In the spring of 1868,--before the affair of Beverley, which,
as being the first direct result of my resignation of office, has
been brought in a little out of its turn,--I was requested to go
over to the United States and make a postal treaty at Washington.
This, as I had left the service, I regarded as a compliment, and
of course I went. It was my third visit to America, and I have made
two since. As far as the Post Office work was concerned, it was
very far from being agreeable. I found myself located at Washington,
a place I do not love, and was harassed by delays, annoyed by
incompetence, and opposed by what I felt to be personal and not
national views. I had to deal with two men,--with one who was a
working officer of the American Post Office, than whom I have never
met a more zealous, or, as far as I could judge, a more honest
public servant. He had his views and I had mine, each of us having
at heart the welfare of the service in regard to his own country,--each
of us also having certain orders which we were bound to obey. But
the other gentleman, who was in rank the superior,--whose executive
position was dependent on his official status, as is the case with
our own Ministers,--did not recommend himself to me equally. He
would make appointments with me and then not keep them, which at
last offended me so grievously, that I declared at the Washington
Post Office that if this treatment were continued, I would write
home to say that any further action on my part was impossible. I
think I should have done so had it not occurred to me that I might
in this way serve his purpose rather than my own, or the purposes
of those who had sent me. The treaty, however, was at last made,--the
purport of which was, that everything possible should be done, at
a heavy expenditure on the part of England, to expedite the mails
from England to America, and that nothing should be done by America
to expedite the mails from thence to us. The expedition I believe
to be now equal both ways; but it could not be maintained as it is
without the payment of a heavy subsidy from Great Britain, whereas
no subsidy is paid by the States. [Footnote: This was a state of
things which may probably have appeared to American politicians
to be exactly that which they should try to obtain. The whole
arrangement has again been altered since the time of which I have
spoken.]
I had also a commission from the Foreign Office, for which I had
asked, to make an effort on behalf of an international copyright
between the United States and Great Britain,--the want of which is
the one great impediment to pecuniary success which still stands
in the way of successful English authors. I cannot say that I have
never had a shilling of American money on behalf of reprints of my
work; but I have been conscious of no such payment. Having found
many years ago--in 1861, when I made a struggle on the subject,
being then in the States, the details of which are sufficiently
amusing [Footnote: In answer to a question from myself, a certain
American publisher--he who usually reprinted my works--promised me
that IF ANY OTHER AMERICAN PUBLISHER REPUBLISHED MY WORK ON AMERICA
BEFORE HE HAD DONE SO, he would not bring out a competing edition,
though there would be no law to hinder him. I then entered into an
agreement with another American publisher, stipulating to supply
him with early sheets; and he stipulating to supply me a certain
royalty on his sales, and to supply me with accounts half-yearly.
I sent the sheets with energetic punctuality, and the work was
brought out with equal energy and precision--by my old American
publishers. The gentleman who made the promise had not broken his
word. No other American edition had come out before his. I never
got any account, and, of course, never received a dollar.]--that
I could not myself succeed in dealing with American booksellers, I
have sold all foreign right to the English publishers; and though
I do not know that I have raised my price against them on that
score, I may in this way have had some indirect advantage from
the American market. But I do know that what the publishers have
received here is very trifling. I doubt whether Messrs. Chapman &
Hall, my present publishers, get for early sheets sent to the States
as much as 5 per cent. on the price they pay me for my manuscript.
But the American readers are more numerous than the English, and
taking them all through, are probably more wealthy. If I can get
(pounds)1000 for a book here (exclusive of their market), I ought to be
able to get as much there. If a man supply 600 customers with shoes
in place of 300, there is no question as to such result. Why not,
then, if I can supply 60,000 readers instead of 30,000?
I fancied that I knew that the opposition to an international
copyright was by no means an American feeling, but was confined to
the bosoms of a few interested Americans. All that I did and heard
in reference to the subject on this further visit,--and having
a certain authority from the British Secretary of State with me I
could hear and do something,--altogether confirmed me in this view.
