Now I hope everybody sees what a "touching simplicity" there is, what a child-like familiarity with the Deity pervades the whole of this "prose poem." And yet there is a "subtlety," a candour, a strange melancholy, a curious cynicism, and a weirdness of conception and strong picturesqueness about its every line. It is unique in itself; it wants no explanation, because it says everything in the fewest words. It has a diction as innocent and unadorned as that of an infant's first spelling-book. And all the best critics I know want authors to let "brevity be the soul of wit," and to tell their stories as concisely as possible. If I were a novel-maker and wished to please the critics, I should write my "thrillers" in telegram form; twelve or twenty-four words to a chapter. Then I am sure I should get very well reviewed. Critics have no time to read any thoroughly finished and careful work—they seldom can do more than scan the first page and the last. I know this, being a Critic myself, and I think it is a thousand pities authors should take any trouble to write a middle part to their stories. An Ollendorf curtness of wording is always desirable, unless, indeed, one happens to be a George Meredith, and can manage to get cleverly involved in a long sentence which takes time to decipher, and when deciphered has literally no meaning at all. Then of course one is a genius at once; but such masterly art is rare. And so on the whole I like the "allegory" style best, because it is both brief and obscure at the same time. It has the surface appearance of simplicity, but its depth—ah! it is surprising to what a depth you can go in an allegory. You can fall down a regular well of thought and go fast asleep at the bottom, and when you wake up you wonder what it was all about, and you have to begin that allegory over again. That is what I call "reading"—hard reading—sensible reading. I like a thing you can never make head or tail of—the brain fattens on such provender. I am going to write out several dozen "Dreams" by and by—some of the queer ones I have had after a bout of champagne, for example—and I shall give them gratis to the Pall Mall with my fondest blessing. If there is "one bright particular star" in the sphere of journalism I worship more than another it is the Pall Mall, and I feel I can never do too much for it. And it likes "dreams" and little innocent religious allegories, because it is so good itself, and, like the boy Washington, has "never told a lie." I have always considered that the Pall Mall and the German Kaiser are the only two earthly institutions "God" can favour, seeing that, according to the lady from South Africa, He has taken to "laughing" at most things. It is a pleasant picture, that of God laughing—one, too, not to be found in all the Bible. There the Deity has been represented as angry, jealous, reproachful, or benignant, but it has been left to South African literary skill to show us how He "laughed." And as the Pall Mall thinks it all right that He should laugh, why then we ought to coincide unanimously in the Pall Mall's opinion. Because just imagine what London would be without the Pall Mall! Can mind conceive a more hideous desert?—a more wildly howling desolation? We should be left friendless and all unguided without our angel of reform; our clean, white-winged, heavenly, truthful Apostle of Northumberland Street, who is always able to tell us what is good and what is bad; who can inform us all, statesmen, clerics, authors, artists, and day-labourers, exactly what we ought and what we ought not to do. In the event of another Deluge (and some of the scientists assure us we shall have it soon) I know of a way in which some few of us might be saved; that is, some few with whom "God" is delighted, such as myself and the German Kaiser. We should simply require to make friends with the Pall Mall staff, (several of the members are ladies, and how charming to have their society!), and build an ark out of planks from the Pall Mall office floors. We should then paste it all over with Pall Mall placards of the latest accounts of the Flood up to date of sailing, for the fishes to read, and then we should get into it; we who were the elected ones (including the Kaiser of course), and off we would go in smiling safety, secure from winds and waves, being the only "just people" left on a corrupted earth. And if in the end we found another Mount Ararat, and it were left to the governing body, i.e., the Pall Mall staff and the German Kaiser, to begin a new world ... O ye gods and little fishes! What a world it would be!
XII.
QUESTIONETH CONCERNING THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.
