Part 7 (1/2)

Critics, if they ever trouble thees, will, of course, say that in what I have now said I have ignored altogether the one great evil of rapid production,--namely, that of inferior work And of course if the as inferior because of the too great rapidity of production, the critics would be right Giving to the subject the best ofof my oork as nearly as possible as I would that of another, I believe that the hich has been done quickest has been done the best I have composed better stories--that is, have created better plots--than those of _The Sive Her?_ and I have portrayed two or three better characters than are to be found in the pages of either of theh, I do not think that I have ever done better work Nor would these have been i, had each of these been the isolated labour of a couple of years How short is the time devoted to the manipulation of a plot can be known only to those who have written plays and novels;--I may say also, how very little ti work There are usually so doubt, almost of despair,--so at least it has been withsettled in my brain as to the final develop, but with a most distinct conception of some character or characters, I have rushed at the work as a rider rushes at a fence which he does not see

Soe, we call a cropper I had such a fall in two novels of mine, of which I have already spoken--_The Bertrams_ and _Castle Richmond_ I shall have to speak of other such troubles But these failures have not arisen from over-hurried work When my work has been quicker done,--and it has sometimes been done very quickly--the rapidity has been achieved by hot pressure, not in the conception, but in the telling of the story

Instead of writing eight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead of working five days a week, I have worked seven I have trebled e, and have done so in circuhts for the tienerally been done at so the , no whist, no ordinary household duties And I am sure that the work so done has had in it the best truth and the highest spirit that I have been able to produce At such tihly with the characters I have had in hand I have wandered alone a at their absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying their joy I have been inated with my own creations till it has been my only excitement to sit with the pen in my hand, and drive my team before me at as quick a pace as I could ain say that all this h work of the author's own brain, but it will be very far froiven to the public After all, the vehicle which a writer uses for conveying his thoughts to the public should not be less ihts themselves An author can hardly hope to be popular unless he can use popular language That is quite true; but then co a popular--in other words, I ood and lucid style How reeable and easily intelligible to the reader? He must be correct, because without correctness he can be neither agreeable nor intelligible Readers will expect him to obey those rules which they, consciously or unconsciously, have been taught to regard as binding on language; and unless he does obey theust Without much labour, no writer will achieve such a style He has very much to learn; and, when he has learned thatwhat he has learned with ease But all thisthat which shall please, but long before His language must coreat perfornant orator; as letters fly froers of the trained compositor; as the syllables tinkled out by little bells forraphist A enerally leave behind him work that smells of oil

I speak here, of course, of prose; for in poetry we knohat care is necessary, and we forive rise to inaccuracy,--chiefly because the ear, quick and true as may be its operation, will occasionally break down under pressure, and, before a sentence be closed, will forget the nature of the coular noraced by a plural verb, because other pluralities have intervened and have teies will occur, because the ear, in deotten that the desired force has been already expressed I need not -blocks indeed whensentences of Gibbon, but which Macaulay, with his multiplicity of divisions, has done so much to enable us to avoid A rapid writer will hardly avoid these errors altogether Speaking of , I have been unable to avoid them But the writer for the press is rarely called upon--a writer of books should never be called upon--to send his manuscript hot from his hand to the printer It has beenfour times at least--thrice in manuscript and once in print Very much of my work I have read twice in print In spite of this I know that inaccuracies have crept through,--not single spies, but in battalions Froather that the supervision has been insufficient, not that the work itself has been done too fast I aes which have been written with the greatest stress of labour, and consequently with the greatest haste, have been the most effective and by no ton_ redeemed my reputation with the spirited proprietor of the _Cornhill_, which ed by _Brown, Jones, and Robinson_ In it appeared Lily Dale, one of the characters which readers of my novels have liked the best In the love hich she has been greeted I have hardly joined withShe becah in truth she loved another h, she could not extricate herself sufficiently froreat misfortune to be able to h she loved hi as she was, sheand old; so that, from that time to this, I have been continually honoured with letters, the purport of which has always been to beg me to marry Lily Dale to Johnny Eames Had I done so, however, Lily would never have so endeared herself to these people as to induce the her fate It was because she could not get over her troubles that they loved her Outside Lily Dale and the chief interest of the novel, _The Sood The De Courcy family are alive, as is also Sir Raffle Buffle, who is a hero of the Civil Service Sir Raffle was intended to represent a type, not a man; but the man for the picture was soon chosen, and I was often assured that the portrait was very like I have never seen the gentleman hom I am supposed to have taken the liberty There is also an old squire down at Allington, whose life as a country gentleman with rather straitened ive Her?_ I cannot speak with too great affection, though I do not know that of itself it did very ards the story, it was formed chiefly on that of the play whichsince, the circumstances of which the reader may perhaps remember The play had been called _The noble Jilt_; but I was afraid of the naht throw a doubt on the nobility There was more of tentative huirl is carried through with considerable strength, but is not attractive The humorous characters, which are also taken from the play,--a buxom ho with her eyes open chooses the most sca,--are well done Mrs Greenow, between Captain Bellfield and Mr Cheeseacre, is very good fun--as far as the fun of novels is But that which endears the book to enet Palliser, with his wife, Lady Glencora