I have no doubt that if I could poll American readers, or American
senators,--or even American representatives, if the polling could
be unbiassed,--or American booksellers, [Footnote: I might also say
American publishers, if I might count them by the number of heads,
and not by the amount of work done by the firms.] that an assent
to an international copyright would be the result. The state of
things as it is is crushing to American authors, as the publishers
will not pay them a liberal scale, knowing that they can supply
their customers with modern English literature without paying for
it. The English amount of production so much exceeds the American,
that the rate at which the former can be published rules the
market. it is equally injurious to American booksellers,--except
to two or three of the greatest houses. No small man can now acquire
the exclusive right of printing and selling an English book. If
such a one attempt it, the work is printed instantly by one of the
leviathans,--who alone are the gainers. The argument of course is,
that the American readers are the gainers,--that as they can get
for nothing the use of certain property, they would be cutting their
own throats were they to pass a law debarring themselves from the
power of such appropriation. In this argument all idea of honesty
is thrown to the winds. It is not that they do not approve of
a system of copyright,--as many great men have disapproved,--for
their own law of copyright is as stringent as is ours. A bold
assertion is made that they like to appropriate the goods of other
people; and that, as in this case, they can do so with impunity,
they will continue to do so. But the argument, as far as I have been
able to judge, comes not from the people, but from the bookselling
leviathans, and from those politicians whom the leviathans are able
to attach to their interests. The ordinary American purchaser is
not much affected by slight variations in price. He is at any rate
too high-hearted to be affected by the prospect of such variation.
It is the man who wants to make money, not he who fears that he may
be called upon to spend it, who controls such matters as this in
the United States. It is the large speculator who becomes powerful
in the lobbies of the House, and understands how wise it may
be to incur a great expenditure either in the creation of a great
business, or in protecting that which he has created from competition.
Nothing was done in 1868,--and nothing has been done since (up to
1876). A Royal Commission on the law of copyright is now about to
sit in this country, of which I have consented to be a member; and
the question must then be handled, though nothing done by a Royal
Commission here can effect American legislators. But I do believe
that if the measure be consistently and judiciously urged, the
enemies to it in the States will gradually be overcome. Some years
since we had some quasi private meetings, under the presidency of
Lord Stanhope, in Mr. John Murray's dining-room, on the subject of
international copyright. At one of these I discussed this matter of
American international copyright with Charles Dickens, who strongly
declared his conviction that nothing would induce an American to
give up the power he possesses of pirating British literature. But
he was a man who, seeing clearly what was before him, would not
realise the possibility of shifting views. Because in this matter
the American decision had been, according to his thinking, dishonest,
therefore no other than dishonest decision was to be expected from
Americans. Against that idea I protested, and now protest. American
dishonesty is rampant; but it is rampant only among a few. It
is the great misfortune of the community that those few have been
able to dominate so large a portion of the population among which
all men can vote, but so few can understand for what they are
voting.
Since this was written the Commission on the law of copyright has
sat and made its report. With the great body of it I agree, and
could serve no reader by alluding here at length to matters which
are discussed there. But in regard to this question of international
copyright with the United States, I think that we were incorrect
in the expression of an opinion that fair justice,--or justice
approaching to fairness,--is now done by American publishers to
English authors by payments made by them for early sheets. I have
just found that (pounds)20 was paid to my publisher in England for the
use of the early sheets of a novel for which I received (pounds)1600 in
England. When asked why he accepted so little, he assured me that
the firm with whom he dealt would not give more. "Why not go to
another firm?" I asked. No other firm would give a dollar, because
no other firm would care to run counter to that great firm which
had assumed to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon after
received a copy of my own novel in the American form, and found
that it was published for 7 1/2d. That a great sale was expected
can be argued from the fact that without a great sale the paper and
printing necessary for the republication of a three-volume novel
could not be supplied. Many thousand copies must have been sold.
But from these the author received not one shilling. I need hardly
point out that the sum of (pounds)20 would not do more than compensate
the publisher for his trouble in making the bargain. The publisher
here no doubt might have refused to supply the early sheets, but
he had no means of exacting a higher price than that offered. I
mention the circumstance here because it has been boasted, on behalf
of the American publishers, that though there is no international
copyright, they deal so liberally with English authors as to make
it unnecessary that the English author should be so protected.
