MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART II
W. B. MAXWELL I hardly knew in those days, though I had met him years
before, and, in the long and elaborate review which I wrote of his
_Vivien_, had hailed him as a novelist who would rise to the very head
of his craft.
Maxwell, of course, had heredity and atmosphere in his favour. His
mother, the famous Miss Braddon, had written novels which took the world
by storm long before he was born—it is more than half a century ago
since an astonishing girl founded a new school of fiction with _Lady
Audley’s Secret_ and _Aurora Floyd_—and he and his wife live with his
mother in a stately old Queen Anne mansion in the Sheen Road at
Richmond. Maxwell, who looks like a youthful judge—he is clean-shaven,
and has a calm, judicial face, with an illuminating smile—has a judge’s
gift of scrutiny in reviewing life in his books. He is ruthlessly just
with his characters; they cannot deceive him. His sentences are not too
severe. But whatever their sentences are, the criminals leave the court
moral wrecks. He is obliged to mete out just sentences, but he is
ruthless in his summing up. His last novel, _The Devil’s Garden_, is an
excellent example of his great impeachments of wrong. His books have the
Até—the Nemesis—tracking down their victims as ruthlessly as the Œdipus
is tracked down in the tragedies of ancient Greece.
Another writer whose novels I admire immensely, and I have had to review
a good many of them, is H. B. Marriott Watson, the New Zealander. He has
a large public, and, in my opinion, ought to have a far larger one. As a
writer of novels of adventure, I think he has no superior among the
novelists of the day. For his adventures are most romantic, and his
writing is so good—so delicate where it ought to be delicate, so strong
where it ought to be strong. Added to which, he is scrupulous about
getting his local colour and “properties” correct. In appearance he is a
typical colonist—a huge man, with a dark, resolute face. When he first
became prominent in the literary world, you might have thought that he
was captain of the famous “All Black” football team, rather than a
writer. Apart from his success as a novelist, he has been a power in
journalism.
Charles Garvice, whose novels have a greater circulation than those of
any other living writer, is now my neighbour. We live exactly opposite
each other, with the breadth of Richmond Green between, with its old
lawns, and tall elms planted by dead kings. He lives in one of the Maids
of Honour houses, built a couple of centuries ago, abutting on the wall
of the Old Palace of the Tudors, in which Queen Elizabeth died, and
those Maids of Honour served. It has some beautiful eighteenth-century
painted panelling. I look out on its mellow brickwork, pointed with
white stone, and the fantastic Georgian ironwork of its gate,
half-buried in a tangle of swaying roses, from my study windows, just as
I look out on the crenellated wall and old perpendicular archway of King
Henry VII’s palace on the other side of the clipped yew and the great
stone-pine.
When I first knew Garvice, twenty years ago, he was farming his own
lands in Devonshire, and just beginning to find his public on this side,
though he had long enjoyed an enormous public in America. He used to pay
frequent visits to the Authors’ Club, where, since he had rooms in
Whitehall Court, he was more of a habitué than many men who lived in
London, and became extremely popular for his genuine good-fellowship. A
few years ago, when the Club was rather languishing, he became chairman
of the committee which undertook its reconstruction, and though he had
in the interval become one of the most popular and hard-worked novelists
of the day, lavished his time and energies with happy results, so that
now it has even more members than the Athenæum, and far more than any
other literary club. He is the central figure at its great dinners.
He wrote a delightful book about farming—not a literary exercise, but as
the outcome of many years’ practical work. Garvice, undoubtedly, has the
largest sale of any novelist in the world. I have seen the figures. Last
year’s sales alone amounted to 1,750,000 copies—books of all prices. His
romantic love-stories are conspicuous not only for their thrilling
plots—Garvice is a born story-writer—but for their freedom from all
deleterious influence. There is nothing goody-goody about them; they are
just wholesome, straight-forward romances—an almost lost art. He is only
the length of the Palace away from the river, where he keeps a
sailing-boat, and he is fond of riding in Richmond Park. He needs
recreations, for he is a very hard worker. Every morning he goes up to
his office in London, where he spends the business day in dictating his
novels, and he gives many of his evenings up to the Authors’ Club,
which, under his chairmanship, and the tireless secretaryship of
Algernon Rose, has now a membership of 1,600. Garvice is a great reader
of his brother-authors’ books.
