Neefit, the breeches-maker, and his daughter, are also good in their way,--and Moggs, the daughter"s lover, who was not only lover, but also one of the candidates at Percycross as well. But the main thread of the story,--that which tells of the doings of the young gentlemen and young ladies,--the heroes and the heroines,--is not good. Ralph the heir has not much life about him; while Ralph who is not the heir, but is intended to be the real hero, has none. The same may be said of the young ladies,--of whom one, she who was meant to be the chief, has pa.s.sed utterly out of my mind, without leaving a trace of remembrance behind.
I also left in the hands of the editor of _The Fortnightly_, ready for production on the 1st of July following, a story called _The Eustace Diamonds_. In that I think that my friend"s dictum was disproved. There is not much love in it; but what there is, is good.
The character of Lucy Morris is pretty; and her love is as genuine and as well told as that of Lucy Robarts or Lily Dale.
But _The Eustace Diamonds_ achieved the success which it certainly did attain, not as a love-story, but as a record of a cunning little woman of pseudo-fashion, to whom, in her cunning, there came a series of adventures, unpleasant enough in themselves, but pleasant to the reader. As I wrote the book, the idea constantly presented itself to me that Lizzie Eustace was but a second Becky Sharpe; but in planning the character I had not thought of this, and I believe that Lizzie would have been just as she is though Becky Sharpe had never been described. The plot of the diamond necklace is, I think, well arranged, though it produced itself without any forethought. I had no idea of setting thieves after the bauble till I had got my heroine to bed in the inn at Carlisle; nor of the disappointment of the thieves, till Lizzie had been wakened in the morning with the news that her door had been broken open. All these things, and many more, Wilkie Collins would have arranged before with infinite labour, preparing things present so that they should fit in with things to come. I have gone on the very much easier plan of making everything as it comes fit in with what has gone before. At any rate, the book was a success, and did much to repair the injury which I felt had come to my reputation in the novel-market by the works of the last few years. I doubt whether I had written anything so successful as _The Eustace Diamonds_ since _The Small House at Allington_. I had written what was much better,--as, for instance, _Phineas Finn_ and _Nina Balatka_; but that is by no means the same thing.
I also left behind, in a strong box, the ma.n.u.script of _Phineas Redux_, a novel of which I have already spoken, and which I subsequently sold to the proprietors of the _Graphic_ newspaper. The editor of that paper greatly disliked the t.i.tle, a.s.suring me that the public would take Redux for the gentleman"s surname,--and was dissatisfied with me when I replied that I had no objection to them doing so. The introduction of a Latin word, or of a word from any other language, into the t.i.tle of an English novel is undoubtedly in bad taste; but after turning the matter much over in my own mind, I could find no other suitable name.
I also left behind me, in the same strong box, another novel, called _An Eye for an Eye_, which then had been some time written, and of which, as it has not even yet been published, I will not further speak. It will probably be published some day, though, looking forward, I can see no room for it, at any rate, for the next two years.
If therefore the Great Britain, in which we sailed for Melbourne, had gone to the bottom, I had so provided that there would be new novels ready to come out under my name for some years to come. This consideration, however, did not keep me idle while I was at sea. When making long journeys, I have always succeeded in getting a desk put up in my cabin, and this was done ready for me in the Great Britain, so that I could go to work the day after we left Liverpool. This I did; and before I reached Melbourne I had finished a story called _Lady Anna_. Every word of this was written at sea, during the two months required for our voyage, and was done day by day--with the intermission of one day"s illness--for eight weeks, at the rate of 66 pages of ma.n.u.script in each week, every page of ma.n.u.script containing 250 words. Every word was counted. I have seen work come back to an author from the press with terrible deficiencies as to the amount supplied. Thirty-two pages have perhaps been wanted for a number, and the printers with all their art could not stretch the matter to more than twenty-eight or -nine! The work of filling up must be very dreadful. I have sometimes been ridiculed for the methodical details of my business. But by these contrivances I have been preserved from many troubles; and I have saved others with whom I have worked--editors, publishers, and printers--from much trouble also.
