form of homage to literary genius; and the modern item-monger, talking about the hale appearance of Dr. Holmes and Mr. Browning's new Venetian palace, has succeeded to the oldfashioned retailer of gossip about the neighbors in the next street. All this, if it is not in the ideal conception, belongs to the fact of literary glory, and undoubtedly has its significance, worth looking for and interpreting. What significance? That somehow the author's work and the author's life must move and be estimated together, this is the unspoken verdict of the reading world, however crudely or unwisely it is carried out into detail. It is not the mere itching for a sensation, or the vulgar curiosity to see "how it strikes a contemporary," that leads men to pry into authors' lives. Some things about authors the public wants to know, because it feels it has the right to know them. To a certain degree, men's inquiries are legitimate and reasonable. If sometimes the degree is exaggerated, and their probing, indiscreetly directed, touches a little to the quick, well, authors are not the only ones to suffer such mishaps. It is a great blundering world through which we must all make our way. There is the ring of the true knight of literature, without fear and without reproach, in the words with which rare Ben Jonson approaches the subject. "For," says he, "if men with impartiality, and not asquint, look toward the offices and functions of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being the good poet without first being a good man. He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength; that comes forth the interpreter and arbiter of Nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human, a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business of mankind: this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ignorance to exercise their railing rhetoric upon." In the same strain, but more poetic, and reminding us of nothing so much as a solemn anthem, are Milton's words: "And long it was not after when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem: that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things, not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy." A high ideal this, and frankly and bravely assumed. That a poet should be a poem, that the good poet must first be the good this marks out an austere course, fitted only for the teacher and high-priest of men; and as such undoubtedly Milton and Jonson regarded the true poet. man, With the ad as the novel But theirs was not yet the day of popular reading, nor had Addison yet "brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses," vent of the "russet-coated epic," has been suggestively called, a change began to come over the spirit of the literature. The high-priest became a comrade, the teacher a genial companion. The life of the author, with all its homely details, came nearer to men; but at the same time it disclaimed being unlike that of its fellows. The literary man was one who lived, with his wife and children, in your own street; a man to be walked with, conversed with, entertained, enjoyed; a man who kept no mysteries from you, but received you in his little library, and seated you at the very desk where his poems and stories were composed. Why should not the world know of such a man all that is to be known? And again, why should the world know more of such a man than of any other? This new status of the author, the natural sequence of the popularizing of literature, has called forth some rather interesting results. Such a man as Thackeray, who sees so keenly into all the foibles of men, comes down frankly from the mountain-tops and identifies himself. with his public, no more a high-priest, but a fellow-sinner. "What has the world come to, when two broken-nosed old fogies like you and me sit talking about love to each other!" He preaches inveterately, but he first applies the sermon to his own life. From Lord Tennyson the state of things, the curious world-hunt ing for items of the poet's life to set with the poet's words, calls forth something very like a growl: "For now the Poet cannot die, Nor leave his music, as of old, Break lock and seal: betray the trust: "He gave the people of his best: His worst he kept, his best he gave. My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave Browning likes to masquerade behind the characters he has invented; but the Jacob's voice sounds so inevitably through every Esaudisguise, that his jaunty, none-of-your-business air in concealing his personality is just a little. amusing, like children saying, "Now, when I call coop, you may know I'm hid; but after you have looked all around, just peep behind the closet-door and you'll find me!" "Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself? Do I live in a house you would like to see? Unlock my heart with a sonnet-key?' Its private apartment and bedroom, too; "For a ticket, apply to the Publisher.' No: thanking the public, I must decline. But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine!" Well, it is natural for the poet to have his privacies; and what he chooses, as to revealing or withholding, ought to be respected; it is only neighborliness to do that. Too evidently the question what the world may do with the author's life, behind the book, has its Tennyson side as well as its Ben Jonson side; the author's