Feeling that the public would like to know the secret of one of the most
remarkable literary successes on record—more than six millions of his
books have been sold—one night when I had run in to see him, I got him
to tell me his story over a pipe—he smokes hard all the time he dictates
his stories, and cannot go on when his pipe goes out till it is
refilled. This is what he told me.
“My first novel, though I had written a number of short stories before
this, was about the last of the three-deckers. When it was revised and
re-written quite recently, for a cheap edition, I understood fully why,
in its first form, it was not the brilliant success I, a youth of
nineteen, expected it to be. Quite early in my literary career I made
the acquaintance, which grew into a warm friendship, of the proprietor
of a weekly fiction periodical which had attained an enormous
circulation. He was a clever editor, with a keen nose for good stuff;
and he would buy nothing else, for he had hit upon the excellent idea
that, if you gave the masses good stuff at a low price, they would jump
at it. They jumped. I wrote the leading story for this paper for many
years, and was well paid. The serials attracted the attention of George
Munro, the famous American publisher, who was running a similar paper in
New York. He arranged for me to send advance sheets for it, and he
afterwards published the serial in cheap book form. They had an
enormous—to me a fabulous—sale, and are still selling.
“Munro started a sevenpenny magazine, asking me to edit the English part
of it, and to write a serial and a series of short stories. I worked
nearly day and night, and was so fully occupied and contented that,
absurd as it may sound, I never gave a thought to publishing the serials
in book form here in England; notwithstanding that the books were so
popular in America that one of George Munro’s rivals hit upon the
extremely ingenious idea of waiting until half a novel of mine was
published in serial form, getting some one else to finish it, and
issuing it in volume form before I had finished the story. Of course,
this was before the International Copyright Act. Blessings on its name!
“One day, my friend, that brilliant journalist, Robert Harborough
Sherard, while sitting at my writing-desk, took up the American edition
of _Just a Girl_. When I told him it was not published in volume form in
England, he asked my permission to take it away and try to place it. He
took it to Mr. Coulson Kernahan, who recommended it to the publisher for
whom he was reading. It came out, and, to my surprise and delight,
proved a success. The review that, more than any other, helped me, was a
very kind one in the _Queen_.[9] Then, again, the books were so
fortunate as to win the approval of Dr. (now Sir) William Robertson
Nicoll; and when he likes a book he does not fail to say so.
Footnote 9:
Written by myself.—D. S.
“The rest of my literary career, if the phrase may be permitted me, is
public property. I may add that, in my early days, I sold the copyrights
of my stories. Later on, I got them back by the simple expedient of
buying the periodical, lock, stock and barrel, in which they had
appeared; and I am glad to be able to state that I hold now the
copyright of everything I have written. Some of the books have been
dramatised, and others are on their way to the stage; indeed, at an
early age, I made a dramatic essay with a little play in two acts, which
was produced at the Royalty Theatre, and obtained a success chiefly, if
not entirely, owing to the splendid cast; amongst others, I was
fortunate enough to have such actors as Richard Mansfield, who
afterwards became so famous in America, that sterling player, Charles
Denny, and Fred Everill, of the Haymarket. It would be a poor play such
men as these could not pull through. Encouraged by my first effort, I
might have directed all my attention to the stage, but fiction had got a
firm hold upon me; it was safe and regular—and there you are! But I am
making a new start, and ‘you never can tell,’ as Mr. Shaw says.
“The story of my lecturing is soon told. I gave a lecture, consisting of
recitals linked together by biographical notes, for a Bideford debating
society. An agent who happened to hear it, thought it good enough for
the general public, and for some years past I have, during the winter
months, appeared on the lecture platform. It is a change of work, which
is good; and it is lucrative, which is also good, if not better.
