An Autobiography

The Claver­ings, which came out in 1866 and 1867, was the last novel which I wrote for the Corn­hill; and it was for this that I re­ceived the high­est rate of pay that was ever ac­cord­ed to me. It was the same length as Fram­ley Par­son­age, and the price was £2,800. Whether much or lit­tle, it was of­fered by the pro­pri­etor of the mag­a­zine, and was paid in a sin­gle cheque.

In The Claver­ings I did not fol­low the habit which had now be­come very com­mon to me, of in­tro­duc­ing per­son­ages whose names are al­ready known to the read­ers of nov­els, and whose char­ac­ters were fa­mil­iar to my­self. If I re­mem­ber right­ly, no one ap­pears here who had ap­peared be­fore or who has been al­lowed to ap­pear since. I con­sid­er the story as a whole to be good, though I am not aware that the pub­lic has ever cor­rob­o­rat­ed that ver­dict. The chief char­ac­ter is that of a young woman who has mar­ried man­i­fest­ly for money and rank,—so man­i­fest­ly that she does not her­self pre­tend, even while she is mak­ing the mar­riage, that she has any other rea­son. The man is old, dis­rep­utable, and a worn-out de­bauchee. Then comes the pun­ish­ment nat­ur­al to the of­fence. When she is free, the man whom she had loved, and who had loved her, is en­gaged to an­oth­er woman. He vac­il­lates and is weak,—in which weak­ness is the fault of the book, as he plays the part of hero. But she is strong—strong in her pur­pose, strong in her de­sires, and strong in her con­scious­ness that the pun­ish­ment which comes upon her has been de­served.

But the chief merit of The Clarver­ings is in the gen­uine fun of some of the scenes. Hu­mour has not been my forte, but I am in­clined to think that the char­ac­ters of Cap­tain Boo­dle, Archie Claver­ing, and So­phie Gorde­loup are hu­mor­ous. Count Pa­teroff, the broth­er of So­phie, is also good, and dis­pos­es of the young hero’s in­ter­fer­ence in a some­what mas­ter­ly man­ner. In The Claver­ings, too, there is a wife whose hus­band is a brute to her, who loses an only child—his heir—and who is re­buked by her lord be­cause the boy dies. Her sor­row is, I think, pa­thet­ic. From be­gin­ning to end the story is well told. But I doubt now whether any one reads The Claver­ings. When I re­mem­ber how many nov­els I have writ­ten, I have no right to ex­pect that above a few of them shall en­dure even to the sec­ond year be­yond pub­li­ca­tion. This story closed my con­nec­tion with the Corn­hill Mag­a­zine—but not with its owner, Mr. George Smith, who sub­se­quent­ly brought out a fur­ther novel of mine in a sep­a­rate form, and who about this time es­tab­lished the Pall Mall Gazette, to which paper I was for some years a con­trib­u­tor.

