“It is a not uncommon mood with young men, and its not unnatural cure is for the young man to fall deeply in love. But there seemed no likelihood of any such happiness befalling young Caine, so far as any of his friends knew. He seemed to avoid the possibility of such a contingency. His friendships, so far as I knew, were exclusively with young men, though there was nothing of the misogynist in him. In the letter from which the above quotations are taken, he again refers to grave spiritual questions—what is life? he asks, and naturally gives vague answers and speculations. He quotes, in connection with the hypothesis that evil is a quality of our more material part, the lines:—

He excuses himself for not sending the play in blank verse as he has only one draft copy, and its condition is such that he is convinced I could not read it. In some letters now lost he had referred to a Christmas poem he is to write, but although now it is the first day of December, it is not begun. ‘It is to be framed from an old plot of one of the Greek Tragedians,’ and is to be ‘written in the same vein as Christabel.’ At the close of this letter he mentions that if I cared to see newspaper articles of general interest written by him, I could have them in volumes.

“A later letter is written in rhymed couplets. After some four hundred lines in verse, it finishes with a few lines in prose. The poem referred to in previous letters is to be called Geraldine, but cannot be sent as ‘a bookseller fellow needs to see it.’ He had hoped to raise the character of this rhymed effusion by adding some verses on the Days of Minstrelsy, but after keeping it six days he must dispatch it without. He is to deliver a lecture on Hamlet the following month, and the subject is absorbing all his thoughts.

“Soon after this—about the close of 1873 or the beginning of the following year—I was interested to find Caine was proposing to publish a small monthly magazine, and he was good enough to ask me for a contribution. There were, evidently, difficulties in the way of the venture, small as it was. But he put all his usual energy into the enterprise and communicated his enthusiasm to his friends, and in due course the first number of Stray Leaves appeared, with a lithographic portrait of Henry Irving as a frontispiece. It had some modest literary pretensions, though of no very distinctive character, and therefore after prolonged expectation it was not quite surprising to read: ‘Stray Leaves has made no second appearance. It never will.’ But, meanwhile, he has another and larger magazine in hand, and this time, with a view of avoiding some of the difficulties which had beset him on his earlier venture, in announcing The Rambler Magazine he prints on the official paper ‘T. H. H. Caine, Proprietor.’ I was obliged to take an interest in the new magazine—Caine was so buoyantly sanguine of its success. I therefore sent him a poem, and next, and more to the purpose, arranged with a local bookseller to exhibit the poster and sell copies. I also got a favourable review of the first number inserted in the newspaper with which I was connected; and this ought to sell ‘at least three dozen copies,’ he writes. The parcel for our town got unaccountably delayed, but every copy was eventually distributed. Caine had been staying at or near Keswick, and writes his astonishment that the poet Close (a well-known character in those parts) had sold two hundred copies, and was asking for a further hundred. But the letter containing this information has a much more exciting piece of news. He had to-day replied to an inquiry from ‘a man of means (heaps of money)’ concerning ‘the establishment of a critical newspaper in Liverpool.’ He is willing to conduct such a journal for three months if a sufficient guarantee fund is provided, and already seeing the possible success of this fresh candidate for Fame, says, if the project advances, I must return to Liverpool to take a place on his staff.

“There was being published in Liverpool at this time a small weekly journal called The Town Crier, satirising and criticising with more or less good humour the affairs of the town. It is not necessary to enter upon any details as to the establishment of this paper, but I was interested in its existence because Caine had some sort of connection with it. The editor and general factotum was our old schoolfellow William Tirebuck, while Caine wrote for it, especially dramatic notices and reviews, and acted as adviser generally, if I remember rightly. We were all surely young enough to be engaged in such work, but Tirebuck was our junior by a couple of years. I remember visiting Liverpool about this time and calling at the small editorial sanctum out of South Castle Street. I had already written a little for The Town Crier, and was much interested in its career. It was a great time. Everybody was busy preparing for the next day’s issue. The printer’s boy had brought a bundle of galley proofs and was told he must not return without the rest of the copy. There were confidential conferences over correspondence, some of it purporting to divulge certain pieces of municipal jobbery; final consideration of the article which sailed very near the wind in denouncing a town scandal, in which a man of much wealth and no principle was concerned. Everyone was in the highest spirits. Caine had come down in his dinner hour, or had special leave, and when we had settled the affairs of The Town Crier and of the town generally, we went off to a meal, not at all of an elaborate character, I admit, but graced by overflowing good-fellowship and light-hearted wit.

