CHAPTER IX

ON THE MAKING OF BOOKS

Once I thought the grandest thing in the world would be to write a book. It appeared the acme of desire. To see one’s name on a cover, oh, the joy of it! I trembled with fear and pride when that wondrous end was attained. I almost took that first book to bed with me. I wasn’t very old or very sedate, and so that little volume made me childish with glee.

Well, I thought to myself, “I’ll never give away a single copy. If anyone wants it they must get it from a library or spend three-and-sixpence on it themselves.” I kept to my resolve, because honestly afraid that if an utterly unknown young writer made presents of her little venture, kind folk (!) would say she could not sell the work, so distributed it amongst friends. A year or two afterwards, when _A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_ had gone through two or three editions, and appeared on the bookstalls at a shilling, then—but not till then—did its author feel justified in sending presentation copies, with some words and her name inscribed on the fly-leaf. This was not churlish, but reasoned out. Cheap sales of goods mean deterioration; but cheap editions of books denote the popularity of the originals. On that first venture I received a ten per cent royalty.

And now after years of labour and experience, so many and great to me are the hardships, the struggles, the worries, the endless detail and annoyances of producing a book, that I always feel inclined to take off my hat figuratively, or drop a curtsey, to every fellow-author.

Strange as it may seem, every volume of mine has caused me sleepless nights of ever-increasing anxiety. _Hyde Park_, for instance, was written twice over from cover to cover—a little matter of about a hundred thousand words, re-arranged and practically rewritten.

I have generally worked myself into a perfect fever of anxiety by the day of publication, and even when those kindly, delightful reviews have appeared, my misery has not abated. Treated more than generously by both critic and public, I have naught to complain of. I have made far more money by my pen than I ever deserved—three hundred pounds advance on a twenty-five per cent royalty, is “nae so bad,” as our Northern friends would say. Columns of excellent reviews have appeared in the best papers of many lands. Yet I know the anxiety of it all, the rejection of articles, the return of “copy” from magazines, the weary, weary waiting when weeks seem years, after one has worked at break-neck speed; and although literature—no, I must not call anything I have done by such a stupendous name—although writing is a feverish joy, it is generally ill-paid, and the greater the rubbish, the more money it brings in. It certainly has done so in everything I have written. Serious work receives the least remuneration.

Major Martin Hume and other kind critics have told me I have “written two books that will live.” All I can say is those books (the last two on the list) have cost me ten times the work for less reward and much less public acknowledgment than the others. Serious work may live, but it seldom pays. Rubbish may pay, but it never lives.

Here is the list of thirteen books—the children of my pen—and various editions and translations of these have been published. But the newspaper and magazine articles number thousands, they cannot be counted.

_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland._ _The Oberammergau Passion Play._ (Out of print.) _A Winter Jaunt to Norway._ _Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Highland Shooting Box._ (Out of print.) _Danish versus English Butter-making._ _Through Finland in Carts._ _The First College for Women._ (Out of print.) _George Harley, or the Life of a London Physician._ _Mexico as I saw It._ _Behind the Footlights._ _Sunny Sicily._ _Porfirio Diaz, Seven Times President of Mexico._ _Hyde Park, Its History and Romance._

So many people have asked me how a writer works or plans out a day, that a sketch of an ordinary writer’s ordinary day may be of interest.

For years I have been called with a cup of tea at seven o’clock. Between then and getting up, thoughts have chased one another in quick succession. As a composer composes without a piano, so a writer writes without a pen. It is the thinking that does it. The arranging of facts and settling the sequence of events. It is the length of a book that wears one out, the necessity of keeping up the interest and working up to some definite end.

Breakfast at half-past eight, and a glance at the papers. To the kitchen as the clock struck nine, and then, every order given for the day, the flowers arranged, and so on. Nine-thirty heralded the arrival of my secretary, and from then till luncheon I was a hard-working woman. After luncheon, I could afford to be a “laidy,” not before.

At one time I had three secretaries, one Spanish and two English, and kept them all busy. On other occasions, I perforce worked ten hours a day. But as a rule four to five hours’ steady grind accomplished all that was necessary. One can do an immense amount in that time if one sticks to it.

It is fairly easy to give advice on how to write for the papers: journalism can be taught as a school task to a great extent, but with books it is different. We all have to serve our apprenticeship for ourselves, to learn how to balance our subject, to work out our theme, and finally to make a readable volume. It seems to me book-making is more a gift than anything else. Artists learn to draw, but they never learn to paint. Colour is an inspiration. Drawing requires work. The same applies to a book. We can all learn the mechanical part; but I don’t honestly think that anyone can write a book that people will read, unless they have some special gift that way. Books must be individual.

