be no pardon for him. This is the sin in modern English criticism
of which there is most reason to complain.
It is a lamentable fact that men and women lend themselves to this
practice who are neither vindictive nor ordinarily dishonest. It
has become "the custom of the trade," under the veil of which excuse
so many tradesmen justify their malpractices! When a struggling
author learns that so much has been done for A by the Barsetshire
Gazette, so much for B by the Dillsborough Herald, and, again, so
much for C by that powerful metropolitan organ the Evening Pulpit,
and is told also that A and B and C have been favoured through personal
interest, he also goes to work among the editors, or the editors'
wives,--or perhaps, if he cannot reach their wives, with their
wives' first or second cousins. When once the feeling has come upon
an editor or a critic that he may allow himself to be influenced
by other considerations than the duty h owes to the public, all
sense of critical or of editorial honesty falls from him at once.
Facilis descensus Averni. In a very short time that editorial
honesty becomes ridiculous to himself. It is for other purpose that
he wields the power; and when he is told what is his duty, and what
should be his conduct, the preacher of such doctrine seems to him
to be quixotic. "Where have you lived, my friend, for the last
twenty years," he says in spirit, if not in word, "that you come out
now with such stuff as old-fashioned as this?" And thus dishonesty
begets dishonesty, till dishonesty seems to be beautiful. How nice
to be good-natured! How glorious to assist struggling young authors,
especially if the young author be also a pretty woman! How gracious
to oblige a friend! Then the motive, though still pleasing, departs
further from the border of what is good. In what way can the critic
better repay the hospitality of his wealthy literary friend than
by good-natured criticism,--or more certainly ensure for himself
a continuation of hospitable favours?
Some years since a critic of the day, a gentleman well known then
in literary circles, showed me the manuscript of a book recently
published,--the work of a popular author. It was handsomely bound,
and was a valuable and desirable possession. It had just been given
to him by the author as an acknowledgment for a laudatory review in
one of the leading journals of the day. As I was expressly asked
whether I did not regard such a token as a sign of grace both
in the giver and in the receiver, I said that I thought it should
neither have been given nor have been taken. My theory was repudiated
with scorn, and I was told that I was strait-laced, visionary, and
impracticable! In all that the damage did not lie in the fact of
that one present, but in the feeling on the part of the critic that
his office was not debased by the acceptance of presents from those
whom he criticised. This man was a professional critic, bound by
his contract with certain employers to review such books as were
sent to him. How could he, when he had received a valuable present
for praising one book, censure another by the same author?
While I write this I well know that what I say, if it be ever
noticed at all, will be taken as a straining at gnats, as a pretence
of honesty, or at any rate as an exaggeration of scruples. I have
said the same thing before, and have been ridiculed for saying it.
But none the less am I sure that English literature generally is
suffering much under this evil. All those who are struggling for
success have forced upon them the idea that their strongest efforts
should be made in touting for praise. Those who are not familiar
with the lives of authors will hardly believe how low will be the
forms which their struggles will take:--how little presents will
be sent to men who write little articles; how much flattery may
be expended even on the keeper of a circulating library; with what
profuse and distant genuflexions approaches are made to the outside
railing of the temple which contains within it the great thunderer
of some metropolitan periodical publication! The evil here is not
them, but extends to the debasement of those who have at any rate
considered themselves fit to provide literature for the public.
I am satisfied that the remedy for this evil must lie in the conscience
and deportment of authors themselves. If once the feeling could be
produced that it is disgraceful for an author to ask for praise,--and
demands for praise are, I think, disgraceful in every walk of
life,--the practice would gradually fall into the hands only of
the lowest, and that which is done only by the lowest soon becomes
despicable even to them. The sin, when perpetuated with unflagging
labour, brings with it at best very poor reward. That work of running
after critics, editors, publishers, the keepers of circulating
libraries, and their clerks, is very hard, and must be very disagreeable.
He who does it must feel himself to be dishonoured,--or she. It
may perhaps help to sell an edition, but can never make an author
successful.