Standing still too long is rather monotonous work. How Socrates could have managed to remain a whole night on his feet in meditation is one of those strange historical circumstances that have always puzzled me. Now here have I been only a few minutes at rest; only dreaming one little "dream" of how I, together with the Kaiser and the Pall Mall, am going to set to work in the general renovation and improvement of mankind, and yet I am as tired and bored and disposed to yawn as any of the gaping people in the crowd who have stopped a second to listen to me. Let me pass on, good folk!—I will e'en resume my indolent, aimless way, for truly there are many things to be seen both wise and wonderful, which even a strolling player would not miss. Only I will, with everybody's good leave, avoid that black and stagnant quagmire of literary matter that stretches its unseemly length across the social arena. 'Tis a veritable mud-trap, a dismal Slough of Despond, into which I once fell heedlessly, all through the force of example. I saw others (some of whom I respected) making for the Slough, and I followed. When my friends ran to it straight and tumbled in, I did likewise, and wallowed in the mud with those who were near and dear to me. I stayed there heroically till I was nearly suffocated, then, unable to bear it any longer, I made a strong effort and scrambled out, melancholy and depressed, but—free. Free, and wise enough not to be cajoled into those black depths again. You see I have not yet shaken off my allegorical humour, and I am just now speaking allegorically. For the benefit of those who are slow to perceive the "subtle" meaning of an allegory I do not mind condescending to explain that by the Slough of Despond I mean the great, sticky, woful, heterogeneous mass of Magazine Literature. What is the use of it? Why is it with us? Who wants such productions as the magazines of England, when the magazines of America can be had? Americans know how to make their magazines interesting; Englishmen do not. I beg some one who is well instructed in these matters to tell me where I can find the abnormal beings who derive any real intellectual benefit from the ponderous pages of the Nineteenth Century, for example? Little Knowles sits in his editorial chair even as an angler sits by a stream, assiduously fishing for names and nothing more. He allows Gladstone to write the purest nonsense about "Dante at Oxford," simply because he is Gladstone. He takes poorly-written articles on public questions from lords and dukes simply because they are lords and dukes. Genius weighs as nothing with him—titles and passing notorieties that "draw" are everything. Then we have the Contemporary, the Fortnightly, the New Review, the Quarterly, all on the same "deadly lively" level. The Quarterly still boasts of its bygone villainous attack on Keats, for not so very long ago it said that it considered that in-"famous" criticism perfectly justifiable. Satisfied with itself in this regard, it praises Hall Caine! O gods of Olympus! There is also the venerable Blackwood, of whose mild chimney-corner prattle it were cruel to take serious observation. And there is Temple Bar, The Argosy, London Society, Belgravia, and hosts of mild imitations of these; yet taken altogether the magazines published in London do not give in their entirety half as much satisfaction or well-written information to the reader as the American Century magazine, or Harper's. This fact helps to emphasize the general "behindhand" tendency of literary things in Great Britain, as compared to those same things in America. Even the children's magazines in the "States" are interesting, and full of concise, simple, pleasantly-worded knowledge, but here, if you want pure, undiluted literary drivel, buy a child's magazine. However, it must be remembered that Americans generally, young and old, like to acquire information; perhaps they feel they do not yet know everything. The English, on the contrary, have a rooted aversion to being instructed, inasmuch as every true-born Britisher considers himself about equal to the Deity in omniscience.
Most of us, I suppose, have heard of Charles Dickens and his immortal novels, the most wholesome, humane, sympathetic, and heart-invigorating books that ever, by happy fortune, were given to the public. And I daresay we remember in "Little Dorrit" the lively young man connected with the "Circumlocution Office," who very strenuously objected to the existence of people who "wanted to know, you know." Now I am one of those people. I want to know, you know, why we should have about us all these little marshy literary mud-pools which make up the British magazine Slough of Despond. I want those curiously-minded beings who read (and buy) the magazines, and follow all the dreadful "serials" therein, to "stand forth and deliver." I want to know, you know, how they manage to do it? Whether they feel good after it? Whether they ever read anything else? And what opinions they have formed on literature by this means? Whether they accept the verse in Temple Bar, for example, as actual poetry? Or the short stories and articles as samples of good terse English style? Whether they find their brains developing under the fine humour of Belgravia? Whether their intellectual faculties are roused by a study of The Strand Magazine (which began well, but is now as monotonous as the rest) or The English Illustrated? I want to know, you know. Who laugheth at The Idler? Who rejoiceth in Macmillan's? And who on God's good earth can stand The Novel Review? What happy saints peruse The Leisure Hour?