VII AN AUTHOR’S POST-BAG “You have the letters Cadmus gave”——

As I sit down to write this paper I am experiencing a quite novel sensation. Most of us like to talk about ourselves when any one will listen, and nearly all of us do so now and then. But to write about one’s self in the reasonable expectation that a large number of people, friends, enemies and those who are indifferent, will read what one has written, is curious. There have been times when an interviewer has come from a Magazine and I have found myself trying to explain my views, to answer questions that were put, with some degree of fluency, to do myself justice and yet not to be egotistical in a somewhat difficult situation. Knowing quite well what I wanted to say, and exactly how I wished to explain myself, I have listened to my words with a kind of embarrassed wonder at their inadequacy. “What an ass this fellow must be thinking me!” has been one’s continual thought. Then, when the interview appears, sometimes with pictures of “Mr. Guy Thorne at his desk,” “the dining-room,” “shooting upon the moor,” one finds that the writer has made a nice smooth sequence of the conversation, just as the photographer has taken charming pictures of one’s carefully-arranged furniture. Yet one was rather prevented from really saying what one would have liked to say because of the interviewer’s presence as the medium who was to give the words to the public. This is a foolish self-consciousness, no doubt, but it is not easy to overcome. Now, and at this moment, there is no such restriction upon free speech. The snow is driving over the Dover cliffs, no sound penetrates to the ancient room in which I write, and for the first time in my life I am sitting down to talk of myself, as an author to his readers.

The essay has come to be written in this way. There were still some pages of this book to fill when last week, I was asked to open a bazaar in Dover. The vicar said a good many absurdly kind things about my stories when he introduced me to the people there, and afterwards I had to stand a continuous fire of questions for two hours. I could not understand, and I do not now understand, why any one should be interested in the personal explanations of a writer as to how he writes, what happens when he is writing, and so forth. I do not often go to a theatre, but when I do I never buy a programme. I don’t want to know the private name of the lady who plays Ophelia or the gentleman who is the Hamlet of the night. I pay my money in order that they shall be Hamlet and Ophelia to me, that I shall watch the agonies of a dark and troubled spirit, shall sigh over the tender fancies of an unhappy love-sick girl, and the more I am forced to realize that the gentleman is Mr. Jones, who was fined five pounds in the morning for driving his motor-car too fast, the less real he is as the Prince.

But, although this is my way of thinking, I am well aware it is not the general way; and as I have proved for myself that there is a demand for some sort of personal explanation, and as I endeavour to conduct my trade of writing upon common-sense principles, this essay is getting itself written.

Addison said that “So excessive is the egotism of the egotist that he makes himself the darling theme of contemplation; he admires and loves himself to that degree that he can talk of nothing else.” This is an obvious statement, and made with little of Mr. Secretary’s usual charm of style. But it is perfectly true. I beg leave to submit, however, that what I am doing here is not so much an act of egotism—egoism is the better word—but a legitimate statement for those, if there are any, who care to read it.

I have strong convictions upon certain points, and I endeavour to pack my stories with these convictions. That, by doing this, I please many readers who think as I do I am presently going to show, by quoting some of their letters which have reached me.

A novel is simply this: it is a certain portion of the lives of certain people imagined by the author and seen through his temperament. Very well then; let me proceed to prove that the modern nonsense which would have people believe that Christianity in fiction is against the canons of art, is simply a lie.

The life of every single human being in England is punctuated and impinged upon by Christianity. As I pointed out in my first essay, the usual modern novel never mentions—never even mentions!—Sunday. Yet on Sunday, the shops, factories, theatres and public-houses close. The drunkard has as much reason to find Sunday the most dismal day in the week as the saint to know it the happiest and best. For half-an-hour in every town and village the bells of church and chapel ring—if indeed chapels are “ritualistic” enough to have bells, a point upon which I am not informed!

And again, speaking of the constant reminder we all have of religion, every coin we have in our pockets bears the inscription rex fid. def.—our King is officially known as the Defender of the Christian Faith. Every day as I write, the newspapers are full of the controversy—the religious controversy—of the Education Bill. Each time you and I go to a concert we finish it with the music of the National Anthem, which is a prayer to God that he will bless and preserve the Dynasty. Is it necessary to multiply instances? I think not.

How can any one say, as the literary critics have sometimes said of my own books and of others much more important, that “religion” is out of place in a novel?

As I have pointed out at some length, the greatest novels are one and all permeated with the sense of religion. Take your Thackeray and read in Vanity Fair of George Osborne going out to battle and first saying “Our Father” with his wife. Read the works of this great writer and regard how, whenever a great emotion, a poignant situation occurs, so surely the author sends up a prayer to Almighty God either in his own person or that of his characters. In that almost greatest of English novels, Charles Reade’s The Cloister and the Hearth, the hero dies with the holy name of Jesus on his lips. There is religion in Pickwick!—we read of the Christmas of Dingley Dell. In Les Misérables, that huge epic novel, Victor Hugo has drawn more than one saint of God, has made Christianity the motive of his drama.

It is so in life, be certain that it is and always will be. Christianity is the central thing, the only important thing, and the attempt to minimize its importance and influence is as the chirping of a linnet on the roadside as some stately procession passes by.

They say. What say they? Let them say!

But let no one be deluded into believing that the printed sneers of those who are afraid to recognize our Lord represent any real opinion, any weight of opinion, as to the public distaste to Christianity as an integral part of the fiction which they buy.

Sir Arthur Helps once said, “The influence of works of fiction is unbounded. Even the minds of well-informed people are more often stored with characters from acknowledged fiction than from history or biography, or the real life around them. We dispute about these characters as if they were realities. Their experience is our experience; we adopt their feelings and imitate their acts. Shakespeare’s Plays were the only history to the Duke of Marlborough. Thousands of Greeks acted under the influence of what Achilles or Ulysses did in Homer.”

