CHAPTER XVI
A Few Letters--J. M. Barrie--George Meredith--Advice on Going to America--A Statue to Washington--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P.--Robert Louis Stevenson--Mr Edmund Gosse on the Neo-Scottish School-- _My Contemporaries in Fiction_--Sir A. Conan Doyle--Mr. Joseph Hocking--Robert Buchanan--Mr. E. Marshall Hall, K.C.
[Illustration: Meredith1]
[Illustration: Meredith2]
[Illustration: Meredith3]
[Illustration: Meredith4]
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray. 15th December 1893._
My Dear Christie Murray,--Your book (my book) followed me up here, where I had to come unexpectedly two days after our dinner. It is delightful. I accept your challenge, and do hereby undertake to talk to you at tremendous length the first time we meet again about the making of another novelist. Not that he, worse luck, has had anything like such varied experiences. I hope you will go on with the second volume you promise. You will find a capital chapter for it in the _Pall Mall Magazine_ Xmas number. I thought that dog worth all the Xmas tales I have read this year. Its death is almost unbearably pathetic, and so comic all the time. The illustrator rose to his chances in one picture, when Punch struts past the bull-dog. The one thing I wonder at is what you say of acting, I would argue that everyone with imagination must find delight in the stage, but I can't understand the author of _Aunt Rachel_ having a desire, or rather a passion, to exchange a greater art for a smaller one. It is not smaller, you hold. But surely it is, as the pianist is less than the composer. I need not tell you again what it is to me to have the dedication. The whole arrangement of this house has been altered to give the book its place of honour, the positions of hundreds of books has been altered, the bringing of a small bookcase into a different room led to the alteration of heavy furniture in the other room, a sofa is where was a cupboard, flowerpots have been brought inside, and red curtains have given place to green. This is a fact.
I hope you are flourishing, and with best regards to Mrs. Murray,--Yours ever,
(Sgd.) J. M. Barrie.
_Letter of Advice sent by a Distinguished American to David Christie Murray prior to a visit to America on a Lecturing Tour_.
Friday, 7th September.
My Dear Old Friend,--I am sending.... some letters for you by this same post. They are to three splendid fellows, full of power to help you, and certain to be eager to use it
If I could have seen you personally, I had it in mind to say many things which don't lend themselves to pen and ink. Some of them perhaps can be put down with a minimum of awkwardness.
You are primarily, in the American mind, an eminent novelist. They have read you (in printed cheap editions) by the score of thousands. They think of you as a cousin of Dickens, Thackeray, Reade and the rest. Now that is your rôle marked out for you by God. Stick to it, wear reasonably conventional clothes, cultivate an intelligently conventional aspect, and do not for your life say anything about the stage or the latter-day hard luck you have had, or anything else which will not commend itself to a popular sense which, although artistic on one side is implacably Philistine on the other. They have a tremendous regard for Reade. Carry yourself as if you were the undoubted inheritor of the Reade traditions. Think how Reade himself would have borne himself--then strike out from it all the bumptious and aggressive parts--and be the rest.
Two things destroy a man in America. One is the suggestion of personal eccentricity, Bohemianism, etc. The other is a disposition for criticism and controversy on their own subjects. The latter is the more dangerous of the two. It is a people devoured by the newspaper habit, like the Irish or the old Greeks of the Areopagus. They ask every few minutes “What is the news?” Thousands of smart young men are hustling about fifteen hours a day to answer that ceaseless question. If it occurs to any one of them anywhere to say: “Well, here is a cocky Englishman who is over here to make some money, but who is unable to resist the temptation to harangue us on our shortcomings”--just that minute you are damned--irrevocably damned. That one sniff of blood will suffice. The whole pack will be on your shoulders within twenty-four hours.
Yet, don't mistake me. These same newspaper men are nice fellows, kindly to a fault, if you avoid rubbing them the wrong way. Swear to yourself that you will be genial and affable with every human soul you meet, and that you will never be betrayed into an argument--on _any American subject_, mind--with any living being, from the bartender up. It is not so hard a rule, old man, and observing it vehemently day and night will make all the wide difference to you between miserable failure and a fine and substantial success.