With the fact of the (pounds)20 just brought to my knowledge, and with the
copy of my book published at 7 1/2d. now in my hands, I feel that
an international copyright is very necessary for my protection.
They among Englishmen who best love and most admire the United
States, have felt themselves tempted to use the strongest language
in denouncing the sins of Americans. Who can but love their personal
generosity, their active and far-seeking philanthropy, their love
of education, their hatred of ignorance, the general convictions
in the minds of all of them that a man should be enabled to walk
upright, fearing no one and conscious that he is responsible for
his own actions? In what country have grander efforts been made by
private munificence to relieve the sufferings of humanity? Where
can the English traveller find any more anxious to assist him than
the normal American, when once the American shall have found the
Englishman to be neither sullen nor fastidious? Who, lastly, is
so much an object of heart-felt admiration of the American man and
the American woman as the well-mannered and well-educated Englishwoman
or Englishman? These are the ideas which I say spring uppermost
in the minds of the unprejudiced English traveller as he makes
acquaintance with these near relatives. Then he becomes cognisant
of their official doings, of their politics, of their municipal
scandals, of their great ring-robberies, of their lobbyings and
briberies, and the infinite baseness of their public life. There
at the top of everything he finds the very men who are the least
fit to occupy high places. American public dishonesty is so glaring
that the very friends he has made in the country are not slow
to acknowledge it,--speaking of public life as a thing apart from
their own existence, as a state of dirt in which it would be an
insult to suppose that they are concerned! In the midst of it all
the stranger, who sees so much that he hates and so much that he
loves, hardly knows how to express himself.
"It is not enough that you are personally clean," he says, with
what energy and courage he can command,--"not enough though the
clean outnumber the foul as greatly as those gifted with eyesight
outnumber the blind, if you that can see allow the blind to lead
you. It is not by the private lives of the millions that the outside
world will judge you, but by the public career of those units whose
venality is allowed to debase the name of your country. There never
was plainer proof given than is given here, that it is the duty of
every honest citizen to look after the honour of his State."
Personally, I have to own that I have met Americans,--men, but more
frequently women,--who have in all respects come up to my ideas of
what men and women should be: energetic, having opinions of their
own, quick in speech, with some dash of sarcasm at their command,
always intelligent, sweet to look at (I speak of the women), fond
of pleasure, and each with a personality of his or her own which
makes no effort necessary on my own part in remembering the difference
between Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Green, or between Mr. Smith and Mr.
Johnson. They have faults. They are self-conscious, and are too
prone to prove by ill-concealed struggles that they are as good as
you,--whereas you perhaps have been long acknowledging to yourself
that they are much better. And there is sometimes a pretence at
personal dignity among those who think themselves to have risen
high in the world which is deliciously ludicrous. I remember two
old gentlemen,--the owners of names which stand deservedly high
in public estimation,--whose deportment at a public funeral turned
the occasion into one for irresistible comedy. They are suspicious
at first, and fearful of themselves. They lack that simplicity of
manners which with us has become a habit from our childhood. But
they are never fools, and I think that they are seldom ill-natured.
There is a woman, of whom not to speak in a work purporting to be
a memoir of my own life would be to omit all allusion to one of
the chief pleasures which has graced my later years. In the last
fifteen years she has been, out of my family, my most chosen friend.
She is a ray of light to me, from which I can always strike a spark
by thinking of her. I do not know that I should please her or do
any good by naming her. But not to allude to her in these pages
would amount almost to a falsehood. I could not write truly of
myself without saying that such a friend had been vouchsafed to me.
I trust she may live to read the words I have now written, and to
wipe away a tear as she thinks of my feeling while I write them.
I was absent on this occasion something over three months, and
on my return I went back with energy to my work at the St. Paul's
Magazine. The first novel in it from my own pen was called Phineas
Finn, in which I commenced a series of semi-political tales. As I
was debarred from expressing my opinions in the House of Commons,
I took this method of declaring myself. And as I could not take my
seat on those benches where I might possibly have been shone upon
by the Speaker's eye, I had humbly to crave his permission for a
seat in the gallery, so that I might thus become conversant with
the ways and doings of the House in which some of my scenes were
to be placed. The Speaker was very gracious, and gave me a running
order for, I think, a couple of months. It was enough, at any rate,
to enable me often to be very tired,--and, as I have been assured
by members, to talk of the proceedings almost as well as though
Fortune had enabled me to fall asleep within the House itself.