—what angels sit down to con the pages of Cassell's Family Magazine? Who bothereth himself with The Bookman? Who conceiveth it agreeable to read Longman's or The Gentleman's Magazine? There must be people who do these things; and, certainly, by a wild stretch of imagination, I can picture a fat mamma glancing casually at Belgravia, the while she watches her eldest girl's flirtation with a "moneyed" suitor out of the corner of her eye; I can also deem it possible that a paunchy paterfamilias might cut the pages of Temple Bar and hand it in as a delicate attention to his children's governess in the schoolroom. But further than this I cannot go. It may be that the magazines exist for the domestic circle only—the English domestic circle, of course. For other countries' domestic circles they would not serve. I think all those interesting females who are understood to be "good mothers," ladies with high maternal foreheads and small chins, very likely read the magazines. They do not want to study, they do not want to learn, they never require to read anything but the tamest stuff, just to pass away an hour between lunch and afternoon-tea. These are the only individuals I can connect with magazine literature. But, of course, I may be wrong. There may be intellectual persons who accept the varied utterances of the Nineteenth Century and Fortnightly as gospel. I can understand any one liking the Review of Reviews. That serves a purpose, and is admirably done. Apart from its adoration of the Pall Mall Gazette, it is really an excellently managed concern. That and the Century suffice me—the American Century I mean, not the Nineteenth Century, which will hardly enter the Twentieth. Quite recently, one Edward Delille severely slated the American press and American literature generally, with the hysterical passion of those lady-writers who, to use reviewer's parlance, "let down their back hair and scream." Rather unkind of Edward, considering that rumour asserts him to be American himself. A man should stick up for his own country or get re-nationalised. Does Delille find English magazine literature superior to that of America? If he does, he deserves his fate! Let him wallow, as I did, in the Slough of Despond, till he groweth weary, and when he crieth, "Help! release me!" let no one answer. For the Slough is the ruin of all originally-minded men; and any novelist who writes magazine serials is simply committing literary suicide. His name grows stale to the public ear, his stories lose point, his style lacks proper warmth, and his very thoughts grow crippled. In a work of true art the creator should be free as air and answerable to none, not even to that Olympian god, a magazine editor.
But because I now avoid the Slough of Despond I do not want others to avoid it. On the contrary, I love to see a certain class of folk stuck in the mud. I feel they could not be in a better plight, and I enjoy the spectacle. Moreover, "by their magazines ye shall know them." Their conversation, their ideas, their opinions, all are taken out of the magazines. This is beautiful and edifying. The lady who talks Temple Bar has naturally a calmer view of life than the gentleman who talks Nineteenth Century. The sweet thing who murmurs Chambers's Journal is not so worldly-wise as her friend who utters New Review. The man at the club who converses Quarterly may or may not agree with him who pronounceth Contemporary. And so on. It is like the Baths of Leuk, where every mud-bather has, if he likes, his own private floating-table, with writing materials and cup of coffee. But the mud is everywhere all the same, and every man is stuck in it like a sort of civilised tadpole. And what is always a mystery to me is how so many magazines manage to "pay." For of course they must pay, or else they would not be kept going. However, there are various such social mysteries, which not even the most astute person can fathom. And I am not astute. I simply "notice" things. As for attempting to take any sort of correct measure of the fancies and "fads" of the British Public, that is impossible. Such humours are more "occult" than theosophy itself. Frenchmen cannot understand "Madame Grundée." Neither can I. She is always an incomprehensible old lady at the best of times, but when she takes to reading all the magazines and liking the literature therein contained, she becomes a spectacled Sphinx, the riddle of whose social existence is not worth the solving. And in its bovine tolerance of such an excess of stupid ephemeral literary matter Great Britain proves for the millionth time how un-literary and inartistic it is as a nation. But I am not going to be angry about it. I always laugh at these things. They do not affect me personally, as I am out of them. And I must never forget that I have reason to be grateful to at least one magazine out of the mass—The Fortnightly. It was lent to me by a friend as a cure for insomnia. It succeeded perfectly. Three pages of a long political article sufficed; a gentle drowsiness stole over me, a misty vagueness possessed my brain, and I, who had been restless for many nights, now under the somnolent spell of excellent Frank Harris, slept the sleep of the just. Others have derived the same benefit by the same means, so I am told, wherefore Harris is a benefactor to his kind. His magazine is the one little oasis in the Slough where tired folks may find rest, if not refreshment, and people who want a peaceful nap should go there straight. As for me, I am out of the Slough altogether—I merely stand near the brink and look on. And my observations are addressed to nobody. I soliloquise for my own pleasure, like Hamlet, and, with that psychological Dane, may assure everybody who is concerned about me that "I am only mad nor-nor-east; when the wind blows southerly I know a hawk from a heron-shaw."
XIII.
DESCRIBETH THE PIOUS PUBLISHER.