You will meet two classes of men--scholarly men like my friends, who will take you to clubs where writers, thinkers, students, etc., congregate, and less scholarly but not less likeable ordinary newspaper men. Live your life as much as possible among these two classes. You will catch swiftly enough the shades of difference between the two. It is the difference between, say, the Athenaeum and the Savage. Only there is next to no caste spirit, and points of similarity or even community crop up there between the two which couldn't be here. The golden key to both is unvarying amiability.
You are better calculated than most men I know to charm and captivate them all. They will delight in your conversation and in you, and they will see to it that you have a perfect time and coin money--if only you lay yourself out to be uniformly nice to them, and watch carefully to see that you seem to be doing about as they do.
A good many minor people--hotel baggagemen, clerks, etc., tram conductors, policemen and the like--will seem to you to be monstrously rude and unobliging. You will be right; they are undoubtedly God-damned uncivil brutes. That is one of the unhappy conditions of our life there. _Don't_ be tempted even to wrangle with them or talk back to them. Pass on, and keep still. If you try to do anything else, the upshot will be your appearing somewhere in print as a damned Britisher for whom American ways are not good enough. The whole country is one vast sounding board, and it vibrates with perilous susceptibility in response to an English accent.
Don't mention the word Ireland. Perhaps that is most important of all. You will hear lots of Americans--good men, too--damning the Irish. Listen to this, and say nothing, unless something amiable about the Irish occurs to you. Because here is a mysterious paradox. The America always damns the Irishman. It is his foible. But if an Englishman joins in, instantly every American within earshot hates him for it. I plead with you to avoid that pitfall. The bottom of it is paved with the bones of your compatriots.
So I could go on indefinitely, but I have already taxed your patience. Briefly then--
1. Express no opinions on American subjects, political, social or racial-save in praise.
2. Be polite and ready to talk affably wit everybody; men who speak to you in a railway train, or the bar tender or the bootblack, quite as much as the rest.
3. Avoid like poison eccentricities of dress and all contact with actors an theatrical people.
4. Rebuff no interviewer. Be invariably affable and reserved with him talk literature to him, and reminicences of Reade, Matthew Arnold, Dean Stanley, anybody you like especially mention things in America which you like, and shut-up about what you don't like.
5. Keep appointments to a minute. No one else will, but they respect immensely in others.
6. Bear in mind always that people think of you as a big novelist, and will be only too glad to treat you at your own valuation, gently exhibited or rather suggested by courteous reserve. There is nothing they won't do for you, if only you impress them as liking them, and appreciating their kindliness, and being studious of their sensibilities.
Take this all, my dear Christie, as from one who sincerely wishes you well, and believes that you can and should do well. It lies absolutely in your own hands to make a fine personal and professional reputation in America, and to come back with a solid bank account and a good, clear, fresh start. You have lots of years before you; lots of important work; lots of honest happiness. You were started once fair on the road to the top of the tree. Here is the chance to get back again on to that road. I am so fearfully anxious that you should not miss it, that I take large liberties in talking to you as I find I have done. Write to me at Attridge's Hotel, Schull, County Cork, where I shall be from 14th to 20th September, to tell me that you are not offended. Or if you are offended, still write to me. And I should prize highly the chance of hearing from you from the other side, after you have started in.
And so God be with you.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray, 8th May 1896_.
My Dear Christie Murray,--I have been in Egypt and have only just got back and received your note. Poor Holmes is dead and damned. I couldn't revive him if I would (at least not for years), for I have had such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards _pâté de foie gras_, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day. Any old Holmes story you are, of course, most welcome to use.
I am house-hunting in the country, which means continual sallies and alarms, but I should much like to meet you before I go away, to talk over our American experiences. I do hope you are not going to allow lecturing to get in the way of your writing. We have too few born story-tellers.-- With all kind regards. Yours very truly,
(Sgd.) A. Conan Doyle.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray (undated)_.
My Dear Sir,--I think that your idea of a statue to Washington to be erected by public subscription in London is an admirable one. The future of the world belongs to the Anglo-Celtic races if they can but work in unison, and everything which works for that end makes for the highest. I believe that the great stream which bifurcated a century ago may have re-united before many more centuries have passed, and that we shall all have learned by then that patriotism is not to be limited by flags or systems, but that it should embrace all of the same race and blood and speech. It would be a great thing--one of the most noble and magnanimous things in the history of the world--if a proud people should consent to adorn their capital with the statue of one who bore arms against them. I wish you every success in your idea, and shall be happy to contribute ten guineas towards its realisation.--Yours very truly,
(Sgd.) A. Conan Doyle.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray, 6th May 1897_.