A month or two after my return home, _Lady Anna_ appeared in _The Fortnightly_, following _The Eustace Diamonds_. In it a young girl, who is really a lady of high rank and great wealth, though in her youth she enjoyed none of the privileges of wealth or rank, marries a tailor who had been good to her, and whom she had loved when she was poor and neglected. A fine young n.o.ble lover is provided for her, and all the charms of sweet living with nice people are thrown in her way, in order that she may be made to give up the tailor. And the charms are very powerful with her. But the feeling that she is bound by her troth to the man who had always been true to her overcomes everything,--and she marries the tailor. It was my wish of course to justify her in doing so, and to carry my readers along with me in my sympathy with her. But everybody found fault with me for marrying her to the tailor. What would they have said if I had allowed her to jilt the tailor and marry the good-looking young lord? How much louder, then, would have been the censure! The book was read, and I was satisfied. If I had not told my story well, there would have been no feeling in favour of the young lord. The horror which was expressed to me at the evil thing I had done, in giving the girl to the tailor, was the strongest testimony I could receive of the merits of the story.
I went to Australia chiefly in order that I might see my son among his sheep. I did see him among his sheep, and remained with him for four or five very happy weeks. He was not making money, nor has he made money since. I grieve to say that several thousands of pounds which I had squeezed out of the pockets of perhaps too liberal publishers have been lost on the venture. But I rejoice to say that this has been in no way due to any fault of his. I never knew a man work with more persistent honesty at his trade than he has done.
I had, however, the further intentions of writing a book about the entire group of Australasian Colonies; and in order that I might be enabled to do that with sufficient information, I visited them all.
Making my head-quarters at Melbourne, I went to Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania, then to the very little known territory of Western Australia, and then, last of all, to New Zealand. I was absent in all eighteen months, and think that I did succeed in learning much of the political, social, and material condition of these countries. I wrote my book as I was travelling, and brought it back with me to England all but completed in December, 1872.
It was a better book than that which I had written eleven years before on the American States, but not so good as that on the West Indies in 1859. As regards the information given, there was much more to be said about Australia than the West Indies. Very much more is said,--and very much more may be learned from the latter than from the former book. I am sure that any one who will take the trouble to read the book on Australia, will learn much from it. But the West Indian volume was readable. I am not sure that either of the other works are, in the proper sense of that word. When I go back to them I find that the pages drag with me;--and if so with me, how must it be with others who have none of that love which a father feels even for his ill-favoured offspring. Of all the needs a book has the chief need is that it be readable.
Feeling that these volumes on Australia were dull and long, I was surprised to find that they had an extensive sale. There were, I think, 2000 copies circulated of the first expensive edition; and then the book was divided into four little volumes, which were published separately, and which again had a considerable circulation.
That some facts were stated inaccurately, I do not doubt; that many opinions were crude, I am quite sure; that I had failed to understand much which I attempted to explain, is possible. But with all these faults the book was a thoroughly honest book, and was the result of unflagging labour for a period of fifteen months. I spared myself no trouble in inquiry, no trouble in seeing, and no trouble in listening. I thoroughly imbued my mind with the subject, and wrote with the simple intention of giving trustworthy information on the state of the Colonies. Though there be inaccuracies,--those inaccuracies to which work quickly done must always be subject,--I think I did give much valuable information.
I came home across America from San Francisco to New York, visiting Utah and Brigham Young on the way. I did not achieve great intimacy with the great polygamist of the Salt Lake City. I called upon him, sending to him my card, apologising for doing so without an introduction, and excusing myself by saying that I did not like to pa.s.s through the territory without seeing a man of whom I had heard so much. He received me in his doorway, not asking me to enter, and inquired whether I were not a miner. When I told him that I was not a miner, he asked me whether I earned my bread. I told him I did.
"I guess you"re a miner," said he. I again a.s.sured him that I was not. "Then how do you earn your bread?" I told him that I did so by writing books. "I"m sure you"re a miner," said he. Then he turned upon his heel, went back into the house, and closed the door. I was properly punished, as I was vain enough to conceive that he would have heard my name.