All this is entirely true. As a young American novelist once put it to me, “To-day is the day of the novel.” In no other day and by no other vehicle is contemporaneous life so adequately expressed, and the critics of the twenty-second century, reviewing our times, striving to reconstruct our civilization, will look not to the painters, not to the architects nor dramatists, but to the novelists to find our idiosyncrasy.

This is by no means intended as an apologia for the sort of tales I write. I know that it is my duty to write them, the duty I owe to my own convictions, and however badly I write them I am doing my best. No, I am not apologizing for my point of view. I am only trying to suggest that even in my greatest artistic failures my artistic standpoint can’t be assailed. Any critic who says that because I write as a Christian and that therefore (and for that reason only) my books are inartistic, is wrong.

I have headed this article “An Author’s Post-Bag” et cetera. Probably you will be wondering when I am going to justify the title. I will begin to do so now.

Post-time is always a recurring wonder to me. The lowest classes of all, the people who don’t get letters, are incapable of experiencing more than a third of the sensations which the highly-organized life of our time has to offer us.

A novelist, and I have no reason to think that I am any exception to the rule, receives a very varied correspondence. The business side of his operations is more extensive than the layman would suppose. The writer whose output is regular and whose work is in demand has an almost daily letter to receive from his agent. There is the question of a serial for this or that paper, an editor wants a short story, a publisher is writing impatient letters to the agent for a book that is overdue, “close times” for various books have to be arranged so that they do not clash between various publishers—he is confronted every day with an infinity of detail which even such an experienced and assiduous agent as I myself am fortunate to possess cannot save him.

When the business letters have been read, there is his own private correspondence, and then the great mass of communications from people whom one has never heard of and never seen. It is of these letters that I would speak, and of their varied appeals to one’s pocket, one’s vanity, the sense of gratitude and the feeling of anger.

As Cowper said, “None but an author knows an author’s cares,” and not the least of them is the number of letters he receives asking for money. There is a rooted idea in the general mind that fame and fortune come immediately a writer publishes his first book. A novelist is popularly supposed to be a man of affluence in the twentieth century, just as in the eighteenth century he was known to be a pauper. “All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of bookmaking were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas.... A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night cellars.” Well, we have progressed since then certainly. There are beds to sleep in, food to eat and fire upon the hearth for most of us. Nevertheless the ordinary novelist is nearly always a poor man, sometimes bitter poor. I know what I am talking about and there is not an author, agent or publisher who would not say the same. For the first book I ever wrote I received ten pounds, and this was paid in two instalments. Until four years ago thirty pounds was the largest sum I had received for a long novel.

The word “royalty” has a fine sound. It is a purple word and opens vistas to the outsider of luxury and ease. Yet in its literary application it is the biggest humbug and liar of a word that ever masqueraded for what it is not. There are plenty of “royalties” that will not pay the third-class return fare between London and Penzance. A great personal friend of mine, a man of culture and real love of human event, wrote his first novel three years ago. He had something definite to say, knew how to say it, and had a first-rate plot. For months and months I saw him toiling lovingly at his novel. When it was written he found a publisher willing to produce it, and it duly appeared. In almost every case the reviews were extremely laudatory. Papers of position and weight praised it unreservedly, to all appearances the book was a definite success—a minor success, no doubt, but a success. From first to last his earnings realized five pounds, and neither he nor I have reason to believe that his publisher cheated him in the matter of sales. Here is the written testimony of what I say, given by an author who died after producing four or five really excellent and successful novels.

“Take, then, an unusually lucky instance, literally a novel whose success is extraordinary, a novel which has sold 2500 copies. I repeat that this is an extraordinary success. Not one book out of fifteen will do as well. But let us consider it. The author has worked upon it for—at the very least—six months. It is published. Twenty-five hundred copies are sold. Then the sale stops. And by the word stop one means cessation in the completest sense of the word. There are people—I know plenty of them—who suppose that when a book is spoken of as having stopped selling, a generality is intended, that merely a falling off of the initial demand has occurred. Error. When a book—a novel—stops selling, it stops with a definiteness of an engine when the fire goes out. It stops with a suddenness that is appalling, and thereafter not a copy, not one single, solitary copy is sold. And do not for an instant suppose that ever after the interest may be revived. A dead book can no more be resuscitated than a dead dog.

“But to go back. The 2500 have been sold. The extraordinary, the marvellous has been achieved. What does the author get out of it? A royalty of ten per cent. Eighty-three pounds six shillings and eightpence for six months’ hard work. Roughly less than £3 9s. 0d. a week. An expert carpenter will easily make much more than that, and the carpenter has infinitely the best of it in that he can keep the work up year in and year out, where the novelist must wait for a new idea, and the novel writer must then jockey and manœuvre for publication. Two novels a year is about as much as the writer can turn out and yet keep a marketable standard. Even admitting that both the novels sell 2500 copies there is only £166 13s. 4d. of profit. One may well ask the question: Is fiction writing a money-making profession?

“The astonishing thing about the affair is that a novel may make a veritable stir, almost a sensation, and yet fail to sell very largely.

“There is so-and-so’s book. Everywhere you go you hear about it. Your friends have read it. It is in demand at the libraries. You don’t pick up a paper that does not contain a review of the story in question. It is in the ‘Book of the Month’ column. It is even, even—the pinnacle of achievement—in that shining roster, the list of best sellers of the week.

“Why, of course, the author is growing rich! Ah, at last he has arrived! No doubt he will build a country house out of his royalties. Lucky fellow; one envies him.