It was in 1865 that the Pall Mall Gazette was com­menced, the name hav­ing been taken from a fic­ti­tious pe­ri­od­i­cal, which was the off­spring of Thack­er­ay’s brain. It was set on foot by the unas­sist­ed en­er­gy and re­sources of George Smith, who had suc­ceed­ed by means of his mag­a­zine and his pub­lish­ing con­nec­tion in get­ting around him a so­ci­ety of lit­er­ary men who suf­ficed, as far as lit­er­ary abil­i­ty went, to float the paper at one under favourable aus­pices. His two strongest staffs prob­a­bly were “Jacob Om­ni­um,” whom I re­gard as the most forcible news­pa­per writer of my days, and Fitz-James Stephen, the most con­sci­en­tious and in­dus­tri­ous. To them the Pall Mall Gazette owed very much of its early suc­cess—and to the un­tir­ing en­er­gy and gen­er­al abil­i­ty of its pro­pri­etor. Among its other con­trib­u­tors were George Lewes, Han­nay,—who, I think, came up from Ed­in­burgh for em­ploy­ment on its columns,—Lord Houghton, Lord Strang­ford, Charles Merivale, Green­wood the pre­sent ed­i­tor, Greg, my­self, and very many oth­ers;—so many oth­ers, that I have met at a Pall Mall din­ner a crowd of guests who would have filled the House of Com­mons more re­spectably than I have seen it filled even on im­por­tant oc­ca­sions. There are many who now re­mem­ber—and no doubt when this is pub­lished there will be left some to re­mem­ber—the great stroke of busi­ness which was done by the rev­e­la­tions of a vis­i­tor to one of the ca­su­al wards in Lon­don. A per­son had to be se­lect­ed who would un­der­go the mis­ery of a night among the usual oc­cu­pants of a ca­su­al ward in a Lon­don poor­house, and who should at the same time be able to record what he felt and saw. The choice fell upon Mr. Green­wood’s broth­er, who cer­tain­ly pos­sessed the courage and the pow­ers of en­durance. The de­scrip­tion, which was very well given, was, I think, chiefly writ­ten by the broth­er of the Ca­su­al him­self. It had a great ef­fect, which was in­creased by se­cre­cy as to the per­son who en­coun­tered all the hor­rors of that night. I was more than once as­sured that Lard Houghton was the man. I heard it as­sert­ed also that I my­self had been the hero. At last the un­known one could no longer en­dure that his ho­n­ours should be hid­den, and re­vealed the truth,—in op­po­si­tion, I fear, to promis­es to the con­trary, and in­sti­gat­ed by a con­vic­tion that if known he could turn his ho­n­ours to ac­count. In the mean­time, how­ev­er, that record of a night passed in a work­house had done more to es­tab­lish the sale of the jour­nal than all the legal lore of Stephen, or the polem­i­cal power of Hig­gins, or the crit­i­cal acu­men of Lewes.

My work was var­i­ous. I wrote much on the sub­ject of the Amer­i­can War, on which my feel­ings were at the time very keen—sub­scrib­ing, if I re­mem­ber right, my name to all that I wrote. I con­tributed also some sets of sketch­es, of which those con­cern­ing hunt­ing found favour with the pub­lic. They were re­pub­lished af­ter­wards, and had a con­sid­er­able sale, and may, I think, still be rec­om­mend­ed to those who are fond of hunt­ing, as being ac­cu­rate in their de­scrip­tion of the dif­fer­ent class­es of peo­ple who are to be met in the hunt­ing-field. There was also a set of cler­i­cal sketch­es, which was con­sid­ered to be of suf­fi­cient im­por­tance to bring down upon my head the crit­i­cal wrath of a great dean of that pe­ri­od. The most ill-na­tured re­view that was ever writ­ten upon any work of mine ap­peared in the Con­tem­po­rary Re­view with ref­er­ence to these Cler­i­cal Sketch­es. The crit­ic told me that I did not un­der­stand Greek. That charge has been made not un­fre­quent­ly by those who have felt them­selves strong in that pride-pro­duc­ing lan­guage. It is much to read Greek with ease, but it is not dis­grace­ful to be un­able to do so. To pre­tend to read it with­out being able—that is dis­grace­ful. The crit­ic, how­ev­er, had been dri­ven to wrath by my say­ing that Deans of the Church of Eng­land loved to re­vis­it the glimpses of the met­ro­pol­i­tan moon.

