The Life of Mrs. Humphry Ward Part 5

The appreciation of her French friends was always very dear to Mrs.

Ward, and amongst them too the book was eagerly read by a small circle, though, as Scherer warned her, the subject could never become a popular one in France. But both he and M. Taine were greatly excited by it, while M. Andre Michel of the Louvre, to whom she had entrusted the copy which she desired to present to M. Taine, wrote her a delightful account of his emba.s.sy:

PARIS.

_ce 31 janvier, 1889._

CHERE MADAME,--

Votre lettre m'a ete une bien agreable surprise et une bien interessante lecture. Je l'ai immediatement communiquee a M.

Taine, en lui remettant l'exemplaire que vous lui destiniez de _Robert Elsmere_ et je vous avoue qu'en me rendant chez lui a cet effet, je me _rengorgeais_ un peu, tres-fier de servir d'intermediaire entre l'auteur de _Robert Elsmere_ et celui de la _Litterature Anglaise_. L'ane portant des reliques chez son eveque ne marchait pas plus solennellement!

M. Taine a ete tres-touche de cet hommage venant de vous, et je pense qu'il vous en a deja remercie lui-meme. J'aurais voulu que vous eussiez pu entendre--incognito--avec quelle vivacite de sympathie et d'admiration il parlait de votre livre. Pendant plusieurs jours, il n'a pas ete question d'autre chose chez lui.

The c.u.mulative effect of all these letters, both approving and disapproving; of the preachings on Robert's opinions that began with Mr.

Haweis in May, and continued at intervals throughout the summer; of the general atmosphere of celebrity that began to surround her, was extremely upsetting to so sensitive a nature as Mrs. Ward's, and much of it was and remained distasteful to her. But fame had its lighter sides.

There were the inevitable sonnets, beginning

"I thank you, Lady, for your book so pure,"

or

"Hail to thee, gentle leader, puissant knight!"--

there were inquiries as to the address of the "New Brotherhood of Christ," "so that next time we are in London we may attend some of its meetings," and there was a gentleman who demanded to know "the opus no.

of the Andante and Scherzo of Beethoven mentioned on p. 239, and of Hans Sachs's Immortal Song quoted on p. 177. I am in want of a little fresh music for one of my daughters and shall esteem your kind reply." And finally there was the following letter, which must be transcribed in full:

DEAR MADAM,--

Trusting to your Clemency, in seeking your advice, knowing my sphere in life, to be so far below your's. My Mother, who is a Cook-Housekeeper, but very fond of Literature, Poetry ("unfortunately"), in her younger days brought out a small volume, upon her own account, a copy of which Her Majesty graciously accepted. Tennyson considered it most "meritorious," Caryle most "creditable." But what I am asking your advice upon is her "Autography," her Cook's Career, which has been a checquered one.

She feels quite sure, that if it were brought out by an abler hand, it would be widely sought and read, at least by two cla.s.ses "my Ladies" and Cooks. The matter would be truth, names and places strictously ficticious. With much admiration and respect,

I am, Madam, Yours Obediently, A. A.

History does not record what reply Mrs. Ward made to this interesting proposal, but no doubt she took it all as part of the great and amusing game that Fate was playing with her. As to that game--"I have still constant letters and reviews," she wrote to her father on July 17, "and have been more lionized this last month than ever.--But a little lionizing goes a long way! One's sense of humour protests, not to speak of anything more serious, and I shall be _very_ glad to get to Borough next week. As to my work, it is all in uncertainty. For the present Miss Sellers is coming to me in the country, and I shall work hard at Latin and Greek, especially the Greek of the New Testament."

And to her old friend, Mrs. Johnson, she wrote: "Being lionized, dear Bertha, is the foolishest business on earth; I have just had five weeks of it, and if I don't use it up in a novel some day it's a pity. The book has been strangely, wonderfully successful and has made me many new friends. But I love my old ones so much best!" This latter sentiment is expressed again in a letter to Mr. Ward: "Strange how tenacious are one's first friendships! No other friends can ever be to me quite like Charlotte or Louise or Bertha or Clara.[13] They know all there is to know, bad and good--and with them one is always at ease."