I think it may be laid down as a golden rule in literature that
there should be no intercourse at all between an author and his
critic. The critic, as critic, should not know his author, nor the
author, as author, his critic. As censure should beget no anger,
so should praise beget no gratitude. The young author should feel
that criticisms fall upon him as dew or hail from heaven,--which,
as coming from heaven, man accepts as fate. Praise let the author
try to obtain by wholesome effort; censure let him avoid, if
possible, by care and industry. But when they come, let him take
them as coming from some source which he cannot influence, and with
which be should not meddle.
I know no more disagreeable trouble into which an author may plunge
himself than of a quarrel with his critics, or any more useless
labour than that of answering them. It is wise to presume, at any
rate, that the reviewer has simply done his duty, and has spoken
of the book according to the dictates of his conscience. Nothing
can be gained by combating the reviewer's opinion. If the book
which he has disparaged be good, his judgment will be condemned by
the praise of others; if bad, his judgment will he confirmed by
others. Or if, unfortunately, the criticism of the day be in so evil
a condition generally that such ultimate truth cannot be expected,
the author may be sure that his efforts made on behalf of his own
book will not set matters right. If injustice be done him, let him
bear it. To do so is consonant with the dignity of the position
which he ought to assume. To shriek, and scream, and sputter,
to threaten actions, and to swear about the town that he has been
belied and defamed in that he has been accused of bad grammar or a
false metaphor, of a dull chapter, or even of a borrowed heroine,
will leave on the m
inds of the public nothing but a sense of
irritated impotence.
If, indeed, there should spring from an author's work any assertion
by a critic injurious to the author's honour, if the author be
accused of falsehood or of personal motives which are discreditable
to him, then, indeed, he may be bound to answer the charge. It is
hoped, however, that he may be able to do so with clean hands, or
he will so stir the mud in the pool as to come forth dirtier than
he went into it.
I have lived much among men by whom the English criticism of the day
has been vehemently abused. I have heard it said that to the public
it is a false guide, and that to authors it is never a trustworthy
Mentor. I do not concur in this wholesale censure. There is, of
course, criticism and criticism. There are at this moment one or
two periodicals to which both public and authors may safely look
for guidance, though there are many others from which no spark of
literary advantage may be obtained. But it is well that both public
and authors should know what is the advantage which they have a
right to expect. There have been critics,--and there probably will
be again, though the circumstances of English literature do not
tend to produce them,--with power sufficient to entitle them to
speak with authority. These great men have declared, tanquam ex
cathedra, that such a book has been so far good and so far bad, or
that it has been altogether good or altogether bad;--and the world
has believed them. When making such assertions they have given
their reasons, explained their causes, and have carried conviction.
Very great reputations have been achieved by such critics, but not
without infinite study and the labour of many years.
Such are not the critics of the day, of whom we are now speaking.
In the literary world as it lives at present some writer is selected
for the place of critic to a newspaper, generally some young
writer, who for so many shillings a column shall review whatever
book is sent to him and express an opinion,--reading the book through
for the purpose, if the amount of honorarium as measured with the
amount of labour will enable him to do so. A labourer must measure
his work by his pay or he cannot live. From criticism such as this
must far the most part be, the general reader has no right to expect
philosophical analysis, or literary judgment on which confidence
may be placed. But he probably may believe that the books praised
will be better than the books censured, and that those which are
praised by periodicals which never censure are better worth his
attention than those which are not noticed. And readers will also
find that by devoting an hour or two on Saturday to the criticisms
of the week, they will enable themselves to have an opinion about
the books of the day. The knowledge so acquired will not be great,
nor will that little be lasting; but it adds something to the
pleasure of life to be able to talk on subjects of which others are
speaking; and the man who has sedulously gone through the literary
notices in the Spectator and the Saturday may perhaps be justified
in thinking himself as well able to talk about the new book as
his friend who has bought that new book on the tapis, and who, not
improbably, obtained his information from the same source.
As an author, I have paid careful attention to the reviews which
have been written on my own work; and I think that now I well know
where I may look for a little instruction, where I may expect only
greasy adulation, where I shall be cut up into mince-meat for the
delight of those who love sharp invective, and where I shall find
an equal mixture of praise and censure so adjusted, without much
judgment, as to exhibit the impartiality of the newspaper and its
staff. Among it all there is much chaff, which I have learned bow
to throw to the winds, with equal disregard whether it praises or
blames;--but I have also found some corn, on which I have fed and
nourished myself, and for which I have been thankful.