By no amount of description or asseveration could I succeed inany reader understand how s have been to me in my latter life; or how frequently I have used them for the expression of my political or social convictions They have been as real to me as free trade was to Mr Cobden, or the dominion of a party to Mr Disraeli; and as I have not been able to speak from the benches of the House of Commons, or to thunder from platforms, or to be efficacious as a lecturer, they have served enet Palliser had appeared in _The Ston_, but his birth had not been accoes of that novel he is made to seek a rerand heiress of the day;--but the personage of the great heiress does not appear till she coive Her?_ He is the nephew and heir to a duke--the Duke of Omnium--as first introduced in _Doctor Thorne_, and afterwards in _Fras of whoes and their friends, political and social, I have endeavoured to depict the faults and frailties and vices,--as also the virtues, the graces, and the strength of our highest classes; and if I have not th and virtues predominant over the faults and vices, I have not painted the picture as I intended Plantagenet Palliser I think to be a very noble gentle anoeniture His wife is in all respects very inferior to him; but she, too, has, or has been intended to have, beneath the thin stratuood principle, which enabled her to live down the conviction of the original wrong which was done to her, and taught her to endeavour to do her duty in the position to which she was called She had received a great wrong,--having been made, when little ;--when, however, though she was little iven elsewhere She had very heavy troubles, but they did not overcome her

As to the heaviest of these troubles, I will say a word in vindication of myself and of the way I handled it in irl's first love is introduced,--beautiful, well-born, and utterly worthless To save a girl fro her property on such a scairl's friends But it e with a man she does not love,--and certainly the more so when there is another whom she does love Inwife to the terrible danger of overtures fro no doubt on ticklish ground, leaving for a while a doubt on the question whether the lover ht not succeed Then there canitary of our Church, aIt had been one of the innocent joys of his life, said the clergyhters But noriting a book which caused him to bid them close it! Must I also turn away to vicious sensation such as this? Did I think that a wife contees? I asked him in return, whether from his pulpit, or at any rate from his communion-table, he did not denounce adultery to his audience; and if so, why should it not be open towhich the purest girl could not but have learned, and ought not to have learned, elsewhere, and I certainly lent no attraction to the sin which I indicated His rejoinder was full of grace, and enabled hi his cause He said that the subject was so o and stay a ith hiht have it out That opportunity, however, has never yet arrived

Lady Glencora overcoht, partly by her own sense of right and wrong, and partly by the genuine nobility of her husband's conduct, to attach herself to hione, but there remains a rich reality of which she is fully able to taste the flavour She loves her rank and becomes ambitious, first of social, and then of political ascendancy He is thoroughly true to her, after his thorough nature, and she, after her less perfect nature, is i these characters from one story to another I realised the necessity, not only of consistency,--which, had it been maintained by a hard exactitude, would have been untrue to nature,--but also of those changes which time always produces There are, perhaps, but few of us who, after the lapse of ten years, will be found to have changed our chief characteristics The selfish man will still be selfish, and the falsethese characteristics will be changed,--as also our power of adding to or di their intensity It was rew in years, should encounter the changes which come upon us all; and I think that I have succeeded