That autumn they went off on a round of visits, staying first at Merevale with Mrs. Dugdale, whose husband had been killed three years before in his own mine near by--a story of simple heroism which moved Mrs. Ward profoundly, so that years afterwards she used it in her own tale of _George Tressady_. Then to Sir Robert and Lady Cunliffe, with whom they went over to see the "old wizard" of Hawarden, and spent a wonderful hour in his company.

To her old friend, J. R. Thursfield (a staunch Home Ruler), she wrote the following account of it:

_September 14, 1888._

"Where do you think we spent the afternoon of the day before yesterday? You would have been _so_ much worthier of it than we!

The Cunliffes took us over to tea at Hawarden and the G.O.M. was delightful. First of all he showed us the old Norman keep, skipping up the steps in a way to make a Tory positively ill to see, talking of every subject under the sun--Sir Edward Watkin and their new line of railway, border castles, executions in the sixteenth century, Villari's _Savonarola_, Damiens and his tortures--'all for sticking half-an-inch of penknife into that beast Louis XV!'--modern poetry, Tupper, Lewis Morris, Lord Houghton and Heaven knows what besides, and all with a charm, a courtesy, an _elan_, an eagle glance of eye that sent regretful shivers down one's Unionist backbone. He showed us all his library--his literary table, and his political table, and his new toy, the strong fire-proof room he has just built to hold his 60,000 letters, the papers which will some day be handed over to his biographer. His vigour both of mind and body was astonishing--he may well talk, as he did, of 'the foolish dogmatism which refuses to believe in centenarians.'"

a propos of this last remark, Mrs. Ward filled in the tale on her return by telling us how he turned upon her with flashing eye and demanded: "Did it ever occur to you, Mrs. Ward, that Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister at 81?" He himself was to surpa.s.s that record by returning to power at 82.

From the Cunliffes' they also made an expedition to the Peak country, which Mrs. Ward wished to explore for purposes of her next book (_David Grieve_), now already taking shape in her mind--and then travelled up to Scotland to stay at a great house to whose mistress, Lady Wemyss, she was devoted. From one who was afterwards to be known as the portrayer of English country-house life the following impressions may be of interest:

_To Mrs. A. H. Johnson_

FOX GHYLL, AMBLESIDE, _October 21, 1888_.

...Yes, we had many visits and on the whole very pleasant ones. In Derbyshire I saw a farm and a moorland which I shall try to make the British public see some day. Then on we went to the Lyulph Stanleys', saw them, and Castle Howard and Rivaulx, and journeyed on by the coast to Redcar and the Hugh Bells. There we found Alice Green, and had a merry time. Afterwards came a week at Gosford, whereof the pleasure was mixed. Lady Wemyss I love more than ever, but the party in the house was large and very smart, and with the best will in the world on both sides it is difficult for plain literary folk who don't belong to it to get much entertainment out of a circle where everybody is cousin of everybody else, and on Christian name terms, and where the women at any rate, though pleasant enough, are taken up with "places," jewels and Society with a big S. I don't mean to be unfair. Most of them are good and kindly, and have often unsuspected "interests," but naturally the paraphernalia of their position plays a large part in their lives, and makes a sort of hedge round them through which it is hard to get at the genuine human being.

Perhaps our most delightful visit was a Sat.u.r.day to Monday with Mr.

Balfour, at Whittinghame. There life is lived, intellectually, on the widest and freest of all possible planes, and the master of it all is one to whom nature has given a peculiar charm and magnetism, in addition to all that he has made for himself by toil and trouble.

...I am a little disturbed by the announcement of a _Quarterly_ article on _R.E._ It must be hostile--perhaps an attack in the old _Quarterly_ fashion: well, if so I shall be in good company! But I don't want to have to answer--I want to be free to think new thoughts and imagine fresh things.