I got home in December, 1872, and in spite of any resolution made to the contrary, my mind was full of hunting as I came back. No real resolutions had in truth been made, for out of a stud of four horses I kept three, two of which were absolutely idle through the two summers and winter of my absence. Immediately on my arrival I bought another, and settled myself down to hunting from London three days a week. At first I went back to Ess.e.x, my old country, but finding that to be inconvenient, I took my horses to Leighton Buzzard, and became one of that numerous herd of sportsmen who rode with the "Baron"
and Mr. Selby Lowndes. In those days Baron Meyer was alive, and the riding with his hounds was very good. I did not care so much for Mr.
Lowndes. During the winters of 1873, 1874, and 1875, I had my horses back in Ess.e.x, and went on with my hunting, always trying to resolve that I would give it up. But still I bought fresh horses, and, as I did not give it up, I hunted more than ever. Three times a week the cab has been at my door in London very punctually, and not unfrequently before seven in the morning. In order to secure this attendance, the man has always been invited to have his breakfast in the hall. I have gone to the Great Eastern Railway,--ah! so often with the fear that frost would make all my exertions useless, and so often too with that result! And then, from one station or another station, have travelled on wheels at least a dozen miles. After the day"s sport, the same toil has been necessary to bring me home to dinner at eight. This has been work for a young man and a rich man, but I have done it as an old man and comparatively a poor man. Now at last, in April, 1876, I do think that my resolution has been taken.
I am giving away my old horses, and anybody is welcome to my saddles and horse-furniture.
"Singula de n.o.bis anni praedantur euntes; Eripuere jocos, venerem, convivia, ludum; Tendunt extorquere poemata."
"Our years keep taking toll as they move on; My feasts, my frolics, are already gone, And now, it seems, my verses must go too."
This is Conington"s translation, but it seems to me to be a little flat.
"Years as they roll cut all our pleasures short; Our pleasant mirth, our loves, our wine, our sport.
And then they stretch their power, and crush at last Even the power of singing of the past."
I think that I may say with truth that I rode hard to my end.
"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus, Et militavi non sine gloria; Nunc arma defunctumque bello Barbiton hic paries habebit."
"I"ve lived about the covert side, I"ve ridden straight, and ridden fast; Now breeches, boots, and scarlet pride Are but mementoes of the past."
CHAPTER XX.
_THE WAY WE LIVE NOW_ AND _THE PRIME MINISTER_--CONCLUSION.
In what I have said at the end of the last chapter about my hunting, I have been carried a little in advance of the date at which I had arrived. We returned from Australia in the winter of 1872, and early in 1873 I took a house in Montagu Square,--in which I hope to live and hope to die. Our first work in settling there was to place upon new shelves the books which I had collected round myself at Waltham.
And this work, which was in itself great, entailed also the labour of a new catalogue. As all who use libraries know, a catalogue is nothing unless it show the spot on which every book is to be found,--information which every volume also ought to give as to itself. Only those who have done it know how great is the labour of moving and arranging a few thousand volumes. At the present moment I own about 5000 volumes, and they are dearer to me even than the horses which are going, or than the wine in the cellar, which is very apt to go, and upon which I also pride myself.
When this was done, and the new furniture had got into its place, and my little book-room was settled sufficiently for work, I began a novel, to the writing of which I was instigated by what I conceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age. Whether the world does or does not become more wicked as years go on, is a question which probably has disturbed the minds of thinkers since the world began to think. That men have become less cruel, less violent, less selfish, less brutal, there can be no doubt;--but have they become less honest? If so, can a world, retrograding from day to day in honesty, be considered to be in a state of progress? We know the opinion on this subject of our philosopher Mr. Carlyle. If he be right, we are all going straight away to darkness and the dogs. But then we do not put very much faith in Mr. Carlyle,--nor in Mr. Ruskin and his other followers. The loudness and extravagance of their lamentations, the wailing and gnashing of teeth which comes from them, over a world which is supposed to have gone altogether shoddy-wards, are so contrary to the convictions of men who cannot but see how comfort has been increased, how health has been improved, and education extended,--that the general effect of their teaching is the opposite of what they have intended. It is regarded simply as Carlylism to say that the English-speaking world is growing worse from day to day. And it is Carlylism to opine that the general grand result of increased intelligence is a tendency to deterioration.