All this perhaps sounds pedantic, but the dozens and dozens of young men and women, who have written to me asking for advice, show how many, from milk-maids to hotel-lift boys, are interested in the subject. People, who can neither write nor spell, have strange ideas that God has sent them special literary powers, and hope to sit on the top of the ladder of fame without putting a foot on the bottom rung. ’Tis a laborious ladder to climb in all the arts; but it has its rewards. Public praise counts for little, the real pleasure is the knowledge within ourselves that we have given of our best. It does not satisfy; but it pleases.

To produce a book or a picture is a stupendous effort. It claims all the power of thought and of concentration that is in us. It demands enthusiasm, determination, the conquest of idleness and self. We may not produce a great book or a great picture, but it is our supremest effort at that time, and when done, we feel like a squeezed lemon.

“Writers are so dull,” is a frequent remark. So they may well be—at times. So are artists, or musicians, or any creative workers. Their life’s blood is given to their work.

Another saddening result of giving one’s self wholly (as a worker should) to a task until success crowns one’s efforts is that it often arouses the envy of onlookers, and mostly of those who would not take the least trouble to compete.

Yes: it is fairly certain that the more one achieves in any walk of life, the more jealousy one encounters. A pretty woman is called hideous by some; a woman with charm—that indefinable attraction we all love—is dubbed a minx. Brilliant wit calls forth much condemnation. Success of work and brain is belittled by the envious. So while nothing succeeds like success, no one makes more enemies than the one who wins.

Every little victory brings a new enemy. When one hears the “catty” things people say, one can but wonder what catty things are said about one’s self. People say malicious things, suggest improprieties without foundation, assert motives that have never been born. In fact, Society is often cruel and hard. It eats and drinks too much, gets overwrought and tired, and says nasty things it does not mean.

The life of many an ordinary Society man or woman is despicable. They are the people who are “too busy” to do anything useful, whose lives are no good to anyone, and therefore boring to themselves.

Better work and be busy with something tangible, than idle life away in social dissipation. Yet how good and kind and generous most people are, and how hard many of them work for the good of others!

The vicissitudes of writers are many. I once suffered the loss in the post of an entire chapter of a manuscript. That missing link never turned up, and as I stupidly had kept no copy, while the rough notes thereof were of the roughest order, it was considerably difficult to rewrite the passages; indeed, impossible to remember the exact details of what the missing fragment formerly contained. Oh, the exasperation of it!—it was a thankless, dreary task.

How on earth Carlyle ever wrote his _French Revolution_ over again is a marvel which fills me with admiration, whenever anything brings back the memory of all that labour which the second edition of that silly little chapter of an ordinary book cost me.

Work, too, is often wasted. Full of enthusiasm, after a peep at the gorgeous Eastern life on my return from Morocco in the ’nineties, I started a novel, which was nearly completed when the agent discovered there was already a somewhat similar book on the market. The appended letters speak for themselves and show the generosity of a man like Grant Allen in replying to a young and almost unknown author:

“DEAR MR. GRANT ALLEN,

“I am much distressed! I was in Morocco this spring, and took copious notes, which I have since been busily writing up into a story, now nearing completion.

“Telling the plot to my host the other night, he exclaimed, ‘That is very like Grant Allen’s _Tents of Shem_.’ He found the book, and I have just read it, and put it down feeling very sad.

“You make English characters play the drama in Algiers, I do the same in Tangier.

“You have a naturalist, F.R.S.; I have a Science Professor from Cambridge.

“A Moorish girl falls in love with an Englishman.

“A Moorish man falls in love with my heroine.

“Indeed, the similarity of idea is in many ways extraordinary. I don’t see what to do unless I rewrite the whole thing, the work of some months, and even then, your story is splendid and your name famous; mine is simple and my name more or less obscure.

“It is altogether very disquieting.

“Being an author yourself, I felt I must tell you of my woes.”

“MY DEAR MADAM,

“I really don’t think you need trouble yourself excessively. Pretty much the same thing has happened to most of us—myself included. Besides, the number of people who have read _The Tents of Shem_ is not so very great; nor did the book make stir enough to be well remembered by reviewers. My advice to you would be, go on and publish, and you will probably find nobody else is struck by the undesigned coincidence. Nor does it seem to me, from what you say, to be particularly close. If you will kindly send me a copy of your book when it appears, I will try to prevent any suggestions by reviewing it myself (if editors will permit me) over my own signature. If _I_ am not struck by the supposed resemblance, nobody else need be. One little hint: don’t say anything about it to the publisher to whom you offer the book; never anticipate possible objections; ten to one, if _you_ don’t, nobody else will raise them.