I also did some crit­i­cal work for the Pall Mall—as I did also for the Fort­night­ly. It was not to my taste, but was done in con­for­mi­ty with strict con­sci­en­tious scru­ples. I read what I took in hand, and said what I be­lieved to be true,—al­ways giv­ing to the mat­ter time al­to­geth­er in­com­men­su­rate with the pe­cu­niary re­sult to my­self. In doing this for the Pall Mall, I fell into great sor­row. A gen­tle­man, whose wife was dear to me as if she were my own sis­ter; was in some trou­ble as to his con­duct in the pub­lic ser­vice. He had been blamed, as he thought un­just­ly, and vin­di­cat­ed him­self in a pam­phlet. This he hand­ed to me one day, ask­ing me to read it, and ex­press my opin­ion about it if I found that I had an opin­ion. I thought the re­quest in­ju­di­cious, and I did not read the pam­phlet. He met me again, and, hand­ing me a sec­ond pam­phlet, pressed me very hard. I promised him that I would read it, and that if I found my­self able I would ex­press my­self—but that I must say not what I wished to think, but what I did think. To this of course he as­sent­ed. I then went very much out of my way to study the sub­ject—which was one re­quir­ing study. I found, or thought that I found, that the con­duct of the gen­tle­man in his of­fice had been in­dis­creet; but that charges made against him­self af­fect­ing his ho­n­our were base­less. This I said, em­pha­sis­ing much more strong­ly than was nec­es­sary the opin­ion which I had formed of his in­dis­cre­tion—as will so often be the case when a man has a pen in his hand. It is like a club or sledge-ham­mer,—in using which, ei­ther for de­fence or at­tack, a man can hard­ly mea­sure the strength of the blows he gives. Of course there was of­fence,—and a break­ing off of in­ter­course be­tween lov­ing friends,—and a sense of wrong re­ceived, and I must own, too, of wrong done. It cer­tain­ly was not open to me to white­wash with hon­esty him whom I did not find to be white; but there was no duty in­cum­bent on me to de­clare what was his colour in my eyes—no duty even to as­cer­tain. But I had been ruf­fled by the per­sis­ten­cy of the gen­tle­man’s re­quest,—which should not have been made—and I pun­ished him for his wrong-do­ing by doing a wrong my­self. I must add, that be­fore he died his wife suc­ceed­ed in bring­ing us to­geth­er.

In the early days of the paper, the pro­pri­etor, who at that time acted also as chief ed­i­tor, asked me to un­der­take a duty,—of which the agony would in­deed at no one mo­ment have been so sharp as that en­dured in the ca­su­al ward, but might have been pro­longed until human na­ture sank under it. He sug­gest­ed to me that I should dur­ing an en­tire sea­son at­tend the May meet­ings in Ex­eter Hall, and give a graph­ic and, if pos­si­ble, amus­ing de­scrip­tion of the pro­ceed­ings. I did at­tend one,—which last­ed three hours,—and wrote a paper which I think was called “A Zulu in Search of a Re­li­gion.” But when the meet­ing was over I went to that spir­it­ed pro­pri­etor, and begged him to im­pose upon me some task more equal to my strength. Not even on be­half of the Pall Mall Gazette, which was very dear to me, could I go through a sec­ond May meet­ing—much less en­dure a sea­son of such mar­tyr­dom.

I have to ac­knowl­edge that I found my­self unfit for work on a news­pa­per. I had not taken to it early enough in life to learn its ways and bear its tram­mels. I was fid­gety when any work was al­tered in ac­cor­dance with the judg­ment of the ed­i­tor, who, of course, was re­spon­si­ble for what ap­peared. I want­ed to se­lect my own sub­jects,—not to have them se­lect­ed for me; to write when I pleased—and not when it suit­ed oth­ers. As a per­ma­nent mem­ber of the staff I was of no use, and after two or three years I dropped out of the work.

From the com­mence­ment of my suc­cess as a writer, which I date from the be­gin­ning of the Corn­hill Mag­a­zine, I had al­ways felt an in­jus­tice in lit­er­ary af­fairs which had never af­flict­ed me or even sug­gest­ed it­self to me while I was un­suc­cess­ful. It seemed to me that a name once earned car­ried with it too much favour. I in­deed had never reached a height to which praise was award­ed as a mat­ter of course; but there were oth­ers who sat on high­er seats to whom the crit­ics brought un­mea­sured in­cense and adu­la­tion, even when they wrote, as they some­times did write, trash which from a be­gin­ner would not have been thought wor­thy of the slight­est no­tice. I hope no one will think that in say­ing this I am ac­tu­at­ed by jeal­ousy of oth­ers. Though I never reached that height, still I had so far pro­gressed that that which I wrote was re­ceived with too much favour. The in­jus­tice which struck me did not con­sist in that which was with­held from me, but in that which was given to me. I felt that as­pi­rants com­ing up below me might do work as good as mine, and prob­a­bly much bet­ter work, and yet fail to have it ap­pre­ci­at­ed. In order to test this, I de­ter­mined to be such an as­pi­rant my­self, and to begin a course of nov­els anony­mous­ly, in order that I might see whether I could ob­tain a sec­ond iden­ti­ty,—whether as I had made one mark by such lit­er­ary abil­i­ty as I pos­sessed, I might suc­ceed in doing so again. In 1865 I began a short tale called Nina Bal­at­ka, which in 1866 was pub­lished anony­mous­ly in Black­wood’s Mag­a­zine. In 1867 this was fol­lowed by an­oth­er of the same length, called Linda Tres­sel. I will speak of them to­geth­er, as they are of the same na­ture and of near­ly equal merit. Mr. Black­wood, who him­self read the man­u­script of Nina Bal­at­ka, ex­pressed an opin­ion that it would not from its style be dis­cov­ered to have been writ­ten by me;—but it was dis­cov­ered by Mr. Hut­ton of the Spec­ta­tor, who found the re­peat­ed use of some spe­cial phrase which had rest­ed upon his ear too fre­quent­ly when read­ing for the pur­pose of crit­i­cism other works of mine. He de­clared in his paper that Nina Bal­at­ka was by me, show­ing I think more sagac­i­ty than good na­ture. I ought not, how­ev­er, to com­plain of him, as of all the crit­ics of my work he has been the most ob­ser­vant, and gen­er­al­ly the most eu­lo­gis­tic. Nina Bal­at­ka never rose suf­fi­cient­ly high in rep­u­ta­tion to make its de­tec­tion a mat­ter of any im­por­tance. Once or twice I heard the story men­tioned by read­ers who did not know me to be the au­thor, and al­ways with praise; but it had no real suc­cess. The same may be said of Linda Tres­sel. Black­wood, who of course knew the au­thor, was will­ing to pub­lish them, trust­ing that works by an ex­pe­ri­enced writer would make their way, even with­out the writer’s name, and he was will­ing to pay me for them, per­haps half what they would have fetched with my name. But he did not find the spec­u­la­tion an­swer, and de­clined a third at­tempt, though a third such tale was writ­ten for him.

Nev­er­the­less I am sure that the two sto­ries are good. Per­haps the first is some­what the bet­ter, as being the less lachry­mose. They were both writ­ten very quick­ly, but with a con­sid­er­able amount of labour; and both were writ­ten im­me­di­ate­ly after vis­its to the towns in which the scenes are laid—Prague, main­ly, and Nurem­berg. Of course I had en­deav­oured to change not only my man­ner of lan­guage, but my man­ner of sto­ry-telling also; and in this, pace Mr. Hut­ton, I think that I was suc­cess­ful. Eng­lish life in them there was none. There was more of ro­mance prop­er than had been usual with me. And I made an at­tempt at local colour­ing, at de­scrip­tions of scenes and places, which has not been usual with me. In all this I am con­fi­dent that I was in a mea­sure suc­cess­ful. In the loves, and fears, and ha­treds, both of Nina and of Linda, there is much that is pa­thet­ic. Prague is Prague, and Nurem­berg is Nurem­berg. I know that the sto­ries are good, but they missed the ob­ject with which they had been writ­ten. Of course there is not in this any ev­i­dence that I might not have suc­ceed­ed a sec­ond time as I suc­ceed­ed be­fore, had I gone on with the same dogged per­se­ver­ance. Mr. Black­wood, had I still fur­ther re­duced my price, would prob­a­bly have con­tin­ued the ex­per­i­ment. An­oth­er ten years of un­paid un­flag­ging labour might have built up a sec­ond rep­u­ta­tion. But this at any rate did seem clear to me, that with all the in­creased ad­van­tages which prac­tice in my art must have given me, I could not in­duce Eng­lish read­ers to read what I gave to them, un­less I gave it with my name.

I do not wish to have it sup­posed from this that I quar­rel with pub­lic judg­ment in af­fairs of lit­er­a­ture. It is a mat­ter of course that in all things the pub­lic should trust to es­tab­lished rep­u­ta­tion. It is as nat­ur­al that a novel read­er want­i­ng nov­els should send to a li­brary for those by George Eliot or Wilkie Collins, as that a lady when she wants a pie for a pic­nic should go to Fort­num & Mason. Fort­num & Mason can only make them­selves Fort­num & Mason by dint of time and good pies com­bined. If Tit­ian were to send us a por­trait from the other world, as cer­tain dead poets send their po­et­ry by means of a medi­um, it would be some time be­fore the art crit­ic of the Times would dis­cov­er its value. We may sneer at the want of judg­ment thus dis­played, but such slow­ness of judg­ment is human and has al­ways ex­ist­ed. I say all this here be­cause my thoughts on the mat­ter have forced upon me the con­vic­tion that very much con­sid­er­a­tion is due to the bit­ter feel­ings of dis­ap­point­ed au­thors.

We who have suc­ceed­ed are so apt to tell new as­pi­rants not to as­pire, be­cause the thing to be done may prob­a­bly be be­yond their reach. “My dear young lady, had you not bet­ter stay at home and darn your stock­ings?” “As, sir, you have asked for my can­did opin­ion, I can only coun­sel you to try some other work of life which may be bet­ter suit­ed to your abil­i­ties.” What old-es­tab­lished suc­cess­ful au­thor has not said such words as these to hum­ble as­pi­rants for crit­i­cal ad­vice, till they have be­come al­most for­mu­las? No doubt there is cru­el­ty in such an­swers; but the man who makes them has con­sid­ered the mat­ter with­in him­self, and has re­solved that such cru­el­ty is the best mercy. No doubt the chances against lit­er­ary as­pi­rants are very great. It is so easy to as­pire—and to begin! A man can­not make a watch or a shoe with­out a va­ri­ety of tools and many ma­te­ri­als. He must also have learned much. But any young lady can write a book who has a suf­fi­cien­cy of pens and paper. It can be done any­where; in any clothes—which is a great thing; at any hours—to which happy ac­ci­dent in lit­er­a­ture I owe my suc­cess. And the suc­cess, when achieved, is so pleas­ant! The as­pi­rants, of course, are very many; and the ex­pe­ri­enced coun­cil­lor, when asked for his can­did judg­ment as to this or that ef­fort, knows that among every hun­dred ef­forts there will be nine­ty-nine fail­ures. Then the an­swer is so ready: “My dear young lady, do darn your stock­ings; it will be for the best.” Or per­haps, less ten­der­ly, to the male as­pi­rant: “You must earn some money, you say. Don’t you think that a stool in a count­ing-house might be bet­ter?” The ad­vice will prob­a­bly be good ad­vice—prob­a­bly, no doubt, as may be proved by the ter­ri­ble ma­jor­i­ty of fail­ures. But who is to be sure that he is not ex­pelling an angel from the heav­en to which, if less rough­ly treat­ed, he would soar,—that he is not doom­ing some Mil­ton to be mute and in­glo­ri­ous, who, but for such cruel ill-judg­ment, would be­come vocal to all ages?

The an­swer to all this seems to be ready enough. The judg­ment, whether cruel or ten­der, should not be ill-judg­ment. He who con­sents to sit as judge should have ca­pac­i­ty for judg­ing. But in this mat­ter no ac­cu­ra­cy of judg­ment is pos­si­ble. It may be that the mat­ter sub­ject­ed to the crit­ic is so bad or so good as to make an as­sured an­swer pos­si­ble. “You, at any rate, can­not make this your vo­ca­tion;” or “You, at any rate, can suc­ceed, if you will try.” But cases as to which such cer­tain­ty can be ex­pressed are rare. The crit­ic who wrote the ar­ti­cle on the early vers­es of Lord Byron, which pro­duced the Eng­lish Bards and Scotch Re­view­ers, was jus­ti­fied in his crit­i­cism by the mer­its of the Hours of Idle­ness. The lines had nev­er­the­less been writ­ten by that Lord Byron who be­came our Byron. In a lit­tle satire called The Bil­i­ad, which, I think, no­body knows, are the fol­low­ing well-ex­pressed lines:

When Payne Knight’s Taste was is­sued to the town,

A few Greek vers­es in the text set down

Were torn to pieces, man­gled into hash,

Doomed to the flames as ex­e­crable trash,—

In short, were butchered rather than dis­sect­ed,

And sev­er­al false quan­ti­ties de­tect­ed,—

Till, when the smoke had van­ished from the cin­ders,

’Twas just dis­cov­ered that—THE LINES WERE PINDAR’S!

There can be no as­sur­ance against cases such as these; and yet we are so free with our ad­vice, al­ways bid­ding the young as­pi­rant to de­sist.

There is per­haps no ca­reer or life so charm­ing as that of a suc­cess­ful man of let­ters. Those lit­tle un­thought of ad­van­tages which I just now named are in them­selves at­trac­tive. If you like the town, live in the town, and do your work there; if you like the coun­try, choose the coun­try. It may be done on the top of a moun­tain or in the bot­tom of a pit. It is com­pat­i­ble with the rolling of the sea and the mo­tion of a rail­way. The cler­gy­man, the lawyer, the doc­tor, the mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, the clerk in a pub­lic of­fice, the trades­man, and even his as­sis­tant in the shop, must dress in ac­cor­dance with cer­tain fixed laws; but the au­thor need sac­ri­fice to no grace, hard­ly even to Pro­pri­ety. He is sub­ject to no bonds such as those which bind other men. Who else is free from all shack­le as to hours? The judge must sit at ten, and the at­tor­ney-gen­er­al, who is mak­ing his £20,000 a year, must be there with his bag. The Prime Min­is­ter must be in his place on that weary front bench short­ly after prayers, and must sit there, ei­ther asleep or awake, even though —— or —— should be ad­dress­ing the House. Dur­ing all that Sun­day which he main­tains should be a day of rest, the ac­tive cler­gy­man toils like a gal­ley-slave. The actor, when eight o’clock comes, is bound to his foot­lights. The Civil Ser­vice clerk must sit there from ten till four—un­less his of­fice be fash­ion­able, when twelve to six is just as heavy on him. The au­thor may do his work at five in the morn­ing when he is fresh from his bed, or at three in the morn­ing be­fore he goes there. And the au­thor wants no cap­i­tal, and en­coun­ters no risks. When once he is afloat, the pub­lish­er finds all that—and in­deed, un­less he be rash, finds it whether he be afloat or not. But it is in the con­sid­er­a­tion which he en­joys that the suc­cess­ful au­thor finds his rich­est re­ward. He is, if not of equal rank, yet of equal stand­ing with the high­est; and if he be open to the ameni­ties of so­ci­ety, may choose his own cir­cles. He with­out money can enter doors which are closed against al­most all but him and the wealthy. I have often heard it said that in this coun­try the man of let­ters is not recog­nised. I be­lieve the mean­ing of this to be that men of let­ters are not often in­vit­ed to be knights and baronets. I do not think that they wish it—and if they had it they would, as a body, lose much more than they would gain. I do not at all de­sire to have let­ters put after my name, or to be called Sir An­tho­ny, but if my friends Tom Hugh­es and Charles Reade be­came Sir Thomas and Sir Charles, I do not know how I might feel,—or how my wife might feel, if we were left unbe­decked. As it is, the man of let­ters who would be se­lect­ed for tit­u­lar ho­n­our, if such be­stow­al of ho­n­ours were cus­tom­ary, re­ceives from the gen­er­al re­spect of those around him a much more pleas­ant recog­ni­tion of his worth.

