Stories of Authors, British and American Part 7

XXII

MACAULAY'S CHILDHOOD

Macaulay is one of the brilliant lights of the first half of the last century. Trevelyan's _Life and Letters_ of Macaulay gives us an interesting glimpse of his childhood. When his parents moved from the heart of London into a less crowded district, Macaulay, baby though he was, kept the early impressions of the place.

"He remembered," says his biographer, "standing up at the nursery window by his father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring out of a tall chimney. He asked if that was h.e.l.l: an inquiry that was received with great displeasure which at the time he could not understand. The kindly father must have been pained almost against his own will at finding what feature of his stern creed it was that had embodied itself in so very material a shape before his little son's imagination. When in after days, Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began to detect in the child a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilities and affections were remarkably developed at an age which to her hearers appeared next to incredible.

He would cry for joy on seeing her after a few hours' absence, and (till her husband put a stop to it) her power of exciting his feelings was often made an exhibition to her friends. She did not regard this precocity as a proof of cleverness, but, like a foolish young mother, only thought that so tender a nature was marked for early death.

"The new residence was in the High Street of Clapham, a more commodious part of London than that which they had just left. "It was a roomy, comfortable dwelling, with a very small garden behind, and in front a very small one indeed, which has entirely disappeared beneath a large shop thrown out toward the roadway by the present occupier, who bears the name of Heywood. Here the boy pa.s.sed a quiet and most happy childhood. From the time that he was three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the floor, and a piece of bread and b.u.t.ter in his hand. A very clever woman who then lived in the house as parlor-maid told how he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or mother, telling interminable stories, out of his own head, or repeating what he had been reading in language far above his years.

His memory retained without effort the phraseology of the book which he had been last engaged on, and he talked, as the maid said, 'quite printed words,' which produced an effect that appeared formal, and often, no doubt, exceedingly droll. Mrs. Hannah More was fond of relating how she called at Mr. Macaulay's, and was met by a fair, pretty, slight child, with abundance of light hair, about four years of age, who came to the front door to receive her, and tell her that his parents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in he would bring her a gla.s.s of old spirits, a proposition which greatly startled the old lady, who had never aspired beyond cowslip-wine. When questioned as to what he knew about old spirits he could only say that Robinson Crusoe often had some. About this period his father took him on a visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased to exhibit to his old friend the fair, bright boy, dressed in a green coat with red collar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white trousers. After some time had been spent among the wonders of the Orford Collection, of which he ever after carried a catalogue in his head, a servant who was waiting on the company in the great gallery spilled some hot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness and compa.s.sion, and when, after a while, she asked him how he was feeling, the little fellow looked up in her face, and replied, 'Thank you, madam, the agony is abated.'

"But it must not be supposed his quaint manners proceeded from affectation or conceit, for all testimony declares that a more simple and natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had at his command the resources of the Common; to this day the most unchanged spot within ten miles of St. Paul's, and which to all appearance will ere long hold that pleasant pre-eminence within ten leagues. That delightful wilderness of gorse bushes, and poplar groves and gravel pits, and ponds great and small, was to little Tom Macaulay a region of inexhaustible romance and mystery. He explored its recesses; he composed, and almost believed, its legends; he invented for its different features a nomenclature which has been faithfully preserved by two generations of children. A slight ridge intersected by deep ditches toward the west of the Common, the very existence of which no one above eight years old would notice, was dignified with the t.i.tle of the Alps; while the elevated island, covered with shrubs, that gives a name to the Mount pond, was regarded with infinite awe, as being the nearest approach within the circuit of his observation to a conception of the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his infant fancy was much exercised with the threats and terrors of the Law. He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a row of oyster sh.e.l.ls, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He went straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle and said, very solemnly, 'Cursed be Sally; for it is written, cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark.'

"When still the merest child, he was sent as a day-scholar to Mr.