glory has its privileges as well as its penalties. Though when we step over the threshold and look within, the quest is just as likely to end favorably as unfavorably. We are just as likely to find Charles Lamb with his sister, hand in hand, and both in tears, crossing the fields to the mad-house, or weary but stout-hearted Sir Walter, in hired lodgings, toiling his life out to pay the debts for which his easy good nature is far less to blame than his publisher's incapacity, as to find ragged Samuel Johnson eating behind the screen, or Savage walking the streets till morning, because his improvidence has left his pockets empty. Such things, however, beautiful and pathetic as some of them are, are just what no man would advertise; if they escape, and enhance our love for the author, their beauty is yet increased by the · principle of Charles Lamb's kindnesses: "The 'greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident." But what becomes of the assertion, made a little above, that there are some things in the author's life that the public have the right to know? What are they? Well, the question, answers itself when we ask another question: How to get at them? It is, after all, mostly a question of the manner of approach. The kind of information that is obtained by interviewing, and autograph-hunting, and prying curiosity about incidents and details is just on a level with the gossip about John Smith and Mrs. Maloney in the next street; for in these days the author is simply our neighbor and comrade. But there is an approach, open for every one, just as far as he is able to go; just as far as Milton or Ben Jonson, in their austerest and most chivalrous moments, would point out. That is the approach between the lines. To all the information we can legitimately get in that way we are welcome. Browning, who will not let us set foot over his threshold, offers only welcome by this approach, "Outside should suffice for evidence: A lame conclusion this? Not so lame as appears at first sight. "It has been said a million times," says John Morley, "that the foundation of right expression in speech or writing is sincerity. It is as true now as it has ever been. Right expression is a part of character." This is the part of character that we are looking for. We want to find wherein the man is sincere, wherein his whole self moves, word, deed, and feeling, in what direction his clearest vision lies, wherein he is an authoritative investigator, and wherein his word is hearsay. Carlyle shall teach me to remember the things of the spirit in a materializing age, because this appeals to me, this is his sincere mission; but when he rails against every proposal of reform that looks toward concreteness, I must know what credentials he has to shut me off from action. If he is only a man of ideas, and not a man of affairs, I must let only his idea side teach me. Byron shall inspire me with his magnificent personality and energy; but when he attempts to rouse me to revolt against all that I have held sacred, I must interrogate his life, to know if he can offer me something better. I can course through empyreal regions with Shelley; but when it comes to walking this solid earth, I must know what will result if I try to keep step with him. Thus every author's words lead inevitably to the author's life: if he sets himself up to be my leader and teacher, I must inquire, through his own mind and heart, through his own personality, as I am directed to them between the lines, and as he moves among men in the light of common day, whether his precepts are adapted to work well or disastrously. Milton is right, then, after all. As far as the poet is himself a true poem, his words will live and prosper among men, carrying with them his character and his deepest self; as far as his words are a performance to be criticized, a tour de force, revealing only skill and hard glitter, their days are numbered. As authors, we are also neighbors and comrades, rubbing elbows with the world, and subject, like other men, to the world's unwisdom and unhallowed curiosity; but for the rest, our words, too, are our credentials, sure to uphold us or betray, according to the sincerity or unreality that has nested beneath. John F. Genung. AMHERST, Mass. But as for me, I have to lie awake o' nights longing and hoping for inspirations, that ofttimes are slow to come. But when they do come, what a delight! All at once, in a flash, as it were, the whole story lies open before me, -a delicate diorama, vague here and there, but with a beginning and an end, - clear as crystal. I can never tell when these inspirations may be coming; sometimes in the dark watches of the night; sometimes when driving through the crisp, sweet air; sometimes a word in a crowded drawing-room, a thought rising from the book in hand, sends them with a rush to the surface, where they are seized, and brought to land, and carried home in triumph. After that, the " dressing" of them is simple enough. But just in the beginning it was not so simple. Alas! for that first story of mine - the raven I sent out of my ark, and never saw again. Unlike the proverbial curse, it did not come home to roost; it stayed where I had sent it. The only thing I ever heard of it again was a polite letter from the editor in whose office it lay, telling me I could have it back if I inclosed stamps to the amount of twopence