Dear Sir,--I have to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter of May 1st I thoroughly appreciate the spirit of your suggestion, but am inclined to doubt its wisdom at the present time. I do not see how any human being on either side of the Atlantic can dispute the good-feeling already entertained towards the United States by every class of the population here. I am afraid, however, that it is not generally reciprocated, and the Americans are apt to misunderstand some of our efforts to conciliate them, and to attribute them to less worthy motives. I have heard several distinguished Americans protest against the “gush,” as they call it, in which we indulge. Under these circumstances, I think the project of a statue to George Washington should be, for the present, postponed,--I am, yours truly,
(Sgd.) Joseph Chamberlain.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray, 22nd February 1897_.
29 Delamere Terrace, Westbourne Sq., W.
My Dear Sir,--May a delighted reader of your articles in the _Sun_ presume on a very slight acquaintance with their author to say how greatly he admires them? The paper on Dickens seemed to me to dissolve that writer's peculiar charm with a truer alchemy than any criticism I had ever read. And now that with such splendid courage you tilt against the painted bladder-babies of the neo-Scottish school,--with so much real moderation too, with such a dignified statement of the reasons for such a judgment,--I cannot rest, I must say “Bravo.” The distinction between the false North Britons (mere phantoms) and the true Stevenson and Barrie (real creatures of the imagination, if sometimes, in their detail, a little whimsical, even a little diminutive) is put so admirably as I had not yet seen it put.
I am eager for next Sunday's article, and as long as these papers continue I shall read them with avidity. I detect in every paragraph that genuine passion for literature which is so rare, and which is the only thing worth living the life of letters for.
Pardon my intrusion, and accept my thanks once more.-- Believe me to be, faithfully yours,
(Sgd.) Edmund Gosse.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray (undated)_.
Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere
My Dear Murray,--I shall be delighted and honoured to have a first glance at the ms. I never read anything of yours which I did not like, so I am sure I shall like it, but there are degrees of liking, and I will tell you frankly which degree I register.
Now you will bear that visit in mind and write to me when you are ready and your work done.--With all kind regards, yours very truly,
(Sgd.) A. Conan Doyle.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray (undated)_.
Undershaw, Hindhead, Haslemere.
My Dear Murray,--I have just finished your critical book and think it most excellent and useful. I couldn't help writing to you to say so. It is really fine--so well-balanced and clear-sighted and judicial. For kind words about myself many thanks. I don't think we are suffering from critical kindness so much as _indiscriminate_ critical kindness. No one has said enough, as it seems to me, about Barrie or Kipling. I think they are fit--young as they are--to rank with the highest, and that some of Barrie's work, _Margaret Ogilvy_ and _A Window in Thrums_, will endear him as Robert Burns is endeared to the hearts of the future Scottish race.
I have just settled down here and we are getting the furniture in and all in order. In a week or so it will be quite right. If ever you should be at a loose end at a week- end, or any other time, I wish you would run down. I believe we could make you happy for a few days. Name your date and the room will be ready. Only from the 16th to the 26th it is pre-empted.--With all kind remembrances, yours very truly,
(Sgd.) A. Conan Doyle
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray. 9th Sept. 1897_.
148 Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lanes.
My Dear Sir,--Will you kindly excuse the liberty I take in writing? I have just bought and read your new book _My Contemporaries in Fiction_. and feel that I must thank you. The task you assumed was, I think, necessary, and your estimate of the various writers just, and on the whole generous. I know my opinion is of little value, but I have long felt that several of our modern novelists were appraised miles beyond their merits, and I have often wished that some man of position, one who could speak candidly without fear of being accused of being envious, would give to the world a fair and fearless criticism of the works of novelists about whom some so-called critics rave. Thousands will be glad that you have done this, and I hope your book will have the success it deserves.
It will be a matter for thankfulness, too, that you have tried to do justice to George Macdonald, and to give him the place he deserves. To read the fulsome stuff which is so often written about Crockett, and then to think that Macdonald is quietly shelved, is enough to make one sick at heart Certainly, I shall do all that lies in my power to make your work known.
