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IX.
Literary Partnership

Literary partnerships are common in France, but in England they are confined almost exclusively to dramatists. The one well-known exception was that of Messrs. Besant and Rice. Mr. Rice's partnership with Mr. Besant began in 1871, and ended with the death of Mr. Rice. "It arose," explains Mr. Besant, "out of some slight articles which I contributed to his magazine, and began with the novel called 'Ready-Money Mortiboy.' Of this eleven years' fellowship and intimate, almost daily, intercourse, I can say only that it was carried on throughout without a single shadow of dispute or difference. James Rice was eminently a large-minded man, and things which might have proved great rocks of offence to some, he knew how to treat as the trifles they generally are."

In France, the best example of literary partnership is found in that of M. Erckmann and M. Chatrian. How these men worked in concert has been described by the author of "Men of the Third Republic." "M. Chatrian is credited with being the more imaginative of the two. The first outlines of the plots are generally his, as also the love scenes, and all the descriptions of Phalsbourg and the country around. M. Erckmann puts in the political reflections, furnishes the soldier types, and elaborates those plain speeches which fit so quaintly, but well, into the mouths of his honest peasants, sergeants, watchmakers, and schoolmasters. A clever critic remarked that Erckmann-Chatrian's characters are always hungry and eating. The blame, if any, must lie on M. Chatrian's shoulders; to his fancy belong the steaming tureens of soup, the dishes of browned sausages and sauer-kraut, and the mounds of flowery potatoes, bursting plethorically through their skins. All that M. Erckmann adds to the ménu is the black coffee, of which he insists, with some energy, on being a connoisseur. Habitually the co-authors meet to sketch out their plots and talk them over amid much tobacco smoking. Then, when the story has taken clear shape in their minds, one or the other of the pair writes the first chapter, leaving blanks for the dialogues or descriptions which are best suited to the competency of the other. Every chapter thus passes through both writers' hands, is revised, recopied, and, as occasion requires, either shortened or lengthened in the process. When the whole book is written, both authors revise it again, and always with a view to curtailment. Novelists who dash off six volumes of diluted fiction in a year, and affect to think naught of the feat, would grow pensive at seeing the labor bestowed by MM. Erckmann and Chatrian on the least of their works, as well as their patient research in assuring themselves that their historical episodes are correct, and their descriptions of existing localities true to nature. But this careful industry will have its reward, for the novels of MM. Erckmann and Chatrian will live. The signs of vitality were discovered in them as soon as the two authors, nerved by their first success, settled down and produced one tale after another, all too slowly for the public demand. 'The Story of a Conscript,' 'Waterloo,' 'The History of a Man of the People,' and, above all, 'The History of a Peasant,' were read with wonder as well as interest."

X.
Anonymity in Authorship

The question of the authorship of certain popular works has given rise to a great deal of speculation. A few years ago, it will be remembered, we were puzzling our brains to discover the name of the author of "The Breadwinners." Among other stinging charges against him, to induce him to break the silence, was the fling that it was a base and craven thing to publish a book anonymously. "My motive in withholding my name is simple enough," said the unknown author to his furious critics. "I am engaged in business in which my standing would be seriously compromised were it known that I had written a novel. I am sure that my practical efficiency is not lessened by this act, but I am equally sure that I could never recover from the injury it would occasion me if known among my own colleagues. For that positive reason, and for the negative one that I do not care for publicity, I resolved to keep the knowledge of my little venture in authorship restricted to as small a circle as possible. Only two persons besides myself know who wrote 'The Breadwinners.'"

