'I Believe' and other essays Part 22

It's all give and take in literary polemics. People are always going for one in the press, and very often with perfect justice. But when one reads remarks like those I have quoted, and remarks written by a Mr. Roget, then, if it amuses one, there is at least a text for a small monition.

Miss Marie Corelli is very well able to look after herself. However much Mr. Roget may endeavour to pillory this lady in his "Study Window," I don't suppose she cares. She is a great modern force; Mr.

Roget isn't. Mr. Hall Caine will not, I imagine, try to stop being one of the authors "whom the public love" because of the editor of _The Thesaurus_. Nor have I, the humblest person in the trilogy, yet suffered.

And, believe me, it is not because I personally care much that I am writing like this, nor is Mr. Roget any armed a.s.sa.s.sin in a narrow path. But such an one ought to be laughed at a little, because he is typical of a cla.s.s of young men who should be taught the economy of reserve.

Mr. Roget did not explain his reasons for attacking me, though I, quite frankly, give mine for attacking him. But as--through the lamentable chances of war--my remarks will be read by a great many more folk than his were read by, we are quits, and I can start fair, though with all the rigour of the game.

The Editor in his paragraph not only states that he himself does not like one of my stories--_i. e., When it was Dark_, but implies that the Bishop of London was not justified in liking it, and saying that he liked it in public.

It is quite within Mr. Roget's right not to like the book--thousands of people didn't like it. But what are his functions for sneering at it with confidence and weight?

First of all his age is thirty-six, and he is the editor of _The Thesaurus_.

We can dismiss those qualifications at once.

Then he is the Vicar of a Worcesters.h.i.+re church, and a well-known writer of light verse.

He began his journalistic career in 1890 by contributing "turnovers"

to the _Globe_, has contributed to _Punch_ and _The Nineteenth Century_, is a leader writer on a Church paper, and reviews theological books.

This is his journalistic career, and he has written seven little books in all, mostly verse. I take these particulars from _Who's Who_.

All this is very well. It is a good thing for all of us to be in _Who's Who_, though, by the way, it does the latter-day "celebrity"

more harm to be out of it than it does him good to be in it!

Mr. Roget's record for a young clergyman of thirty-six is honourable enough. He has done better for himself than most young priests of that age. But this does not const.i.tute him "An author whom the public love," etc.

I am very glad to find my own name in the fat red book, which is so useful, though in my little autobiography I never thought it necessary to mention the first "turnover." I certainly did venture to say that one of my stories had sold 300,000 copies; but that was probably vanity, and I regret it.

But, to be serious, has my critic done as much in journalism or the literary world as your deponent? I'm not going to catalogue my work any more, but, frankly, he has not. All I ask, with proper humility, is just this--Is this gentleman qualified to sneer at me--not to _criticize_ me, which is quite another thing--just because the public have approved of what I have tried to sell them and have bought it?

In sneering at me he sneers at the public, whose taste I have been fortunate enough to please, and whose opinion of what I have to sell has lifted me and those who are dear to me from poverty to comfort. I have worked enormously. I have put all I have got in me into my work, and I feel that work honestly done has been honestly rewarded. If I could write better than I do, I should be very happy. I know perfectly well how inadequate my work is, but I know what this "critic" of mine does not know, and has not inquired into, how much it costs me to do it and how deeply I believe in what I say.

And does not Mr. Roget also seek the suffrages of the public? In the same issue of _The Thesaurus_ to which I have referred above, he uses the phrase "...us who are trying to make an income out of literature."

Of course, he is trying to be "one of those authors," etc. He admits it. He tells us he is trying to make an income out of the public. And yet, while he is doing this, he insults the public for preferring "those other authors"--or, at least, that's how one can hardly help taking it!

Moreover he is a priest as well as a literary man. As a literary man, I attack one who has not yet shown himself to have the slightest right to sneer at people who write--whatever their literary faults may seem to him--always on the side of good, with a belief in the saving power of the Christian faith, and in the same hope as that in which he writes.

A million people read one of Miss Corelli's books, and they pay her to do so.