“Catch him unawares and what is he doing? As like as not writing unsigned book reviews at thirty shillings a week in order to pay his lodging bill—and glad of the chance.”

This is absolutely and literally true.

Yet novelists are perhaps more pestered than any other people by requests for help. A writer who, like myself, can live in fair comfort by means of unceasing labour, but is not even a well-to-do man, to say nothing of a “wealthy one,” receives innumerable letters to which he is quite unable to reply as the applicants would wish, but which are most distressing to read. At a time when I certainly had not a hundred pounds in the world, I received the following letter—of course I suppress the name and address.

“—— Vicarage, “——shire.

“My dear Sir,

“Thank you a thousand times for When it was Dark. I am now looking forward to Friday, when your next book begins in the Daily Mail. I have been reading about you to-day and have taken courage to ask your help. You say ‘Let nothing disturb thee,’ etc. How can I help it in such trouble as mine. My husband has failed in health from years of hard work, and out of an income of under £200 a year we are paying a curate £100. At this moment we are in extremes. My boy is reading for Holy Orders, and we are in need of funds for his expenses. He has been two years a licensed lay reader, and is a thorough Catholic and has the highest testimonials. Will you help me in my need to-day with a donation. I can give references, and for any help I shall be so thankful. Please forgive me for troubling you.”

I have no doubt that this appeal is quite genuine, and a very poignant comment it is upon the way in which the priests of the Church of England are paid. This type of letter is not a pleasant one to receive when one is sitting down to work. The imagination with which one is endowed and by which one earns one’s bread, is not a faculty very easy to discipline or to control, and the power which should be devoted to the chapter one is engaged upon wanders away and constructs a picture of want and sorrow which one is quite powerless to alleviate.

Nor is it once or twice that such letters as this arrive. Here is a far more piteous document still, if it is genuine. I think that when you have read it you will agree with me that it is genuine enough. There is nothing of the ordinary begging letter about it; and if the writer could invent such a story, he ought not to be so hopelessly unable to earn a single halfpenny by his pen. It is to be observed also that in this case the writer wants work, not money.

“London, N.

“Dear Sir,

“About two years ago I arrived in England from Australia, with the object of striving to gain a footing in literature, but so far have been unsuccessful. I have written two novels and numerous short stories and articles, but I have ever had them rejected, and all I can show for my work is a pile of publishers’ letters. My resources long since gave out, and I worked myself into the lowest poverty, and then I was prostrated by a long illness. Knowing, sir, that you have had much to do with journalistic work, I decided to write and ask you if you knew of any one in the city—or elsewhere—to whom you could refer me for some employment. I am practically destitute, and knowing no one in London makes it extremely difficult for me to get anything to do. About six months ago I was turned out of my lodgings owing to arrears of rent, and then I commenced tramping the country in the hope of getting work. I managed to get three weeks’ hop-picking, but nothing else, and so for a while I tramped aimlessly about, being exposed to all kinds of weather, sleeping in haystacks, or wherever else offered, until at last my health again gave way. It was then that I called on a well-known novelist, and he was very kind and assisted me, at the same time expressing a wish to see my works. They were sent for, and duly forwarded on to his agents, and I have been advised to write books for boys, the agent expressing his opinion that I would succeed in this, but as I am situated writing is out of the question. When I met this novelist my health failed utterly, and I was compelled to go into the infirmary for a while, and whilst there he wrote telling me to try and get some practice in journalistic work and to study for a while until I gained a little more experience.

“I think he is out of England at present, but he gave me permission to use his letter as a reference if I needed it. Well, sir, I returned to London about a month ago, and managed to get a few days’ work envelope addressing at Morgan and Scott’s, in Paternoster Row, but so far I have been unable to find anything else to do. I am very anxious to get some work immediately, and if you could help me in this I should be indeed grateful. I care not of what nature the employment may be, manual or otherwise, if I can only get it at once.

“Apologizing for troubling you,

“I am, “Dear Sir, “Yours faithfully.”

Some time ago a drawing appeared in the Daily Mail of a Cornish cottage where I was then living. Within a week, by a curious coincidence, I received three water-colour drawings of the place, made from the sketch in the newspaper. Two were excellent, and accompanied by the kindest letters; they hang on my walls now. The third was by no means a work of art, to say the very least of it, and this letter came with it:—

“North Kensington.

“I am sending you a copy of the cottage I have painted from the sketch in the Daily Mail of November 16 last, if you will accept it.

“I must explain that I am only a very poor hand at such work. The fact of the matter is that through much illness and lost trade that I am left very badly off, and seeing the sketch and account of your work, thought perhaps if I could paint a few copies and you would introduce the matter to your many friends I could sell some to them, which would assist me to earn something, my health being bad and getting on to seventy years of age it is not much I can do. You will understand that I do not know anything of the appearance of the country around the cottage. I have not been in that part, so all I have put in is imaginary. Will you please say what you think to it, and how much you think I could sell them for. I have not means to buy canvas so have painted on card. Your kind assistance in this matter will great oblige

“Yours truly.”

I have quoted but three letters from a vast pile of others. “Que vivre est difficile ô mon cœur fatigué!” says the French poet, and nobody knows it better than the English novelist. But with the best will in the world we cannot help everybody. Charity begins at home, its sun rises there and should set abroad, but it is limited by the purse of the giver. Among all the contents of his post-bag such letters are the most distressing to the author, and add enormously to a difficult and often very thankless task.

But such letters as these and all worries ejusdem generis are, after all, only a small portion of my post-bag. During the last year or two I have received hundreds and hundreds of letters from all parts of the world—letters which have given me inexpressible happiness. I think I may be forgiven for quoting some of them here. The real reward of an author’s labours lies in the sympathy and appreciation of his readers, and in that alone. When, moreover, a writer works with a definite object in view, the purpose of leading others to believe what he himself believes, such letters are indeed a strong stay and holdfast which console for any amount of misrepresentation and bring a veritable oil of joy for mourning.