The pious publisher is a man who always says "God bless you!" to the author he is cheating. "God bless you!" is easily said, sounds well, and costs nothing, all of which is important. The more "profit" the pious publisher can make out of the individual he blesses, the more fervent is his benediction. Now, it is not pleasant to have to mistrust a blessing, and yet, out of the vague interest I have always taken in all human imps born of the ink-pot, I would advise them not to bow with too much childlike humility and confidence to the blessing of the pious publisher. If it is a particularly earnest and friendly benediction,—well! it might be advisable to see how "royalties" are getting on. The pious publisher does not bless you for nothing, depend upon it. You are not his relative; he has no cause to love you or ask the Almighty to look after you, unless he is making a "good thing" out of you, in which case he is grateful, after a peculiar manner of his own. Perhaps he feels he can order a few dozen extra old brands of port; perhaps, too, he will find it possible to have a certain improvement carried out in his dwelling which he has long meditated, all through you—you, a successful author whose books have had an extra large sale unknown to yourself. And, naturally, he looks at you with a moist and kindly eye; his heart swells paternally, and the blessing rises to his lips almost involuntarily. He surveys with gentle complacency the modest arrangements of your house—the tact by which worn-out furniture is concealed by "art" antimacassars, the efforts to "make both ends meet" which are proudly visible in every room, and he grows blander and blander. He admires the "art" coverings—he admires the furniture—he admires everything. He does not mind lunching with you—oh, not at all. And while at luncheon he advises you, patronisingly, sagely, as to how you should write your next book. You have your own ideas—yes, yes, that is right, that is very good! it is proper for you to have your own ideas, but it is also advisable for you to bring those ideas into keeping with the ordinary public taste. Ordinary, mark you! not extraordinary. There are certain subjects you should try to avoid, as being unpleasing to the mind of the respectable middle classes. For example, new notions with regard to religion are dangerous! yes, yes, dangerous and doubtful too—doubtful as regards a "sale." Then, bigamy is not a pleasant subject. It would cause eruptions to break out on the cheek of the Young Person, and it would not secure any chance as a "gift-book." Then, a murder is a painful thing!—exceedingly painful—you must leave out murder. And, for Heaven's sake, do not enter into any question of suicide—it is a morbid taste, and a book dealing with it in any powerful or striking manner would be quite tabooed from the middle-class family circle, especially in the provinces. A forgery might be introduced, if the forger turned out to be a manly hero in the end and properly repentant—and a little (the pious publisher would say "a leetle") illicit love would not be objectionable—in fact, it might be made highly saleable if a curate and a housemaid were the guilty parties, and there were a child born who turned out to be the heir to five millions, and the erring curate set things right in the usual thirty-one-and-sixpenny way. But nothing should be drawn too strong; you understand? no luscious colouring of any sort—keep the imagination well in check—tint the canvas grey—and make the book one that will be bought by stout, moral-minded parents, for slim, no-minded young women, and it is sure of a sale—sure! And thus the pious publisher pleasantly adviseth, the while the heart of the listening author sinks lower and lower, and his soul sickens, gasping for the strong, broad eagle freedom of flight, which while he works for a pious publisher never will be his.
It is a curious fact, but the pious publisher apparently possesses a very naïve, innocent, and undefiled nature. He does not know the world at all, or if he does, he has no idea of its wickedness. When he is told of some dreadful social scandal he does not believe it—dear, dear no! he cannot believe it. He is a round, paunchy man, is the pious publisher, bald-headed, clean-shaven, with an eminently respectable expression of countenance, and an ostentatious assertion of honesty in the very set of his clothes. He has a soft voice and a conciliating smile, and he gets on best with women authors. He tells them first how well they are looking—his next step is to call them "my dear." They are frequently much touched by this, and in the yielding softness of their hearts, forget to nail him down to "terms." Even the fiercest, ugliest "blue-stocking" that ever lived is conscious of a nervous quiver through the iron fibres of her soul, when the fat, unctuous, kindly, pious publisher, unawed by her stem features, says "My dear." There is a delicate something in his tone which pleasantly persuades her that, after all, it is possible she may be good-looking. Unconsciously she relaxes in severity, and he drives his bargain home with such sweet firmness as to entirely succeed in having his own way—a way which, whether it lead to advantage or loss, she, poor "blue," is generally too weak to dispute. "My dear" is a phrase that will not work on the minds of men authors of course, so the pious publisher, when he has to do with the "virile" sex, substitutes "My boy!" and accompanies this epithet with a hearty, encouraging clap on the shoulder. When the author in question is too old and frail (as well as too reduced to misery by the machinations of pious publishers) to be impressed by this jovial "My boy!" the pious publisher is not at a loss. No! He then says "My dear fellow," in gentle, serious, sympathetic accents. This frequently produces a good effect. It is indeed remarkable what an impression these meaningless, apparently kindly, short phrases have on the weary minds of authors when uttered by the pious publisher. It is ridiculous in a way, but pitiful too. No consciousness of intellectual supremacy will ever eradicate from the human heart the craving for human sympathy, and the biggest author that ever wielded potent pen has no proof-armour against the simple magic of a kindly word. And tired out with long thinking and labour, it may be that sometimes the pious publisher's "dear fellow" hits a sensitive little place in the author's complex mechanism, somewhere about where the tears are (if any author is permitted to have tears), and he becomes dimly soothed by the simple phrase, so soothed as to actually fancy he has found—a friend! And in the little "arrangement" made for his work the pious publisher scores again—heavily, as usual.