Two hundred people listen to one of Mr. Roget's sermons, and he is paid to preach them. But do authors go down into Worcesters.h.i.+re and sneer at the sermon of the priest because his own congregation love to hear him?

This is the first time in my life that I have ever answered any one who has written unkindly of me. And it will be the last. _Literary_ criticism is a thing done by specialists, and with every right on their side. _Literary_ criticism is in the main correct. When I publish a book, and a literary writer points out this or that fault, I am myself literary man enough to know that he has put his finger on the weak spot nine times out of ten. Then I try again. I have said this before.

But mere unqualified contempt on the part of one who has not been able to qualify himself to express any contempt of value for public judgment deserves remark.

And now it is necessary to say a word about this gentleman's reprobation of the Bishop of London's sermons about _When it was Dark_. It is not a nice thing to have to say, but this young clergyman is typical of a small tribe which make it necessary for me to say it.

The obvious suggestion is that I went out of my way to induce the Bishop of London to advertise one of my books. That is not the case.

I have never met the Bishop of London in my life. I have never even seen him. I have had one letter from him about my book, which I will not quote here, but which I will send Mr. Roget whenever he asks for it. It is the only communication I have ever had from him. Neither directly nor indirectly did I attempt to get the bishop to advertise me.

Yet his lords.h.i.+p preached about the book six or seven times--once in Westminster Abbey. He advised his ordination candidates to read it, and in his addresses to these gentlemen--subsequently published in book form--the pa.s.sage remains.

The late Bishop of Truro advised the clergy to read it in several diocesan meetings. He also wrote a long signed article in a great London daily paper about my books, in which he said:--

"A story written by Guy Thorne, who has proved his gift and its purpose, may well touch the sore place of our race with a hand that is more human than statistics and more sympathetic than many organizations."

Dr. Gott is just dead as I write this. I have many letters from him.

In one of them--which again I will not quote, but which I will send my critic for his private reading when he asks for it--his lords.h.i.+p said that the book had helped him greatly.

There have been thousands of personal letters from readers about this one book. Dozens of them were from clergymen, from pastors of the Nonconformist and also the Anglican Churches. All this also I have said before, and the half-dozen letters which I have quoted have their own value, bear their own witness.

One of the greatest Nonconformist divines of England preached about the book.

There--I have said enough. It is sickening to have to say it. But Mr.

Roget leaves one no alternative. He is not fair. For some reason or other--I do not know or care what it is, for he is an utter stranger to me--he takes this line. In the same issue of his magazine he writes of the President of the Congregational Union--"Mr. Jowett's presidential address, as well as the speeches which followed it, were not remarkable, to say the least, for the charity of language used about the Church. All the old sectarian bitterness was expressed in the usual way."

...I have been writing for many hours. The snow was blowing in from the Channel over the South Foreland when I began. The sky was a great pewter-coloured dome from which Mother Hulda's feathers were falling, when I took up the pen.

As the day waxed there came a faint, yellow, and almost menacing gleam of suns.h.i.+ne, and as it waned the leaden-grey grew black, and night came silently over the landscape until at last she opened her great funereal black fan.

They brought me lamps and set them on my table. Those who love me and look after me came noiselessly up the stairs, silently into the room and put logs upon the study fire and left me alone once more.

It is nearly midnight, and the winter wind pipes sadly outside this old Kentish house, so remote from other habitations, so renowned in the annals of the Channel cliffs. With all its faults, all its egoisms, take this last essay in my first book of essays, and do not think hardly of me. Forgive what you discern here of petulance, of arrogance, and of conceit. I have done my day's labour, and I have tried to be sincere. I have done my day's labour, and now I am going to descend to an old room, with its oaken beams and aroma of the past, to take the supper of a man who has toiled. The dear people, and unfortunate ones! who wait upon the erratic hours of an author are waiting for me there.

And then to bed, and may the humble supplication I shall send up to Almighty G.o.d for myself and those I love, for those who read what I have written, have its hearing in the place where "hearts and wills are weighed." May I become a better and worthier man because I have the opportunity of addressing you who read. And may G.o.d grant me to mend a faulty life.

Good-night and Amen.

_Wanstone Court, December, 1906._