“Meanwhile, the fortunes of The Rambler, notwithstanding that all the copies of the first number were distributed and in some cases further copies called for, were not in a flourishing way. The printer’s bill was a very matter-of-fact document. No amount of generous self-denying enthusiasm could alter its figures. Even reviews favourable and unfavourable, and there was a liberal number of both kinds, did not solve the problem. Caine rightly claimed that the widespread notice taken of The Rambler was some proof of its worth. One journal gave prominent place to the opinion that ‘the contents of The Rambler are bosh—pure, unmitigated bosh,’ the style of the criticism at least indicating the character of the journal. But the ‘bosh’ was not so unmitigated that it could be disregarded. Nevertheless, the financial results were not encouraging. He tried, in answer to a sympathetic inquiry on my part, to let me know how matters stood. He says, ‘The last issue paid (cannot pay more than) (or, rather, didn’t pay at all, or paid on the wrong side) fifty per cent.’ Then feeling that this was not exactly an enlightening statement, he proceeds—‘I am really such a fool at business affairs and so very little acquainted with the technicalities of trade as surely to have made a mess of the last explanation.’ The substance of the explanation was that they had reckoned on a loss, and had received half of what they had calculated their proceeds might be, making the real loss proportionately greater. He does not contemplate giving up; is ‘only disposed to delay the issue of No. 2 in the hope of balancing affairs.’ However, he never troubled any of his friends about the financial difficulties; whatever the losses may have been, he squared them without the aid of his fellow-contributors. The second number did appear, somewhat belated, but that was the end of Caine’s amateur efforts at floating a magazine.

“When I returned to Liverpool in the beginning of 1875, to prepare myself for college, I had an opportunity of renewing my personal intercourse with Caine. It was a very pleasant time to me. We had one or two congenial friends and with them or ourselves alone had a long succession of talks upon the subjects that interested us. I think he generally determined the course of our conversation. Earlier in life he had been greatly under the sway of Coleridge. By this time his tastes had widened and were more varied. He had much to say about Wordsworth. I recall an evening when he was full of the Ode to Immortality, which he quoted at great length—as he could most things he admired—and discussed with great insight and power. But the range of subjects we ventured upon was wide and varied enough to suit all tastes and dispositions. I can by no means recall them all, but I remember such subjects as the writings of Jean Paul, the Aristotelian unities and the modern drama, the nature of Hamlet’s madness, and Shakespearian subjects generally. Curiously enough, we had little to say concerning Tennyson—In Memoriam was the only poem I remember discussing—and even less in regard to Browning, though I had myself a vague conviction that Browning was the greater poet of the two. But we frequently conversed about Rossetti, Swinburne and William Morris. On many evenings when we felt little inclined for literary talks we enjoyed lighter chat and gossip; while, occasionally, we turned to graver subjects and speculated on eternal things with the calmness and confidence which are part of youth’s prerogative. And though we were a kind of peripatetic academy, we were happy enough, and seasoned our more serious mental fare with a liberal share of laughter and fun.

“Apart from the little circle of friends with whom he thus associated—and I recall him most easily during the midsummer months when I spent most of my long vacation at home—I think he spent a solitary life. He was little understood. The majority of the people he met being very dull persons, they could note only his outward peculiarities, and I have no doubt most of them set him down as an eccentric young man. They were struck with his musical voice, his copious diction, his literary style of speech, which I think they generally set down as an affectation. Yet he could, when he chose, make himself interesting to very commonplace people. He knew so many things. He found them interesting in ways they themselves little suspected. Then beside being a remarkable talker he was never disposed to turn the conversation into a monologue. He was a most sympathetic listener.

“For the sake of his health he often spent his week-ends at New Brighton, at the mouth of the Mersey, and for some time had permanent lodgings there. We were all compelled to visit him, for he was ever the most hospitable of friends, and thought no trouble too great to bestow on the comfort of those who were his guests. I was his guest overnight, and specially recall his appearance at that time. He had grown as tall as he is now, and was of spare habit. He wore his hair, which had lost its early golden tinge, slightly longer than is usual. He had a striking face—pale and clean-shaven, a refined expression, ample forehead, and large, bright, intelligent eyes. For a student he walked very erect, wore a close-fitting and fairly long frock-coat, many-buttoned and double-breasted, and was very square-shouldered. He was a man easily distinguished in a crowd.