When the _Quarterly_ article appeared a few days later she found it courteous enough in tone, but its att.i.tude of complacent superiority towards the whole critical process, which it described as "a phase of thought long ago lived through and practically dead," stung her to action and made her feel that some reply--to this and Gladstone together--was now unavoidable. She owed it to her own position--not as a scholar, for she never claimed that t.i.tle, but as an interpreter of scholars and their work to the modern public. But "If I do reply," she wrote to her husband, "I shall make it as substantive and constructive as possible. All the attacking, destructive part is so distasteful to me. I can only go through with it as a necessary element in a whole which is not negative but positive." But she could not be induced even by Mr. Knowles's persuasions to make it a regular "reply" to Mr.

Gladstone, whose name is not once mentioned throughout the article[14]; she threw her argument instead into dialogue form, so keeping the artistic ground which she had used in the novel, and replying to the _Quarterly_ or to the G.O.M. rather by allusion than by direct argument.

The article was very widely read and certainly carried her cause a stage further; it was felt that here was something that had come to stay, that must be reckoned with, and her skilful use of the admissions made in the Church Congress that year as to the date and authorship of certain books of the Old Testament filled her readers with a vague feeling that perhaps after all these things must be faced for the New Testament also.

Meanwhile in America the hubbub produced by _Robert Elsmere_ had far exceeded anything that occurred on this side of the Atlantic. Those were the days before International Copyright, when any American publisher was free to issue the works of British authors without their consent and without payment, and when if an "authorized edition" was issued by some reputable firm which had paid the author for his rights, it could be undersold the next day by some adventurous "pirate." Messrs. Macmillan had bought the American rights of _Robert Elsmere_ for a small sum and had issued it at $1.50 in April, but as soon as it began to excite attention, and especially after the appearance of Gladstone's article, the pirate firms rushed in and raged furiously with each other and with Macmillan's to get the book out at the lowest possible price. One firm--Messrs. Lowell & Co.--which had sold tens of thousands of copies, magnanimously sent the author a cheque for 100, but this was the only payment which Mrs. Ward ever received for _Robert Elsmere_ from an American publisher. Some of the incidents of the internecine war between the pirates themselves for control of the _Robert Elsmere_ market are still worth recording. They were summed up in a well-informed article in the _Manchester Guardian_ in March, 1889, ent.i.tled _The "Book-Rats" of the United States_:

"In America the publisher's lot is not a happy one. If he is honest, he pays his author, and upon the first a.s.surance of success sees nine-tenths of his lawful profits swept away by the incursions of pirates. If he is dishonest, he does not pay his author, but in hot haste reprints in cheap and nasty material, with one object alone--to undersell the legitimate publisher. A host more follow suit with new reprints in still cheaper and nastier material, till, under the pretence of giving cheap literature to the million, the culminating point is reached in the man who sells at a quarter of cost price to drive his rivals out of the field. This is what happened the other day in Boston over the sale of _Robert Elsmere_, a book which has there achieved an unparalleled success, and abundantly ill.u.s.trates the inequality of the present system of no copyright. In England between thirty and forty thousand copies have already been sold in the nine months since it was published, and the book is selling steadily at the rate of some 700 a week. In America the sale is estimated at 200,000 copies, of which 150,000 are in pirated editions. One honest pirate purges his conscience by the magnificent gift of 100, which is likely to be the first and last instalment of that 'handsome competence which the American reading public,' says a Rhode Island newspaper, 'owes to Mrs.