The duchess of O the part of Prime Minister's wife, is the sao off with Burgo Fitzgerald, but yet knows that she will never do so; and the Prime Minister Duke, with his wounded pride and sore spirit, is he who, for his wife's sake, left power and place when they were first offered to hies which a life so stirring as theirs would naturally produce

To do all this thoroughly was in ame has been worth the candle To carry out my scheme I have had to spread my picture over so wide a canvas that I cannot expect that any lover of such art should trouble hiive Her?_, _Phineas Finn_, _Phineas Redux_, and _The Prime Minister_ consecutively, in order that they may understand the characters of the Duke of Oenet Palliser, and of Lady Glencora? Who will ever know that they should be so read? But in the perforratification, and was enabled fro at the political doings of the day which every man likes to take, if not in one fashi+on then in another I look upon this string of characters,--carried sometimes into other novels than those just naether, I think that Plantagenet Palliser stands e I have created

On Christmas day, 1863, ere startled by the news of Thackeray's death He had then for azine_,--a position for which he was hardly fitted either by his habits or tees I had known hirown into ard his I ever kneith an exaggerated contee, would entertain an alerated sympathy with the joys and troubles of individuals around hiard to money--unfortunate with an afflicted wife--unfortunate in having his home broken up before his children were fit to be his coht hieneral society But it never affected his heart, or clouded his is and joys of fictitious life, and could still feel--as he did to the very last--the duty of showing to his readers the evil consequences of evil conduct It was perhaps his chief fault as a writer that he could never abstain from that dash of satire which he felt to be demanded by the weaknesses which he saw around hi but satire should write but little,--or it will sees rather from his own caustic nature than froard _Es that judge, on the clear individuality of the characters, on the truth of its delineations in regard to the tireat pathos There are also in it a few scenes so told that even Scott has never equalled the telling Let any one who doubts this read the passage in which Lady Castlewood induces the Duke of Hamilton to think that his nuptials with Beatrice will be honoured if Colonel Esive away the bride When he went froreat names; but I think that they who best understood the e had gone

_Rachel Ray_ underwent a fate which no other novel of mine has encountered Some years before this a periodical called _Good Words_ had been established under the editorshi+p of my friend Dr Norow In 1863 he askedto me that his principles did not teach hithat he would feel hiht he rong in his choice; that though he ive a novel to the readers of _Good Words_, a novel from me would hardly be what he wanted, and that I could not undertake to write either with any specially religious tendency, or in any fashi+on different froht me wicked--as wicked as I had heretofore been, I must still be, should I write for _Good Words_ He persisted in his request, and I came to terms as to a story for the periodical I wrote it and sent it to him, and shortly afterwards received it back--a considerable portion having been printed--with an inti and repentance no man ever wrote It was, he said, all his own fault He should have taken my advice He should have known better But the story, such as it was, he could not give to his readers in the pages of _Good Words_ Would I forgive hiht subject ood There was some loss--or rather would have been--and thatthat the fault had in truth been with the editor There is the tale now to speak for itself It is not brilliant, nor in any way very excellent; but it certainly is not very wicked There is so in one of the early chapters, described, no doubt, with that approval of the amusement which I have always entertained; and it was this to which my friend de else, that one man's food is another man's poison

_Miss Mackenzie_ ritten with a desire to prove that a novel may be produced without any love; but even in this atteht be strong in my purpose, I took for my heroine a very unattractive old maid, as overwhelmed with money troubles; but even she was in love before the end of the book, and e with an old man There is in this story an attack upon charitable bazaars, made with a violence which will, I think, convince any reader that such atteto say that since that I have had no occasion to alterof 1865

At the sa a periodical Review, in which sos There was, however, in truth so little co us, that ere not justified in our trust or in our expectations And yet ere honest in our purpose, and have, I think, done soreed was freedom of speech, combined with personal responsibility We would be neither conservative nor liberal, neither religious nor free-thinking, neither popular nor exclusive;--but ould let anyto say, and kne to say it, speak freely But he should always speak with the responsibility of his naainst this iation of principles,--and did so ation of principles,--by declaring that nothing should appear denying or questioning the divinity of Christ It was a most preposterous claim to make for such a publication as we proposed, and it at once drove from us one or tho had proposed to join us But ent on, and our company--limited--was formed We subscribed, I think, 1250 each