Greaves, a shrewd Yorkshireman with a turn for science, who had been brought originally to the neighborhood in order to educate a number of African youths sent over to imbibe Western civilization at the fountain-head. The poor fellows had found as much difficulty in keeping alive at Clapham as Englishmen experience at Sierra Leone; and, in the end, their tutor set up a school for boys of his own color, and one time had charge of almost the entire rising generation of the Common. Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to study without the solace of bread-and-b.u.t.ter, to which he replied, 'Yes, Mama, industry shall be my bread and attention my b.u.t.ter.' But, as a matter of fact, no one ever crept more unwillingly to school.

Each several afternoon he made piteous entreaties to be excused returning after dinner, and was met by the unvarying formula, 'No, Tom, if it rains cats and dogs, you shall go.'

"His reluctance to leave home had more than one side to it. Not only did his heart stay behind, but the regular lessons of the cla.s.s took him away from occupations which in his eyes were infinitely more delightful and important; for these were probably the years of his greatest literary activity. As an author he never again had more facility, or anything like so wide a range. In September, 1808, his mother writes: 'My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon genius. He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his education, and the extent of his reading, and of the knowledge he derived from it, are truly astonishing in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the same time as playful as a kitten. To give you some idea of the activity of his mind I will mention a few circ.u.mstances that may interest you and Colin. You will believe that to him we never appear to regard anything he does as anything more than a schoolboy's amus.e.m.e.nt. He took it into his head to write a compendium of universal history about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading events from the creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. He told me one day that he had been writing a paper which Henry Daly was to translate into Malabar, to persuade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian religion. On reading it, I found it to contain a very clear idea of the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, with some strong arguments for its adoption. He was so fired with reading Scott's _Lay_ and _Marmion_, the former of which he got entirely, and the latter almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in reading them, that he determined on writing himself a poem in six cantos which he called _The Battle of Cheviot_.'"

XXIII

MACAULAY BECOMES FAMOUS

In 1848 Macaulay was a famous man. He had served in India and had written the first part of his _History of England_. In this year after a lapse of nine years he again keeps a diary. From this diary we quote extracts showing how he became famous.

"Dec. 4th, 1848.--I have felt to-day somewhat anxious about the fate of my book. The sale has surpa.s.sed expectation: but that proves only that people have formed a high idea of what they are to have. The disappointment, if there is disappointment, will be great. All that I hear is laudatory. But who can trust to praise that is poured into his own ear? At all events, I have aimed high; I have tried to do something that may be remembered; I have had the year 2000, or even 3000, often in my mind; I have sacrificed nothing to temporary fashions of thought and style; and if I fail, my failure will be more honorable than nine-tenths of the successes that I have witnessed."

"Dec. 12th, 1848.--Longman called. A new edition of three thousand copies is preparing as fast as they can work. I have reason to be pleased. Of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ two thousand two hundred and fifty copies were sold in the first year; of _Marmion_ two thousand copies in the first month; of my book three thousand copies in ten days. Black says that there has been no such sale since the days of _Waverley_. The success is in every way complete beyond all hope and is the more agreeable to me because expectation had been wound up so high that disappointment was almost inevitable. I think, though with some misgivings, that the book will live."

"January 11th, 1849.--I am glad to find how well my book continues to sell. The second edition of three thousand was out of print almost as soon as it appeared, and one thousand two hundred and fifty of the third edition are already bespoken. I hope all this will not make me a c.o.xcomb. I feel no intoxicating effect; but a man may be drunk without knowing it. If my abilities do not fail me, I shall be a rich man, as rich, that is to say, as I wish to be. But that I am already, if it were not for my dear ones. I am content, and should have been so with less. On the whole, I remember no success so complete, and I remember all Byron's poems and all Scott's novels."

"Sat.u.r.day, January 27th.--Longman has written to say that only sixteen hundred copies are left of the third edition of five thousand, and that two thousand more copies must be immediately printed, still to be called the third edition.... Of such a run I had never dreamed. But I had thought that the book would have a permanent place in our literature, and I see no reason to alter that opinion."

"February 2d.--Mahon sent me a letter from Arbuthnot, saying that the Duke of Wellington was enthusiastic in admiration of my book. Though I am almost callous to praise now, this praise made me happy for two minutes. A fine old fellow!"

The above selections are from Macaulay's diary, as was said. Now come several from letters to a Mr. Ellis, to whom Macaulay sent many.

"March 8th, 1849.

"At last I have attained true glory. As I walked through Fleet Street the day before yesterday, I saw a copy of Hume at a book-seller's window with the following label: 'Only 2 2s.

Hume's _History of England_, in eight volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to Macaulay.' I laughed so convulsively that the other people who were staring at the books took me for a poor demented gentleman. Alas for poor David! As for me, only one height of renown remains to be attained. I am not yet in Madam Tussaud's wax-works. I live, however, in hope of seeing one day an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a new group of figures--Mr.

Macaulay, in one of his own coats, conversing with Mr. Silk Buckingham in Oriental costume, and Mr. Robert Montgomery in full canonicals."

"March 9th, 1850.

"I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake, and I can a.s.sure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of G.o.d. But you must hear of my triumphs. Thackeray swears that he was eye-witness and ear-witness of the proudest event of my life. Two damsels were about to pa.s.s that doorway which we, on Monday, in vain attempted to enter, when I was pointed out to them. 'Mr. Macaulay,' cried the lovely pair.

'Is that Mr. Macaulay? Never mind the hippopotamus.' And having paid a shilling to see Behemoth, they left him in the very moment at which he was about to display himself to them in order to see--but spare my modesty. I can wish for nothing more on earth, now that Madam Tussaud, in whose Parthenon I once hoped for a place, is dead."

In his diary of June 30th, 1849, we find: "Today my yearly account with Longman is wound up. I may now say that my book has run the gauntlet of criticism pretty thoroughly. The most savage and dishonest a.s.sailant has not been able to deny me merit as a writer. All critics who have the least pretense to impartiality have given me praise which I may be glad to think that I at all deserve.... I received a note from Prince Albert. He wants to see me at Buckingham Palace at three to-morrow. I answered like a courtier; yet what am I to say to him?

For, of course, he wants to consult me about the Cambridge professorship. How can I be just at once to Stephen and to Kemble?"

"Sat.u.r.day, July 1st--To the Palace. The Prince, to my extreme astonishment, offered me the professorship, and very earnestly and with many flattering expressions, pressed me to accept it. I was resolute, and gratefully and respectfully declined. I should have declined, indeed, if only in order to give no ground to anybody to accuse me of foul play, for I have had difficulty enough in steering my course so as to deal properly both by Stephen and Kemble, and if I had marched off with the prize, I could not have been astonished if both had entertained a very unjust suspicion of me. But, in truth, my temper is that of the wolf in the fable, I cannot bear the collar, and I have got rid of much finer and richer collars than this. It would be strange if, having sacrificed for liberty, a seat in the Cabinet and twenty-five hundred pounds a year, I should now sacrifice liberty for a chair at Cambridge and four hundred pounds a year. Besides, I never could do two things at once. If I lectured well, my _History_ must be given up, and to give up my _History_ would be to give up much more than the emoluments of the professorship--if emolument were my chief object, which it is not now, nor ever was. The prince, when he found me determined, asked me about the other candidates."

XXIV

d.i.c.kENS WRITES THE PICKWICK PAPERS

We are always interested in the beginnings of a successful career, for humanity with all its selfishness takes a generous pleasure in the advancement of those who have made an honest fight for fame or wealth.

The first success of d.i.c.kens came with the publication of the _Pickwick Papers_, by the publication of which the publishers, it is said, made $100,000,--much to their astonishment.

We all know the early career of the famous novelist: How he pa.s.sed a boyhood of poverty; how he became a stenographer, a good one, for said a Mr. Beard, "There never was such a shorthand writer," at the time d.i.c.kens entered the gallery as a Parliament reporter; how he later became a reporter for the _Morning Chronicle_. In the December number of the _Old Monthly Magazine_ his first published story saw the light.

This was in 1833, when d.i.c.kens was twenty-one. The story first went under the name of _A Dinner at Poplar Walk_, but it afterwards was changed to _Mr. Mims and his Cousin_. Then came _Sketches by Boz_ in 1835, and in 1836 _Pickwick_ appeared in serial form, the book coming out a year later.

An amusing and striking ill.u.s.tration of the widespread interest in the story of _Pickwick_, if we may call so rambling an account as _Pickwick_ a story, is related by Carlyle: "An archdeacon with his own venerable lips repeated to me the other night a strange profane story: of a solemn clergyman who had been administering ghostly consolation to a sick person; having finished, satisfactorily as he thought, and got out of the room, he heard the sick person e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, 'Well, thank G.o.d, _Pickwick_ will be out in ten days any way!'--this is dreadful."

We are always interested in knowing whether the author received adequate remuneration for his work. Literature is not a commercial venture. The man who says, "Go to, now I shall make money by my pen!"

is not the one who achieves a masterpiece. Nevertheless we are glad to know that genius is rewarded. It is more comforting to learn that Pope received $45,000 for his translations of Homer than that Milton got $25 for his _Paradise Lost_; that Scott received over $40,000 for _Woodstock_, a novel written in three months, than that the author of the _Canterbury Tales_ two years before his death was obliged to pet.i.tion the king, "for G.o.d's sake and as a work of charity," for the grant of a hogshead of wine yearly at the port of London.

Did d.i.c.kens receive anything for his _Pickwick_? Mr. Chapman, one of the publishers, told Mr. Forster, the friend and biographer of d.i.c.kens, that there was but a verbal agreement. The publishers were to pay 15 guineas for each number and as there were twenty numbers it is not hard to estimate his receipts on such a basis. The publishers, however, were to add to this compensation according to the sale. Mr.

Chapman thinks that his firm paid about 3,000 pounds for _Pickwick_, but Mr. Forster thinks the sum was about 2,500 pounds. While this sum bears but a small proportion to what d.i.c.kens would have received had he made a good bargain with his publishers, it is yet a large sum to one beginning his literary career, and must have been deeply appreciated by d.i.c.kens, who had been so poor that he was paid 30 pounds in advance for the first two numbers, so that he might "go and get married."

_Pickwick_ was soon followed by _Oliver Twist_, and then came _Nicholas Nickleby_, and the long series of successful novels that brought the author both fame and money. For when d.i.c.kens died he had a fortune of 93,000. Some of this was made in America, where his "readings" were attended by great crowds. On his second tour to America, after he had given thirty-seven readings, about one-half the entire number, he sent home a check for 10,000. Some evenings he took in $2,000.

One reason why d.i.c.kens is a popular novelist is that he understands the common emotions of humanity. He may be "stagey," be lacking in plot, given to exaggeration, indulge in cheap pathos, but in spite of all these defects his abounding vitality, his sympathy with the common lot, his imagination, are of such transcendent power that his world of readers adores the name of d.i.c.kens. d.i.c.kens was a good man. While not closely following the forms of religion, his life was better than that of many who follow the letter but break the spirit. As an ill.u.s.tration of his Christian belief I quote an extract from his letter to his youngest son, who was about to go to Australia:

September, 1868.

Never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our Saviour than that you should. I put a New Testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes, that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child. Because it is the best book that ever was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided.... You will remember that you have never at home been hara.s.sed about religious observances, or mere formalities--I have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things, before they are old enough to have opinions respecting them. You will therefore understand the better that I now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it.... Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARLES d.i.c.kENS]

XXV

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS AS READER