A priest writes:—

“Sir

“I don’t ask you because I know you will pardon a stranger for addressing you, and I shall not say much. And the little I mean to say I hardly know how to express. Some few years ago I was a vicar in——. Now I am sick in body and soul. I had lost all my faith, but I have been reading Made in His Image, and to-day I prayed for the first time for more than a year, and tears came, and I don’t know if you heard my voice calling to you.

“I should like to see you. Can it be?

“Yours, “De Profundis.”

A gentleman from Hull tells me:—

“Dear Sir,

“You will please pardon the intrusion of this letter. I am a Sunday School teacher, and have been a Christian for three years.

“A month ago, as a result of reading the Clarion and Haeckel, I became disturbed in my mind, and wished to resign my class. I sought the assistance of my minister. Instead of answering my doubts himself he placed a copy of When it was Dark in my hand, telling me to read it prayerfully, and go to him again. The following evening I completed the reading of a book whose influence will live with me. My dear sir, I feel I cannot thank you half enough, and I shall never cease to thank God that the book was written.

“I saw my minister, not with any doubts this time, but with my faith renewed, and with a fixed determination to work harder for my Divine Master.

“I expect you will receive many letters expressing thanks, but I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony.

“Allow me to remain, sir,

“Yours very faithfully.”

And here is another kind letter from Bridgewater, again from a man:—

“Dear ‘Mr. Thorne,’

“Will you please accept my best thanks for your book, When it was Dark. I started to read it as one distinctly prejudiced against it, but I finished the last page saying, ‘It is wonderful.’ I only wish that those who condemn it would read it for themselves and see the forcible manner in which you have depicted what the world would be if the Resurrection was a myth. Faith cannot but be strengthened by reading it, and the coming Eastertide will be more real to me through having read When it was Dark.

“Wishing you every success and happiness.”

From Brantford in far-away Canada this letter reaches me:—

“Dear Sir and Friend,

“After reading your splendid edition, When it was Dark, I take this manner in addressing. The book impressed me very greatly from start to finish, and it always will be henceforth a great pleasure, and I am sure a great help, to read your publications. We greatly need in this world to-day good strong men who will set forth their thoughts in a fearless manner. This is in a very large measure the way the book appealed to me.

“It is with a great deal of sincere pleasure I note in the—— Magazine (which publication is in our home) for a coming issue the beginning of one of Guy Thorne’s stories. The writer is a young man of twenty years and a Methodist, and presume I am taking up too much of a good man’s time. But I might say my idea in writing was to convey from a Canadian my thanks for the good which I have received, and many others in our city, from the reading of this one work.

“Wishing you every success in your work,

“Yours sincerely.”

From Brixton:—

“Dear Sir,

“Among the shoals of letters which doubtless you now receive may I place this, so that I may thank you for the invaluable work which you are doing in writing your novels.

“The article in to-day’s Daily Mail shows me that you have grasped the ideal which I have tried to attain since my teens (three years).

“I am one of the lonely digits in ‘diggins,’ who either fall or rise, according to the company they keep. I have thus found that religion is to man what the rudder is to the crew of a ship.

“I have regularly attended church since my exile, and delight to hear the beautiful service of the English Church. Are they not precious words and inspiring. The service effectually clears me of that ugly black cloak of worldliness which clings to me during the working days.

“This, I believe, is the lesson which you are engraving so well on the minds of all people.

“I conclude with the wish that your pen will ever respond to the spirit which now animates you.”

Again from a far country, this time near East Guzna, W. Tarsus, Cilicia:—

“My Dear Sir,

“For weeks I have wanted to write and thank you for your book, When it was Dark, but I have been laid aside with fever. It stirs thousands of us, and you must feel thankful as you look round to see the success which is granted you in drawing people to ponder upon subjects of such weight. You will like to know that I have spread your book right and left in Cyprus, having obtained three copies, one of which I sent to a Judge.

“Your account of the ride to Nablous is a vivid word picture, and you must, I think, be familiar with the East.

“May I say that I find a dignity and vivacity in your book, dealing as you do with so solemn and glorious a subject as our Lord’s Resurrection, which I firmly hold, and have been accustomed to put in the forefront of my teaching as missionary both in Australia and Russia.

“At present my work lies in Cyprus, where I find good opportunities of helping on friendliness with the Greek Church.

“I am now on holiday, and have just given away my last copy of When it was Dark while staying in the Carmelite Monastery at Haiffa, with those charming French Pères, to an American canon who was also there.

“Sir, what I want to do is to suggest that you should have your book translated into French and German. I lent it to a French engineer a month ago, and I feel sure it would do good in those countries. Think this out. You might take the advice of some competent friend.

“I should like to do the translating myself, but I should make so many mistakes, Magna est veritas, et prævalebit.

“Have sent home for A Lost Cause, and am expecting another treat, with some salt of sarcasm.

“With sincere respect and gratitude.”

My kind correspondent’s idea has been carried out, I am glad to say. The book in question has been translated into French and German and several other languages. And in this regard I may perhaps mention the surprise I have felt on learning that the French issue has already gone into three editions. I am in France a good deal each year, and know something of the temper of the reading public there to-day. I had not thought that many people would read the book.