In writing Phineas Finn, and also some other novels which followed
it, I was conscious that I could not make a tale pleasing chiefly,
or perhaps in any part, by politics. If I write politics for my
own sake, I must put in love and intrigue, social incidents, with
perhaps a dash of sport, for the benefit of my readers. In this
way I think I made my political hero interesting. It was certainly
a blunder to take him from Ireland--into which I was led by the
circumstance that I created the scheme of the book during a visit
to Ireland. There was nothing to be gained by the peculiarity, and
there was an added difficulty in obtaining sympathy and affection
for a politician belonging to a nationality whose politics are not
respected in England. But in spite of this Phineas succeeded. It
was not a brilliant success,--because men and women not conversant
with political matters could not care much for a hero who spent
so much of his time either in the House of Commons or in a public
office. But the men who would have lived with Phineas Finn read the
book, and the women who would have lived with Lady Laura Standish
read it also. As this was what I had intended, I was contented. It
is all fairly good except the ending,--as to which till I got to
it I made no provision. As I fully intended to bring my hero again
into the world, I was wrong to marry him to a simple pretty Irish
girl, who could only be felt as an encumbrance on such return. When
he did return I had no alternative but to kill the simple pretty
Irish girl, which was an unpleasant and awkward necessity.
In writing Phineas Finn I had constantly before me the necessity
of progression in character,--of marking the changes in men and
women which would naturally be produced by the lapse of years. In
most novels the writer can have no such duty, as the period occupied
is not long enough to allow of the change of which I speak. In
Ivanhoe, all the incidents of which are included in less than a
month, the characters should be, as they are, consistent throughout.
Novelists who have undertaken to write the life of a hero or heroine
have generally considered their work completed at the interesting
period of marriage, and have contented themselves with the advance
in taste and manners which are common to all boys and girls as
they become men and women. Fielding, no doubt, did more than this
in Tom Jones, which is one of the greatest novels in the English
language, for there he has shown how a noble and sanguine nature
may fall away under temptation and be again strengthened and made
to stand upright. But I do not think that novelists have often
set before themselves the state of progressive change,--nor should
I have done it, had I not found myself so frequently allured back
to my old friends. So much of my inner life was passed in their
company, that I was continually asking myself how this woman would
act when this or that event had passed over her head, or how that
man would carry himself when his youth had become manhood, or
his manhood declined to old age. It was in regard to the old Duke
of Omnium, of his nephew and heir, and of his heir's wife, Lady
Glencora, that I was anxious to carry out this idea; but others added
themselves to my mind as I went on, and I got round me a circle of
persons as to whom I knew not only their present characters, but
how those characters were to be affected by years and circumstances.
The happy motherly life of Violet Effingham, which was due to the
girl's honest but long-restrained love; the tragic misery of Lady
Laura, which was equally due to the sale she made of herself in her
wretched marriage; and the long suffering but final success of the
hero, of which he had deserved the first by his vanity, and the
last by his constant honesty, had been foreshadowed to me from
the first. As to the incidents of the story, the circumstances by
which these personages were to be affected, I knew nothing. They
were created for the most part as they were described. I never
could arrange a set of events before me. But the evil and the good
of my puppets, and how the evil would always lead to evil, and the
good produce good,--that was clear to me as the stars on a summer
night.
Lady Laura Standish is the best character in Phineas Finn and its
sequel Phineas Redux,--of which I will speak here together. They
are, in fact, but one novel though they were brought out at a
considerable interval of time and in different form. The first was
commenced in the St. Paul's Magazine in 1867, and the other was
brought out in the Graphic in 1873. In this there was much bad
arrangement, as I had no right to expect that novel readers would
remember the characters of a story after an interval of six years,
or that any little interest which might have been taken in the
career of my hero could then have been renewed. I do not know that
such interest was renewed. But I found that the sequel enjoyed the
same popularity as the former part, and among the same class of
readers. Phineas, and Lady Laura, and Lady Chiltern--as Violet
had become--and the old duke,--whom I killed gracefully, and the
new duke, and the young duchess, either kept their old friends or
made new friends for themselves. Phineas Finn, I certainly think,
was successful from first to last. I am aware, however, that there
was nothing in it to touch the heart like the abasement of Lady
Mason when confessing her guilt to her old lover, or any approach
in delicacy of delineation to the character of Mr. Crawley.
