During the early months of 1862 Orley Farm was still being brought
out in numbers, and at the same time Brown, Jones and Robinson was
appearing in the Cornhill Magazine. In September, 1862, the Small
House at Allington began its career in the same periodical. The
work on North America had also come out in 1862. In August, 1863,
the first number of Can You Forgive Her? was published as a separate
serial, and was continued through 1864. In 1863 a short novel was
produced in the ordinary volume form, called Rachel Ray. In addition
to these I published during the time two volumes of stories called
The Tales of all Countries. In the early spring of 1865 Miss Mackenzie
was issued in the same form as Rachel Ray; and in May of the same
year The Belton Estate was commenced with the commencement of the
Fortnightly Review, of which periodical I will say a few words in
this chapter.
I quite admit that I crowded my wares into the market too
quickly,--because the reading world could not want such a quantity
of matter from the hands of one author in so short a space of
time. I had not been quite so fertile as the unfortunate gentleman
who disgusted the publisher in Paternoster Row,--in the story of
whose productiveness I have always thought there was a touch of
romance,--but I had probably done enough to make both publishers
and readers think that I was coming too often beneath their notice.
Of publishers, however, I must speak collectively, as my sins
were, I think, chiefly due to the encouragement which I received
from them individually. What I wrote for the Cornhill Magazine, I
always wrote at the instigation of Mr. Smith. My other works were
published by Messrs. Chapman & Hall, in compliance with contracts
made by me with them, and always made with their good-will. Could
I have been two separate persons at one and the same time, of whom
one might have been devoted to Cornhill and the other to the interests
of the firm in Piccadilly, it might have been very well;--but as
I preserved my identity in both places, I myself became aware that
my name was too frequent on titlepages.
Critics, if they ever trouble themselves with these pages, will, of
course, say that in what I have now said I have ignored altogether
the one great evil of rapid production,--namely, that of inferior
work. And of course if the work was inferior because of the too
great rapidity of production, the critics would be right. Giving
to the subject the best of my critical abilities, and judging of
my own work as nearly as possible as I would that of another, I
believe that the work which has been done quickest has been done
the best. I have composed better stories--that is, have created
better plots--than those of The Small House at Allington and Can
You Forgive Her? and I have portrayed two or three better characters
than are to be found in the pages of either of them; but taking
these books all through, I do not think that I have ever done better
work. Nor would these have been improved by any effort in the art
of story telling, had each of these been the isolated labour of a
couple of years. How short is the time devoted to the manipulation
of a plot can be known only to those who have written plays and
novels; I may say also, how very little time the brain is able
to devote to such wearing work. There are usually some hours of
agonising doubt, almost of despair,--so at least it has been with
me,--or perhaps some days. And then, with nothing settled in my
brain as to the final development of events, with no capability
of settling anything, but with a most distinct conception of some
character or characters, I have rushed at the work as a rider rushes
at a fence which he does not see. Sometimes I have encountered
what, in hunting language, we call a cropper. I had such a fall in
two novels of mine, of which I have already spoken--The Bertrams
and Castle Richmond. I shall have to speak of other such troubles.
But these failures have not arisen from over-hurried work. When my
work has been quicker done,--and it has sometimes been done very
quickly--the rapidity has been achieved by hot pressure, not in
the conception, but in the telling of the story. Instead of writing
eight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead of working five
days a week, I have worked seven. I have trebled my usual average,
and have done so in circumstances which have enabled me to give
up all my thoughts for the time to the book I have been writing.
This has generally been done at some quiet spot among the
mountains,--where there has been no society, no hunting, no whist,
no ordinary household duties. And I am sure that the work so done
has had in it the best truth and the highest spirit that I have
been able to produce. At such times I have been able to imbue myself
thoroughly with the characters I have had in hand. I have wandered
alone among the rocks and woods, crying at their grief, laughing at
their absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying their joy. I have been
impregnated with my own creations till it has been my only excitement
to sit with the pen in my hand, and drive my team before me at as
quick a pace as I could make them travel.