Nevertheless a certain cla.s.s of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.
If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write _The Way We Live Now_. And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices,--on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes.
The book has the fault which is to be attributed to almost all satires, whether in prose or verse. The accusations are exaggerated.
The vices are coloured, so as to make effect rather than to represent truth. Who, when the lash of objurgation is in his hands, can so moderate his arm as never to strike harder than justice would require? The spirit which produces the satire is honest enough, but the very desire which moves the satirist to do his work energetically makes him dishonest. In other respects _The Way We Live Now_ was, as a satire, powerful and good. The character of Melmotte is well maintained. The Beargarden is amusing,--and not untrue. The Longestaffe girls and their friend, Lady Monogram, are amusing,--but exaggerated. Dolly Longestaffe, is, I think, very good. And Lady Carbury"s literary efforts are, I am sorry to say, such as are too frequently made. But here again the young lady with her two lovers is weak and vapid. I almost doubt whether it be not impossible to have two absolutely distinct parts in a novel, and to imbue them both with interest. If they be distinct, the one will seem to be no more than padding to the other. And so it was in _The Way We Live Now_. The interest of the story lies among the wicked and foolish people,--with Melmotte and his daughter, with Dolly and his family, with the American woman, Mrs. Hurtle, and with John Crumb and the girl of his heart. But Roger Carbury, Paul Montague, and Henrietta Carbury are uninteresting. Upon the whole, I by no means look upon the book as one of my failures; nor was it taken as a failure by the public or the press.
While I was writing _The Way We Live Now_, I was called upon by the proprietors of the _Graphic_ for a Christmas story. I feel, with regard to literature, somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertaker feels when he is called upon to supply a funeral. He has to supply it, however distasteful it may be. It is his business, and he will starve if he neglect it. So have I felt that, when anything in the shape of a novel was required, I was bound to produce it.
Nothing can be more distasteful to me than to have to give a relish of Christmas to what I write. I feel the humbug implied by the nature of the order. A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire for Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities,--or, better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with d.i.c.kens when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that the things written annually--all of which have been fixed to Christmas like children"s toys to a Christmas tree--have had no real savour of Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas! at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised to supply within three weeks of this time,--the picture-makers always require a long interval,--as to which I have in vain been cudgelling my brain for the last month. I can"t send away the order to another shop, but I do not know how I shall ever get the coffin made.
For the _Graphic_, in 1873, I wrote a little story about Australia.
Christmas at the antipodes is of course midsummer, and I was not loth to describe the troubles to which my own son had been subjected, by the mingled accidents of heat and bad neighbours, on his station in the bush. So I wrote _Harry Heathcote of Gangoil_, and was well through my labour on that occasion. I only wish I may have no worse success in that which now hangs over my head.
When _Harry Heathcote_ was over, I returned with a full heart to Lady Glencora and her husband. I had never yet drawn the completed picture of such a statesman as my imagination had conceived. The personages with whose names my pages had been familiar, and perhaps even the minds of some of my readers--the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks, Greshams, and Daubeneys--had been more or less portraits, not of living men, but of living political characters. The strong-minded, thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, either of the Government or of the Opposition, had been very easy to describe, and had required no imagination to conceive. The character reproduces itself from generation to generation; and as it does so, becomes shorn in a wonderful way of those little touches of humanity which would be destructive of its purposes. Now and again there comes a burst of human nature, as in the quarrel between Burke and Fox; but, as a rule, the men submit themselves to be shaped and fashioned, and to be formed into tools, which are used either for building up or pulling down, and can generally bear to be changed from this box into the other, without, at any rate, the appearance of much personal suffering. Four-and-twenty gentlemen will amalgamate themselves into one whole, and work for one purpose, having each of them to set aside his own idiosyncrasy, and to endure the close personal contact of men who must often be personally disagreeable, having been thoroughly taught that in no other way can they serve either their country or their own ambition. These are the men who are publicly useful, and whom the necessities of the age supply,--as to whom I have never ceased to wonder that stones of such strong calibre should be so quickly worn down to the shape and smoothness of rounded pebbles.