“In my early days at college I had one special letter from Caine, and with some reference to it my own particular reminiscences of my eminent friend may come to a close. His younger brother John, a very fine young fellow, was at the time dangerously ill. Very soon after he died of consumptive disease. Hall Caine was subject to fits of depression, and this event did not tend to relieve his thoughts. Yet I think the sad event left him with more hope and fortitude. Trial and difficulty always aroused the best in him. His letter, however, is very pathetic and interesting. I gather that I must have written, in reply to an earlier letter, that the stronger the natural affection, the greater the tendency to magnify the danger. He replies that it would not be easy to exaggerate the gravity of his brother’s case, though they are not without hope that rest and nourishing food may do something to alleviate the lung disease. The letter is full of frank disclosures of his thought and feeling. He is preparing himself ‘for the utmost length and disaster.’ But his sad philosophy can only say: ‘The best that can leave us is Life; the worst that can come is Death; of which we may remember that if it be now, it is not to come; if it be not to come, then it is now—the readiness is all.’ My interpretation of his gloomy outlook as being not reality but the creation of his own thought, he examines and analyses, yet without comfort to himself. He feels how small is our power to choose our own thoughts, ‘how entirely men are born to convictions.’ He moralises over a photograph of myself which I had sent him, and sees all my future in my face. And so with himself. It is not because he has chosen to think it so, that to him—

At the same time he declines Jean Paul’s advice to treat it all like a dream. When we awake the dream-sorrow vanishes. ‘I tremble when I reflect upon the horrible sceptic I should become, say rather the demon I should be, if believing in a Godhead I should believe also the world to be but a dream.’ The sight of the young life leaving behind all the happy activities of existence here, and entering upon a succession of weary days ‘doomed to peer through the darkness for the light of the fairer morning’ touches him acutely; but it leads him to say that for his own part he means to face life bravely. Once, indeed, in a time of spiritual prostration ‘Actual Death’ seemed ‘less terrible than its shadow,’ but ‘I have grown out of the weakness of that period, and now intend, not proudly, but resolutely, to meet life and go through with it.’ And he has doubtless kept to the resolution, and through it achieved his present position.”

It will be seen from the foregoing that whilst in Liverpool Hall Caine’s life was an exceedingly busy one. With characteristic energy he threw himself heart and soul into any work he undertook, and already a burning ambition was urging him on to strain every nerve to gain his goal. His mind developed quickly: long nights of study and deep thought, some struggles of a material kind, and at least one tragic event made a man of him long before his time. Not that he was ever anything of a recluse: he was merely absorbed in his work, and the thoughts of the great minds which he studied matured his judgment, and he crammed a lifetime of experience into a few years. His connection with Rossetti was to ripen many qualities of his mind, and strengthen his character.

The following letters of Ruskin were addressed to Caine a year or two before the future novelist left Liverpool, and when he was in the midst of the office, journalistic and lecturing work described by Mr Pierce and Mr Rose. The first is dated November 8, 1878, and was written in reply to an invitation of Mr Caine to deliver an address in Liverpool.

The second letter, dated 27th December 1879, reads:—

Ruskin, however, was not the only famous writer who had his eye on the young man working away in Liverpool. Already Matthew Arnold and Lord Houghton had made friendly and encouraging advances—the former writing him a long letter of praise concerning an essay of Caine’s which had come into his hands, and the latter asking Henry Bright (the H. A. B. of Hawthorne) to arrange an interview between himself and the rising young littérateur. These marks of distinct encouragement from eminent and well-loved men were a source of keen pleasure to Hall Caine; they not only gave him confidence in his own powers, amid many discouraging circumstances, but made him feel that his strenuous labour was not being done in vain.