The critics will again say that all this may be very well as to
the rough work of the author's own brain, but it will be very far
from well in reference to the style in which that work has been
given to the public. After all, the vehicle which a writer uses for
conveying his thoughts to the public should not be less important
to him than the thoughts themselves. An author can hardly hope to
be popular unless he can use popular language. That is quite true;
but then comes the question of achieving a popular--in other words,
I may say, a good and lucid style. How may an author best acquire
a mode of writing which shall be agreeable and easily intelligible
to the reader? He must be correct, because without correctness he
can be neither agreeable nor intelligible. Readers will expect him
to obey those rules which they, consciously or unconsciously, have
been taught to regard as binding on language; and unless he does
obey them, he will disgust. Without much labour, no writer will
achieve such a style. He has very much to learn; and, when he has
learned that much, he has to acquire the habit of using what he has
learned with ease. But all this must be learned and acquired,--not
while he is writing that which shall please, but long before. His
language must come from him as music comes from the rapid touch of
the great performer's fingers; as words come from the mouth of the
indignant orator; as letters fly from the fingers of the trained
compositor; as the syllables tinkled out by little bells form
themselves to the ear of the telegraphist. A man who thinks much of
his words as he writes them will generally leave behind him work
that smells of oil. I speak here, of course, of prose; for in poetry
we know what care is necessary, and we form our taste accordingly.
Rapid writing will no doubt give rise to inaccuracy,--chiefly because
the ear, quick and true as may be its operation, will occasionally
break down under pressure, and, before a sentence be closed, will
forget the nature of the composition with which it was commenced.
A singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, because
other pluralities have intervened and have tempted the ear into
plural tendencies. Tautologies will occur, because the ear, in
demanding fresh emphasis, has forgotten that the desired force has
been already expressed. I need not multiply these causes of error,
which must have been stumbling-blocks indeed when men wrote in the
long sentences of Gibbon, but which Macaulay, with his multiplicity
of divisions, has done so much to enable us to avoid. A rapid writer
will hardly avoid these errors altogether. Speaking of myself, I
am ready to declare that, with much training, I have been unable to
avoid them. But the writer for the press is rarely called upon--a
writer of books should never be called upon--to send his manuscript
hot from his hand to the printer. It has been my practice to read
everything four times at least--thrice in manuscript and once in
print. Very much of my work I have read twice in print. In spite
of this I know that inaccuracies have crept through,--not single
spies, but in battalions. From this I gather that the supervision
has been insufficient, not that the work itself has been done too
fast. I am quite sure that those passages which have been written
with the greatest stress of labour, and consequently with the
greatest haste, have been the most effective and by no means the
most inaccurate.
The Small House at Allington redeemed my reputation with the spirited
proprietor of the Cornhill, which must, I should think, have been
damaged by Brown, Jones, and Robinson. In it appeared Lily Dale,
one of the characters which readers of my novels have liked the
best. In the love with which she has been greeted I have hardly
joined with much enthusiasm, feeling that she is somewhat of a
French prig. She became first engaged to a snob, who jilted her;
and then, though in truth she loved another man who was hardly
good enough, she could not extricate herself sufficiently from the
collapse of her first great misfortune to be able to make up her
mind to be the wife of one whom, though she loved him, she did not
altogether reverence. Prig as she was, she made her way into the
hearts of many readers, both young and old; so that, from that time
to this, I have been continually honoured with letters, the purport
of which has always been to beg me to marry Lily Dale to Johnny
Eames. Had I done so, however, Lily would never have so endeared
herself to these people as to induce them to write letters to the
author concerning her fate. It was because she could not get over
her troubles that they loved her. Outside Lily Dale and the chief
interest of the novel, The Small House at Allington is, I think,
good. The De Courcy family are alive, as is also Sir Raffle Buffle,
who is a hero of the Civil Service. Sir Raffle was intended to
represent a type, not a man; but the man for the picture was soon
chosen, and I was often assured that the portrait was very like.
I have never seen the gentleman with whom I am supposed to have
taken the liberty. There is also an old squire down at Allington,
whose life as a country gentleman with rather straitened means is,
I think, well described.
Of Can you Forgive Her? I cannot speak with too great affection,
though I do not know that of itself it did very much to increase
my reputation. As regards the story, it was formed chiefly on that
of the play which my friend Mr. Bartley had rejected long since,
the circumstances of which the reader may perhaps remember. The
play had been called The Noble Jilt; but I was afraid of the name
for a novel, lest the critics might throw a doubt on the nobility.
There was more of tentative humility in that which I at last adopted.
The character of the girl is carried through with considerable
strength, but is not attractive. The humorous characters, which are
also taken from the play,--a buxom widow who with her eyes open
chooses the most scampish of two selfish suitors because he is
the better looking,--are well done. Mrs. Greenow, between Captain
Bellfield and Mr. Cheeseacre, is very good fun--as far as the fun
of novels is. But that which endears the book to me is the first
presentation which I made in it of Plantagenet Palliser, with his
wife, Lady Glencora.
