Part 13 (2/2)

Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty h places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seeht to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be aboeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with ive Apician dinners, and get into Parliaraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashi+on is not a low scoundrel Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write _The Way We Live Now_ And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into reat speculator who robs everybody, and irls ant to get le, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes

The book has the fault which is to be attributed to almost all satires, whether in prose or verse The accusations are exaggerated

The vices are coloured, so as to make effect rather than to represent truth Who, when the lash of objurgation is in his hands, can so moderate his arm as never to strike harder than justice would require? The spirit which produces the satire is honest enough, but the very desire which etically makes him dishonest In other respects _The Way We Live Noas, as a satire, powerful and good The character of Mel,--and not untrue The Longestaffe girls and their friend, Lady Monograestaffe, is, I think, very good And Lady Carbury's literary efforts are, I aain the young lady with her two lovers is weak and vapid I almost doubt whether it be not impossible to have two absolutely distinct parts in a novel, and to imbue them both with interest If they be distinct, the one will see to the other And so it was in _The Way We Live Now_ The interest of the story lies a the wicked and foolish people,--with Melhter, with Dolly and his family, with the Airl of his heart But Roger Carbury, Paul Montague, and Henrietta Carbury are uninteresting Upon the whole, I by no means look upon the book as one of my failures; nor was it taken as a failure by the public or the press

While I riting _The Way We Live Now_, I was called upon by the proprietors of the _Graphic_ for a Christard to literature, somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertaker feels when he is called upon to supply a funeral He has to supply it, however distasteful it lect it So have I felt that, when anything in the shape of a novel was required, I was bound to produce it

Nothing can be ive a relish of Christ implied by the nature of the order A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire for Christht, or Christmas festivities,--or, better still, with Christmas charity Such was the case with dickens when he wrote his two first Christs written annually--all of which have been fixed to Christmas like children's toys to a Christmas tree--have had no real savour of Christmas about them I had done two or three before Alas! at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised to supply within three weeks of this ti interval,--as to which I have in vain been cudgelling my brain for the last month I can't send away the order to another shop, but I do not kno I shall ever get the coffin made

For the _Graphic_, in 1873, I wrote a little story about Australia

Christmas at the antipodes is of course midsummer, and I was not loth to describe the troubles to which led accidents of heat and bad neighbours, on his station in the bush So I wrote _Harry Heathcote of Gangoil_, and ell through my labour on that occasion I only wish I s over my head

When _Harry Heathcote_ was over, I returned with a full heart to Lady Glencora and her husband I had never yet drawn the coination had conceived The personages hose naes had been familiar, and perhaps even the minds of some of my readers--the Brocks, De Terriers, Monks, Greshams, and Daubeneys--had beenpolitical characters The strong-minded, thick-skinned, useful, ordinary member, either of the Government or of the Opposition, had been very easy to describe, and had required no ieneration to generation; and as it does so, becomes shorn in a wonderful way of those little touches of huain there comes a burst of human nature, as in the quarrel between Burke and Fox; but, as a rule, the men submit themselves to be shaped and fashi+oned, and to be for up or pulling down, and can generally bear to be changed from this box into the other, without, at any rate, the appearance of amate the each of them to set aside his own idiosyncrasy, and to endure the close personal contact ofbeen thoroughly taught that in no other way can they serve either their country or their own ambition These are the men who are publicly useful, and whoe supply,--as to who calibre should be so quickly worn down to the shape and smoothness of rounded pebbles

Such have been to me the Brocks and the Mild hadthem But I had also conceived the character of a states perhaps superior, but in very much inferior, to thesean identity of his own To rid one's self of fine scruples--to fall into the traditions of a party--to feel the need of subservience, not only in acting but also even in thinking--to be able to be a bit, and at first only a very little bit,--these are the necessities of the growing statesreat self action shall be possible, and shall be even de man, as he puts on his harness, should not allow hiood, round, smooth, hard, useful pebble is his duty, and to achieve this he must harden his skin and s his scruples But every now and again we see the atteet their skins to be hard--who after a little while generally fall out of the ranks The statesht--was one who did not fall out of the ranks, even though his skin would not become hard He should have rank, and intellect, and parliamentary habits, by which to bind him to the service of his country; and he should also have unbleuishable, inexhaustible love of country That virtue I attribute to our statesenerally They who are without it are, I think,principle of his life; and it should so rule hiive way to it But he should be scrupulous, and, being scrupulous, weak When called to the highest place in the council of his Sovereign, he should feel with true reed of power grow upon him when he had once allowed himself to taste and enjoy it Such was the character I endeavoured to depict in describing the triumph, the troubles, and the failure of my Prime Minister And I think that I have succeeded What the public may think, or what the pressas yet run but half its course[14]