CHAPTER III
1879-1884

In the year 1878 an event of the greatest importance to Hall Caine’s future life happened; he became acquainted with the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Little did the eager young student of literature imagine, when he first heard the name of one of the most subtle and alluring poets of the last century, that his life would one day be joined with his. Rossetti was to exercise an influence on his future the full extent of which cannot even now be estimated. In his fascinating Recollections of Rossetti Mr Caine tells, with a certain amount of detail, the story of his friendship with the poet. The story is a deeply interesting one, and in some respects without precedent in Literature. Their friendship was an honourable affair to both of them—more especially to the younger man, who not only gave up many months of his early youth when, maybe, he would have preferred to have been battling with a still unconquered world, but also sacrificed much of his peace of mind in his endeavour to make happy the last hours of Rossetti’s troubled life. On the other hand, what he lost in health of body and mind, he gained in intellectual stimulus; for Rossetti had a mind richly stored with poetic and artistic lore, and the strangely beautiful dreams and phantasmagoria that flitted through his brain undoubtedly did a great deal towards stirring up the imagination of the future novelist, and inciting him to further achievement. As I think of the poet and his enthusiast talking for many hours together in Chelsea; as I think of them afterwards in their loneliness in the Vale of St John; and as I ponder over those last tragic days together at Birchington, I see many examples of sacrifice on the part of Hall Caine, and many, many bitter hours when the poet, forced by what seemed almost a power outside himself, gave way to the accursed drug which killed him. A weak, febrile mind would have given way under the strain of constant companionship with Rossetti during the last months of his life; but Hall Caine had more than this to weigh down his vigorous young intellect. For several weeks he had the sole responsibility of the poet’s life on his shoulders, and it even became necessary for him to regulate the doses of chloral which was Life and Death to the diseased man with whom he lived; and many were the extremities to which he was put in order to hide the fatal drug from his friend. The story of their friendship, quite apart from its own intrinsic interest, is essential to any honest attempt to understand the development of the novelist’s mind.

It was in the early spring of 1879 that Rossetti wrote his first letter to Hall Caine. It reads as follows:—

This was sent in reply to a note of Hall Caine’s covering a copy of a lecture he had twice or thrice delivered in Liverpool, on Rossetti’s poetry. The lecture was subsequently printed in a magazine, and some little time after its publication he conceived the idea of sending a copy to the poet. This letter was the first of nearly two hundred which followed in quick succession. Rossetti’s generous nature immediately recognised the enthusiasm of his admirer, and Hall Caine writes in his Recollections of Rossetti: “It is hardly necessary to say that I was … delighted with the warmth of the reception accorded to my essay, and with the revelation the letters appeared to contain of a sincere and unselfish nature.” Mr Caine was naturally somewhat chary of seeming to seek favour from the distinguished poet, and his purpose of bringing to Rossetti’s knowledge the contents of his essay being served, he withdrew from the correspondence and “there ensued an interval in which I did not write to him.” Rossetti then wrote:—

This at once put at rest all doubts that troubled Mr Caine, and a long, ardent correspondence ensued.

During the time that Hall Caine was engaged in writing to Rossetti, his life was an exceedingly busy one, and full of many and varied interests. As we have seen, he was engaged all day in office work—uncongenial, one can imagine, and perhaps even irksome. At night—sometimes all night—he worked at his books, reading and writing, for he had a good deal to do in order to catch up with others who had enjoyed better opportunities. His life was far from unhappy, in spite of the checked ambition which was beginning to dominate him. He had friends of like mind and tastes with his own, and his work in connection with the Liverpool Notes and Queries Shakespearian Society brought him in contact with many interesting people. Still, he was longing to be away—longing to test his strength with the strength of the world, and desiring nothing better than to work out his destiny. The story of how he threw off the shackles of conventional life in Liverpool and escaped to the mountains of Cumberland is by no means uncharacteristic, and I may perhaps be pardoned if I tell it here pretty much as Mr Caine himself related it to me.