Such have been to me the Brocks and the Mildmays, about whom I have written with great pleasure, having had my mind much exercised in watching them. But I had also conceived the character of a statesman of a different nature--of a man who should be in something perhaps superior, but in very much inferior, to these men--of one who could not become a pebble, having too strong an ident.i.ty of his own. To rid one"s self of fine scruples--to fall into the traditions of a party--to feel the need of subservience, not only in acting but also even in thinking--to be able to be a bit, and at first only a very little bit,--these are the necessities of the growing statesman. The time may come, the glorious time when some great self action shall be possible, and shall be even demanded, as when Peel gave up the Corn Laws; but the rising man, as he puts on his harness, should not allow himself to dream of this. To become a good, round, smooth, hard, useful pebble is his duty, and to achieve this he must harden his skin and swallow his scruples. But every now and again we see the attempt made by men who cannot get their skins to be hard--who after a little while generally fall out of the ranks. The statesman of whom I was thinking--of whom I had long thought--was one who did not fall out of the ranks, even though his skin would not become hard. He should have rank, and intellect, and parliamentary habits, by which to bind him to the service of his country; and he should also have unblemished, unextinguishable, inexhaustible love of country. That virtue I attribute to our statesmen generally. They who are without it are, I think, mean indeed. This man should have it as the ruling principle of his life; and it should so rule him that all other things should be made to give way to it. But he should be scrupulous, and, being scrupulous, weak. When called to the highest place in the council of his Sovereign, he should feel with true modesty his own insufficiency; but not the less should the greed of power grow upon him when he had once allowed himself to taste and enjoy it. Such was the character I endeavoured to depict in describing the triumph, the troubles, and the failure of my Prime Minister. And I think that I have succeeded. What the public may think, or what the press may say, I do not yet know, the work having as yet run but half its course.[14]
[Footnote 14: Writing this note in 1878, after a lapse of nearly three years, I am obliged to say that, as regards the public, _The Prime Minister_ was a failure. It was worse spoken of by the press than any novel I had written. I was specially hurt by a criticism on it in the _Spectator_. The critic who wrote the article I know to be a good critic, inclined to be more than fair to me; but in this case I could not agree with him, so much do I love the man whose character I had endeavoured to portray.]
That the man"s character should be understood as I understand it--or that of his wife"s, the delineation of which has also been a matter of much happy care to me--I have no right to expect, seeing that the operation of describing has not been confined to one novel, which might perhaps be read through by the majority of those who commenced it. It has been carried on through three or four, each of which will be forgotten even by the most zealous reader almost as soon as read.
In _The Prime Minister_, my Prime Minister will not allow his wife to take office among, or even over, those ladies who are attached by office to the Queen"s court. "I should not choose," he says to her, "that my wife should have any duties unconnected with our joint family and home." Who will remember in reading those words that, in a former story, published some years before, he tells his wife, when she has twitted him with his willingness to clean the Premier"s shoes, that he would even allow her to clean them if it were for the good of the country? And yet it is by such details as these that I have, for many years past, been manufacturing within my own mind the characters of the man and his wife.
I think that Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, is a perfect gentleman. If he be not, then am I unable to describe a gentleman.
She is by no means a perfect lady; but if she be not all over a woman, then am I not able to describe a woman. I do not think it probable that my name will remain among those who in the next century will be known as the writers of English prose fiction;--but if it does, that permanence of success will probably rest on the character of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora, and the Rev. Mr. Crawley.