“I have just been elected President of the Institute of Lecturers. The
duties of this office will fill in my spare time—when I get it.”
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (“Q”), another admirable writer, not only of
novels, but of poems and essays, I have seen hardly at all since he left
Oxford, where, sometime after me, he occupied my old panelled set of
rooms at Trinity (of which he was a Scholar like myself, and A. E. W.
Mason an Exhibitioner some years later), attracted probably by the fact
that they had been Cardinal Newman’s rooms when he was an undergraduate.
Couch was a splendid example of the _mens sana in corpore sano_. He was
stroke of the College boat, as well as the most brilliant Trinity man of
his time intellectually, and he looked it. He had a lithe, active
figure, and a humorous, self-reliant face, with light eyes—the type
which takes so much beating. For a brief time he had a very successful
journalistic career in London, but he quickly decided that it was not
worth while to live in London unless you were rich enough to do all the
nice things which came along, and returned to his native Cornwall to
devote himself to literature. In Cornwall he not only wrote delightful
books, but went in for sailing, and became a power in local Liberal
politics, and was knighted. Recently he has become Professor of Poetry
in the University of Cambridge—a post he was admirably fitted to fill,
since the mantle of Francis Turner Palgrave fell upon him as an
anthologist. His _Oxford Book of Verse_ is simply delightful.
Couch had from the first been a stylist. When congratulated early in his
career on the exquisite writing of a short story, he deprecated its
importance, because it was too conscious an imitation of De Maupassant.
“My great difficulty is not to imitate my models,” he said. In the light
of this saying, it is interesting to recall the fact that in 1897 he was
chosen for the high honour of completing Robert Louis Stevenson’s _St.
Ives_, which he did with absolute success. Stevenson must have been one
of the models he was trying not to imitate. There is no reason why he
should, for no one could want a more delightful style than his own.
_Hetty Wesley_ is an exquisite book.
Sir Henry Rider Haggard I ought to have mentioned long before this,
since he has been one of the recognised heads of the novelists’
profession for many years. Haggard had the good fortune for an
imaginative man to go out to South Africa when he and the South African
question were young. He was on the staff of Sir Theophilus Shepstone,
the Official Commissioner in the Transvaal, and actually assisted in
hoisting the British Flag over the Republic in 1887. His first book,
published in 1882, was about South African politics, but in 1884 he
began as a novelist, with _Dawn_, and in 1886 he achieved world-wide
fame with _King Solomon’s Mines_, one of the finest romances ever
written. _She_ came out a year later, and confirmed the success. He has
written many other famous novels. For years he was always quoted as the
most successful novelist—but that was before the days of “booming,” a
practice against which Haggard has steadily set his face. He told his
agent that he would not ever write to order, unless he was driven to
it—that the bare fact of having signed a contract to produce a given
thing by a given time paralysed his pen. Besides writing novels of
increasing seriousness, Haggard, like Doyle, has proved himself a
patriot, with the deepest sense of his responsibilities as a citizen. He
has twice tried to get into Parliament, with a view to legislation for
restoring agriculture in England, and he has given his time lavishly,
both to the investigation of the agricultural question and to serving on
various Commissions, as well as to writing books on various subjects
connected with the land. He came back from South Africa and went to live
in his native Norfolk many years ago, but in spite of this he has done
his duty in attending literary gatherings. His active figure, and
close-trimmed beard, give him the cut of a naval officer.
His brother, Major Arthur Haggard, who has seen much service in Africa,
and written well-known books, has done patriotic service for his country
in another way by organising the Union Jack Club and the Veterans’ Club
for soldiers and sailors.
Another visitor to Addison Mansions in latter days was William Romaine
Paterson, better known as “Benjamin Swift”—a man of extraordinary
ability, whom I should not be surprised to see in a Radical Cabinet. The
moment you meet him you are aware that you are in the presence of an
intellect of the first rank, and an uncompromising personality. A deep
reader and thinker, he has the gift of clear expression and glittering
sarcasm. I have seldom heard a more effective speaker. He has already
written a number of remarkable novels. He is a born leader, and he looks
it, with his commanding figure, his face, of the eagle type, and his
burning eye.
