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Miriam Michelson - "In The Bishop's Carriage"

Ilya Tolstoy - "Reminiscences of Tolstoy"

Earl Derr Biggers - "The Agony Column"

Charles Eastman - "Indian Boyhood, by [OHIYESA] Charles Eastman"

New Grub Street

G >> George Gissing >> New Grub Street




'Don't you think that, even to-day, really good work will sooner
or later be recognised?'

'Later, rather than sooner; and very likely the man can't wait;
he starves in the meantime. You understand that I am not speaking
of genius; I mean marketable literary work. The quantity turned
out is so great that there's no hope for the special attention of
the public unless one can afford to advertise hugely. Take the
instance of a successful all-round man of letters; take Ralph
Warbury, whose name you'll see in the first magazine you happen
to open. But perhaps he is a friend of yours?'

'Oh no!'

'Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask:Is
there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of
twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a
clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and
friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people;
his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had
written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the
rule. Men won't succeed in literature that they may get into
society, but will get into society that they may succeed in
literature.'

'Yes, I know it is true,' said Marian, in a low voice.

'There's a friend of mine who writes novels,' Jasper pursued.
'His books are not works of genius, but they are glaringly
distinct from the ordinary circulating novel. Well, after one or
two attempts, he made half a success; that is to say, the
publishers brought out a second edition of the book in a few
months. There was his opportunity. But he couldn't use it; he had
no friends, because he had no money. A book of half that merit,
if written by a man in the position of Warbury when he started,
would have established the reputation of a lifetime. His
influential friends would have referred to it in leaders, in
magazine articles, in speeches, in sermons. It would have run
through numerous editions, and the author would have had nothing
to do but to write another book and demand his price. But the
novel I'm speaking of was practically forgotten a year after its
appearance; it was whelmed beneath the flood of next season's
literature.'

Marian urged a hesitating objection.

'But, under the circumstances, wasn't it in the author's power to
make friends? Was money really indispensable?'

'Why, yes--because he chose to marry. As a bachelor he might
possibly have got into the right circles, though his character
would in any case have made it difficult for him to curry favour.

But as a married man, without means, the situation was hopeless.
Once married you must live up to the standard of the society you
frequent; you can't be entertained without entertaining in
return. Now if his wife had brought him only a couple of thousand
pounds all might have been well. I should have advised him, in
sober seriousness, to live for two years at the rate of a
thousand a year. At the end of that time he would have been
earning enough to continue at pretty much the same rate of
expenditure.'

'Perhaps.'

'Well, I ought rather to say that the average man of letters
would be able to do that. As for Reardon--'

He stopped. The name had escaped him unawares.

'Reardon?' said Marian, looking up. 'You are speaking of him?'

'I have betrayed myself Miss Yule.'

'But what does it matter? You have only spoken in his favour.'

'I feared the name might affect you disagreeably.'

Marian delayed her reply.

'It is true,' she said, 'we are not on friendly terms with my
cousin's family. I have never met Mr Reardon. But I shouldn't
like you to think that the mention of his name is disagreeable to
me.'

'It made me slightly uncomfortable yesterday--the fact that I am
well acquainted with Mrs Edmund Yule, and that Reardon is my
friend. Yet I didn't see why that should prevent my making your
father's acquaintance.'

'Surely not. I shall say nothing about it; I mean, as you uttered
the name unintentionally.'

There was a pause in the dialogue. They had been speaking almost
confidentially, and Marian seemed to become suddenly aware of an
oddness in the situation. She turned towards the uphill path, as
if thinking of resuming her walk.

'You are tired of standing still,' said Jasper. 'May I walk back
a part of the way with you?'

'Thank you; I shall be glad.'

They went on for a few minutes in silence.

'Have you published anything with your signature, Miss Yule?'
Jasper at length inquired.

'Nothing. I only help father a little.'

The silence that again followed was broken this time by Marian.

'When you chanced to mention Mr Reardon's name,' she said, with a
diffident smile in which lay that suggestion of humour so
delightful upon a woman's face, 'you were going to say something
more about him?'

'Only that--' he broke off and laughed. 'Now, how boyish it was,
wasn't it? I remember doing just the same thing once when I came
home from school and had an exciting story to tell, with
preservation of anonymities. Of course I blurted out a name in
the first minute or two, to my father's great amusement. He told
me that I hadn't the diplomatic character. I have been trying to
acquire it ever since.