I have now come to the end of that long series of books written by myself, with which the public is already acquainted. Of those which I may hereafter be able to add to them I cannot speak; though I have an idea that I shall even yet once more have recourse to my political hero as the mainstay of another story. When _The Prime Minister_ was finished, I at once began another novel, which is now completed in three volumes, and which is called _Is He Popenjoy?_ There are two Popenjoys in the book, one succeeding to the t.i.tle held by the other; but as they are both babies, and do not in the course of the story progress beyond babyhood, the future readers, should the tale ever be published, will not be much interested in them. Nevertheless the story, as a story, is not, I think, amiss. Since that I have written still another three-volume novel, to which, very much in opposition to my publisher, I have given the name of _The American Senator_.[15]
It is to appear in _Temple Bar_, and is to commence its appearance on the first of next month. Such being its circ.u.mstances, I do not know that I can say anything else about it here.
[Footnote 15: _The American Senator_ and _Popenjoy_ have appeared, each with fair success. Neither of them has encountered that reproach which, in regard to _The Prime Minister_, seemed to tell me that my work as a novelist should be brought to a close. And yet I feel a.s.sured that they are very inferior to _The Prime Minister_.]
And so I end the record of my literary performances,--which I think are more in amount than the works of any other living English author.
If any English authors not living have written more--as may probably have been the case--I do not know who they are. I find that, taking the books which have appeared under our names, I have published much more than twice as much as Carlyle. I have also published considerably more than Voltaire, even including his letters. We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had written 480 volumes, and that he went on writing for eight years longer. I wish I knew what was the length of Varro"s volumes; I comfort myself by reflecting that the amount of ma.n.u.script described as a book in Varro"s time was not much. Varro, too, is dead, and Voltaire; whereas I am still living, and may add to the pile.
The following is a list of the books I have written, with the dates of publication and the sums I have received for them. The dates given are the years in which the works were published as a whole, most of them having appeared before in some serial form.
Date of Total Sums Names of Works. Publication. Received.
--------------- ------------ ----------- The Macdermots of Ballycloran, 1847 48 6 9 The Kellys and the O"Kellys, 1848 123 19 5 La Vendee, 1850 20 0 0 The Warden, 1855 / Barchester Towers, 1857 / 727 11 3 The Three Clerks, 1858 250 0 0 Doctor Thorne, 1858 400 0 0 The West Indies and the Spanish Main, 1859 250 0 0 The Bertrams, 1859 400 0 0 Castle Richmond, 1860 600 0 0 Framley Parsonage, 1861 1000 0 0 Tales of All Countries--1st Series, 1861 2d " 1863 } 1830 0 0 3d " 1870 / Orley Farm, 1862 3135 0 0 North America, 1862 1250 0 0 Rachel Ray, 1863 1645 0 0 The Small House at Allington, 1864 3000 0 0 Can You Forgive Her? 1864 3525 0 0 Miss Mackenzie, 1865 1300 0 0 The Belton Estate, 1866 1757 0 0 The Claverings, 1867 2800 0 0 The Last Chronicle of Ba.r.s.et, 1867 3000 0 0 Nina Balatka, 1867 450 0 0 Linda Tressel, 1868 450 0 0 Phineas Finn, 1869 3200 0 0 He Knew He Was Right, 1869 3200 0 0 Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 1870 600 0 0 The Vicar of Bullhampton, 1870 2500 0 0 An Editor"s Tales, l870 378 0 0 Caesar (Ancient Cla.s.sics),[16] 1870 0 0 0 Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, 1871 750 0 0 Ralph the Heir, 1871 2500 0 0 The Golden Lion of Granpere, 1872 550 0 0 The Eustace Diamonds, 1873 2500 0 0 Australia and New Zealand, 1873 1300 0 0 Phineas Redux, 1874 2500 0 0 Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, 1874 450 0 0 Lady Anna, 1874 1200 0 0 The Way We Live Now, 1875 3000 0 0 The Prime Minister, 1876 2500 0 0 The American Senator, 1877 1800 0 0 Is He Popenjoy? 1878 1600 0 0 South Africa, 1878 850 0 0 John Caldigate, 1879 1800 0 0 Sundries, 7800 0 0 -------------- 68,939 17 5
[Footnote 16: This was given by me as a present to my friend John Blackwood.]