I ought to have mentioned Morley Roberts before, because he was a man of
whom I saw much in those days. He was often at our at-homes, and nearly
always in the Authors’ Club when I went there. He was the greatest
personality there in those days—not only as an author whose books every
one in the Club admired, long before the public took them at their true
value, but for his wide and deep knowledge, and for the adventures he
had successfully concluded with his splendid physique. We always felt
that Morley Roberts was essentially a man, that the strength of his
books was due to the daring life he had led. I have very seldom heard
Morley Roberts make a speech, but I have seen him hold a whole room of
brilliant men from his easy-chair beside the fire, while he unfolded
some curious piece of knowledge with surprising power and
interestingness. It was he who said that books of adventure are
generally written by sedentary cowards for sedentary cowards.
I met Morley Roberts first at a garden-party given by Rosamund Marriott
Watson, the poetess, whose husband I have for many years considered one
of the finest novelists of the day. She introduced us to each other
because we had both been to Australia, and I rather think that she
accused him as well as myself of having wooed the Muse of Poetry (though
there was no Muse of Poetry among the immortal nine). After that he came
a good many times to our house, though he never was fond of at-homes,
and I don’t remember his ever coming back after his long illness. A very
strong man, six feet high, or thereabouts, with a commanding face, and
flashing dark eyes, he was always one of the most conspicuous figures in
the room. He had been a sailor before the mast, a navvy out west, a hand
on a ranch, and I don’t know what all in his adventurous youth.
It seems incredible to think that Somerset Maugham, who is barely forty,
should have been a long time coming into his own, yet ten years elapsed
between the publication of _Liza of Lambeth_ and the production of _Lady
Frederick_, and in the interval he had written those delightful books
_The Merry-go-Round_ and _The Bishop’s Apron_. He came to us with a
mutual friend in the year 1897, when he had just written _Liza_. I
remember, when I read it, venturing, as an old reviewer, to prophesy
that such a writer must leap into fame forthwith. I was sure of it when
I read _The Merry-go-Round_, but the public did not quite answer to my
expectations. I have always heard that _Liza of Lambeth_ was inspired by
the gruesome sights and sounds which were his environment when he was at
St. Thomas’ Hospital, that he lodged in some street where, from his back
windows, he could see the she-hooligans hitting each other with their
babies. He is, a rare thing for an author, an admirable dancer.
Another man born in the same year, 1874, who came to his own through
plays, and was even longer in doing it, is Edward Knoblauch, the author
of _Kismet_, and joint author of _Milestones_. Knoblauch, who is an
American, born in New York, and educated at Harvard, and his sister,
came to us with Lena Ashwell a good many years ago. Knoblauch was Lena’s
reader at the Kingsway, and collaborated with the Askews in _The
Shulamite_, in which she created such a splendid character. He had
already adapted _The Partikler Pet_ for Cyril Maude. But he was writing
plays for years before he had a single one accepted, and it was not
until 1911 that he sprang into general fame with _Kismet_, quickly
followed by _Milestones_.
Louis Napoleon Parker, another old member of the Authors’ Club, is a
very old friend of mine. I think it was Adrian Ross who introduced us,
when he first came up from Sherborne School, where he was appointed
Director of Music upon leaving the Royal Academy of Music. Strangely
enough, one who has composed such delightful music is extremely deaf.
For many years, of course, he has been one of our leading and most
prolific playwrights, and only a short while ago he composed the
incidental music for his drama, _Drake_. Parker, who was born in France,
and might almost pass for a Frenchman, has been the translator of some
of the most celebrated French plays which have been “Englished” for our
stage—_Chanticleer_, _L’Aiglon_ and _Cyrano de Bergerac_ among them. He
has had yet another sphere of activity in producing the series of
splendid masques which are associated with his name. He is, indeed,
practically the inventor of the masque in its present form, such as the
Sherborne pageant, the Warwick pageant and the York pageant.
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