A far more serious dispute followed the publication of the "Vestiges of Creation," forty years ago. The theologians of Scotland were wild with rage at the audacity of the author, who would have been torn to pieces almost had he been discovered. In scientific circles Robert Chambers was credited with the authorship; and Henri Gréville seems to have had no doubt upon the matter. In "Leaves from the Diary of Henri Gréville" there is an entry under the date December 28, 1847, as follows: "I have been reading a novel called 'Jane Eyre,' which is just now making a great sensation, and which absorbed and interested me more than any novel I can recollect having read. The author is unknown. Mrs. Butler, – Miss Fannie Kemble, – who is greatly struck by the talent of the book, fancies it is written by Chambers, who is the author of the 'Vestiges of Creation,' because she thinks that whoever wrote it must, from its language, be a Scotchman, and from its sentiments be a Unitarian; and Chambers, besides answering to all these peculiarities, has an intimate friend who believes in supernatural agencies, such as are described in the last volume of the book." Thackeray also had the credit of the work.

Nobody knew Charlotte Brontë; but she was unable to keep her secret very long. The late R. H. Horne was present at that first dinner party given by George Smith, the publisher, when Currer Bell, then in the first flush of her fame, made her earliest appearance in a London dining-room. She was anxious to preserve the anonymity of her literary character, and was introduced by her true name. Horne, however, who sat next to her, was so fortunate as to discover her identity. Just previously he had sent to the new author, under cover of her publisher, a copy of his "Orion." In an unguarded moment, Charlotte Brontë turned to him and said: —

"I was so much obliged to you, Mr. Horne, for sending me your – " But she checked herself with an inward start, having thus betrayed her Currer Bell secret, by identifying herself with the author of "Jane Eyre."

"Ah, Miss Brontë," whispered the innocent cause of the misfortune, "you would never do for treasons and stratagems!"

The late John Blackwood corresponded with George Eliot for some time before he knew that she was a woman. He called her "Dear George," he says, and often used expressions which a man commonly uses only to a man. After he found out who "Dear George" was, he was naturally a little anxious to recall some of the expressions he had used. Charles Dickens, however, detected what escaped the observation of most people. Writing to a correspondent in January, 1858, he said: "Will you, by such roundabout ways and methods as may present themselves, convey this note of thanks to the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' whose two first stories I can never say enough of, I think them so truly admirable. But, if those two volumes, or a part of them, were not written by a woman, then shall I begin to believe that I am a woman myself."

XI.
System in Novel Writing

Anthony Trollope was the most systematic of all the English novelists. Sitting down at his desk, he would take out his watch and time himself. His system is well known, but a singular explanation of his fertility may be quoted: "When I have commenced a new book," he says, "I have always prepared a diary divided into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In this I have entered day by day the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness has been there staring me in the face and demanding of me increased labor, so that the deficiency might be supplied. According to the circumstances of the time, whether any other business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was writing was or was not wanted with speed, I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The average number has been about forty. It has been placed as low as twenty and has risen to one hundred and twelve. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain two hundred and fifty words, and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went."

Under the title of "A Walk in a Wood," Anthony Trollope thus describes his method of plot-making and the difficulty the novelist experiences in making the "tricksy Ariel" of the imagination do his bidding: "I have to confess that my incidents are fabricated to fit my story as it goes on, and not my story to fit my incidents. I wrote a novel once in which a lady forged a will, but I had not myself decided that she had forged it till the chapter before that in which she confesses her guilt. In another a lady is made to steal her own diamonds, a grand tour de force, as I thought; but the brilliant idea struck me only when I was writing the page in which the theft is described. I once heard an unknown critic abuse my workmanship because a certain lady had been made to appear too frequently in my pages. I went home and killed her immediately. I say this to show that the process of thinking to which I am alluding has not generally been applied to any great effort of construction. It has expended itself on the minute ramifications of tale-telling: how this young lady should be made to behave herself with that young gentleman; how this mother or that father would be affected by the ill conduct or the good of a son or a daughter; how these words or those other would be most appropriate or true to nature if used on some special occasion. Such plottings as these with a fabricator of fiction are infinite in number, but not one of them can be done fitly without thinking. My little effort will miss its wished-for result unless I be true to nature; and to be true to nature I must think what nature would produce. Where shall I go to find my thoughts with the greatest ease and most perfect freedom?

"I have found that I can best command my thoughts on foot, and can do so with the most perfect mastery when wandering through a wood. To be alone is, of course, essential. Companionship requires conversation, for which, indeed, the spot is most fit; but conversation is not now the object in view. I have found it best even to reject the society of a dog, who, if he be a dog of manners, will make some attempt at talking; and though he should be silent, the sight of him provokes words and caresses and sport. It is best to be away from cottages, away from children, away as far as may be from chance wanderers. So much easier is it to speak than to think, that any slightest temptation suffices to carry away the idler from the harder to the lighter work. An old woman with a bundle of sticks becomes an agreeable companion, or a little girl picking wild fruit. Even when quite alone, when all the surroundings seem to be fitted for thought, the thinker will still find a difficulty in thinking. It is not that the mind is inactive, but that it will run exactly whither it is not bidden to go. With subtle ingenuity, it will find for itself little easy tasks, instead of setting itself down on that which it is its duty to do at once. With me, I own, it is so weak as to fly back to things already done, which require no more thinking, which are, perhaps, unworthy of a place even in the memory, and to revel in the ease of contemplating that which has been accomplished, rather than to struggle for further performance. My eyes, which should become moist with the troubles of the embryo heroine, shed tears as they call to mind the early sorrow of Mr. – , who was married and made happy many years ago. Then, when it comes to this, a great effort becomes necessary, or that day will for me have no results. It is so easy to lose an hour in maundering over the past, and to waste the good things which have been provided in remembering instead of creating!

"But a word about the nature of the wood! It is not always easy to find a wood, and sometimes when you have got it, it is but a muddy, plashy, rough-hewn congregation of ill-grown trees, – a thicket rather than a wood, – in which even contemplation is difficult, and thinking is out of the question. He who has devoted himself to wandering in woods will know at the first glance whether the place will suit his purpose. A crowded undergrowth of hazel, thorn, birch, and elder, with merely a track through it, will by no means serve the occasion. The trees around you should be big and noble. There should be grass at your feet. There should be space for the felled or fallen princes of the forest. A roadway with the sign of wheels that have passed long since will be an advantage, so long as the branches above your head shall meet or seem to meet each other. I will not say that the ground should not be level, lest by creating difficulties I shall seem to show that the fitting spot may be too difficult to be found; but, no doubt, it will be an assistance in the work to be done if occasionally you can look down on the tops of the trees as you descend, and again look up to them as with increasing height they rise high above your head. And it should be a wood – perhaps a forest – rather than a skirting of timber. You should feel that, if not lost, you are losable. To have trees around you is not enough, unless you have many. You must have a feeling as of Adam in the garden. There must be a confirmed assurance in your mind that you have got out of the conventional into the natural, which will not establish itself unless there be a consciousness of distance between you and the next ploughed field. If possible, you should not know the east from the west; or, if so, only by the setting of the sun. You should recognize the direction in which you must return simply by the fall of water.

"But where shall the wood be found? Such woodlands there are still in England, though, alas! they are becoming rarer every year. Profit from the timber merchant or dealer in fire-wood is looked to; or else, as is more probable, drives are cut broad and straight, like spokes of a wheel radiating to a nave or centre, good only for the purposes of the slayer of multitudinous pheasants. I will not say that a wood prepared, not as the home, but the slaughter-ground, of game, is altogether inefficient for our purpose. I have used such, even when the sound of the guns has been near enough to warn me to turn my steps to the right or to the left. The scents are pleasant even in winter; the trees are there, and sometimes even yet the delightful feeling may be encountered that the track on which you are walking leads to some far-off, vague destination, in reaching which there may be much of delight, because it will be new; – something also of peril, because it will be distant. But the wood, if possible, should seem to be purposeless. It should have no evident consciousness of being there, either for game or fagots. The felled trunk on which you sit should seem to have been selected for some accidental purpose of house-building, as if a neighbor had searched for what was wanting and had found it. No idea should be engendered that it was let out at so much an acre to a contractor, who would cut the trees in order and sell them in the next market. The mind should conceive that this wood never had been planted by hands, but had come there from the direct beneficence of the Creator – as the first woods did come, before man had been taught to recreate them systematically, and as some still remain to us, so much more lovely in their wildness than when reduced to rows and quincunxes, and made to accommodate themselves to laws of economy and order.

"They will not come at once, those thoughts which are so anxiously expected; and in the process of coming they are apt to be troublesome, full of tricks, and almost traitorous. They must be imprisoned or bound with thongs when they come, as was Proteus when Ulysses caught him amidst his sea-calves, – as was done with some of the fairies of old, who would, indeed, do their beneficent work, but only under compulsion. It may be that your spirit should on an occasion be as obedient as Ariel; but that will not be often. He will run backward, – as it were downhill, – because it is so easy, instead of upward and onward. He will turn to the right and to the left, making a show of doing fine work, only not the work that is demanded of him that day. He will skip hither and thither with pleasant, bright gambols, but will not put his shoulder to the wheel, his neck to the collar, his hand to the plough. Has my reader ever driven a pig to market? The pig will travel on freely, but will always take the wrong turning; and then, when stopped for the tenth time, will head backward and try to run between your legs So it is with the tricksy Ariel, – that Ariel which every man owns, though so many of us fail to use him for much purpose; which but few of us have subjected to such discipline as Prospero had used before he had brought his servant to do his bidding at the slightest word.

"But at last I feel that I have him, perhaps by the tail, as the Irishman drives his pig. When I have got him I have to be careful that he shall not escape me till that job of work be done. Gradually, as I walk or stop, as I seat myself on a bank or lean against a tree, perhaps as I hurry on waving my stick above my head, till, with my quick motion, the sweatdrops come out upon my brow, the scene forms itself for me. I see, or fancy that I see, what will be fitting, what will be true, how far virtue may be made to go without walking upon stilts, what wickedness may do without breaking the link which binds it to humanity, how low ignorance may grovel, how high knowledge may soar, what the writer may teach without repelling by severity, how he may amuse without descending to buffoonery; and then the limits of pathos are searched and words are weighed which shall suit, but do no more than suit, the greatness or the smallness of the occasion. We, who are slight, may not attempt lofty things, or make ridiculous with our little fables the doings of the gods. But for that which we do there are appropriate terms and boundaries which may be reached, but not surpassed. All this has to be thought of and decided upon in reference to those little plottings of which I have spoken, each of which has to be made the receptacle of pathos or of humor, of honor or of truth, as far as the thinker may be able to furnish them. He has to see, above all things, that in his attempts he shall not sin against nature; that in striving to touch the feelings he shall not excite ridicule; that in seeking for humor he does not miss his point; that in quest of honor and truth he does not become bombastic and straitlaced. A clergyman in his pulpit may advocate an altitude of virtue fitted to a millennium here or to a heaven hereafter; nay, from the nature of his profession, he must do so. The poet, too, may soar as high as he will, and if words suffice to him, he need never fear to fail because his ideas are too lofty. But he who tells tales in prose can hardly hope to be effective as a teacher, unless he binds himself by the circumstances of the world which he finds around him. Honor and truth there should be, and pathos and humor, but he should so constrain them that they shall not seem to mount into nature beyond the ordinary habitations of men and women.

"Such rules as to construction have probably been long known to him. It is not for them he is seeking as he is roaming listlessly or walking rapidly through the trees. They have come to him from much observation, from the writings of others, from that which we call study, in which imagination has but little immediate concern. It is the fitting of the rules to the characters which he has created, the filling in with living touches and true colors those daubs and blotches on his canvas which have been easily scribbled with a rough hand, that the true work consists. It is here that he requires that his fancy should be undisturbed, that the trees should overshadow him, that the birds should comfort him, that the green and yellow mosses should be in unison with him, that the very air should be good to him. The rules are there fixed, – fixed as far as his judgment can fix them, – and are no longer a difficulty to him. The first coarse outlines of his story he has found to be a matter almost indifferent to him. It is with these little plottings that he has to contend. It is for them that he must catch his Ariel and bind him fast, but yet so bind him that not a thread shall touch the easy action of his wings. Every little scene must be arranged so that – if it may be possible – the proper words may be spoken and the fitting effect produced.

"Alas! with all these struggles, when the wood has been found, when all external things are propitious, when the very heavens have lent their aid, it is so often that it is impossible! It is not only that your Ariel is untrained, but that the special Ariel which you may chance to own is no better than a rustic hobgoblin or a pease-blossom, or mustard seed at the best. You cannot get the pace of the racehorse from a farmyard colt, train him as you will. How often is one prompted to fling one's self down in despair, and, weeping between the branches, to declare that it is not that the thoughts will wander, it is not that the mind is treacherous! That which it can do, it will do; but the pace required from it should be fitted only for the farmyard. Nevertheless, before all be given up, let a walk in the wood be tried."

Much has been said about the quality of Mr. Trollope's work. There seems a consensus of opinion that it degenerated. "Mr. Trollope," says Mr. Freeman, "had certainly gone far to write himself out. His later work is far from being so good as his earlier. But, after all, his worst work is better than a great many other people's best; and considering the way in which it was done, it is wonderful that it was done at all. I, myself, know what fixed hours of work are, and their value; but I could not undertake to write about William Rufus or Appius Claudius up to a certain moment on the clock, and to stop at that moment. I suppose it was from his habits of official business that Mr. Trollope learned to do it, and every man undoubtedly knows best how to do his own work. Still, it is strange that works of imagination did not suffer by such a way of doing."

James Payn said that Trollope injured his reputation by publishing his methods of writing. Likewise, the Daily News, in referring to Alphonse Daudet's history of his own novels, doubted whether he acted wisely. As the editor said, "An effect of almost too elaborate art, a feeling that we are looking at a mosaic painfully made up of little pieces picked out of real life and fitted together, has often been present to the consciousness of M. Daudet's readers. That feeling is justified by his description of his creative efforts."

M. Daudet's earlier works were light and humorous, like "Tartarin," or they were idyllic and full of Provençal scenery, the nature and the nightingales of M. Daudet's birthplace, the south. One night at the theatre, when watching the splendid failure of an idyllic Provençal sort of play, M. Daudet made up his mind that he must give the public sterner stuff, and describe the familiar Parisian scenery of streets and quais. This wise determination was the origin of his novels, "Jack," "Fromont jeune et Risler ainé," and the rest. Up to that time, M. Daudet, M. Zola, M. Flaubert, and the brothers Goncourt had all been more or less unpopular authors. It is not long since they had a little club of the unsuccessful, and M. Daudet was the first of the company who began to blossom out into numerous editions.

M. Daudet's secret as a novelist, as far as the secret is communicable, seems to be his wonderfully close study of actual life and his unscrupulousness in reproducing its details almost without disguise. He frankly confesses that not only the characters in his political novels, but those in his other works, are drawn straight from living persons. The scenery is all sketched from nature, M. Daudet describing the vast factories with which he was familiar when, at the age of sixteen, he began to earn his own living, or the interiors to which he was admitted by virtue of his position under a great man of the late imperial administration. Places about which he did not know much, and which needed to be introduced into his tales, M. Daudet visited with his note-book.

M. Daudet's mode of work is, first, to see his plot and main incidents clearly, to arrive at a full understanding of his characters, then to map out his chapters, and then, he says, his fingers tingle to be at work. He writes rapidly, handing each wet slip of paper to Madame Daudet for criticism and approval. There is no such sound criticism, he says, as that of this helpful collaborator, who withal is "so little a woman of letters."

When a number of chapters are finished M. Daudet finds it well to begin publishing his novel in a journal. Thus he is obliged to finish within a certain date; he cannot go back to make alterations; he cannot afford time to write a page a dozen times over, as a conscientious artist often wishes to do.