From San Remo, in Italy, this letter comes:—

“Dear Sir,

“I read last week When it was Dark and wish each of my children to have a copy, as it will show them what the Christian Faith means to the world. I still hold to the simple faith of my childhood taught me by my dear parents, which carried each through a peaceful death-bed. Our Heavenly Father, the King of kings and the only Ruler of princes, sacrificed His beloved Son for His people, and allowed His cruel death, knowing that in the future the thought of His terrible sufferings would touch the hearts of most and often keep them from sinning. I have never doubted His Resurrection, neither would I allow any person to suggest that doubt in my presence. And to me the convincing proof that He was indeed the Son of God is, that He rose again from the dead, He ascended to Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of His Father—God only could possess this power. How very lax we are apt to become and take as our due that great sacrifice.

“I send to Mr. Guy Thorne my little testimony and best wishes, as I cannot thank him personally for reminding me so fully how dark it would indeed be for us all had we not our beloved Saviour always ready and willing to intercede with His Holy Father for us poor erring mortals. Some one said to me, of course Guy Thorne makes a good thing out of his book. I replied, certainly, it is his due to be paid for the labour of his brain, and in this case he fully deserves it, as he might have written a book leading many farther away instead of bringing them nearer to the Cross. Also the interesting style of When it was Dark will induce many to read it. Whereas, if it were very dry, none of us would wade half through.”

An old clergyman in Wales writes thus:—

“Rectory, Brecon.

“Dear Sir,

“I am seventy; at seventeen I had read more novels and other literature than nine out of ten lads of my age. For years past I can’t read novels. My daughters sometimes induce me to start one, but after a couple of chapters I throw it on one side feeling strongly inclined to exclaim with Conan Doyle’s school-boy, ‘Rot.’

“After reading the Life of Father Dolling, one of my married daughters brought me When it was Dark, which I promised to read, and enjoyed it very much. My wife devoured it.

“This won’t interest you very much, but the following fact may. A few days after finishing your book our rural post-messenger—an old army man—we live quite in the country—came to me, quite confidentially, and said he had a book he was quite sure I should enjoy; he produced it—it was When it was Dark! Poor fellow! he seemed so disappointed when he found I had read it. A fortnight ago an Irish lady and her daughter stayed with us. They were good church women. They left me a book for perusal. It is A Lost Cause. I have read it and enjoyed it. It reminds me of Father Dolling and Kensit and Son.

“I hope you will give us many more. We want Catholic truth placed before people in an attractive dress. We want to break down the great wall of Protestant ignorance and prejudice. Your books are doing this.

“Don’t heed letters in the Daily Press. I saw a letter in the Daily Mail. These letters are only a proof that your books are telling. Go straight forward and may every success and blessing attend your efforts. This is the earnest wish of

“Yours truly.”

I was intensely interested to receive this letter from India:—

“—— Mission, “Madras, “South India.

“Dear Sir,

“As you are not unwilling to receive letters from strangers, perhaps this from a distant land might not be unacceptable to you. I am a missionary and have not read two novels during the last five years (but thousands before then), but a friend of mine having read your When it was Dark persuaded me to read it.

“I was greatly interested in the first few pages describing the scenes of my birth and young manhood. I suppose Walktown is meant for ——, if so, I was born in that part of Salford, and although I belonged to St. —— Church, I attended very frequently St. —— as the senior church of the district.

“I enclose an account of my conversion which will no doubt interest you. I have thought many a time that it would be an admirable theme for a novel. There are many other incidents in my life that would lend interest, especially my association with some of the most notorious anarchists of England and the Continent, and America, I was also a journalist on the Clarion, and a bosom friend of Robert Blatchford for fourteen years, John Burns, the new Cabinet Minister, slept at my house when he was an unemployed mechanic in 1885. I was personally acquainted with Mrs. Annie Besant for many years, and now she is here in Madras, the head-quarters of the Theosophical Society. I have renewed my acquaintance with her.

“I have come to think that much good might be done by treating of sacred subjects in the form that you have done, as you can by this means reach the minds and souls of those millions whom the Church cannot reach.

“The University here is turning out educated Hindus who, having parted with their heathenism have taken up Western scepticism in its place, and our Christian Missionaries are helpless to avert it, the youth here are swamped by the cheap Rationalist reprints. Could we but supply them with novels of Western life showing up the folly of Haeckel, Blatchford, Spencer and Co., in the manner you have done, it would be a powerful counter-attraction.

“Yours in Him we love.

“P.S.—The British people also need a novel that will show up ‘Blatchfordism,’ and you now have the ear of the reading public.”

It is curious that in many of the letters I receive Mr. Robert Blatchford’s name is mentioned. With some minds his writings have great power and influence, probably I imagine because of their real sincerity of purpose. It is the more cheering to know that an honest effort to render the Incarnation increasingly credible to the man in the street is not without reward. It is as difficult for me to disbelieve in the fact that Christ was God as it is difficult for Mr. Blatchford to believe it. Where one man sees a landscape the other sees only a map. But there are, nevertheless, a great many people who deny the Catholic Faith because, while they desire to retain the name of Christians, they are unwilling to accept the obligations of Christianity. And while looking about for something to believe, a necessity of the human soul, they either find it in Mrs. Eddy and other false prophets, or finally join issue with the editor of the Clarion.

An author’s letter-bag is always full of surprises, and such a correspondence as I am privileged to receive often entails a vast amount of extra work. But it is almost impossible not to reply to at least two-thirds of the letters that reach one, and though reply sometimes leads to a lengthy interchange of letters all are helpful and encourage one to continue, while some are full of the most illuminating suggestions.

Of this the following letter from one of the Canons of Durham Cathedral is a typical example:—

“Dear Sir,

“In your coming story I hope you will lay stress on the fact that our ‘higher’ education is practically a Pagan one. All University honours, fellowships, scholarships, prizes are for proficients in Pagan literature; interesting (for some people). Beautiful in language as this literature is, it lacks the spirit and power of the Christian Faith. The common rooms smell of Plato and Aristotle. There is no cross in a Don’s life, as such, though a few rise above the normal standard.

