popular. He wrote a life of Canning, and he brought out an annotated
edition of the British poets; but he achieved no great success.
I have known no man better read in English literature. Hence his
conversation had a peculiar charm, but he was not equally happy
with his pen. He will long be remembered at the Literary Fund
Committees, of which he was a staunch and most trusted supporter.
I think it was he who first introduced me to that board. It has
often been said that literary men are peculiarly apt to think that
they are slighted and unappreciated. Robert Bell certainly never
achieved the position in literature which he once aspired to fill,
and which he was justified in thinking that he could earn for
himself. I have frequently discussed these subjects with him, but
I never heard from his mouth a word of complaint as to his own
literary fate. He liked to hear the chimes go at midnight, and he
loved to have ginger hot in his mouth. On such occasions no sound
ever came out of a man's lips sweeter than his wit and gentle
revelry.
George Lewes,--with his wife, whom all the world knows as George
Eliot,--has also been and still is one of my dearest friends.
He is, I think, the acutest critic I know,--and the severest. His
severity, however, is a fault. His intention to be honest, even when
honesty may give pain, has caused him to give pain when honesty has
not required it. He is essentially a doubter, and has encouraged
himself to doubt till the faculty of trusting has almost left him.
I am not speaking of the personal trust which one man feels in
another, but of that confidence in literary excellence, which is,
I think, necessary for the full enjoyment of literature. In one
modern writer he did believe thoroughly. Nothing can be more charming
than the unstinted admiration which he has accorded to everything
that comes from the pen of the wonderful woman to whom his lot has
been united. To her name I shall recur again when speaking of the
novelists of the present day.
Of "Billy Russell," as we always used to call him, I may say
that I never knew but one man equal to him in the quickness and
continuance of witty speech. That one man was Charles Lever--also
an Irishman--whom I had known from an earlier date, and also with
close intimacy. Of the two, I think that Lever was perhaps the
more astounding producer of good things. His manner was perhaps a
little the happier, and his turns more sharp and unexpected. But
"Billy" also was marvellous. Whether abroad as special correspondent,
or at home amidst the flurry of his newspaper work, he was a charming
companion; his ready wit always gave him the last word.
Of Thackeray I will speak again when I record his death.
There were many others whom I met for the first time at George
Smith's table. Albert Smith, for the first, and indeed for the last
time, as he died soon after; Higgins, whom all the world knew as
Jacob Omnium, a man I greatly regarded; Dallas, who for a time was
literary critic to the Times, and who certainly in that capacity
did better work than has appeared since in the same department;
George Augustus Sala, who, had he given himself fair play, would
have risen to higher eminence than that of being the best writer
in his day of sensational leading articles; and Fitz-James Stephen,
a man of very different calibre, who had not yet culminated, but
who, no doubt, will culminate among our judges. There were many
others;--but I cannot now recall their various names as identified
with those banquets.
Of Framley Parsonage I need only further say, that as I wrote it I
became more closely than ever acquainted with the new shire which
I had added to the English counties. I had it all in my mind,--its
roads and railroads, its towns and parishes, its members of Parliament,
and the different hunts which rode over it. I knew all the great
lords and their castles, the squires and their parks, the rectors
and their churches. This was the fourth novel of which I had placed
the scene in Barsetshire, and as I wrote it I made a map of the
dear county. Throughout these stories there has been no name given
to a fictitious site which does not represent to me a spot of which I
know all the accessories, as though I had lived and wandered there.
CHAPTER IX "CASTLE RICHMOND;" "BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON;" "NORTH AMERICA;" "ORLEY FARM"
When I had half-finished Framley Parsonage, I went back to my other
story, Castle Richmond, which I was writing for Messrs. Chapman &
Hall, and completed that. I think that this was the only occasion
on which I have had two different novels in my mind at the same
time. This, however, did not create either difficulty or confusion.
Many of us live in different circles; and when we go from our friends
in the town to our friends in the country, we do not usually fail
to remember the little details of the one life or the other. The
parson at Rusticum, with his wife and his wife's mother, and all
his belongings; and our old friend, the Squire, with his family
history; and Farmer Mudge, who has been cross with us, because we
rode so unnecessarily over his barley; and that rascally poacher,
once a gamekeeper, who now traps all the foxes; and pretty Mary
Cann, whose marriage with the wheelwright we did something to
expedite;--though we are alive to them all, do not drive out of our
brain the club gossip, or the memories of last season's dinners, or
any incident of our London intimacies. In our lives we are always
weaving novels, and we manage to keep the different tales distinct.
