strictures; and he had read notices in the papers that would have
made him droop with shame if they had referred to any work of his.
When these sombre thoughts came to him he would pick up his book and
read it again, and in common fairness he had to admit to himself that
he found it uncommonly good.
One day, after a whole batch of ungrammatical novels had reached him
from the library, he posted his manuscript to his favourite
publisher. He had heard stories of masterpieces many times rejected,
so he did not tell his wife what he had done.