“This system filters through the public schools down to the smallest private schools, in most of which the daily bread, the upholding of Christ as Saviour, teacher, master, example and king is left out.

“At Eton, where I was myself, religious teaching did not exist. We had Sunday questions of which one specimen will suffice, given to my nephew the other day.

“‘Of what judge is a curious incident recorded and what was the incident?’ The result of this is far-reaching and deplorable.

“In Parliament the members assemble by troops to hear about some personal scandal, but when the happiness of English girlhood is in question there is hardly a ‘house.’ And so with other questions that concern the personal holiness and happiness of our men and women and children.

“Forgive me for this taking up of your time, but your pen may do what I feel myself unable to do.”

I have received a good many letters from clergymen endorsing the views I expressed in my book called First it was Ordained, views which I have consolidated in the previous essay, “The Fires of Moloch.” I give only one example owing to reasons of space. In view, however, of the strong opposition which exists, and of which I have had plenty of evidence, to any attempt to tell the truth, the following short letter, which is typical of many others, was a great pleasure to get:—

“The Clergy House, “—— E.C.

“May I say how much I have enjoyed your last book? First, &c. It was hard to put it down without finishing it straight off.

“I hope it will do a power of good to stop the fearful and widespread sin.

“I do not think it at all too outspoken. The Bishop of London is quite plain on the matter. I believe a learned gynæcologist has an article supporting the statements made in his speech, in last month’s Nineteenth Century.”

I began by complaining that my post-bag often contained distressing letters asking for help which I was generally unable to supply. When I read over the correspondence which I have printed here I feel that I ought to regard my letter-box as a coffer of treasure, that my postman is indeed that same Hermes who brought the magic herb to Odysseus, my letters—

I only made what at the time I thought was a very small collection to print here—just a thin bundle taken from hundreds. Yet already I find that a third of the little pile has nearly filled my space and I fear that my readers will weary, even if they have read so far.

“The man is printing his testimonials like a pill-maker!” I can hear Meletus snarl. “Who cares whether a few stupid people do like his twaddle!” Lycom answers. Yet bear with me a little, brethren; you need not have read this paper, you know. Laugh if you will; laughter is the great agent that preserves a sense of proportion among us, and the man who laughs sounds the keynote of tolerance. But laugh kindly, remembering the vanity of authors and the wish of all of us to stand well with the world.

My post-bag day by day contains a certain missive which is not a letter. It is a little green, printed wrapper which most authors, painters, players, and musicians are in the habit of receiving—it is the batch of press-cuttings which show how the critics regard my books and what the paragraphists have to say. The critics are always being criticized by authors. Mr. Jones gravely points out the duty of appreciating his work that the reviewer owes to literature. Nor is it, as Mr. Birrell pointed out, in the days when he wrote delightful essays and had not been forced to dance to the dictates of political dissent, the unsuccessful author who is the loudest in complaint. The beginner, the men and women who cannot say as yet that they have achieved a definite position, these seem to have digested the poet laureate’s neat advice—

But others are not so reticent. For my part I cannot understand the attitude of the novelist who publishes shouts of resentment at criticism which is not to his liking—remember, in view of what I am going to say later, that I use the word criticism. The other day, while on a journey to the Riviera, I bought a copy of Miss Marie Corelli’s last book of essays, in Paris. I read it through the night until I fell asleep, and when the sun flooded the olive trees I took it up once more, and finished it just as we ran into Marseilles. I suppose that this lady is the most popular writer of the day. She is a great modern force; she reaches an enormous audience, and speaks straight to their hearts. I have heard dozens of men and women say that they prefer her to any author alive or dead. Now this is surely to be in a very splendid position, is it not? Why, then, should a woman whose talents have won for her such place and power, print an angry, comprehensive, and I am afraid sometimes, spiteful indictment of all critics? I can’t see her reason.

Destouches wrote:—

Miss Corelli assumes that all the reviewers are venal and dishonest, and that because they do not praise her books, books which are so influential and popular, they are bad critics. Reviewers, take them all in all, are nothing of the sort. I have written hundreds of book reviews. I have reviewed for the Saturday Review, the Academy, and the Bookman, among other journals. Therefore you may assume that I met plenty of other critics, and know their polity and ways. We were all honest enough in those days—that I say without any doubt at all. I remember Mr. Frank Harris, the then editor of the Saturday, giving me a certain novel to review, and expressing himself with great point and freedom about it. As I was leaving his room he called me back, and said, as well as I can remember his words, “Remember that this is only my point of view, and what I want in this case is yours. You may like the stuff, and if you do, of course you will say so.”

I didn’t like it, and said so, but I have never forgotten the incident.

As I said in the beginning of this paper, directly my stories began to be occupied with religion as the force, qui fait le monde à la ronde, some of the critics began to be unkind. But what on earth is the use of wasting one’s own time, and the time of the public, in fussing and complaining? The people who said this about my work were quite sincere. Their opinion is quite as good as mine, however much I don’t agree with it. Quot homines tot sententiæ. My business is to earn a living for myself and for those who are dependent on me. Thank God I can do so. My duty is to hammer away at the doctrines in which I believe, and endeavour to get others to believe in them. Therefore I must not “call or cry aloud.” I must go on doing what I am doing, and doing it sans rançune.

Remember, and I wish Miss Corelli, for example, could see this also, that criticism of novels in our day is a purely literary criticism. The theory of modern criticism is that Art is a thing by itself and owes no duty to Ethics. The reason for Art is, art. Ten years ago I think I would almost have gone to the stake for this doctrine. I believed in it devoutly; I couldn’t be patient, even, in the presence of any one who argued otherwise. I well remember the indignant anger with which I repudiated the suggestion of my father, a clergyman, that when I grew older and had suffered, when I came into real contact with the great central facts of life, I should think very differently. He was perfectly right. Art is the essential part of fiction, but it is not destroyed because it is employed as the handmaid of an ethical standpoint.