Phineas Finn, the first part of the story, was completed in
May, 1867. In June and July I wrote Linda Tressel for Blackwood's
Magazine, of which I have already spoken. In September and October
I wrote a short novel, called The Golden Lion of Granpere, which
was intended also for Blackwood,--with a view of being published
anonymously; but Mr. Blackwood did not find the arrangement to be
profitable, and the story remained on my hands, unread and unthought
of, for a few years. It appeared subsequently in Good Words. It
was written on the model of Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, but
is very inferior to either of them. In November of the same year,
1867, I began a very long novel, which I called He Knew He Was
Right, and which was brought out by Mr. Virtue, the proprietor of
the St. Paul's Magazine, in sixpenny numbers, every week. I do not
know that in any literary effort I ever fell more completely short
of my own intention than in this story. It was my purpose to create
sympathy for the unfortunate man who, while endeavouring to do
his duty to all around him, should be led constantly astray by his
unwillingness to submit his own judgment to the opinion of others.
The man is made to be unfortunate enough, and the evil which he
does is apparent. So far I did not fail, but the sympathy has not
been created yet. I look upon the story as being nearly altogether
bad. It is in part redeemed by certain scenes in the house and
vicinity of an old maid in Exeter. But a novel which in its main
parts is bad cannot, in truth, be redeemed by the vitality of
subordinate characters.
This work was finished while I was at Washington in the spring of
1868, and on the day after I finished it, I commenced The Vicar of
Bullhampton, a novel which I wrote for Messrs. Bradbury & Evans.
This I completed in November, 1868, and at once began Sir Harry
Hotspur of Humblethwaite, a story which I was still writing at the
close of the year. I look upon these two years, 1867 and 1868, of
which I have given a somewhat confused account in this and the two
preceding chapters, as the busiest in my life. I had indeed left
the Post Office, but though I had left it I had been employed by
it during a considerable portion of the time. I had established the
St. Paul's Magazine, in reference to which I had read an enormous
amount of manuscript, and for which, independently of my novels, I
had written articles almost monthly. I had stood for Beverley and
had made many speeches. I had also written five novels, and had
hunted three times a week during each of the winters. And how happy
I was with it all! I had suffered at Beverley, but I had suffered
as a part of the work which I was desirous of doing, and I had gained
my experience. I had suffered at Washington with that wretched
American Postmaster, and with the mosquitoes, not having been able
to escape from that capital till July; but all that had added to
the activity of my life. I had often groaned over those manuscripts;
but I had read them, considering it--perhaps foolishly--to be a
part of my duty as editor. And though in the quick production of my
novels I had always ringing in my ears that terrible condemnation
and scorn produced by the great man in Paternoster Row, I
was nevertheless proud of having done so much. I always had a pen
in my hand. Whether crossing the seas, or fighting with American
officials, or tramping about the streets of Beverley, I could do a
little, and generally more than a little. I had long since convinced
myself that in such work as mine the great secret consisted
in acknowledging myself to be bound to rules of labour similar to
those which an artisan or a mechanic is forced to obey. A shoemaker
when he has finished one pair of shoes does not sit down and
contemplate his work in idle satisfaction. "There is my pair of
shoes finished at last! What a pair of shoes it is!" The shoemaker
who so indulged himself would be without wages half his time. It
is the same with a professional writer of books. An author may of
course want time to study a new subject. He will at any rate assure
himself that there is some such good reason why he should pause.
He does pause, and will be idle for a month or two while he tells
himself how beautiful is that last pair of shoes which he has
finished! Having thought much of all this, and having made up my
mind that I could be really happy only when I was at work, I had
now quite accustomed myself to begin a second pair as soon as the
first was out of my hands.