A man does, in truth, remember that which it interests him to
remember; and when we hear that memory has gone as age has come on,
we should understand that the capacity for interest in the matter
concerned has perished. A man will be generally very old and feeble
before he forgets how much money he has in the funds. There is
a good deal to be learned by any one who wishes to write a novel
well; but when the art has been acquired, I do not see why two or
three should not be well written at the same time. I have never
found myself thinking much about the work that I had to do till
I was doing it. I have indeed for many years almost abandoned the
effort to think, trusting myself, with the narrowest thread of
a plot, to work the matter out when the pen is in my hand. But my
mind is constantly employing itself on the work I have done. Had
I left either Framley Parsonage or Castle Richmond half-finished
fifteen years ago, I think I could complete the tales now with very
little trouble. I have not looked at Castle Richmond since it was
published; and poor as the work is, I remember all the incidents.
Castle Richmond certainly was not a success,--though the plot is a
fairly good plot, and is much more of a plot than I have generally
been able to find. The scene is laid in Ireland, during the famine;
and I am well aware now that English readers no longer like Irish
stories. I cannot understand why it
should be so, as the Irish
character is peculiarly well fitted for romance. But Irish subjects
generally have become distasteful. This novel, however, is of
itself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy.
The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the other
a prig. As regards the scamp, the girl's mother is her own rival.
Rivalry of the same nature has been admirably depicted by Thackeray
in his Esmond; but there the mother's love seems to be justified
by the girl's indifference. In Castle Richmond the mother strives
to rob her daughter of the man's love. The girl herself has no
character; and the mother, who is strong enough, is almost revolting.
The dialogue is often lively, and some of the incidents are well
told; but the story as a whole was a failure. I cannot remember,
however, that it was roughly handled by the critics when it came
out; and I much doubt whether anything so hard was said of it then
as that which I have said here.
I was now settled at Waltham Cross, in a house in which I could
entertain a few friends modestly, where we grew our cabbages
and strawberries, made our own butter, and killed our own pigs. I
occupied it for twelve years, and they were years to me of great
prosperity. In 1861 I became a member of the Garrick Club, with
which institution I have since been much identified. I had belonged
to it about two years, when, on Thackeray's death, I was invited
to fill his place on the Committee, and I have been one of that
august body ever since. Having up to that time lived very little
among men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, having even as
a boy been banished from social gatherings, I enjoyed infinitely at
first the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dine
there--which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play
a rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speaking
now of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist before
dinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless there
be something else special to do--unless there be hunting, or I am
wanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household--it
is "my custom always in the afternoon." I have sometimes felt sore
with myself for this persistency, feeling that I was making myself
a slave to an amusement which has not after all very much to
recommend it. I have often thought that I would break myself away
from it, and "swear off," as Rip Van Winkle says. But my swearing
off has been like that of Rip Van Winkle. And now, as I think of
it coolly, I do not know but that I have been right to cling to it.
As a man grows old he wants amusement, more even than when he is
young; and then it becomes so difficult to find amusement. Reading
should, no doubt, be the delight of men's leisure hours. Had I to
choose between books and cards, I should no doubt take the books.
But I find that I can seldom read with pleasure for above an hour
and a half at a time, or more than three hours a day. As I write
this I am aware that hunting must soon be abandoned. After sixty
it is given but to few men to ride straight across country, and I
cannot bring myself to adopt any other mode of riding. I think that
without cards I should now be much at a loss. When I began to play
at the Garrick, I did so simply because I liked the society of the
men who played.
I think that I became popular among those with whom I associated.
I have long been aware of a certain weakness in my own character,
which I may call a craving for love. I have ever had a wish to be
liked by those around me,--a wish that during the first half of
my life was never gratified. In my school-days no small part of my
misery came from the envy with which I regarded the popularity of
popular boys. They seemed to me to live in a social paradise, while
the desolation of my pandemonium was complete. And afterwards,
when I was in London as a young man, I had but few friends. Among
the clerks in the Post Office I held my own fairly for the first
two or three years; but even then I regarded myself as something of
a pariah. My Irish life had been much better. I had had my wife and
children, and had been sustained by a feeling of general respect.