CHAPTER XV "THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET"--"LEAVING THE POST OFFICE"--"ST. PAUL'S MAGAZINE"
I will now go back to the year 1867, in which I was still living at
Waltham Cross. I had some time since bought the house there which
I had at first hired, and added rooms to it, and made it for our
purposes very comfortable. It was, however, a rickety old place,
requiring much repair, and occasionally not as weathertight as it
should be. We had a domain there sufficient for the cows, and for
the making of our butter and hay. For strawberries, asparagus, green
peas, out-of-door peaches, for roses especially, and such everyday
luxuries, no place was ever more excellent. It was only twelve
miles from London, and admitted therefore of frequent intercourse
with the metropolis. It was also near enough to the Roothing country
for hunting purposes. No doubt the Shoreditch Station, by which it
had to be reached, had its drawbacks. My average distance also to
the Essex meets was twenty miles. But the place combined as much
or more than I had a right to expect. It was within my own postal
district, and had, upon the whole, been well chosen.
The work that I did during the twelve years that I remained there,
from 1859 to 1871, was certainly very great. I feel confident that
in amount no other writer contributed so much during that time to
English literature. Over and above my novels, I wrote political
articles, critical, social, and sporting articles, for periodicals,
without number. I did the work of a surveyor of the General Post
Office, and so did it as to give the authorities of the department
no slightest pretext for fault-finding. I hunted always at least
twice a week. I was frequent in the whist-room at the Garrick. I
lived much in society in London, and was made happy by the presence
of many friends at Waltham Cross. In addition to this we always
spent six weeks at least out of England. Few men, I think, ever lived
a fuller life. And I attribute the power of doing this altogether
to the virtue of early hours. It was my practice to be at my table
every morning at 5.30 A. M.; and it was also my practice to allow
myself no mercy. An old groom, whose business it was to call me,
and to whom I paid (pounds)5 a year extra for the duty, allowed himself no
mercy. During all those years at Waltham Cross he was never once
late with the coffee which it was his duty to bring me. I do not
know that I ought not to feel that I owe more to him than to any
one else for the success I have had. By beginning at that hour I
could complete my literary work before I dressed for breakfast.
All those I think who have lived as literary men,--working daily
as literary labourers,--will agree with me that three hours a day
will produce as much as a man ought to write. But then he should
so have trained himself that he shall be able to work continuously
during those three hours,--so have tutored his mind that it shall
not be necessary for him to si
t nibbling his pen, and gazing at the
wall before him, till he shall have found the words with which he
wants to express his ideas. It had at this time become my custom,--and
it still is my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient
to myself,--to write with my watch before me, and to require from
myself 250 words every quarter of an hour. I have found that the 250
words have been forthcoming as regularly as my watch went. But my
three hours were not devoted entirely to writing. I always began
my task by reading the work of the day before, an operation which
would take me half an hour, and which consisted chiefly in weighing
with my ear the sound of the words and phrases. I would strongly
recommend this practice to all tyros in writing. That their work
should be read after it has been written is a matter of course,--that
it should be read twice at least before it goes to the printers,
I take to be a matter of course. But by reading what he has last
written, just before he recommences his task, the writer will catch
the tone and spirit of what he is then saying, and will avoid the
fault of seeming to be unlike himself. This division of time allowed
me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day,
and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its results
three novels of three volumes each in the year;--the precise amount
which so greatly acerbated the publisher in Paternoster Row, and which
must at any rate be felt to be quite as much as the novel-readers
of the world can want from the hands of one man.
I have never written three novels in a year, but by following the
plan above described I have written more than as much as three
volumes; and by adhering to it over a course of years, I have been
enabled to have always on hand,--for some time back now,--one or
two or even three unpublished novels in my desk beside me. Were I
to die now there are three such besides The Prime Minister, half
of which has only yet been issued. One of these has been six years
finished, and has never seen the light since it was first tied up
in the wrapper which now contains it. I look forward with some grim
pleasantry to its publication after another period of six years,
and to the declaration of the critics that it has been the work of