halfpenny, otherwise he should feel it his unpleasant duty to "consign it to the waste-paper basket." I was only sixteen then, and it is a very long time ago; but I have always hated the words 66 waste paper" ever since. I don't remember that I was either angry or indignant, but I do remember that I was both sad and sorry. At all events, I never sent that miserable twopence halfpenny, so I conclude my first MS. went to light the fire of that heartless editor. So much comfort I may have bestowed on him, but he left me comfortless; and yet who can say what good he may not have done me? Paths made too smooth leave the feet unprepared for rougher roads. To step always in the primrose ways is death to the higher desires. Yet oh, for the hours I spent over that poor, rejected story, beautifying it (as I fondly, if erroneously, believed), adding a word here, a sentiment there! So conscientiously minded was I, that even the headings of the chapters were scraps of poetry (so-called), done all by myself. Well, never mind. I was very young then, and, as they say upon the stage, I "meant well." For a long twelvemonth after that I never dreamed of putting pen to paper. I had given myself up, as it were. I was the most modest of children, and fully decided within myself that a man so clever as a real, live editor must needs be could not have been mistaken. He had seen and judged, and practically told me that writing was not my forte. Yet the inevitable hour came round once more. Once again an idea caught me, held me, persuaded me that I could put it into words. I struggled with it this time, but it was too strong for me; that early exhilarating certainty that there was "something in me," as people say, was once more mine, and, seizing my pen, I sat down and wrote, wrote, wrote, until the idea was an object formed. With closed doors, I wrote at stolen moments. I had not forgotten the quips and cranks uttered at my expense by my brother and sister on the refusal of that last-first manuscript. To them it had been a fund of joy. In fear and trembling I wrote this second effusion, finished it, wept over it (it was the most lachrymose of tales), and finally, under cover of night, induced the house-maid to carry it to the post. To that first unsympathetic editor I sent it (which argues a distinct lack of malice in my disposition), and oh, joy! it was actually accepted. I have written many a thing since, but I doubt if I have ever known again the unadulterated delight that was mine when my first insignificant check was held within my hands. As for my characters: you ask how I conceive them. Once the plot is rescued from the misty depths of the mind, the characters come and range themselves readily enough. A scene, we will say, suggests itself, a garden, a flower show, a ballroom, what you will, and two people in it. A young man and woman for choice. They are always young with me, for that matter, for what, under the heaven we are promised, is so altogether perfect as youth! Oh, that we could all be young forever and forever; that Time, "That treads more soft than e'er did midnight thief," could be abruptly slain by some great conqueror, and we poor human things let loose, defiant of its thralls! But no such conqueror comes, and Time flies swiftly as of yore, and drags us headlong, whether we will or not, to the unattractive grave. If any one of you, dear readers, is as bad a sleeper as I am, you will understand how thoughts swarm at midnight. Busy, bustling, stinging bees, they forbid the needed rest, and, thronging the idle brain, compel attention. Here in the silent hours the ghosts called characters walk slowly, smiling, bowing, nodding, pirouetting, going like marionettes through all their paces. At night I have had my gayest thoughts, at night my saddest. All things seem open then to that giant, Imagination. Here, lying in the dark, with as yet no glimmer of the coming dawn, no faintest light to show where the closed curtains join, too indolent to rise and light the lamp, too sleepy to put one's foot out of the well-warmed bed, praying fruitlessly for that sleep that will not come,—it is at such moments as these that my mind lays hold of the novel now in hand, and works away at it with a vigor, against which the natural desire for sleep hopelessly makes battle. Just born this novel may be, or half completed: however it is, off goes one's brain at a tangent.' Scene follows scene, one touching the other; the characters unconsciously fall into shape; the villain takes a ruddy hue; the hero dons a white robe; as for the heroine, who shall say what dyes from Olympia are not hers? A conversation suggests itself, an act thrusts itself into notice. Lightest of skeletons all these must necessarily be, yet they make up eventually the big whole, and from the brain-wanderings of one wakeful night three or four chapters are created for the next morning's work. As for the work itself, mine is perhaps strangely done, for often I have written the last chapter first, and founded my whole story on the one episode that it contained. As a rule, too, I never give more time to my writing than two hours out of every day. But I write quickly, and have my notes before me, and I can do a great deal in a short time. Not that I give these two hours systematically; when the idle vein is in full flow, I fling aside the pen, and rush gladly into the open