Ward.' A hundred pounds, representing just one shilling and fourpence per hundred copies upon all the pirated editions! And the author must be thankful for such mercies; rights she has none over her own creation, which pervades the States from end to end, and is not only a library in itself, but has called into existence so much polemical literature that a leading New York paper gives solemn warning to contributors that for the future sermons on _Robert Elsmere_ will only be published at the ordinary advertis.e.m.e.nt rates. A Buffalo advertis.e.m.e.nt cries, 'Who has yet touched _Robert Elsmere_ at ten cents?' only to be taken down by Jordan Marsh and Co., the 'Whiteleys' of Boston, who offered the book at four cents. Twopence for a book which extends over 400 pages in close-printed octavo! The stroke told, almost too successfully for its contrivers. It is said that next day the shop doors were besieged by a crowd like the surging throng at the entrance to the Lyceum pit on a first night. A queue extended across the street. For three days the enterprising pirate had the field to himself; then he raised his price again; he had lost some ten cents on every copy, but he had crushed his rivals."

The achievement of one still more enterprising firm, however, escaped the notice of this correspondent. The Balsam Fir Soap Co., being anxious to launch their new soap upon the market, made the following announcement:

TO THE PUBLIC

We beg to announce that we have purchased an edition of the Hyde Park Company's _Robert Elsmere_, and also their edition of _Robert Elsmere and the Battle of Belief_--a criticism by the Right Hon. W.

E. Gladstone, M.P.

These two books will be presented to each purchaser of a single cake of Balsam Fir Soap.

Respectfully, THE MAINE BALSAM FIR CO.

Thus was poor Robert, with his doubts and dreams, his labours and his faith, given away with a cake of soap!

But this was not all, nor even the worst. When the boom was still at its height, in the spring of 1889, Mrs. Ward was horrified to hear that a full-blown dramatized version of the book, by William Gillette, had actually been produced in Boston, with a "comedy element," as the newspaper report described it, "involving an English exquisite and a horsey husband," thrown in, the Squire and Grey eliminated, and Langham "endowed with such n.o.bility of character as ultimately to marry Rose."

She at once cabled her protest with some energy and succeeded in getting the further performance of the play stopped; but hardly was this episode ended than another followed on its heels.

"A writer in the New York _Tribune_," wrote the _Glasgow Herald_ in April, 1889, "exposes a most barefaced trick of trading upon Mrs.

Humphry Ward's name. A continuation, he says, of _Robert Elsmere_ has already been begun by an American publisher, and advance sheets, containing thrilling instalments of the romantic adventures of _Robert Elsmere's Daughter_, are being scattered broadcast over the length and breadth of the United States. The industrious agents of the publisher of this sheet have been busily engaged in inserting sample chapters of this new novel under the doors of houses all over New York. This, however, is not the worst feature of the trick. From the t.i.tle of the story the impression sought to be conveyed is that Mrs. Humphry Ward, the auth.o.r.ess of _Robert Elsmere_, is responsible, too, for _Robert Elsmere's Daughter_, the headings of the story being arranged in this specious shape: '_Robert Elsmere's Daughter_--a companion story to _Robert Elsmere_--by Mrs. Humphry Ward.'"

It was no wonder that the scandal of these events was used by the promoters of the International Copyright Bill then before Congress as one of their most powerful arguments; for there were many honourable publishing firms in America which abhorred these proceedings and were only anxious to regularize their relations with British authors. Mr.

George Haven Putnam, head of the firm of G. P. Putnam's Sons, and the International Copyright Committee which he formed, had already been working in this direction for some years; but the opposition was strenuous, and it was only in March, 1891, that the Copyright Bill which was to have so great an effect on Mrs. Ward's fortunes actually became law in the United States. Even before that, however, very flattering offers were made to her by American publishers--especially by Mr. S. S.

McClure, founder of the then youthful _McClure's Magazine_--for the right of publishing the "authorized version" of her next book. Mr.

McClure tried to beguile her into writing him a "novelette," or a "romance of Bible times," but Mrs. Ward was not to be moved. She had already begun work upon her next book (_David Grieve_), and all she said in writing to her sister (Mrs. Huxley) was: "This American, Mr. McClure, is a wonderful man. He has offered me 1,000 for the serial rights of a story as long as _Milly and Olly_! Naturally I am not going to do it, but it is amusing." To her father she wrote in more serious mood about the American boom: