A time of need followed, during which Hall Caine beat the streets of
London in search of work. He offered himself as a publisher's reader
in various houses, and was roughly turned away. He suffered slights
and humiliations; but these only strengthened his resolve. In this
respect he reminds one of Zola, whom slights and humiliations only
strengthened also; and in this connection it may be mentioned that
there hangs in Hall Caine's drawing-room, in Peel, a pen-and-ink
portrait which one mistakes for that of Emile Zola, till one is told
that it is the picture of Hall Caine.
The reverses, which it now pleases him to remember, in no wise daunted
him. There was his wife and "Sunlocks," his little son, to be provided
for; and with fine determination he set to work. In the year 1886 he
wrote a "Life of Coleridge" and finished his second novel, "A Son of
Hagar." On the fly-leaf of his copy of the "Life of Coleridge" are
written the words: "N.B--This book was begun October 8, 1886. It was
not touched after that date until October 15th or 16th, and was
finished down to last two chapters by November 1st. Completed December
4th to 8th--about three weeks in all. H.C." It is an excellent piece
of work, but Caine regrets now that he threw away on a book of this
kind all his knowledge of his subject. "_I_ could have written _the_
Life of Coleridge," he says.
"A Son of Hagar" produced three hundred pounds (fifteen hundred
dollars), and has now achieved an immense success, but its reception
at the time was a feeble one. Hall Caine ground his teeth and clenched
his fist and said: "I will write one more book; I will put into it all
the work that is in me, and if the world still remains indifferent and
contemptuous, I will never write another." In the meanwhile he had
decided to follow Rossetti's advice, to write a Manx novel; and having
thought out the plot of "The Deemster," went to the Isle of Man to
write it. It was written in six months, in one of the lodging-houses
on the Esplanade at Douglas, in a fever of wounded pride. "I worked
over it like a galley-slave; I poured all my memories into it," he
says. In the meanwhile he maintained his family by journalism, being
now connected with the best papers in London. "The Deemster" was sold
for one hundred and fifty pounds (six hundred dollars), the serial
rights having produced four hundred pounds (two thousand dollars). He
would be glad to-day to purchase the copyright back for one thousand
pounds. He had great faith in this book.
"Long after we are both dead," he said to his publisher, when they
were discussing terms, "this book will be alive." "I was indifferent
to its reception," he relates; "I said, that if the public did not
take it, that would only prove its damnable folly," Its reception was
immense, and "then began for me something like fame."