'But why?'

'It's one of the essentials of success in any kind of public
life. And I mean to succeed, you know. I feel that I am one of
the men who do succeed. But I beg your pardon; you asked me a
question. Really, I was only going to say of Reardon what I had
said before: that he hasn't the tact requisite for acquiring
popularity.'

'Then I may hope that it isn't his marriage with my cousin which
has proved a fatal misfortune?'

'In no case,' replied Milvain, averting his look, 'would he have
used his advantages.'

'And now? Do you think he has but poor prospects?'

'I wish I could see any chance of his being estimated at his
right value. It's very hard to say what is before him.'

'I knew my cousin Amy when we were children,' said Marian,
presently. 'She gave promise of beauty.'

'Yes, she is beautiful.'

'And--the kind of woman to be of help to such a husband?'

'I hardly know how to answer, Miss Yule,' said Jasper, looking
frankly at her. 'Perhaps I had better say that it's unfortunate
they are poor.'

Marian cast down her eyes.

'To whom isn't it a misfortune?' pursued her companion. 'Poverty
is the root of all social ills; its existence accounts even for
the ills that arise from wealth. The poor man is a man labouring
in fetters. I declare there is no word in our language which
sounds so hideous to me as "Poverty."'

Shortly after this they came to the bridge over the railway line.
Jasper looked at his watch.

'Will you indulge me in a piece of childishness?' he said. 'In
less than five minutes a London express goes by; I have often
watched it here, and it amuses me. Would it weary you to wait?'

'I should like to,' she replied with a laugh.

The line ran along a deep cutting, from either side of which grew
hazel bushes and a few larger trees. Leaning upon the parapet of
the bridge, Jasper kept his eye in the westward direction, where
the gleaming rails were visible for more than a mile. Suddenly he
raised his finger.

'You hear?'

Marian had just caught the far-off sound of the train. She looked
eagerly, and in a few moments saw it approaching. The front of
the engine blackened nearer and nearer, coming on with dread
force and speed. A blinding rush, and there burst against the
bridge a great volley of sunlit steam. Milvain and his companion
ran to the opposite parapet, but already the whole train had
emerged, and in a few seconds it had disappeared round a sharp
curve. The leafy branches that grew out over the line swayed
violently backwards and forwards in the perturbed air.

'If I were ten years younger,' said Jasper, laughing, 'I should
say that was jolly! It enspirits me. It makes me feel eager to go
back and plunge into the fight again.'

'Upon me it has just the opposite effect,' fell from Marian, in
very low tones.

'Oh, don't say that! Well, it only means that you haven't had
enough holiday yet. I have been in the country more than a week;
a few days more and I must be off. How long do you think of
staying?'

'Not much more than a week, I think.'

'By-the-bye, you are coming to have tea with us to-morrow,'
Jasper remarked a propos of nothing. Then he returned to another
subject that was in his thoughts.

'It was by a train like that that I first went up to London. Not
really the first time; I mean when I went to live there, seven
years ago. What spirits I was in! A boy of eighteen going to live
independently in London; think of it!'

'You went straight from school?'

'I was for two years at Redmayne College after leaving
Wattleborough Grammar School. Then my father died, and I spent
nearly half a year at home. I was meant to be a teacher, but the
prospect of entering a school by no means appealed to me. A
friend of mine was studying in London for some Civil Service
exam., so I declared that I would go and do the same thing.'

'Did you succeed?'

'Not I! I never worked properly for that kind of thing. I read
voraciously, and got to know London. I might have gone to the
dogs, you know; but by when I had been in London a year a pretty
clear purpose began to form in me. Strange to think that you were
growing up there all the time. I may have passed you in the
street now and then.'

Marian laughed.

'And I did at length see you at the British Museum, you know.'

They turned a corner of the road, and came full upon Marian's
father, who was walking in this direction with eyes fixed upon
the ground.

'So here you are!' he exclaimed, looking at the girl, and for the
moment paying no attention to Jasper. 'I wondered whether I
should meet you.' Then, more dryly, 'How do you do, Mr Milvain?'

In a tone of easy indifference Jasper explained how he came to be
accompanying Miss Yule.

'Shall I walk on with you, father?' Marian asked, scrutinising
his rugged features.

'Just as you please; I don't know that I should have gone much
further. But we might take another way back.'

Jasper readily adapted himself to the wish he discerned in Mr
Yule; at once he offered leave-taking in the most natural way.
Nothing was said on either side about another meeting.

The young man proceeded homewards, but, on arriving, did not at
once enter the house. Behind the garden was a field used for the
grazing of horses; he entered it by the unfastened gate, and
strolled idly hither and thither, now and then standing to
observe a poor worn-out beast, all skin and bone, which had
presumably been sent here in the hope that a little more labour
might still be exacted from it if it were suffered to repose for
a few weeks. There were sores upon its back and legs; it stood in
a fixed attitude of despondency, just flicking away troublesome
flies with its grizzled tail.

It was tea-time when he went in. Maud was not at home, and Mrs
Milvain, tormented by a familiar headache, kept her room; so
Jasper and Dora sat down together. Each had an open book on the
table; throughout the meal they exchanged only a few words.

'Going to play a little?' Jasper suggested when they had gone
into the sitting-room.

'If you like.'

She sat down at the piano, whilst her brother lay on the sofa,
his hands clasped beneath his head. Dora did not play badly, but
an absentmindedness which was commonly observable in her had its
effect upon the music. She at length broke off idly in the middle
of a passage, and began to linger on careless chords. Then,
without turning her head, she asked:

'Were you serious in what you said about writing storybooks?'

'Quite. I see no reason why you shouldn't do something in that
way. But I tell you what; when I get back, I'll inquire into the
state of the market. I know a man who was once engaged at Jolly &
Monk's--the chief publishers of that kind of thing, you know; I
must look him up--what a mistake it is to neglect any
acquaintance!--and get some information out of him. But it's
obvious what an immense field there is for anyone who can just
hit the taste of the' new generation of Board school children.
Mustn't be too goody-goody; that kind of thing is falling out of
date. But you'd have to cultivate a particular kind of vulgarity.

There's an idea, by-the-bye. I'll write a paper on the
characteristics of that new generation; it may bring me a few
guineas, and it would be a help to you.'

'But what do you know about the subject?' asked Dora doubtfully.

'What a comical question! It is my business to know something
about every subject--or to know where to get the knowledge.'

'Well,' said Dora, after a pause, 'there's no doubt Maud and I
ought to think very seriously about the future. You are aware,
Jasper, that mother has not been able to save a penny of her
income.'

'I don't see how she could have done. Of course I know what
you're thinking; but for me, it would have been possible. I don't
mind confessing to you that the thought troubles me a little now
and then; I shouldn't like to see you two going off governessing
in strangers' houses. All I can say is, that I am very honestly
working for the end which I am convinced will be most profitable.

I shall not desert you; you needn't fear that. But just put your
heads together, and cultivate your writing faculty. Suppose you
could both together earn about a hundred a year in Grub Street,
it would be better than governessing; wouldn't it?'

'You say you don't know what Miss Yule writes?'

'Well, I know a little more about her than I did yesterday. I've
had an hour's talk with her this afternoon.'

'Indeed?'

'Met her down in the Leggatt fields. I find she doesn't write
independently; just helps her father. What the help amounts to I
can't say. There's something very attractive about her. She
quoted a line or two of Tennyson; the first time I ever heard a
woman speak blank verse with any kind of decency.'

'She was walking alone?'

'Yes. On the way back we met old Yule; he seemed rather grumpy, I
thought. I don't think she's the kind of girl to make a paying
business of literature. Her qualities are personal. And it's
pretty clear to me that the valley of the shadow of books by no
means agrees with her disposition. Possibly old Yule is something
of a tyrant.'

'He doesn't impress me very favourably. Do you think you will
keep up their acquaintance in London?'

'Can't say. I wonder what sort of a woman that mother really is?
Can't be so very gross, I should think.'

'Miss Harrow knows nothing about her, except that she was a quite
uneducated girl.'

'But, dash it! by this time she must have got decent manners. Of
course there may be other objections. Mrs Reardon knows nothing
against her.'

Midway in the following morning, as Jasper sat with a book in the
garden, he was surprised to see Alfred Yule enter by the gate.

'I thought,' began the visitor, who seemed in high spirits, 'that
you might like to see something I received this morning.'

He unfolded a London evening paper, and indicated a long letter
from a casual correspondent. It was written by the authoress of
'On the Boards,' and drew attention, with much expenditure of
witticism, to the conflicting notices of that book which had
appeared in The Study. Jasper read the thing with laughing
appreciation.

'Just what one expected!'

'And I have private letters on the subject,' added Mr Yule.

'There has been something like a personal conflict between Fadge
and the man who looks after the minor notices. Fadge,more suo,
charged the other man with a design to damage him and the paper.
There's talk of legal proceedings. An immense joke!'

He laughed in his peculiar croaking way.

'Do you feel disposed for a turn along the lanes, Mr Milvain?'

'By all means.--There's my mother at the window; will you come in
for a moment?'

With a step of quite unusual sprightliness Mr Yule entered the
house. He could talk of but one subject, and Mrs Milvain had to
listen to a laboured account of the blunder just committed by The
Study. It was Alfred's Yule's characteristic that he could do
nothing lighthandedly. He seemed always to converse with effort;
he took a seat with stiff ungainliness; he walked with a
stumbling or sprawling gait.

When he and Jasper set out for their ramble, his loquacity was in
strong contrast with the taciturn mood he had exhibited yesterday
and the day before. He fell upon the general aspects of
contemporary literature.

'. . . The evil of the time is the multiplication of ephemerides.
Hence a demand for essays, descriptive articles, fragments of
criticism, out of all proportion to the supply of even tolerable
work. The men who have an aptitude for turning out this kind of
thing in vast quantities are enlisted by every new periodical,
with the result that their productions are ultimately watered
down into worthlessness. . . . Well now, there's Fadge. Years ago
some of Fadge's work was not without a certain--a certain
conditional promise of--of comparative merit; but now his
writing, in my opinion, is altogether beneath consideration; how
Rackett could be so benighted as to give him The Study--
especially after a man like Henry Hawkridge--passes my
comprehension. Did you read a paper of his, a few months back, in
The Wayside, a preposterous rehabilitation of Elkanah Settle? Ha!

ha! That's what such men are driven to. Elkanah Settle! And he
hadn't even a competent acquaintance with his paltry subject.
Will you credit that he twice or thrice referred to Settle's
reply to "Absalom and Achitophel" by the title of "Absalom
Transposed," when every schoolgirl knows that the thing was
called "Achitophel Transposed"! This was monstrous enough, but
there was something still more contemptible. He positively, I
assure you, attributed the play of "Epsom Wells" to Crowne! I
should have presumed that every student of even the most trivial
primer of literature was aware that "Epsom Wells" was written by
Shadwell. . . . Now, if one were to take Shadwell for the subject
of a paper, one might very well show how unjustly his name has
fallen into contempt. It has often occurred to me to do this.
"But Shadwell never deviates into sense." The sneer, in my
opinion, is entirely unmerited. For my own part, I put Shadwell
very high among the dramatists of his time, and I think I could
show that his absolute worth is by no means inconsiderable.
Shadwell has distinct vigour of dramatic conception; his
dialogue. . . .'

And as he talked the man kept describing imaginary geometrical
figures with the end of his walking-stick; he very seldom raised
his eyes from the ground, and the stoop in his shoulders grew
more and more pronounced, until at a little distance one might
have taken him for a hunchback. At one point Jasper made a pause
to speak of the pleasant wooded prospect that lay before them;
his companion regarded it absently, and in a moment or two asked:

'Did you ever come across Cottle's poem on the Malvern Hills? No?

It contains a couple of the richest lines ever put into print:

It needs the evidence of close deduction
To know that I shall ever reach the top.

Perfectly serious poetry, mind you!'

He barked in laughter. Impossible to interest him in anything
apart from literature; yet one saw him to be a man of solid
understanding, and not without perception of humour. He had read
vastly; his memory was a literary cyclopaedia. His failings,
obvious enough, were the results of a strong and somewhat
pedantic individuality ceaselessly at conflict with unpropitious
circumstances.

Towards the young man his demeanour varied between a shy
cordiality and a dignified reserve which was in danger of seeming
pretentious. On the homeward part of the walk he made a few
discreet inquiries regarding Milvain's literary achievements and
prospects, and the frank self-confidence of the replies appeared
to interest him. But he expressed no desire to number Jasper
among his acquaintances in town, and of his own professional or
private concerns he said not a word.

'Whether he could be any use to me or not, I don't exactly know,'
Jasper remarked to his mother and sisters at dinner. 'I suspect
it's as much as he can do to keep a footing among the younger
tradesmen. But I think he might have said he was willing to help
me if he could.'

'Perhaps,' replied Maud, 'your large way of talking made him
think any such offer superfluous.'

'You have still to learn,' said Jasper, 'that modesty helps a man
in no department of modern life. People take you at your own
valuation. It's the men who declare boldly that they need no help
to whom practical help comes from all sides. As likely as not
Yule will mention my name to someone. "A young fellow who seems
to see his way pretty clear before him." The other man will
repeat it to somebody else, "A young fellow whose way is clear
before him," and so I come to the ears of a man who thinks "Just
the fellow I want; I must look him up and ask him if he'll do
such-and-such a thing." But I should like to see these Yules at
home; I must fish for an invitation.'

In the afternoon, Miss Harrow and Marian came at the expected
hour. Jasper purposely kept out of the way until he was summoned
to the tea-table.

The Milvain girls were so far from effusive, even towards old
acquaintances, that even the people who knew them best spoke of
them as rather cold and perhaps a trifle condescending; there
were people in Wattleborough who declared their airs of
superiority ridiculous and insufferable. The truth was that
nature had endowed them with a larger share of brains than was
common in their circle, and had added that touch of pride which
harmonised so ill with the restrictions of poverty. Their life
had a tone of melancholy, the painful reserve which characterises
a certain clearly defined class in the present day. Had they been
born twenty years earlier, the children of that veterinary
surgeon would have grown up to a very different, and in all
probability a much happier, existence, for their education would
have been limited to the strictly needful, and--certainly in the
case of the girls--nothing would have encouraged them to look
beyond the simple life possible to a poor man's offspring. But
whilst Maud and Dora were still with their homely schoolmistress,
Wattleborough saw fit to establish a Girls' High School, and the
moderateness of the fees enabled these sisters to receive an
intellectual training wholly incompatible with the material
conditions of their life. To the relatively poor (who are so much
worse off than the poor absolutely) education is in most cases a
mocking cruelty. The burden of their brother's support made it
very difficult for Maud and Dora even to dress as became their
intellectual station; amusements, holidays, the purchase of such
simple luxuries as were all but indispensable to them, could not
be thought of. It resulted that they held apart from the society
which would have welcomed them, for they could not bear to
receive without offering in turn. The necessity of giving lessons
galled them; they felt--and with every reason--that it made their
position ambiguous. So that, though they could not help knowing
many people, they had no intimates; they encouraged no one to
visit them, and visited other houses as little as might be.

In Marian Yule they divined a sympathetic nature. She was unlike
any girl with whom they had hitherto associated, and it was the
impulse of both to receive her with unusual friendliness. The
habit of reticence could not be at once overcome, and Marian's
own timidity was an obstacle in the way of free intercourse, but
Jasper's conversation at tea helped to smooth the course of
things.

'I wish you lived anywhere near us,' Dora said to their visitor,
as the three girls walked in the garden afterwards, and Maud
echoed the wish.

'It would be very nice,' was Marian's reply. 'I have no friends
of my own age in London.'

'None?'

'Not one!'

She was about to add something, but in the end kept silence.

'You seem to get along with Miss Yule pretty well, after all,'
said Jasper, when the family were alone again.

'Did you anticipate anything else?' Maud asked.

'It seemed doubtful, up at Yule's house. Well, get her to come
here again before I go. But it's a pity she doesn't play the
piano,' he added, musingly.

For two days nothing was seen of the Yules. Jasper went each
afternoon to the stream in the valley, but did not again meet
Marian. In the meanwhile he was growing restless. A fortnight
always exhausted his capacity for enjoying the companionship of
his mother and sisters, and this time he seemed anxious to get to
the end of his holiday. For all that, there was no continuance of
the domestic bickering which had begun. Whatever the reason, Maud
behaved with unusual mildness to her brother, and Jasper in turn
was gently disposed to both the girls.

On the morning of the third day--it was Saturday--he kept silence
through breakfast, and just as all were about to rise from the
table, he made a sudden announcement:

'I shall go to London this afternoon.'

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