Needless to say the pious publisher is an exceedingly shrewd business man. His piety distinctly "pays." His "God bless you!" has saved him many an extra twenty or fifty pounds; his "my dear" and "dear fellow" have helped to make suspicious novelists accept without a murmur his statements of their royalties. He knows all this perfectly well. He reads all the poor, pitiful, yet beautiful human weakness of men and women thoroughly, and makes his capital out of it while he can. God, we are told, compassionates human weakness; the pious publisher lives by it. He uses the sad little vanities of the would-be "genius" as so many channels of speculation. He has an agreeable way of reminding the very small writer of the gloriously self-denying manner in which the very great writers managed to exist—those writers of old historic time who served Art for Art's sake, and were content to live upon a crust of bread for the sake of future glory. That noble Crust! The pious publisher wishes all authors would live upon it. "My dear boy," he says, "it is the modern thirst of gold that kills Art. Now you are a true 'artist.'" (Here probably the small writer thus addressed cannot restrain a nervous wriggle of satisfaction.) "Yes, yes! a true artist! I can see that at a glance. To you money weighs as nothing compared with high ambition and attainment." (The small writer is perhaps not quite sure about this, still he is unable to look stern, so he smiles feebly.) "To grind out literature for the mere sake of accumulating cash would be distasteful to a man of your lofty spirit. You were made for better things. The notorieties of the day who allow themselves to be paragraphed and 'boomed' and all the rest of it, and command for the moment large sales, are really mere ephemera. Now, my dear boy, let me advise you not to hamper your evident genius by over-anxiety about money. Do your work, the great work that is in you to do; and if the rewards come slowly, never mind! in your old age you will look back to these days of effort as the sweetest of your life! Yes!" and the pious publisher's eyes moisten at his own eloquence, "in the sunset of your career, when you have made an assured name, and, let us hope, an assured fortune also, you will remember this time of grand struggle and endeavour! God bless you!"
The benediction is here uttered abruptly, as if the pious publisher couldn't help it. It bursts from his manly bosom like a bomb-shell. His pent-up emotion finds vent in it; his swelling liberality of disposition is relieved by it. Meanwhile, the small author sits silent, curiously disconcerted, and uncomfortably conscious that his face wears a somewhat foolish expression. He doesn't want to look foolish, but he knows he does. He is aware that the pious publisher has flattered him, but somehow he does not like to admit that the flattery is more than kindly and judicious praise. But, all the same, he ponders in a dismal sort of way on those phrases "in your old age" and "the sunset of your career." What! Is he, then, not to experience any of the joys or luxuries of life till he is such a doddering old idiot as to be only fit to jabber "reminiscences"? Is he to have no rest or physical comfort in existence till his strength fails and his mental faculties decay? Is his fortune only to be "assured" at a time when his chief needs are a bed, an armchair, and a basin of gruel or "infant's food"? The pious publisher implies as much. It is strange, and perhaps wickedly ungrateful of the poor small author, but he does not care about the "sunset" prospect in the least. He would rather be happy and well fed while it is full day. And for the life of him he cannot help thinking how very excellently the pious publisher himself is housed. Pictures, books, statuary, horses—even a yacht—all these things have come to the pious publisher long before "sunset." And yet what can he, the poor small author, do? Nothing. He must consider himself lucky if he gets his work accepted on any terms. He can't afford to be his own publisher (not because of the expenses incurred in actually printing and binding, for these are slight), but because he would be considered an intruder and would have all the "publishers' rings" against him; and not only the publishers' rings, but the Circulating Library Ring and the Bookstall Ring; for England is a "free" country, and as a first consequence of its glorious liberty, every one that does honest work and seeks honest pay for the same, is the veriest slave that ever wore chains and manacles.
There are many publishers, of course, who are not pious, and these are generally among the most honest of their class. They do not pretend to be anything but tradesmen, with an eye to business, and no taste whatever for literature as literature. They would as soon be cheesemongers if the book-trade failed. They affect nothing; they are brusque, commonplace men, and they often play a losing game by their lack of proper urbanity. The pious publisher never loses a farthing. He is always lining and re-lining his nest. He issues a larger number of works by women than by men, for the reason that women are more unbusinesslike than their lords, and more easily persuaded to accept starvation prices. It may be said, and rightly, that women's work is not frequently worth much, but there are, at the present time, two or three women in literature whose success is indubitable and whose names alone are of market value. These are they whom the pious publisher loves to secure. The more gifted they are, the more unpractical; the more engrossed in imaginative conception, the more unconscious of treachery. They perhaps feel the pious publisher is even as a father to them. He is invariably kind and courteous, and is always able to "explain" troublesome things with the involved eloquence of a Gladstone. Indeed, it can never be said that either to man or woman at any time has the pious publisher been dictatorial or unfriendly. He is too bland, too conscious of rectitude, too innocent of the world's evil to be capable of anything but the truest Christian behaviour. If a long-suffering author were to quarrel with him, he would only mildly "regret the rupture of friendly terms," while quietly letting all his particular "ring" know of the "rupture," and warning them against having to do with the quarrelsome author in question; for the pious publisher has no scruple in "boycotting" an author who deserts him for a rival house. He can do so if he likes, and he frequently does like. Did you not know this before, O ye unworldly, simple-minded Pensters? Then know it now on the faith of a wandering truth-teller, and beware of getting twisted in the pious publisher's silken coils. Stand firm without yielding under his friendly shoulder-blow; turn his terms of endearment into terms of ready cash, and if you succeed in making a good bargain you may be sure he will not say, "God bless you!" He will probably sigh and tell you he is a poor man. This is a promising sign for you, and you can bless him if you like. But, unless you are willing to be "done," never under any circumstances allow him to bless you. Most casual benedictions are of doubtful value, but the blessing of the pious publisher is, financially speaking, an author's damnation. Beware it therefore; go on unblessed, and prosper!
XIV.
OF CERTAIN GREAT POETS.
Stop, stop, my dear Lord Tennyson! Whither away so fast? Why turn your back churlishly upon me?—why spoil dignity by hastening your steps?—why hide that venerable and honoured head in a hermit's cowl of distrust for all human kind? I am not the "ubiquitous interviewer"; I do not want a lock of your hair or your autograph, for the autograph I have in your own letters, and certainly you cannot spare any hair just now. Fear me not, then, O great but crusty Poet; my silver domino conceals the features of a friend; I will do no more than render you distant but most absolute homage. I would not pry into your garden solitudes at Haslemere—no, not for the 'World.' I would not force my way into your little kingdom at Freshwater for anything an enterprising editor might offer me; for I love you as all England loves you, and the utmost I can wish is that you would be friends with both me and England. What have we done to you, my dear Lord—peer of the realm and Peer of Poets—that you should disdain us, every one, and take so much precaution to avoid our company? Have we not, as it were, fallen at your feet in worship?—marked you out in our hearts and histories as the greatest poet of the Victorian Era, and taken pride in the splendour of your fame? Despise us not, noble Singer of sweet idylls, for remember we have never despised you. In our troubles and losses we have dropped soft tears over "In Memoriam"; in our loves and hopes we have wandered among the woods and fields, singing in thought the songs of "Maud" and "The Princess"; in our dreamy moods we have pored over "The Lotus-Eaters," "The Palace of Art," "Tithonus," or "Ænone"; in our passionate moments we have felt all the scorn and burning sorrow pent up in "Locksley Hall." You are the divine melodist who has set our deep-hidden English romance and sentiment to most tenderly expressed music; we are grateful, and we have shown our gratitude. We have given you such fond hearing as few poets ever win; we have lodged you in fair domains, and guarded you as a precious jewel of the realm. What can we do more to satisfy you? Is there any grander guerdon for a poet's labour than the whole English-speaking people's honour? And that you have; and yet you manifest a soured discontent that sadly misfits your calling. What is it all about? You do not want to be looked at—"stared at" is your own way of expressing it—you do not wish to be spoken to—you desire to ignore those who most reverence you, and you treat with ill-mannered, "touch-me-not" disdain the very people whose faithful admiration gives you all the good things of this life which you enjoy. Oh, petulant Poet-peer! Do no memories of the great dead bards (greater in genius than yourself, but less fortunate in their reward) sometimes flit like ghosts across the horizon of your dreams? Of Chatterton, self-slain through biting poverty; of Keats, dying before he reached his prime, while on the very verge of the promised land of Fame; of Byron, self-exiled, his splendid muse embittered by private woes; of Shelley, piteously drowned before he had time to measure his own vast intellectual forces?—while you, my good Lord, fostered by a nation's love and recognition, have experienced no such cutting cruelties at the hand of destiny. Perhaps, indeed, you have been too fortunate, and continuous prosperity has made you careless and over-easily satisfied with the lightest trifle of verse that suggests itself to your fancy. But if you are careless, you need not be crusty. The British Public has been likened unto an Ass by many, but to my thinking it is more like a dog—an honest, good-natured dog who never bites except under the severest and most repeated provocation. As a dog it has fawned at your footstool, looked up in your eyes affectionately and wagged its tail persistently—have you no other response to such fidelity save a kick or a blow? Oh, fie on such ill-humour—such uncalled-for cantankerousness! Why should you seek to be "protected" from those who would fain do you honour? We should all like to see you sometimes, in society, at theatre or opera, at flower-show and harmless festival; we should like to say to one another on beholding you, "There is our Laureate—our grand old Tennyson, one of the glories of England!" We should not harm you by our affection. We have no design upon your life, save to pray that it may be guarded and prolonged. Believe me, it would be far more natural, and, let me add, more Christian (for I knew by your noble lines "Across the Bar" that you have not smirched your white flag of song with the ugly blot of atheism) if you could persuade the world to understand that a journey or a sea-voyage in the company of England's Laureate, were it possible to devise such an out-of-the-way form of pleasure, would be one of the most cheery, prosperous, and ideal trips ever made; that the heart of the great poet-thinker was so expansive and warm, that even the tiny, toddling children adored him; that his sympathy was so vast that the poorest and most unhappy scribbler alive was sure to have a genial word from the "singing lips that speak no guile"—in brief, that every soul on board the good ship sailing sunwards, must needs be better, happier, wiser, and more full of the milk of human kindness for those few days passed in the near presence of the golden-voiced Minstrel of the legended Arthur's court. Why, good my Lord Alfred, should you, of all people in the world, preach and not practise? You, whose majestic figure seems already receding from us through the opening portals of the Unknown—why should you not stretch out hands of benediction on us ere you go? You are leaving us for other lands, dear Poet, and we all stand gazing after you sorrowfully, waving "farewell!" while the fond and foolish women we love, waft you kisses amid their tears; praise and thanks and blessings to the last from us, my Lord—and will you give us nothing better at parting than a frown? Of a truth there are countless worlds in the universe beside this one; only we cannot follow you where you are going, and so we know not whether you may find a kingdom in the stars better than Shakespeare's England. But whatsoever is deemed the highest reward among high Immortals, that reward we desire may be yours; for all the happiness which pure thoughts, sweet music, and tender song can give, you have given to the little country you are soon to see the last of. The end is not yet indeed, but it is nigh.
It is not the people, my Lord, the people on whom you have bestowed the life-long fruits of your genius, who are to blame for the grossly ill-judged and indelicate speculations that have lately been rife as to who shall occupy your throne and wear your crown, when you shall have resigned both for larger labours. It is the Press, with which the people have really nothing to do. And as to the Laureateship, I, like every one else, have my ideas, not of putting in a claim for the post, (though I could, at a push, write blank verse, quite as prettily and inanely as Lewis Morris), but of making it of wider application. After yourself I consider that no one should be permitted to hold it as you have done for an entire lifetime. It should be given to the deserving bard for five or seven years, no longer; and at each expiration of the appointed period there should be a brisk competition for the right of succession. Such an arrangement would give a great impetus to literature generally, and the recurring competitions would waken up society to a sense of artistic feeling and excitement. Moreover, to keep pace with the demands of the time, when the people are supposed to be worthy of having a voice in everything, the election of England's Laureate should be voted for by England's Public, and not left to the decision of a Clique. Cliquism would put an end to all possibility of fair play or justice, as it always does. To keep this public judgment up to a certain intellectual standard, every householder paying rent and taxes amounting together to not less than £200 per annum, should have a vote; and, because women are frequently the best readers and judges of poetry, one woman in every such household should also be entitled to a vote. The result of the plan would be that by degrees society would become interested in Poetry, which by tradition and heritage is distinctly the first of the Fine Arts—and would take pains to understand it, by which piece of additional education nothing would be lost to civilisation, but rather much might be gained in gentleness, quick perception, and fine feeling. It would be a safer and more respectable line of study at any rate than turf speculations. But, like all good ideas, it will, I suppose, have no chance of acceptance, in which case, rather than see inferior men, like Morris or Edwin Arnold, in the position which you, my Lord, have so greatly dignified, I would say with others whom I know, "Abolish the post, and let Tennyson be our last Laureate." For there is no one fitted to occupy it after you, unless it be some singer unknown to the Log-rolling community. Therefore, it would be best for England, in losing you, to also lose the very name of Laureate, save as a noble and unsullied memory.
You see how truly my devotion turns towards you, my dear Lord, though you will have none of it, nor of any such "outside vulgar" sympathy. A recent letter of yours to me contains the following sentence: "I sometimes wish I had never written a line." Alas, good Nestor among modern bards, has Fame brought no happier end than this? No more than spleen and peevishness? Suppose, for sake of argument, this curious wish of yours had been granted, and you had never "written a line." Well? What of the glory of renown?—what of the peerage which descends, a poet's mantle, on your heirs? what of the creature comforts of Haslemere and Freshwater?—what of the good honest cash that is paid for every airy rhyme that is blown from your imagination as lightly as the winged pine-seed from its cone? If you had "never written a line," would you have gained anything? Nay, surely you would have lost much. Therefore, why carp and cavil in the radiant face of Fortune, the smiling goddess who has never deserted you since the publication of your first volume? Cheerly, cheerly, good heart! Lift up your head and look frank kindness on the world! It is not a bad world after all, and whatever its faults, it loves you. Let it see you at your best and friendliest before you say "Good-bye!"
When I was very youthful and imaginative, I used to believe implicitly in that old fairy legend (known to Shakespeare as well as myself) which declares that toads "ugly and venomous" have precious jewels in their heads. And I had a special partiality for toads in consequence. I used to assist them respectfully with a stick when they came panting out under the leaves in hot weather in search of water, and guide them gently towards the object of their desires. When a toad stared at me fixedly with his peculiarly bright eyes, I felt vaguely flattered. I had an idea that perhaps he might be intellectually capable of making a will and leaving me his brain-jewel. Needless to say I was disappointed; no toad ever fulfilled the hopes I had of him. But since those green and happy days I have gained an insight into the hidden meaning of the fable—which is, of course, that unfascinating and personally disappointing individuals may possess the greatest intellectual powers. Now there is one man who is distinctly inimical to me, personally speaking, and yet I am fain to do his "brain-jewel" justice. I allude to Algernon Charles Swinburne, whom, to meet on his way to and from "The Pines," Putney, serves as a revelation. The first impression one gets is of a small man with large feet, walking as if for a wager, arms swinging hither and thither, and fingers briskly playing imaginary tunes in the air as he goes. Then, as the eccentric shape comes nearer, one is aware of a stubbly beard, and peeping eyes expressive of mingled distrust and aversion; a hideous hat is clapped down over the broad brow, which hat when lifted displays a bald expanse of skull bearing no sort of resemblance whatever to the counterfeit presentments of Apollo, and yet, incongruous though it seem, this little, nervous, impatient, querulous being is no other than the author of the "Triumph of Time," one of the finest poems in the English language; and these twiddling restless fingers penned the majestic, burning, beautiful "Tristram of Lyonesse," a book which, like an imperial jewel-casket, is literally piled with gems. To look at the man and to think of his poems at the same time is enough to make one gasp for breath. It appears quite impossible to realise that this solitary biped trotting full speed to Wimbledon should have written such lines as these:—