In 1881 his health seemed on the point of breaking down. He mentioned the fact to his employer, with whom, by now, he was on terms of friendship. Perhaps business was pressing, perhaps there were good and sufficient reasons of some other kind, but at all events little attention was taken, and for a week or two Mr Caine worked on uncomplainingly. But a time came when he felt that if he wished to preserve his health he must have an immediate holiday, so, giving up his keys to his fellow clerk, he walked out of the office and never returned, in spite of the affectionate and solicitous letters which followed him. But he had had more than enough of office life, and had made up his mind to devote his energies to Literature. At this time he possessed a sum of about thirty pounds, and was delivering a course of twenty-four lectures for the Liverpool Corporation. For each lecture he received two or three guineas, but that was all that stood between him and the bottom of the purse. But in his heart of hearts he knew that Literature was the only profession in the world for him, and that the sooner he began to devote his life to it the better. At this date, Hall Caine had twice stayed with Rossetti at his house in Chelsea. He had found the poet cheerful and in good health, but the mental atmosphere in which he lived was almost morbid. “The gloom, the mediæval furniture, the brass censers, sacramental cups, lamps and crucifixes conspired, I thought, to make the atmosphere of a dwelling-house heavy and unwholesome.” But he felt that by personal contact with the man he had been brought much nearer to him in spirit, and there existed between them an affectionate regard such as father and son might have for each other. The younger man was soon to be called upon to make a sacrifice on behalf of his friend, and with that “genius for friendship” of which we have already heard, the sacrifice was made eagerly enough. Hall Caine had not been settled long at the Vale of St John before Rossetti wrote saying that he too was ill—bodily and mentally, and that he must soon leave London. If only he could get away to the country, he was sure he would be better. “Supposing,” he wrote, “I were to ask you to come to town in a fortnight’s time from now—I returning with you for a while into the country—would that be feasible to you?” For a few days he remained undecided, but at length wrote to the Vale of St John asking Mr Caine to come to him. Mr Caine went, but on arriving at Rossetti’s house found the poet unwilling to move. A great change had now taken place. Rossetti had lost his cheerfulness, his fund of good spirits. He was ill, and more than ever a slave to chloral. His mind was unsettled and gloomy, and he suffered from the hallucination that nearly all his friends had proved faithless. He longed to escape from London, but yet he had not the strength of mind to take the necessary steps. His doctor gave his permission for a visit to Cumberland, but still Rossetti would not go. At last, yielding to the persuasion of Mr Caine, strongly supported by the advice of Rossetti’s older and more immediate friends, Theodore Watts, Frederick Shields and William Rossetti, his brother, who thought the bracing mountain air of Cumberland would work wonders, Rossetti consented to go. And now ensued a time of anxiety for Hall Caine. They were entirely alone in the little house they had rented in the mountains, save for a nurse to attend to the wants of the sick man; and Caine had the real responsibility of Rossetti’s life on his shoulders. Rossetti could not sleep, so night was turned into day and day into night. They would sit up through the dark hours together, with the sound of the flooded ghyll outside, and within the tones of Caine’s voice as he read aloud to Rossetti to while the hours away. And as he read, the poet would walk up and down the oblong room, restless, nervous, and longing to get at the chloral which was safely locked away in a place he knew not of. The hot, quick, anguishing thirst for chloral was on him during these days, and when Rossetti used to come to Hall Caine’s bedside and beg for an extra dose, the younger man found him simply irresistible, and often had to give way to his friend’s earnest pleading. There were other grave responsibilities thrust upon him of which I cannot speak; suffice it to say that he bore them bravely and uncomplainingly, and came out from his trial a more experienced and a stronger man.

It was during these long sleepless nights that Hall Caine first told Rossetti the outline of the story which was afterwards to be the framework of his first novel, The Shadow of a Crime. This story, which is dealt with in an ensuing chapter, although it appealed to Rossetti’s imagination, did not convince him that it would make a good novel. It was too terrible—too unsympathetic. He urged Caine to try his hand at a Manx novel, and told him that it would be no mean ambition to strive to become the bard of Manxland. The plot was discussed from every point of view, but as yet the writing of it had not been commenced. Perhaps the young student of Literature did not yet feel quite strong enough in experience and imagination to attempt so large a scheme; perhaps he was too engrossed reading Smollett, Fielding and Richardson for his Liverpool lectures; or perhaps he had seen that Rossetti’s criticism was a just one, and that the story would prove cold and inhuman. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that he did not begin to work on his first novel until some time afterwards when Rossetti lay in his grave, but month by month, week by week, it was getting a stronger and yet stronger hold on his imagination, until it dominated him entirely. The familiar legend of his youth became a part of his everyday life, a part of his very being. It obsessed him almost entirely to the exclusion of all other interests; but he restrained himself day by day, until restraint was no longer possible, and then in a fever of impatience and enthusiasm he began to write.

Meanwhile Rossetti was gradually becoming worse and worse, and Caine more and more anxious. What was to be done? They were hundreds of miles away from home and older and more experienced friends, and Rossetti seemed too ill to travel. It was a critical time for both of them. Rossetti was by turns irritable and genial, bad-tempered and high-spirited, full of life and languidly indolent; but these various moods were not reflected in his companion—he was always anxious, always wondering what was going to happen. The solitude, the anxiety and the poor state of his own health made him suffer keenly; yet even now he confesses that he looks back with great tenderness and gratitude to those four weeks with Rossetti among the Cumberland hills. At length it was decided that they should return home, and the instant the decision was made Rossetti’s spirits rose. Perhaps he had already a premonition of his nearly-approaching death, and felt more at ease that he was to die near friends and kindred instead of in the almost tragic silence and loneliness of Cumberland. He returned worse in health and spirits than he had come, and as soon as his doctor saw him he realised that the time had arrived when drastic measures should be taken. Rossetti had an attack of paralysis, and from that time his drug was absolutely forbidden him. The pain that ensued was intense, and he became delirious with desire for chloral. A few days after, however, he rallied and became more cheerful, and it was decided that he should stay for a time at a bungalow at Birchington-on-Sea which had very opportunely been placed at his service. Thither he went with Hall Caine, his constant friend and comforter, and there he died shortly afterwards—literally in his young friend’s arms, for at the last moments Caine had put his arm about Rossetti to raise him up, in order to relieve his apparent pain.