I do wish, however that you had devoted a few pages to one who, a few years ago, loomed large in the literary horizon. I mean Robert Buchanan. I know that during these last few years he has poured out a great deal of drivel, but I cannot forget books like _The New Abelard_, and especially, _God and the Man_. It is a matter of surprise and regret that one of Buchanan's undoubted powers should have thrown himself away as he has done. All the same, the man who wrote _God and the Man_ and _The Shadow of the Sword_, hysterical as the latter may be, deserves a place in such a book as yours, and an honest criticism, such as I am sure you could give, might lead him, even yet, to give us a work worthy of the promise of years ago.
I am afraid you will regard this letter as presumptuous, nevertheless, I am prompted by sincere admiration. Years ago I read _Joseph's Coat_ and _Aunt Rachel_, and still think the latter to be one of the tenderest and most beautiful things in fiction. I also remember the simple scene which gave the title to the book called _A Bit of Human Nature_, and shall never cease to admire what seems to me a flash of real genius. Consequently, when I stood close by you at a “Vagabond's” dinner, on the ladies' night some months ago, I was strongly impelled to ask for an introduction, but lacked the necessary audacity to carry out my one time determination.
Again thanking you for a book which has afforded me a genuine pleasure to read, besides giving me much mental stimulus,--I am, dear sir, yours very truly,
(Sgd.) Joseph Hocking.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray. 17th June 1897_.
Dear Murray,--I am getting so weary of controversy that I must decline to take part, directly or indirectly, in any more. Possibly, in the heat of annoyance, I may have said harsh things about Mr Scott, but if so, I have forgotten them, and I think all harsh things are better forgotten. I am sorry, therefore, to hear that you are on the war-path, and wish I could persuade you to turn back to the paths of peace. You are too valuable to be wasted in this sort of warfare. I daresay you will smile at such advice from _me_, of all men, but believe me, I speak from sad experience.
I was sorry to hear about the fate of your play, but 'tis the fortune of war, and I hope it will only stir you to another effort which may possess, not more merit, possibly, but better _luck_, which now-a-days counts more than merit. --With all good wishes, I am, yours truly,
(Sgd.) Robert Buchanan.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray, Sept. 1st_.
“Merliland,” 25 Maresfield Gardens, South Hampstead, N.W.
Dear Christie Murray,--I thank you for your kind breath of encouragement, and am very glad that my _Outcast_ contains anything to awaken a response in so fine a nature as your own. It was very good of you to think of writing to me on the subject at all.
I can't help thinking that men who still hold to the old traditions should stick together and form some kind of a phalanx. I was not sorry, therefore, to hear that you had expressed yourself freely about the craze of a noisy minority for formlessness and ugliness in realistic literature. Ibsen's style, regarded merely as style, bears the same relation to good writing that the _Star_ newspaper does to a Greek statue. I don't myself much mind what morals a man teaches, so long as he preserves the morality of beautiful _form_, but at the rate we are now going, literature seems likely to become a series of _causes célèbres_ chronicled in the language of the penny-a-liner. And over and above this is the dirty habit, growing upon many able men, of examining their secretions, always an evident sign of hypochondria.
I am awaiting with much interest your further steps on the plane dramatic. Meantime, I hope I shall see more of you and yours. With kind regards.--Truly yours,
(Sgd.) Robert Buchanan.
_Copy of Letter to David Christie Murray. 17th January 1905_.
75 Cambridge Terrace, W.
Dear Sir,--I trust you will forgive my writing you, but I cannot make use of another man's brains without some acknowledgment. For years I have been a reader of the _Referee_, and of late years nothing has interested me more than the articles above the name of Merlin on the front page. This week you have put the real issue so clearly and so freely, that I am going to avail myself of it tonight in my speech at Blandford, and I hope I have your permission so to do. If only a few more men would grasp difficult subjects as boldly and broadly as you do, we should be a better and a happier people.--Yours very faithfully,
(Sgd.) E. Marshall Hall.
[Illustration: Stevenson1]
[Illustration: Stevenson2]
[Illustration: Stevenson3]
[Illustration: Stevenson4]
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