number, should remember this, and not fear contamination so strongly
as did Carry Brattle's married sister and sister-in-law.
In 1870 I brought out three books,--or rather of the latter of
the three I must say that it was brought out by others, for I had
nothing to do with it except to write it. These were Sir Harry
Hotspur of Humblethwaite, An Editor's Tales, and a little volume
on Julius Caesar. Sir Harry Hotspur was written on the same plan as
Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, and had for its object the telling
of some pathetic incident in life rather than the portraiture of a
number of human beings. Nina and Linda Tressel and The Golden Lion
had been placed in foreign countries, and this was an English story.
In other respects it is of the same nature, and was not, I think,
by any means a failure. There is much of pathos in the love of
the girl, and of paternal dignity and affection in the father.
It was published first in Macmillan's Magazine, by the intelligent
proprietor of which I have since been told that it did not make
either his fortune or that of his magazine. I am sorry that it
should have been so; but I fear that the same thing may be said of
a good many of my novels. When it had passed through the magazine,
the subsequent use of it was sold to other publishers by Mr.
Macmillan, and then I learned that it was to be brought out by them
as a novel in two volumes. Now it had been sold by me as a novel
in one volume, and hence there arose a correspondence.
I found it very hard to make the purchasers understand that I had
reasonable ground for objection to the process. What was it to me?
How could it injure me if they stretched my pages by means of lead
and margin into double the number I had intended. I have heard the
same argument on other occasions. When I have pointed out that in
this way the public would have to suffer, seeing that they would
have to pay Mudie for the use of two volumes in reading that which
ought to have been given to them in one, I have been assured that
the public are pleased with literary short measure, that it is
the object of novel-readers to get through novels as fast as they
can, and that the shorter each volume is the better! Even this,
however, did not overcome me, and I stood to my guns. Sir Harry
was published in one volume, containing something over the normal
300 pages, with an average of 220 words to a page,--which I
had settled with my conscience to be the proper length of a novel
volume. I may here mention that on one occasion, and one occasion
only, a publisher got the better of me in a matter of volumes. He
had a two-volume novel of mine running through a certain magazine,
and had it printed complete in three volumes before I knew where I
was,--before I had seen a sheet of the letterpress. I stormed for
a while, but I had not the heart to make him break up the type.
The Editor's Tales was a volume republished from the St. Paul's
Magazine, and professed to give an editor's experience of his
dealings with contributors. I do not think that there is a single
incident in the book which could bring back to any one concerned
the memory of a past event. And yet there is not an incident in it
the outline of which was not presented to my mind by the remembrance
of some fact:--how an ingenious gentleman got into conversation
with me, I not knowing that he knew me to be an editor, and pressed
his little article on my notice; how I was addressed by a lady with
a becoming pseudonym and with much equally becoming audacity; how
I was appealed to by the dearest of little women whom here I have
called Mary Gresley; how in my own early days there was a struggle
over an abortive periodical which was intended to be the best
thing ever done; how terrible was the tragedy of a poor drunkard,
who with infinite learning at his command made one sad final effort
to reclaim himself, and perished while he was making it; and lastly
how a poor weak editor was driven nearly to madness by threatened
litigation from a rejected contributor. Of these stories, The Spotted
Dog, with the struggles of the drunkard scholar, is the best. I
know now, however, that when the things were good they came out
too quick one upon another to gain much attention;--and so also,
luckily, when they were bad.
The Caesar was a thing of itself. My friend John Blackwood had set
on foot a series of small volumes called Ancient Classics for English
Readers, and had placed the editing of them, and the compiling of
many of them, in the hands of William Lucas Collins, a clergyman
who, from my connection with the series, became a most intimate
friend. The Iliad and the Odyssey had already come out when I was
at Edinburgh with John Blackwood, and, on my expressing my very strong
admiration for those two little volumes,--which I here recommend
to all young ladies as the most charming tales they can read,--he
asked me whether I would not undertake one myself. Herodotus was
in the press, but, if I could get it ready, mine should be next.
Whereupon I offered to say what might be said to the readers of
English on The Commentaries of Julius Caesar.