I at least subscribed that a out our publication every fortnight, after the manner of the well-known French publication,--we called it _The Fortnightly_ We secured the services of G H Lewes as our editor We agreed to e our finances by a Board, which was to ht, and of which I was the Chairman And we determined that the payments for our literature should be made on a liberal and strictly ready-money systeone, and then we sold the copyright to Messrs Chapman & Hall for a trifle But before we parted with our property we found that a fortnightly issue was not popular with the trade through whose hands the work must reach the public; and, as our periodical had not become sufficiently popular itself to bear down such opposition, we succuht it out once a htly_, and still it is _The Fortnightly_ Of all the serial publications of the day, it probably is the most serious, the most earnest, the least devoted to amusement, the least flippant, the least jocose,--and yet it has the face to show itself month after month to the world, with so absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know the laws of e the naether new enterprise Therefore should the name be well chosen;--whereas this was very ill chosen, a fault for which I alone was responsible

That theory of eclecticisentleo into the House of Commons determined to support no party, but to serve his country by individual utterances

Such gentleone into the House of Commons, but they have not served their country much Of course the project broke down

Liberalis, and open inquiry will never object to appear in company with their opposites, because they have the conceit to think that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites will not appear in conjunction with liberalis, and open inquiry As a natural consequence, our new publication beca, and open inquiry The result has been good; and though there is htly_ hich I do not ree, I may safely say that the publication has assured an individuality, and asserted for itself a position in our periodical literature, which is well understood and highly respected

As toafter some increase in literary honesty, which I think is still desirable, but which is hardly to be attained by the means which then recommended themselves tothe signature of the authors to periodical writing, ad that the system should not be extended to journalistic articles on political subjects I think that I made the best of my case; but further consideration has caused me to doubt whether the reasons which induceddo not extend the on other subjects

Much of the literary criticism whichhave is very bad indeed;--so bad as to be open to the charge both of dishonesty and incapacity Books are criticised without being read,--are criticised by favour,--and are trusted by editors to the criticism of the incompetent If the names of the critics were demanded, editors would be et but little criticism, and that the public would put but little trust in that little An ordinary reader would not care to have his books recoreat unknown coht of the _Tih I admit so much, I am not a recreant from the doctrine I then preached I think that the nae that it will be inserted adds much to the author's industry and care It debars hiitimate license and dishonest assertions A e that which he is not ashaned, and in this way good has, I think, been done Signatures to articles in other periodicals have becohtly_ was commenced

After a ti that the work pressed too severely on his reat, and there was considerable difficulty in finding a successor I must say that the present proprietor has been fortunate in the choice he did make Mr John Morley has done the ith adot around hiht are e”much advanced” himself, would not ith other aids The periodical has a peculiar tone of its own; but it holds its oith ability, and though there are many who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it When the co spent about 9000 on it, it orth little or nothing Now I believe it to be a good property

My own last personal concern with it was on a [9] There came out in it an article fro the aeneral brutality Was it possible, asked Mr Free froht in so coarse a pursuit? Always bearing in arded this alainst the father I felt at any rate bound to answer Mr

Freeman in the same columns, and I obtained Mr Morley's per, and there it is In regard to the charge of cruelty, Mr Free unpleasant should be done to any of God's creatures except for a useful purpose The protection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a useful purpose; and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals may be snared in the snow and left to starve to death in the wires, in order that the lady h a tippet of ould serve the purpose as well as a tippet of fur But the congregation and healthful amusele fox may or may not be killed, is not a useful purpose I think that Mr Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is as needful and almost as necessary as food and raieneral brutality of the pursuit, and its consequent unfitness for an educated norance of what is really done and said in the hunting-field,--perhaps to hisof Cicero's words There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked for space for further remarks I could have it, the editor said, if I much wished it; but he preferred that the subject should be closed Of course I was silent His syainst the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would cease to exist in England And I felt that _The Fortnightly_ was hardly the place for the defence of the sport Afterwards Mr Freelad to publish my article in a little book to be put out by hienerally He was to have the last word and the first word, and that power of picking to pieces which he is known to use in so ed to decline If he would give me the last word, as he would have the first, then, I told him, I should be proud to join him in the book This offer did not however meet his views

[Footnote 9: I have written various articles for it since, especially two on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour]