“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 —
“ – Wing’d postilions that can fly
From the Atlantic to the Arctic sky —
The heralds and swift harbingers that move
From East to West on embassies of love.”
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 —
“Friend, be not fretful if the voice of fame,
Along the narrow way of hurrying men,
Whereunto echo echo shouts again,
Be all day long not noisy with your name.”
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: —
“La plainte est pour le fat, le bruit est pour le sot;
L’honnête homme hue s’éloigne et ne dit mot!”
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 —
“The cow is in the garden,
The cat is in the lake,
The pig is in the hammock,
What difference does it make!”
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.