If this be so—if it be true that the ca­reer of the suc­cess­ful lit­er­ary man be thus pleas­ant—it is not won­der­ful that many should at­tempt to win the prize. But how is a man to know whether or not he has with­in him the qual­i­ties nec­es­sary for such a ca­reer? He makes an at­tempt, and fails; re­peats his at­tempt, and fails again! So many have suc­ceed­ed at last who have failed more than once or twice! Who will tell him the truth as to him­self? Who has power to find out that truth? The hard man sends him off with­out a scru­ple to that of­fice-stool; the soft man as­sures him that there is much merit in his man­u­script.

Oh, my young as­pi­rant,—if ever such a one should read these pages,—be sure that no one can tell you! To do so it would be nec­es­sary not only to know what there is now with­in you, but also to fore­see what time will pro­duce there. This, how­ev­er, I think may be said to you, with­out any doubt as to the wis­dom of the coun­sel given, that if it be nec­es­sary for you to live by your work, do not begin by trust­ing to lit­er­a­ture. Take the stool in the of­fice as rec­om­mend­ed to you by the hard man; and then, in such leisure hours as may be­long to you, let the praise which has come from the lips of that soft man in­duce you to per­se­vere in your lit­er­ary at­tempts. Should you fail, then your fail­ure will not be fatal,—and what bet­ter could you have done with the leisure hours had you not so failed? Such dou­ble toil, you will say, is se­vere. Yes, but if you want this thing, you must sub­mit to se­vere toil.

Some­time be­fore this I had be­come one of the Com­mit­tee ap­point­ed for the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the mon­eys of the Royal Lit­er­ary Fund, and in that ca­pac­i­ty I heard and saw much of the suf­fer­ings of au­thors. I may in a fu­ture chap­ter speak fur­ther of this In­sti­tu­tion, which I re­gard with great af­fec­tion, and in ref­er­ence to which I should be glad to record cer­tain con­vic­tions of my own; but I al­lude to it now, be­cause the ex­pe­ri­ence I have ac­quired in being ac­tive in its cause for­bids me to ad­vise any young man or woman to enter bold­ly on a lit­er­ary ca­reer in search of bread. I know how ut­ter­ly I should have failed my­self had my bread not been earned else­where while I was mak­ing my ef­forts. Dur­ing ten years of work, which I com­menced with some aid from the fact that oth­ers of my fam­i­ly were in the same pro­fes­sion, I did not earn enough to buy me the pens, ink, and paper which I was using; and then when, with all my ex­pe­ri­ence in my art, I began again as from a new spring­ing point, I should have failed again un­less again I could have given years to the task. Of course there have been many who have done bet­ter than I—many whose pow­ers have been in­fi­nite­ly greater. But then, too, I have seen the fail­ure of many who were greater.

The ca­reer, when suc­cess has been achieved, is cer­tain­ly very pleas­ant; but the ag­o­nies which are en­dured in the search for that suc­cess are often ter­ri­ble. And the au­thor’s pover­ty is, I think, hard­er to be borne than any other pover­ty. The man, whether right­ly or wrong­ly, feels that the world is using him with ex­treme in­jus­tice. The more ab­solute­ly he fails, the high­er, it is prob­a­ble, he will reck­on his own mer­its; and the keen­er will be the sense of in­jury in that he whose work is of so high a na­ture can­not get bread, while they whose tasks are mean are lapped in lux­u­ry. “I, with my well-filled mind, with my clear in­tel­lect, with all my gifts, can­not earn a poor crown a day, while that fool, who sim­pers in a lit­tle room be­hind a shop, makes his thou­sands every year.” The very char­i­ty, to which he too often is dri­ven, is bit­ter­er to him than to oth­ers. While he takes it he al­most spurns the hand that gives it to him, and every fibre of his heart with­in him is bleed­ing with a sense of in­jury.

The ca­reer, when suc­cess­ful, is pleas­ant enough cer­tain­ly; but when un­suc­cess­ful, it is of all ca­reers the most ag­o­nis­ing.