But this truth is no reason for “answering back” the critics who do not appreciate it. Nothing is quite true—except The Incarnation—a naïve statement you may call it, but as a corollary of the epigram, true too! It is better, by far, to realize that modern criticism is most valuable from the purely literary point of view, and yet that the purely literary point of view is only one side of the model the artist must study before he learns how to draw.

Therefore, when any critic tells me of this or that fault in technique, I take his expert opinion for what it is worth—an expert opinion—and try to learn from his criticism. I try to learn and do better. When the post-bag discloses a criticism obviously animated by personal prejudice or dictated by the religious politics of the paper in which it appears, I grin and bear it—though I don’t like it!—and console myself with the verse composed by the American poet whose critics were always unfair, or at least he said so—

No author, who has a public at all, suffers from criticism which is fair or even from criticism which is unfair.

An author is not well advised in publicly answering or combating either.

When Disraeli said that the critics were the “people who had failed in literature and art,” he forgot that bad wine often makes excellent vinegar. I am quite certain that I have never suffered in the suffrages of my readers—and so in pocket!—from hostile criticism. And I have had any amount of it—the little green wrapper is not always pleasant reading. But I have never shouted out that I have been personally hurt or wounded by hostile criticism, and I certainly never shall. The days are past when the Quarterly could kill Keats, and the days have not arrived when the reprobatory finger which is sometimes wagged at one can take one’s bread-and-butter away.

But sometimes—and now, please, I unsheathe my toy sword, or at least flourish my cane—the postman brings something that cannot hurt one seriously, though it stings. This something is not criticism at all. It stings, not because of the actual attempt—even the smallest plants cannot grow unhampered by insect life—but because, puny as it may be, it is so manifestly unfair. In this regard I can sympathize with Miss Corelli because, however the critics may write of her books from the literary pedestal, they sometimes write of her, from a shelter trench, in a very different way.

One morning I read a little sneer about myself which was entirely without justification or explanation. It occurred in a Catholic magazine, which I will call The Thesaurus, dated June 1906, and was written by the editor, who may be designated as the Rev. Mr. Roget. Here it is:—

“Perhaps one of those authors whom the public love—Miss Corelli, Mr. Hall Caine, or Mr. ‘Guy Thorne’—may be preparing a novel with the education controversy as its theme. In that case, one can only hope devoutly that the Bishop of London will not think it advisable to advertise the book from the pulpit. Yet if one could only have heard a frank opinion of When it was Dark expressed by the last Bishop of London—Dr. Creighton—that would indeed have been a joy.”

The Thesaurus is a pleasant little magazine devoted to quite innocuous fiction and articles. It has, in the number I quote above, nine pages of advertisements, an article called “In the Engadine,” a “Few hints on church embroidery,” a very happily named story called “In a Dull Moment,” etc, etc. Indeed it could not hurt a fly. I say this much, not because I have any dislike for this nice little periodical, but in order to point out that in answering its editor’s remarks about me, I am not endeavouring to become known to the world, and to advertise myself by the endeavour to link my name to its editor’s.

There is a certain sort of hurried and sporadic writing which is not criticism, but is irresponsible nonsense set down to fill a page no less than to gratify a prejudice.

It’s all give and take in literary polemics. People are always going for one in the press, and very often with perfect justice. But when one reads remarks like those I have quoted, and remarks written by a Mr. Roget, then, if it amuses one, there is at least a text for a small monition.

Miss Marie Corelli is very well able to look after herself. However much Mr. Roget may endeavour to pillory this lady in his “Study Window,” I don’t suppose she cares. She is a great modern force; Mr. Roget isn’t. Mr. Hall Caine will not, I imagine, try to stop being one of the authors “whom the public love” because of the editor of The Thesaurus. Nor have I, the humblest person in the trilogy, yet suffered.

And, believe me, it is not because I personally care much that I am writing like this, nor is Mr. Roget any armed assassin in a narrow path. But such an one ought to be laughed at a little, because he is typical of a class of young men who should be taught the economy of reserve.

Mr. Roget did not explain his reasons for attacking me, though I, quite frankly, give mine for attacking him. But as—through the lamentable chances of war—my remarks will be read by a great many more folk than his were read by, we are quits, and I can start fair, though with all the rigour of the game.

The Editor in his paragraph not only states that he himself does not like one of my stories—i.e., When it was Dark, but implies that the Bishop of London was not justified in liking it, and saying that he liked it in public.

It is quite within Mr. Roget’s right not to like the book—thousands of people didn’t like it. But what are his functions for sneering at it with confidence and weight?

First of all his age is thirty-six, and he is the editor of The Thesaurus.

We can dismiss those qualifications at once.

Then he is the Vicar of a Worcestershire church, and a well-known writer of light verse.

He began his journalistic career in 1890 by contributing “turnovers” to the Globe, has contributed to Punch and The Nineteenth Century, is a leader writer on a Church paper, and reviews theological books.

This is his journalistic career, and he has written seven little books in all, mostly verse. I take these particulars from Who’s Who.

All this is very well. It is a good thing for all of us to be in Who’s Who, though, by the way, it does the latter-day “celebrity” more harm to be out of it than it does him good to be in it!

Mr. Roget’s record for a young clergyman of thirty-six is honourable enough. He has done better for himself than most young priests of that age. But this does not constitute him “An author whom the public love,” etc.