“Yours very faithful,

“GRANT ALLEN.

“Writers’ cramp, not discourtesy, compels typewriting. My right hand is useless, and even this machine I work with my left only.”

Still, that book was never finished. I had lost heart.

The same thing happened again in regard to a play in 1907. Everyone seemed to be making vast sums by writing plays and naturally an energetic woman wished to have a shot, too. I sketched out a most elaborate plot, laid partly in England and partly in America, and was brimming over with enthusiasm about it. Then I went gaily to the first night of Sutro’s play, _John Glayde’s Honour_, at the St. James’s Theatre, and lo and behold, the whole of my story unfolded itself on the stage.

Sutro’s play ran for about a year. Mine was never completed.

After one has passed the critical age of twenty—I say critical, as many a man and woman have made or marred their future by that time—the love of books, the real honest pleasure of reading, the insatiable craving for knowledge takes fast hold of us, and we begin to realise, as we study even one single subject, what a vast field lies open before us. Unfortunately, the enormous number of cheap newspapers that have appeared on every side within the last few years have done much to interfere with more profound reading; but it is quite unnecessary for this to be the case, for there ought to be time for both. Newspapers are excellent amusement, and sometimes afford much information in odd moments, such as on journeys by train, or long rides in omnibuses, and at other periods of the day’s existence. But there are the evenings, and unless people are professionally engaged during that time, there is no greater pleasure or amusement than in the perusal of some sound book. Literature is so cheap nowadays, that it is within the scope of everyone.

Besides, what a great field is Literature! A vast mass of education can be gleaned from the pleasantest reading. It is a poor book, indeed, from which we can obtain neither amusement nor instruction.

It is strange how even a humble writer like myself gets quoted; more often than not, without payment or acknowledgment. A certain well-known author wrote a book which was literally a réchauffé of one of mine; but beyond my name appearing in the preface as “one of the works consulted,” no further acknowledgment was made. Whole articles have appeared with new headlines. Pages and pages have been embodied in other people’s work without any acknowledgment whatever.

I remember two instances, however, where I was most graciously asked for the right of reproduction. I say “graciously” advisedly, because I should never have seen the publications, and never have known the articles were used.

One was a letter from the head teacher of the great Military College near Berlin, Lichtenfelde, who asked if an article on Mexico might be used in the new _English Reading-book_, then in preparation for the students.

The other was a request for permission to transcribe an article on the _Silent Sisterhood_ at Biarritz into Braille for the blind. That again was a thing I should never have been likely to come across.

Speaking of translations reminds me of the lack of emancipation of Germany as recently as Christmas, 1906. _Porfirio Diaz_ had just been translated. It was being well advertised and well reviewed, all the result, probably, of a long article that had appeared a few months before in the _Preussische Jahrbücher_, the leading political magazine of the Fatherland, which had suggested that the book was of such value they hoped to see a German translation.

Having many friends in Germany, I thought I would go over for a month, let my boys join me for Christmas at Bonn, where we would visit Dr. von Rottenburg (mentioned in an earlier chapter), and afterwards snow-shoe and skate in the Thüringian Mountains.

On my dressing-table when I arrived in Berlin was a copy of _Diaz_, with the publisher’s compliments. It was charmingly and most artistically got up, and what cost a guinea here was only twelve shillings there.

But I at once noticed the name attached was _Alec Tweedie_. There was no “Mrs.” nor “Frau.” I peeped inside. Again the man’s name, without the feminine prefix.

Next morning my esteemed publisher, who represented one of the most important houses in Germany, called to make my acquaintance.

I congratulated him on the get-up of the book, and the excellent translation. “But why,” I said, “did you put ‘Alec Tweedie’ on the volume without a prefix?”

He hummed and hawed.

“That is a man’s name,” I continued, “my husband’s name, and I am a woman.”

“That is true, Gnädige Frau, we preferred to put a man’s name on the cover. You see a big historical, biographical work like that with a woman’s name upon it would be seriously handicapped in Germany. Fifty years ago, aye, twenty years ago in England, you women were hiding your identity under the manly names of George Eliot, George Trafford, George anything. Well, we are still in that condition in Germany, not as regards novels, but as regards more serious work.”

True, O publisher, and yet with all this female emancipation, with all the _Reform Kleider_ which stand for advancement in Germany, it really was amusing.

Five years later the girls of the Fatherland were reading risky books and taken to see risky plays, such was the rapidity with which the pendulum of ultra-propriety swung the other way.