[Footnote 14: Writing this note in 1878, after a lapse of nearly three years, I aards the public, _The Prime Minister_ was a failure It orse spoken of by the press than any novel I had written I was specially hurt by a criticism on it in the _Spectator_ The critic rote the article I know to be a good critic, inclined to be ree with him, so much do I love the man whose character I had endeavoured to portray]

That the man's character should be understood as I understand it--or that of his wife's, the delineation of which has also been a ht to expect, seeing that the operation of describing has not been confined to one novel, which h by the majority of those who coh three or four, each of which will be forgotten even by the most zealous reader almost as soon as read

In _The Prime Minister_, , or even over, those ladies who are attached by office to the Queen's court ”I should not choose,” he says to her, ”that my wife should have any duties unconnected with our joint fa those words that, in a former story, published some years before, he tells his wife, when she has twitted hiness to clean the Premier's shoes, that he would even allow her to clean theood of the country? And yet it is by such details as these that I have, forwithin my own mind the characters of the enet Palliser, Duke of Oentleentleman

She is by no means a perfect lady; but if she be not all over a woman, then am I not able to describe a wo those who in the next century will be known as the writers of English prose fiction;--but if it does, that permanence of success will probably rest on the character of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora, and the Rev Mr Crawley

I have now co series of books written by myself, hich the public is already acquainted Of those which I h I have an idea that I shall even yet once more have recourse to my political hero as the mainstay of another story When _The Prian another novel, which is now completed in three volumes, and which is called _Is He Popenjoy?_ There are two Popenjoys in the book, one succeeding to the title held by the other; but as they are both babies, and do not in the course of the story progress beyond babyhood, the future readers, should the tale ever be published, will not be much interested in them Nevertheless the story, as a story, is not, I think, amiss Since that I have written still another three-volume novel, to which, very iven the name of _The American Senator_[15]

It is to appear in _Temple Bar_, and is to co its circu else about it here

[Footnote 15: _The American Senator_ and _Popenjoy_ have appeared, each with fair success Neither of theard to _The Prime Minister_, seeht to a close And yet I feel assured that they are very inferior to _The Prime Minister_]

And so I end the record of my literary performances,--which I think are lish author

If any English authors not living have written more--as may probably have been the case--I do not knoho they are I find that, taking the books which have appeared under our names, I have published much more than twice as much as Carlyle I have also published considerablyhis letters We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had written 480 voluer I wish I kneas the length of Varro's volu that the amount of manuscript described as a book in Varro's time was not much Varro, too, is dead, and Voltaire; whereas I a is a list of the books I have written, with the dates of publication and the suiven are the years in which the works were published as a whole,appeared before in some serial form

Date of Total Sums Names of Works Publication Received

--------------- ------------ ----------- The Macdermots of Ballycloran, 1847 48 6 9 The Kellys and the O'Kellys, 1848 123 19 5 La Vendee, 1850 200 0 The Warden, 1855 / Barchester Towers, 1857 / 727 11 3 The Three Clerks, 1858 250 0 0 Doctor Thorne, 1858 400 0 0 The West Indies and the Spanish Main, 1859 250 0 0 The Bertrams, 1859 400 0 0 Castle Riche, 1861 1000 0 0 Tales of All Countries--1st Series, 1861 2d ” 1863 } 1830 0 0 3d ” 1870 / Orley Farm, 1862 3135 0 0 North America, 1862 1250 0 0 Rachel Ray, 1863 1645 0 0 The Sive Her? 1864 3525 0 0 Miss Mackenzie, 1865 1300 0 0 The Belton Estate, 1866 1757 0 0 The Claverings, 1867 2800 0 0 The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1867 3000 0 0 Nina Balatka, 1867 450 0 0 Linda Tressel, 1868 450 0 0 Phineas Finn, 1869 3200 0 0 He Knew He Was Right, 1869 3200 0 0 Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 1870 600 0 0 The Vicar of Bullhampton, 1870 2500 0 0 An Editor's Tales, l870 378 0 0 Caesar (Ancient Classics),[16] 1870 0 0 0 Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, 1871 750 0 0 Ralph the Heir, 1871 2500 0 0 The Golden Lion of Granpere, 1872 550 0 0 The Eustace Diamonds, 1873 2500 0 0 Australia and New Zealand, 1873 1300 0 0 Phineas Redux, 1874 2500 0 0 Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, 1874 450 0 0 Lady Anna, 1874 1200 0 0 The Way We Live Now, 1875 3000 0 0 The Prime Minister, 1876 2500 0 0 The American Senator, 1877 1800 0 0 Is He Popenjoy? 1878 1600 0 0 South Africa, 1878 850 0 0 John Caldigate, 1879 1800 0 0 Sundries, 7800 0 0 -------------- 68,939 17 5

[Footnote 16: This was given by me as a present to my friend John Blackwood]