I am very glad to find my own name in the fat red book, which is so useful, though in my little autobiography I never thought it necessary to mention the first “turnover.” I certainly did venture to say that one of my stories had sold 300,000 copies; but that was probably vanity, and I regret it.

But, to be serious, has my critic done as much in journalism or the literary world as your deponent? I’m not going to catalogue my work any more, but, frankly, he has not. All I ask, with proper humility, is just this—Is this gentleman qualified to sneer at me—not to criticize me, which is quite another thing—just because the public have approved of what I have tried to sell them and have bought it?

In sneering at me he sneers at the public, whose taste I have been fortunate enough to please, and whose opinion of what I have to sell has lifted me and those who are dear to me from poverty to comfort. I have worked enormously. I have put all I have got in me into my work, and I feel that work honestly done has been honestly rewarded. If I could write better than I do, I should be very happy. I know perfectly well how inadequate my work is, but I know what this “critic” of mine does not know, and has not inquired into, how much it costs me to do it and how deeply I believe in what I say.

And does not Mr. Roget also seek the suffrages of the public? In the same issue of The Thesaurus to which I have referred above, he uses the phrase “...us who are trying to make an income out of literature.”

Of course, he is trying to be “one of those authors,” etc. He admits it. He tells us he is trying to make an income out of the public. And yet, while he is doing this, he insults the public for preferring “those other authors”—or, at least, that’s how one can hardly help taking it!

Moreover he is a priest as well as a literary man. As a literary man, I attack one who has not yet shown himself to have the slightest right to sneer at people who write—whatever their literary faults may seem to him—always on the side of good, with a belief in the saving power of the Christian faith, and in the same hope as that in which he writes.

A million people read one of Miss Corelli’s books, and they pay her to do so.

Two hundred people listen to one of Mr. Roget’s sermons, and he is paid to preach them. But do authors go down into Worcestershire and sneer at the sermon of the priest because his own congregation love to hear him?

This is the first time in my life that I have ever answered any one who has written unkindly of me. And it will be the last. Literary criticism is a thing done by specialists, and with every right on their side. Literary criticism is in the main correct. When I publish a book, and a literary writer points out this or that fault, I am myself literary man enough to know that he has put his finger on the weak spot nine times out of ten. Then I try again. I have said this before.

But mere unqualified contempt on the part of one who has not been able to qualify himself to express any contempt of value for public judgment deserves remark.

And now it is necessary to say a word about this gentleman’s reprobation of the Bishop of London’s sermons about When it was Dark. It is not a nice thing to have to say, but this young clergyman is typical of a small tribe which make it necessary for me to say it.

The obvious suggestion is that I went out of my way to induce the Bishop of London to advertise one of my books. That is not the case.

I have never met the Bishop of London in my life. I have never even seen him. I have had one letter from him about my book, which I will not quote here, but which I will send Mr. Roget whenever he asks for it. It is the only communication I have ever had from him. Neither directly nor indirectly did I attempt to get the bishop to advertise me.

Yet his lordship preached about the book six or seven times—once in Westminster Abbey. He advised his ordination candidates to read it, and in his addresses to these gentlemen—subsequently published in book form—the passage remains.

The late Bishop of Truro advised the clergy to read it in several diocesan meetings. He also wrote a long signed article in a great London daily paper about my books, in which he said:—

“A story written by Guy Thorne, who has proved his gift and its purpose, may well touch the sore place of our race with a hand that is more human than statistics and more sympathetic than many organizations.”

Dr. Gott is just dead as I write this. I have many letters from him. In one of them—which again I will not quote, but which I will send my critic for his private reading when he asks for it—his lordship said that the book had helped him greatly.

There have been thousands of personal letters from readers about this one book. Dozens of them were from clergymen, from pastors of the Nonconformist and also the Anglican Churches. All this also I have said before, and the half-dozen letters which I have quoted have their own value, bear their own witness.

One of the greatest Nonconformist divines of England preached about the book.

There—I have said enough. It is sickening to have to say it. But Mr. Roget leaves one no alternative. He is not fair. For some reason or other—I do not know or care what it is, for he is an utter stranger to me—he takes this line. In the same issue of his magazine he writes of the President of the Congregational Union—“Mr. Jowett’s presidential address, as well as the speeches which followed it, were not remarkable, to say the least, for the charity of language used about the Church. All the old sectarian bitterness was expressed in the usual way.”

...I have been writing for many hours. The snow was blowing in from the Channel over the South Foreland when I began. The sky was a great pewter-coloured dome from which Mother Hulda’s feathers were falling, when I took up the pen.

As the day waxed there came a faint, yellow, and almost menacing gleam of sunshine, and as it waned the leaden-grey grew black, and night came silently over the landscape until at last she opened her great funereal black fan.

They brought me lamps and set them on my table. Those who love me and look after me came noiselessly up the stairs, silently into the room and put logs upon the study fire and left me alone once more.

It is nearly midnight, and the winter wind pipes sadly outside this old Kentish house, so remote from other habitations, so renowned in the annals of the Channel cliffs. With all its faults, all its egoisms, take this last essay in my first book of essays, and do not think hardly of me. Forgive what you discern here of petulance, of arrogance, and of conceit. I have done my day’s labour, and I have tried to be sincere. I have done my day’s labour, and now I am going to descend to an old room, with its oaken beams and aroma of the past, to take the supper of a man who has toiled. The dear people, and unfortunate ones! who wait upon the erratic hours of an author are waiting for me there.

And then to bed, and may the humble supplication I shall send up to Almighty God for myself and those I love, for those who read what I have written, have its hearing in the place where “hearts and wills are weighed.” May I become a better and worthier man because I have the opportunity of addressing you who read. And may God grant me to mend a faulty life.

Good-night and Amen.

Wanstone Court, December, 1906.

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.