In attempting to gauge the kind of influence which Rossetti exercised over Hall Caine, it must not be overlooked that the poet was old enough to be the younger man’s father; indeed, both in letters and conversation, he more than once expressed the wish that he was his father. When Caine first knew Rossetti, the latter’s health and nerves were already on the point of breaking down, and he was even then a victim to the chloral-taking habit. He was morbid and fanciful; his body diseased, and his mind unhealthy. Caine, on the other hand, had fair health and a vigorous, lusty mind. What came to pass is only what a spectator might have guessed; the older man attracted and fascinated the younger, and there can be little doubt that this fascination had by no means an entirely healthy influence over Hall Caine. Indeed, he tells us in his Recollections of Rossetti that one day he found himself becoming the victim of the very delusions which so tortured his friend, and this is but one instance out of many by means of which it might be shown that the poet’s influence over the budding novelist was one of at least questionable value. As I have already remarked, it would have required a peculiarly strong and vigorous mind and body to have lived with Rossetti towards the end of his life without being detrimentally influenced by his personality; but fortunately for Hall Caine, this doubtful part of the influence was only temporary, while the good and noble part of it was permanent, and was felt long after the personal intercourse came to its end. It must not be forgotten, too, that Hall Caine’s imagination was with him a masterful power which he had not yet learned to control properly, and his sensitive, responsive disposition made him particularly impressionable. But it cannot be doubted that the friendship of these two men, both strongly, indeed peculiarly individual, had a great deal to do in developing the character of the younger man. It was inevitable that a man of Rossetti’s genius and character should inflame his imagination and light up many beacons of his intellect.

When a year or two later Hall Caine began to strike out for himself it was bruited abroad that he was making capital out of the names of his friends—in other words, that he was making a bid for Fame by the help of those who constituted the Rossetti circle.

This, of course, was as absurd as it was untrue. People said that Caine had been Rossetti’s secretary, and some foolish gossips went so far as to declare that he had been his valet. The only relationship that existed between them was one of friendship. Hall Caine looked on Rossetti with enthusiastic admiration and something almost approaching reverence, and Rossetti regarded him with the keen interest one naturally takes in the career of a young man of genius. For Rossetti often encouraged his young friend by bidding him have no anxiety as to what the future held for him, declaring that Fame was bound to come to him sooner or later. It speaks much for Rossetti’s perspicacity that he was able to discern the genius of his friend, for at this time Hall Caine had produced little or nothing that he cares to recognise now. He had written a quantity of mediocre verse, and a few sonnets of real and lasting beauty; but that was all. Rossetti insisted that Caine’s vocation lay in the writing of fervid and impassioned prose, and the truth of this remark has been demonstrated over and over again since it was first uttered.

I have not read the essay which Hall Caine wrote on the poetry of Rossetti, and which was the means of bringing the two men together, but I can very well imagine what it was in the poet that attracted him. Different as the two men seem to be in almost every particular save their mutual love of Beauty, there is one common trait which bound them together: they were both strangely and strongly attracted towards the supernatural and spiritual. There is an air of mystery, of unknown and unseen terrors and forces in Rossetti’s poetry that is also breathed in the earlier novels of Hall Caine. To this very day, Hall Caine is a firm believer in many of the phenomena which, by ignorant people, are placed in the category of spiritualism. For instance, he believes in second sight. On several occasions he has himself had distinct and indisputable warnings of accidents some minutes before they actually happened. A case in point occurred the day previous to my last visit to Greeba Castle. A young lady was bicycling through Greeba on the way to Peel. She was “scorching,” but, so far as one could judge, had complete command over her machine. Mr Caine happened to be in the road at the time with a friend, and as the lady passed he turned to his companion and said: “That girl will meet with an accident before she has turned the corner!” They watched her for a minute or so with interest, and then everything happened as the novelist had predicted. She collided with an unsuspecting cow, which appeared from some unseen place, and fell to the ground almost insensible. I could, if it were necessary, produce other instances of the exercise of the somewhat mysterious faculty for foreseeing which have come within my own observation.

Rossetti was always powerfully attracted by the supernatural, as, indeed, men of imagination usually are, and this mutual attraction undoubtedly served to bind the two writers together. Caine’s attraction to and study of Coleridge had undoubtedly prepared him for the advent of Rossetti, for the mystic imagery, the finished technique and the mandragora-like spell of the earlier poet were reproduced in detail by the later. Again, the supernatural in Shakespeare had received Caine’s particular study, and throughout his life it has been a powerful factor in stirring up his imagination.

In 1882—the year of Rossetti’s death—appeared Hall Caine’s Recollections of Rossetti, which has already been referred to several times in this chapter. For this he received forty pounds. The book made something of a sensation in the literary world, owing chiefly, or perhaps entirely, to its subject, and the intimate nature of its revelations, but it did not in the least enhance its author’s reputation among the large body of general readers. Mr Caine does not to-day regard this product of his earlier years with any feeling of respect. It was edited with the kindest and best possible intentions by Rossetti’s friends and relatives, and many important changes were insisted on. I myself have read the original version side by side with that which was eventually published, and I have not the least hesitation in saying that the unedited account which Mr Caine wrote of his relations with his revered friend is vastly superior to that with which the public is familiar.

Before I leave Rossetti and turn to the novels of the subject of this monograph, I should like to give a letter of the late Mr Robert Buchanan, addressed by him to Mr Caine after reading the latter’s obituary notice of his friend in the Academy. To all who know anything of the life of Rossetti, it will prove of exceptional interest, for it bears directly upon one of the causes of his premature death, and throws fresh light on one of the most widely-discussed episodes of nineteenth-century literature.

In the meantime, Caine had also published an anthology of sonnets, entitled Sonnets of Three Centuries (a particularly handsome volume, prefaced by a very capable and original essay on the history of the sonnet), and a volume of essays entitled Cobwebs of Criticism. Neither of these books did much to widen his reputation, but the volume of sonnets was a labour of love, and the essays contained in the latter consisted chiefly of lectures delivered in Liverpool.

CHAPTER IV
THE SHADOW OF A CRIME AND A SON OF HAGAR

After the death of Rossetti, Hall Caine spent eighteen months in daily journalism in London writing his Rossetti recollections, and reviewing books, etc., for the Academy and Athenæum. He was also employed as a leader-writer on the Liverpool Mercury at a salary beginning at a hundred pounds per annum. This life, honourable and fascinating as it was, did not satisfy him, however. He was beginning to look further afield. Besides, he was being dominated by the legend which was to be the germ of his first novel.

So, in order to obtain complete immunity from all interruption, social and professional, he “settled in a little bungalow of three rooms in a garden near the beach at Sandown in the Isle of Wight.” In the meantime he had married, and at the time of settling at Sandown he had enough money to keep him going for about four months. But his story was deeply rooted in his mind and heart, and he feared nothing—not even failure. The legend that so dominated him was as follows. (I quote from The Idler, to which magazine Mr Caine contributed an article entitled My First Book):—

“One of the oldest legends of the Lake mountains tells of the time of the plague. The people were afraid to go to market, afraid to meet at church and afraid to pass on the highway. When any lonely body was ill, the nearest neighbour left meat and drink at the door of the afflicted house, and knocked and ran away. In these days a widow and two sons lived in one of the darkest of the valleys. The younger son died, and the body had to be carried over the mountains to be buried. Its course lay across Sty Head Pass, a bleak and ‘brant’ place, where the winds are often high. The eldest son, a strong-hearted lad, undertook the duty. He strapped the coffin on to the back of a young horse, and they started away. The day was wild, and on the top of the pass, where the path dips into Wastdale, between the breast of Great Gable and the heights of Scawfell, the wind rose to a gale. The horse was terrified. It broke away and galloped over the fells, carrying its burden with it. The lad followed and searched for it, but in vain, and he had to go home at last, unsatisfied.