But even in Ireland I had in truth lived but little in society.
Our means had been sufficient for our wants, but insufficient for
entertaining others. It was not till we had settled ourselves at
Waltham that I really began to live much with others. The Garrick
Club was the first assemblage of men at which I felt myself to be
popular.
I soon became a member of other clubs. There was the Arts Club in
Hanover Square, of which I saw the opening, but from which, after
three or four years, I withdrew my name, having found that during
these three or four years I had not once entered the building.
Then I was one of the originators of the Civil Service Club--not
from judgment, but instigated to do so by others. That also I left
for the same reason. In 1864 I received the honour of being elected
by the Committee at the Athenaeum. For this I was indebted to the
kindness of Lord Stanhope; and I never was more surprised than when
I was informed of the fact. About the same time I became a member
of the Cosmopolitan, a little club that meets twice a week in
and its members' friends, tea and brandy and water without charge!
The gatherings there I used to think very delightful. One met
Jacob Omnium, Monckton Mimes, Tom Hughes, William Stirling, Henry
Reeve, Arthur Russell, Tom Taylor, and such like; and generally
a strong political element, thoroughly well mixed, gave a certain
spirit to the place. Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, William Forster,
Lord Enfield, Lord Kimberley, George Bentinck, Vernon Harcourt,
Bromley Davenport, Knatchbull Huguessen, with many others, used to
whisper the secrets of Parliament with free tongues. Afterwards I
became a member of the Turf, which I found to be serviceable--or
the reverse--only for the playing of whist at high points.
In August, 1861, I wrote another novel for the Cornhill Magazine.
It was a short story, about one volume in length, and was called
The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. In this I attempted a
style for which I certainly was not qualified, and to which I never
had again recourse. It was meant to be funny, was full of slang,
and was intended as a satire on the ways of trade. Still I think
that there is some good fun it it, but I have heard no one else
express such an opinion. I do not know that I ever heard any opinion
expressed on it, except by the publisher, who kindly remarked
that he did not think it was equal to my usual work. Though he had
purchased the copyright, he did not republish the story in a book
form till 1870, and then it passed into the world of letters sub
silentio. I do not know that it was ever criticised or ever read.
I received (pounds)600 for it. From
that time to this I have been paid at
about that rate for my work--(pounds)600 for the quantity contained in
an ordinary novel volume, or (pounds)3000 for a long tale published in
twenty parts, which is equal in length to five such volumes. I have
occasionally, I think, received something more than this, never
I think less for any tale, except when I have published my work
anonymously. [Footnote: Since the date at which this was written
I have encountered a diminution in price.] Having said so much, I
need not further specify the prices as I mention the books as they
were written. I will, however, when I am completing this memoir,
give a list of all the sums I have received for my literary labours.
I think that Brown, Jones and Robinson was the hardest bargain I
ever sold to a publisher.
In 1861 the War of Secession had broken out in America, and from
the first I interested myself much in the question. My mother
had thirty years previously written a very popular, but, as I had
thought, a somewhat unjust book about our cousins over the water.
She had seen what was distasteful in the manners of a young people,
but had hardly recognised their energy. I had entertained for
many years an ambition to follow her footsteps there, and to write
another book. I had already paid a short visit to New York City and
State on my way home from the West Indies, but had not seen enough
then to justify me in the expression of any opinion. The breaking
out of the war did not make me think that the time was peculiarly
fit for such inquiry as I wished to make, but it did represent itself
as an occasion on which a book might be popular. I consequently
consulted the two great powers with whom I was concerned. Messrs.
Chapman & Hall, the publishers, were one power, and I had no difficulty
in arranging my affairs with them. They agreed to publish the book
on my terms, and bade me God-speed on my journey. The other power
was the Postmaster-General and Mr. Rowland Hill, the Secretary of
the Post Office. I wanted leave of absence for the unusual period
of nine months, and fearing that I should not get it by the ordinary
process of asking the Secretary, I went direct to his lordship.
"Is it on the plea of ill-health?" he asked, looking into my face,
which was then that of a very robust man. His lordship knew the