By no amount of description or asseveration could I succeed in
making any reader understand how much these characters with their
belongings have been to me in my latter life; or how frequently
I have used them for the expression of my political or social
convictions. They have been as real to me as free trade was to Mr.
Cobden, or the dominion of a party to Mr. Disraeli; and as I have
not been able to speak from the benches of the House of Commons,
or to thunder from platforms, or to be efficacious as a lecturer,
they have served me as safety-valves by which to deliver my soul.
Mr. Plantagenet Palliser had appeared in The Small House at Allington,
but his birth had not been accompanied by many hopes. In the last
pages of that novel he is made to seek a remedy for a foolish
false step in life by marrying the grand heiress of the day;--but
the personage of the great heiress does not appear till she comes
on the scene as a married woman in Can You Forgive Her? He is
the nephew and heir to a duke--the Duke of Omnium--who was first
introduced in Doctor Thorne, and afterwards in Framley Parsonage,
and who is one of the belongings of whom I have spoken. In these
personages and their friends, political and social, I have endeavoured
to depict the faults and frailties and vices,--as also the virtues,
the graces, and the strength of our highest classes; and if I have
not made the strength and virtues predominant over the faults and
vices, I have not painted the picture as I intended. Plantagenet
Palliser I think to be a very noble gentleman,--such a one as justifies
to the nation the seeming anomaly of an hereditary peerage and of
primogeniture. His wife is in all respects very inferior to him;
but she, too, has, or has been intended to have, beneath the thin
stratum of her follies a basis of good principle, which enabled her
to live down the conviction of the original wrong which was done
to her, and taught her to endeavour to do her duty in the position
to which she was called. She had received a great wrong,--having
been made, when little more than a child, to marry a man for whom
she cared nothing;--when, however, though she was little more than
a child, her love had been given elsewhere. She had very heavy
troubles, but they did not overcome her.
As to the heaviest of these troubles, I will say a word in vindication
of myself and of the way I handled it in my work. In the pages of
Can You Forgive Her? the girl's first love is introduced,--beautiful,
well-born, and utterly worthless. To save a girl from wasting
herself, and an heiress from wasting her property on such a scamp,
was certainly the duty of the girl's friends. But it must ever
be wrong to force a girl into a marriage with a man she does not
love,--and certainly the more so when there is another whom she does
love. In my endeavour to teach this lesson I subjected the young
wife to the terrible danger of overtures from the man to whom her
heart had been given. I was walking no doubt on ticklish ground,
leaving for a while a doubt on the question whether the lover
might or might not succeed. Then there came to me a letter from a
distinguished dignitary of our Church, a man whom all men honoured,
treating me with severity for what I was doing. It had been one
of the innocent joys of his life, said the clergyman, to have my
novels read to him by his daughters. But now I was writing a book
which caused him to bid them close it! Must I also turn away to
vicious sensation such as this? Did I think that a wife contemplating
adultery was a character fit for my pages? I asked him in return,
whether from his pulpit, or at any rate from his communion-table,
he did not denounce adultery to his audience; and if so, why should
it not be open to me to preach the same doctrine to mine. I made
known nothing which the purest girl could not but have learned,
and ought not to have learned, elsewhere, and I certainly lent no
attraction to the sin which I indicated. His rejoinder was full
of grace, and enabled him to avoid the annoyance of argumentation
without abandoning his cause. He said that the subject was so much
too long for letters; that he hoped I would go and stay a week with
him in the country,--so that we might have it out. That opportunity,
however, has never yet arrived.
Lady Glencora overcomes that trouble, and is brought, partly by her
own sense of right and wrong, and partly by the genuine nobility
of her husband's conduct, to attach herself to him after a certain
fashion. The romance of her life is gone, but there remains a
rich reality of which she is fully able to taste the flavour. She
loves her rank and becomes ambitious, first of social, and then of
political ascendancy. He is thoroughly true to her, after his thorough
nature, and she, after her less perfect nature, is imperfectly true
to him.
In conducting these characters from one story to another I realised
the necessity, not only of consistency,--which, had it been maintained
by a hard exactitude, would have been untrue to nature,--but also
of those changes which time always produces. There, are, perhaps,
but few of us who, after the lapse of ten years, will be found to
have changed our chief characteristics. The selfish man will still
be selfish, and the false man false. But our manner of showing or
of hiding these characteristics will be changed,--as also our power
of adding to or diminishing their intensity. It was my study that
these people, as they grew in years, should encounter the changes
which come upon us all; and I think that I have succeeded. The
Duchess of Omnium, when she is playing the part of Prime Minister's
wife, is the same woman as that Lady Glencora who almost longs to
go off with Burgo Fitzgerald, but yet knows that she will never do
so; and the Prime Minister Duke, with his wounded pride and sore
spirit, is he who, for his wife's sake, left power and place when
they were first offered to him;--but they have undergone the changes
which a life so stirring as theirs would naturally produce. To do
all this thoroughly was in my heart from first to last; but I do
not know that the game has been worth the candle.
To carry out my scheme I have had to spread my picture over so wide
a canvas that I cannot expect that any lover of such art should
trouble himself to look at it as a whole. Who will read Can You
Forgive Her? Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux, and The Prime Minister
consecutively, in order that they may understand the characters of
the Duke of Omnium, of Plantagenet Palliser, and of Lady Glencora?
Who will ever know that they should be so read? But in the performance
of the work I had much gratification, and was enabled from time to
time to have in this way that fling at the political doings of the
day which every man likes to take, if not in one fashion then in
another. I look upon this string of characters,--carried sometimes
into other novels than those just named,--as the best work of
my life. Taking him altogether, I think that Plantagenet Palliser
stands more firmly on the ground than any other personage I have
created.
On Christmas day, 1863, we were startled by the news of Thackeray's
death. He had then for many months given up the editorship of the
Cornhill Magazine,--a position for which he was hardly fitted either
by his habits or temperament,--but was still employed in writing
for its pages. I had known him only for four years, but had grown
into much intimacy with him and his family. I regard him as one
of the most tender-hearted human beings I ever knew, who, with an
exaggerated contempt for the foibles of the world at large, would
entertain an almost equally exaggerated sympathy with the joys
and troubles of individuals around him. He had been unfortunate in
early life--unfortunate in regard to money--unfortunate with an
afflicted wife--unfortunate in having his home broken up before
his children were fit to be his companions. This threw him too much
upon clubs, and taught him to dislike general society. But it never
affected his heart, or clouded his imagination. He could still revel
in the pangs and joys of fictitious life, and could still feel--as
he did to the very last--the duty of showing to his readers the
evil consequences of evil conduct. It was perhaps his chief fault
as a writer that he could never abstain from that dash of satire
which he felt to be demanded by the weaknesses which he saw around
him. The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but
little,--or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his
own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he
lives. I myself regard Esmond as the greatest novel in the English
language, basing that judgment upon the excellence of its language,
on the clear individuality of the characters, on the truth of
its delineations in regard to the tine selected, and on its great
pathos. There are also in it a few scenes so told that even Scott
has never equalled the telling. Let any one who doubts this read
the passage in which Lady Castlewood induces the Duke of Hamilton to
think that his nuptials with Beatrice will be honoured if Colonel
Esmond will give away the bride. When he went from us he left behind
living novelists with great names; but I think that they who best
understood the matter felt that the greatest master of fiction of
this age had gone.
Rachel Ray underwent a fate which no other novel of mine has
encountered. Some years before this a periodical called Good Words
had been established under the editorship of my friend Dr. Norman
Macleod, a well-known Presbyterian pastor in Glasgow. In 1863 he
asked me to write a novel for his magazine, explaining to me that
his principles did not teach him to confine his matter to religious
subjects, and paying me the compliment of saying that he would feel
himself quite safe in my hands. In reply I told him I thought he
was wrong in his choice; that though he might wish to give a novel
to the readers of Good Words, a novel from me would hardly be what
he wanted, and that I could not undertake to write either with
any specially religious tendency, or in any fashion different from
that which was usual to me. As worldly and--if any one thought me
wicked--as wicked as I had heretofore been, I must still be, should
I write for Good Words. He persisted in his request, and I came
to terms as to a story for the periodical. I wrote it and sent it
to him, and shortly afterwards received it back--a considerable
portion having been printed--with an intimation that it would not
do. A letter more full of wailing and repentance no man ever wrote.
It was, he said, all his own fault. He should have taken my advice.
He should have known better. But the story, such as it was, he
could not give to his readers in the pages of Good Words. Would I
forgive him? Any pecuniary loss to which his decision might subject
me the owner of the publication would willingly make good. There
was some loss--or rather would have been--and that money I exacted,
feeling that the fault had in truth been with the editor. There is
the tale now to speak for itself. It is not brilliant nor in any
way very excellent; but it certainly is not very wicked. There is
some dancing in one of the early chapters, described, no doubt,
with that approval of the amusement which I have always entertained;
and it was this to which my friend demurred. It is more true of
novels than perhaps of anything else, that one man's food is another
man's poison.
Miss Mackenzie was written with a desire to prove that a novel may
be produced without any love; but even in this attempt it breaks
down before the conclusion. In order that I might be strong in my
purpose, I took for my heroine a very unattractive old maid, who
was overwhelmed with money troubles; but even she was in love before
the end of the book, and made a romantic marriage with an old man.
There is in this story an attack upon charitable bazaars, made
with a violence which will, I think, convince any reader that such
attempts at raising money were at the time very odious to me. I beg
to say that since that I have had no occasion to alter my opinion.
Miss Mackenzie was published in the early spring of 1865.
At the same time I was engaged with others in establishing a
periodical Review, in which some of us trusted much, and from which
we expected great things. There was, however, in truth so little
combination of idea among us, that we were not justified in our
trust or in our expectations. And yet we were honest in our purpose,
and have, I think, done some good by our honesty. The matter on which
we were all agreed was freedom of speech, combined with personal
responsibility. We would be neither conservative nor liberal, neither
religious nor free-thinking, neither popular nor exclusive;--but
we would let any man who had a thing to say, and knew how to say
it, speak freely. But he should always speak with the responsibility
of his name attached. In the very beginning I militated against this
impossible negation of principles,--and did so most irrationally,
seeing that I had agreed to the negation of principles,--by declaring
that nothing should appear denying or questioning the divinity of
Christ. It was a most preposterous claim to make for such a publication
as we proposed, and it at once drove from us one or two who had
proposed to join us. But we went on, and our company--limited--was
formed. We subscribed, I think, (pounds)1250 each. I at least subscribed
that amount, and--having agreed to bring out our publication every
fortnight, after the manner of the well-known French publication,--we
called it The Fortnightly. We secured the services of G. H. Lewes
as our editor. We agreed to manage our finances by a Board, which
was to meet once a fortnight, and of which I was the Chairman.
And we determined that the payments for our literature should be
made on a liberal and strictly ready-money system. We carried out
our principles till our money was all gone, and then we sold the
copyright to Messrs. Chapman & Hall for a trifle. But before we
parted with our property we found that a fortnightly issue was not
popular with the trade through whose hands the work must reach the
public; and, as our periodical had not become sufficiently popular
itself to bear down such opposition, we succumbed, and brought
it out once a month. Still it was The Fortnightly, and still it
is The Fortnightly. Of all the serial publications of the day, it
probably is the most serious, the most earnest, the least devoted
to amusement, the least flippant, the least jocose,--and yet it
has the face to show itself month after month to the world, with
so absurd a misnomer! It is, as all who know the laws of modern
literature are aware, a very serious thing to change the name of
a periodical. By doing so you begin an altogether new enterprise.
Therefore should the name be well chosen;--whereas this was very
ill chosen, a fault for which I alone was responsible.
That theory of eclecticism was altogether impracticable. It was as
though a gentleman should go into the House of Commons determined
to support no party, but to serve his country by individual utterances.
Such gentlemen have gone into the House of Commons, but they have
not served their country much. Of course the project broke down.
Liberalism, freethinking, and open inquiry will never object to appear
in company with their opposites, because they have the conceit to
think that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites will
not appear in conjunction with liberalism, free-thinking, and open
inquiry. As a natural consequence, our new publication became an
organ of liberalism, free-thinking, and open inquiry. The result
has been good; and though there is much in the now established
principles of The Fortnightly with which I do not myself agree, I
may safely say that the publication has assured an individuality,
and asserted for itself a position in our periodical literature,
which is well understood and highly respected.
As to myself and my own hopes in the matter,--I was craving after
some increase in literary honesty, which I think is still desirable but
which is hardly to be attained by the means which then recommended
themselves to me. In one of the early numbers I wrote a paper
advocating the signature of the authors to periodical writing,
admitting that the system should not be extended to journalistic
articles on political subjects. I think that I made the best of
my case; but further consideration has caused me to doubt whether
the reasons which induced me to make an exception in favour of
political writing do not extend themselves also to writing on other
subjects. Much of the literary criticism which we now have is very
bad indeed;--. so bad as to be open to the charge both of dishonesty
and incapacity. Books are criticised without being read,--are
criticised by favour,--and are trusted by editors to the criticism
of the incompetent. If the names of the critics were demanded,
editors would be more careful. But I fear the effect would be that
we should get but little criticism, and that the public would put
but little trust in that little. An ordinary reader would not care
to have his books recommended to him by Jones; but the recommendation
of the great unknown comes to him with all the weight of the Times,
the Spectator, or the Saturday.
Though I admit so much, I am not a recreant from the doctrine I then
preached. I think that the name of the author does tend to honesty,
and that the knowledge that it will be inserted adds much to the
author's industry and care. It debars him also from illegitimate
license and dishonest assertions. A man should never be ashamed
to acknowledge that which he is not ashamed to publish. In The
Fortnightly everything has been signed, and in this way good has,
I think, been done. Signatures to articles in other periodicals
have become much more common since The Fortnightly was commenced.
After a time Mr. Lewes retired from the editorship, feeling that
the work pressed too severely on his moderate strength. Our loss
in him was very great, and there was considerable difficulty in
finding a successor. I must say that the present proprietor has
been fortunate in the choice he did make. Mr. John Morley has done
the work with admirable patience, zeal, and capacity. Of course
he has got around him a set of contributors whose modes of thought
are what we may call much advanced; he being "much advanced" himself,
would not work with other aids. The periodical has a peculiar tone
of its own; but it holds its own with ability, and though there
are many who perhaps hate it, there are none who despise it. When
the company sold it, having spent about (pounds)9000 on it, it was worth
little or nothing. Now I believe it to be a good property.
My own last personal concern with it was on a matter, of fox-hunting.
[Footnote: I have written various articles for it since, especially
two on Cicero, to which I devoted great labour.] There came out in
it an article from the pen of Mr. Freeman the historian, condemning
the amusement, which I love, on the grounds of cruelty and general
brutality. Was it possible, asked Mr. Freeman, quoting from Cicero,
that any educated man should find delight in so coarse a pursuit?
Always bearing in mind my own connection with The Fortnightly, I
regarded this almost as a rising of a child against the father. I
felt at any rate bound to answer Mr. Freeman in the same columns,
and I obtained Mr. Morley's permission to do so. I wrote my defence
of fox-hunting, and there it is. In regard to the charge of cruelty,
Mr. Freeman seems to assert that nothing unpleasant should be
done to any of God's creatures except f or a useful purpose. The
protection of a lady's shoulders from the cold is a useful purpose;
and therefore a dozen fur-bearing animals may be snared in the
snow and left to starve to death in the wires, in order that the
lady may have the tippet,--though a tippet of wool would serve
the purpose as well as a tippet of fur. But the congregation and
healthful amusement of one or two hundred persons, on whose behalf
a single fox may or may not be killed, is not a useful purpose. I
think that Mr. Freeman has failed to perceive that amusement is as
needful and almost as necessary as food and raiment. The absurdity
of the further charge as to the general brutality of the pursuit,
and its consequent unfitness for an educated man, is to be attributed
to Mr. Freeman's ignorance of what is really done and said in the
hunting-field,--perhaps to his misunderstanding of Cicero's words.
There was a rejoinder to my answer, and I asked for space for
further remarks. I could have it, the editor said, if I much wished
it; but he preferred that the subject should be closed. Of course
I was silent. His sympathies were all with Mr. Freeman,--and
against the foxes, who, but for fox-hunting, would cease to exist
in England. And I felt that The Fortnighty was hardly the place for
the defence of the sport. Afterwards Mr. Freeman kindly suggested
to me that he would be glad to publish my article in a little book
to be put out by him condemnatory of fox-hunting generally. He was
to have the last word and the first word, and that power of picking
to pieces which he is known to use in so masterly a manner, without
any reply from me! This I was obliged to decline. If he would give
me the last word, as be would have the first, then, I told him, I
should be proud to join him in the book. This offer did not however
meet his views.
It had been decided by the Board of Management, somewhat in opposition
to my own ideas on the subject, that the Fortnightly Review should
always contain a novel. It was of course natural that I should write
the first novel, and I wrote The Belton Estate. It is similar in
its attributes to Rachel Ray and to Miss Mackenzie. It is readable,
and contains scenes which are true to life; but it has no peculiar
merits, and will add nothing to my reputation as a novelist. I have
not looked at it since it was published; and now turning back to
it in my memory, I seem to remember almost less of it than of any
book that I have written.