“This was in the spring, and nearly all the summer through the surviving son of the widow was out on the mountains, trying to recover the runaway horse, but never once did he catch sight of it, though sometimes, as he turned homeward at night, he thought he heard, in the gathering darkness, above the sough of the wind, the horse’s neigh. Then winter came, and the mother died. Once more the dead body had to be carried over the fells for burial, and once again the coffin was strapped on the back of a horse. It was an old mare that was chosen this time, the mother of the young one that had been lost. The snow lay deep on the pass, and from the cliffs of the Scawfell pikes it hung in great toppling masses. All went well with the little funeral party until they came to the top of the pass, and though the day was dead calm the son held the rein with a hand that was like a vice. But just as the mare reached the spot where the wind had frightened the young horse, there was a terrific noise. An immense body of the snow had parted at that instant from the beetling heights overhead, and rushed down into the valley with the movement as of a mighty earthquake, and the deafening sound as of a peal of thunder. The dale echoed and re-echoed from side to side, and from height to height. The old mare was affrighted; she reared, leapt, flung her master away, and galloped off. When they had recovered from their consternation, the funeral party gave chase, and at length, down in a hollow place, they thought they saw what they were in search of. It was a horse with something strapped on its back. When they came up with it they found it was the young horse, with the coffin of the younger son. They led it away, and buried the body that it had carried so long, but the old mare they never recovered, and the body of the mother never found sepulchre.”

It will be seen at a glance that this legend contains great dramatic and imaginative possibilities, but for Hall Caine its fascination lay in its “shadow and suggestion of the supernatural.” When Rossetti was still alive, Mr Caine had discussed with him its merits as the foundation for a novel; but the poet, as we have seen, was against the idea. He did not see the possibility of getting any sympathy into it. This judgment, coming from so expert and experienced a quarter, disheartened the younger man, and he “let the idea go back to the dark chambers of memory.” But it was of no use, the ghost would not be laid. The idea recurred to him at intervals, and each time it impressed him more and more. At last, when settled in the Isle of Wight, he thought he had found a way of evading Rossetti’s criticism. “The sympathy was to be got out of the elder son. He was to think God’s hand was upon him. But whom God’s hand rested on had God at his right hand; so the elder son was to be a splendid fellow—brave, strong, calm, patient, long-suffering, a victim of unrequited love, a man standing square on his legs against all weathers.” Then he began to write; but he was faced by a thousand difficulties. It was his desire to grip the reader’s interest from the very outset, and it took him a fortnight’s hard work to make what he judged to be a satisfactory beginning. Within three months it was practically finished. He showed it first to Mr J. S. Cotton, an old and valued friend and at that time editor of the Academy. “His rapid mind saw a new opportunity. ‘You want peine forte et dure,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’ I asked. ‘An old punishment—a beautiful thing,’ he answered. ‘Where’s my dear old Blackstone?’ and the statute concerning the punishment for standing mute was read to me. It was just the thing I wanted for my hero, and I was in rapture, but I was also in despair. To work this fresh interest into my theme half of what I had written would need to be destroyed!”

But destroyed it was, and after two months’ arduous labour, he took it to the late John Lovell, editor of the Liverpool Mercury. “It’s crude,” he said. “But it only wants sub-editing.” Imagine the young author’s feelings! Sub-editing, indeed! But again he re-wrote it, and this time to some purpose, for Mr Lovell offered him a hundred pounds for the serial right in the Liverpool Weekly Mercury. This offer was, of course, accepted.

Mr Caine was now living in rooms on the fourth floor of New Court, in Lincoln’s Inn. He called upon several publishers with the object of getting his novel issued in volume form; eventually Chatto & Windus made him an offer which he accepted, and at this date the book has gone through more editions than I care to count. It was an immediate and undoubted success, and the only thing that Mr Caine regrets with regard to it is the fact that he was forced to sell it outright instead of on the royalty system. Hard cash was what he wanted, though the amount he received in ready money would have been trebled many times over if he had been paid according to the number of copies sold.

As the first novel of a young man (and, at this time, Mr Caine was quite painfully young) The Shadow of a Crime shows little evidence of crudity. It is coherent, cohesive and mature. It is true, the melodramatic interest is often too insistent, and that the novelist expects too much from the credulity of the reader; but these faults apart, the book is the book of a grown man and a practised writer. It evinces an intimate knowledge of Cumberland life and dialect, and has the dignity and strength of a work of genius.

After the publication of The Shadow of a Crime a time of need ensued. He canvassed many publishers and offered himself as reader, but he was invariably turned away. Whatever indignity and humiliation was thrust upon him only made him more determined to succeed. He never knew when he was beaten. He never was beaten, for he never withdrew from his hand-to-hand fight with the world, but struggled on with the passionate conviction that he would one day come off the winner. So, undaunted, he set about the writing of a new work, A Son of Hagar.

When this book was nearing completion, he expressed a wish to Mr Richard Gowing to dedicate it to Mr R. D. Blackmore, the author of Lorna Doone. Mr Gowing, who was a friend of Mr Blackmore’s, immediately communicated with him and received the following reply:—