I at once went to work, and in three months from that day the little
book had been written. I began by reading through the Commentaries
twice, which I did without any assistance either by translation
or English notes. Latin was not so familiar to me then as it has
since become,--for from that date I have almost daily spent an
hour with some Latin author, and on many days many hours. After
the reading what my author had left behind him, I fell into the
reading of what others had written about him, in Latin, in English,
and even in French,--for I went through much of that most futile
book by the late Emperor of the French. I do not know that for a
short period I ever worked harder. The amount I had to write was
nothing. Three weeks would have done it easily. But I was most
anxious, in this soaring out of my own peculiar line, not to disgrace
myself. I do not think that I did disgrace myself. Perhaps I was
anxious for something more. If so, I was disappointed.
The book I think to be a good little book. It is readable by all, old
and young, and it gives, I believe accurately, both an account of
Caesar's Commentaries,--which of course was the primary intention,--and
the chief circumstances of the great Roman's life. A well-educated
girl who had read it and remembered it would perhaps know as much
about Caesar and his writings as she need know. Beyond the consolation
of thinking as I do about it, I got very little gratification from
the work. Nobody praised it. One very old and very learned friend
to whom I sent it thanked me for my "comic Caesar," but said no
more. I do not suppose that he intended to run a dagger into me.
Of any suffering from such wounds, I think, while living, I never
showed a sign; but still I have suffered occasionally. There
was, however, probably present to my friend's mind, and to that
of others, a feeling that a man who had spent his life in writing
English novels could not be fit to write about Caesar. It was as
when an amateur gets a picture hung on the walls of the Academy.
What business had I there? Ne sutor ultra crepidam. In the press it
was most faintly damned by most faint praise. Nevertheless, having
read the book again within the last month or two, I make bold to say
that it is a good book. The series, I believe, has done very well.
I am sure that it ought to do well in years to come, for, putting
aside Caesar, the work has been done with infinite scholarship, and
very generally with a light hand. With the leave of my sententious
and sonorous friend, who had not endured that subjects which had
been grave to him should be treated irreverently, I will say that
such a work, unless it be light, cannot answer the purpose for which
it is intended. It was not exactly a schoolbook that was wanted,
but something that would carry the purposes of the schoolroom even
into the leisure hours of adult pupils. Nothing was ever better
suited for such a purpose than the Iliad and the Odyssey, as done
by Mr. Collins. The Virgil, also done by him, is very good; and so
is the Aristophanes by the same hand.
CHAPTER XIX "RALPH THE HEIR"--"THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS"--"LADY ANNA"--"AUSTRALIA"
In the spring of 1871 we,--I and my wife,--had decided that we
would go to Australia to visit our shepherd son. Of course before
doing so I made a contract with a publisher for a book about the
Colonies. For such a work as this I had always been aware that
I could not fairly demand more than half the price that would be
given for the same amount of fiction; and as such books have an
indomitable tendency to stretch themselves, so that more is given
than what is sold, and as the cost of travelling is heavy, the
writing of them is not remunerative. This tendency to stretch comes
not, I think, generally from the ambition of the writer, but from
his inability to comprise the different parts in their allotted
spaces. If you have to deal with a country, a colony, a city, a
trade, or a political opinion, it is so much easier to deal with
it in twenty than in twelve pages! I also made an engagement with
the editor of a London daily paper to supply him with a series of
articles,--which were duly written, duly published, and duly paid
for. But with all this, travelling with the object of writing is
not a good trade. If the travelling author can pay his bills, he
must be a good manager on the road.
Before starting there came upon us the terrible necessity of coming
to some resolution about our house at Waltham. It had been first
hired, and then bought, primarily because it suited my Post Office
avocations. To this reason had been added other attractions,--in the
shape of hunting, gardening, and suburban hospitalities. Altogether
the house had been a success, and the scene of much happiness. But
there arose questions as to expense. Would not a house in London
be cheaper? There could be no doubt that my income would decrease,
and was decreasing. I had thrown the Post Office, as it were,
away, and the writing of novels could not go on for ever. Some of
my friends told me already that at fifty-five I ought to give up
the fabrication of love-stories. The hunting, I thought, must soon