air, seeking high and low for the children, who (delightful thought) will be sure to help me toward that state of frivolity to which the sunshine outside has tempted me to aspire. To make literary work a methodical thing is, I think, a mistake. To compel the brain to a task from which it may at the moment revolt is surely a straining of the mental powers, both rash and cruel. Mr. Anthony Trollope, in his delightful memoirs, tells us that he did so many words at such an hour every morning without fail; and one cannot help admiring the obstinacy of the mind that could drive itself to get through so arduous a task without any noticeable flagging of the genius anywhere. Many other authors, I fancy, would find it impossible so to flog the literary spirit into shape. As I have said, even the two hours in the day that I feel it my duty to give up to pen and paper are not always accorded. There have been moments when, having tried vainly to round my sentences to my satisfaction, I have risen in quick wrath, and flung my unoffending pen into a far corner, and Perhaps the most remarkable newspaper that has ever appeared in any country is the Petit Journal. It produced a revolution in French journalism similar to that brought about by the foundation of La Presse by Emile de Girardin. The first number appeared February 1, 1863, and was issued by Moise Millaud, a successful speculator, who had been partner in a large publishing house. The title was suggested by Herold de Pages, who could hardly have anticipated that in less than twenty years the little sheet he thus christened would have the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the world. The founder of the Petit Journal proposed to put into practice that economic principle which lays down that in order to secure purchasers an article must be placed within their reach, and he arranged so that the paper should not only be given away in every quartier of Paris, but that it should be offered for sale in every town and village in France on the same day. In a fortnight it was competing so actively with the provincial press for local patronage that the editors at Lyons held a meeting to consult as to what they were going to do about it. One of them, however, more far far-sighted than his confreres, said: "You are all wrong; nothing we can do will prevent this Petit Journal from becoming a power, while, if we let it alone, it will do good work for us, by creating a newspaper reading public that will eventually come to us also." He was quite right, for the new paper awakened the masses from their apathy; it taught them to read about and take an interest in what was going on in the world, and of the literary and artistic life of Paris, while it proved a powerful factor in preparing them for the regime of liberty that came in with the fall of the Second Empire. I think it was to the lavish way in which Millaud advertised the Petit Journal that it owed much of its success at the beginning, and this he kept up until the paper attained its present important position. But it was not easy to make it a go at the start, and it was a long while before the daily sales and subscription list assumed paying proportions. Then it contained little else than local items cribbed from other journals; a pair of scissors and a pot of paste were also chief members of the editorial staff. The first real success was due to a daily article written by Léo Lespès, who signed it with the pseudonym of "Timothée Trim," and the first of these appeared in July, 1863. These articles ran up the circulation of the paper to nearly 200,000 copies within two years, and this circulation was largely increased the following years by the appearance of novels signed with such names as Alexandre Dumas, Edmond About, Charles Monselet, Villemot, and Pierre Veron. After a while Lespès began to imagine that the paper owed its success wholly to his articles, and he demanded a yearly salary of $20,000, with the guarantee that he should be editor-in-chief during ten years. But the proprietor refused his demands, and so Leo left the Petit Journal. The same sort of leading article was continued, but a new signature had to be secured, and henceforth they were signed "Thomas Grimm." This pseudonym is the property of the paper, and the articles that appear over it are not always written by the same person. With every month the circulation of the paper increased largely. The day it printed the proceedings of the last day of the trial of Tropmann, a notorious murderer, 596,000 copies were sold. Then something happened which was very remarkable. The very next day the Petit Journal published a beat, a report of the apostacy of Père Hyacinthe, and his departure from his monastery, and over 600,000 copies were sold of the paper. During the German war, beside the Paris issue, independent editions were printed in Lyons, Bordeaux, and Caen, but after that event the paper was for a while on the verge of bankruptcy. However, the concern was changed into a joint stock company, and with Emile de Girardin as president, and with the capital thus secured, the difficulties of the moment were tided over. When the new company took hold the daily circulation was only 245,000 copies; it soon began to increase, it so continued, and now it is close on to a million. There are days when more than that number of copies are sold of this wonderful journal. |