CHAPTER 3

   It is a debatable point, I suppose, whether life, taking it all round, by and large, as Mr. Bixby said, is a horrible business. On the one hand, most of us are excessively sorry to quit this world, so, clearly, there must be something to be said for it. But, on the other hand, how endless are the devices which we find to give a seasoning to a dish which is, perhaps, rather insipid than nauseous. I have eaten cold mutton with relish—after smothering it in about half a dozen different condiments, sauces, relishes and salads. So look at all the games we play with desperate earnestness, with a vigour and delight and, sometimes, an asceticism which we give to no office routine or serious employment of our lives. Perhaps we may try and define what “life” means a little later; but, under all ordinary and respectable conventions, I presume that the business of which I have been dimly aware on this day of writing can in no wise be classed as one of the serious employments of life; as, in any sense, a vital part of life according to accepted doctrine, religious, scientific or philosophical. The business of which, I say, I have been dimly aware; for all I have seen of it has been Grove Road, Grove End Road, and Circus Road and all the roads adjacent lined on both sides with motor cars of all sizes, splendours and miseries; the affair being the last day of the Oxford and Cambridge Cricket Match. And, looking at all this fairly, it comes to this: here are two wickets placed at a certain specified distance from one another on a stretch of turf, and here are men with bats and here are men with balls. Will the men with balls succeed in hitting the wickets, or will the men with bats succeed in hitting those balls away to remote parts of the turf? And on the whole: are the eleven young men of Oxford or the eleven young men of Cambridge the smarter and more skilled at these pursuits and in the subsidiary pursuit called “fielding,” or the art of stopping the ball which the man has hit with the bat from going to a remote part of the stretch of turf? That, in the very rough, is cricket; and I want to ask the clergy (if they have any time to spare from their self-appointed tasks of meddling in politics, “disapproving” of bookstall novels, and serving tables) what they honestly think Saint Paul would have said, if he had seen twenty-two of his most promising young converts engaged in this cricket business, applauded by a vast multitude of the saints? I desire to put this question not with a wish to “score”—to use an idiom of the game which we are discussing—but with an honest longing for information. That is: will theologians maintain that the ’Varsity Match and First Class County Cricket generally is a part of serious life, or a serious part of life? Or, will the scientific people or the philosophical people declare that this game, played as it is played at Lord’s with desperate earnestness, is a necessary part of the bodily and mental well-being of the human race? I say the game as played at Lord’s, that is the great game; for the case of the old-fashioned, village cricket on the green was somewhat different. Then you had a number of people with two or three hours of leisure before them who found a good deal of fun and relaxation and amusement in bowling balls and hitting balls and running after balls, with intervals of supping of ale, sitting on the bench under the shady tree in front of the village inn; this is a very different matter from the high cricket of our times, just as diverting yourself with a ball, a racket and a net is remote from Mdlle. Lenglen’s game at lawn tennis.

  And these are the comparatively mild forms of sport. What of rowing till you are blue in the face, what of climbing frightful mountain-peaks, with half an inch of rock between you and a fall of a thousand feet? Why do people do all these things, voluntarily, gladly, enthusiastically? I can only suppose that they do these things to make life tolerable, even entertaining, just as I add tomato sauce, Worcester sauce, pickles, beetroot, cucumber and salad to the cold mutton, to make that tolerable and even appetising. It would seem indeed that life must be an awful business, if you have to plaster yourself on the walls of a sheer Alp before you can endure it. This is “drowning” your cold mutton in strong sauce with a vengeance.

And all this by way of a tentative explanation of why I ever wrote anything at all, and still more why I have gone on writing, with brief remissions, ever since the autumn of 1880. This problem, as I have hinted already, is a profound mystery. For, taking first the plain view of the man in the street, and applying his plain and simple test, I have just been running through a list of my books from 1881 to 1922, and reckoning—it was an easy task—how much money I have made by them. The list contains eighteen titles. Of these, the “Heptameron,” “Fantastic Tales,” “Casanova” represent more or less laborious translations—“Casanova” runs to twelve sizeable volumes. And my total receipts for these eighteen volumes, for these forty-two years of toil, amount to the sum of six hundred and thirty-five pounds. That is, I have been paid at the rate of fifteen pounds and a few shillings per annum. It seems clear, then, that my literary activities cannot be adequately accounted for on the hypothesis of mere greed and money-grubbing.

And, then, taking another side of the question: consider the debit of toil and endeavour and mortification and disappointment that these forty-two years of book-writing have cost me. I believe that business men, engaged in manufacture, always “write off” a considerable sum for legitimate wear and tear and depreciation of plant. What about the wear and tear of mind and heart and that T,e,a,r, which is pronounced in another manner; what about the depreciation of the plant—a highly important one—of self-confidence that my writing has inflicted on me? I have described some of the pains I endured when I set out to write the thing which afterwards became the “Chronicle of Clemendy,” and that was only the beginning of months of hard and agonizing labour. And then I remember another occasion. The “idea” which turned into “The Great God Pan” came to me; again that delicious glow of delight. Now at last I had got hold of a real notion; I had a curious tale, a rare fantasy set in a rarer atmosphere to work upon: I thrilled at my heart as the explorer must thrill as he comes suddenly to the verge of the dark forest, or to the summit of the high mountain and sees before him a new and wonderful and undiscovered land. Well I remember how all this exquisite bliss was bestowed on me, one dark and foggy afternoon of 1890–91, in rooms in Guilford Street, not far from “The Foundling.” The foul air shone bright, the dingy street, the dingy room were irradiated: here was happiness almost too keen to be endured. With no delay I got notebook and pencil and proceeded to “lay out” the story; that is, to set down the various scenes and incidents by which the plot was to be developed. Afterwards; the writing, and on the whole I was not altogether so ill-contented—though I daresay that I ought to have been disgusted—till it came to the last chapter. And that simply would not be written. I tried again and again; it was impossible. I could hit on no incident that would convey the required emotion; and at last I put away the uncompleted MS. in despair; I was within an ace of tearing it to bits. But think of the suffering, the misery, the bitter disappointment of those evenings. True it was all a silly thing, a toy; but an authority quoted in “The Water Babies” says that one of the saddest sights in the world is a child crying over a broken toy. My scheme was all silly, I allow; but I had set my heart on it, I had glowed with pride over it: and here it was all broken to pieces in my hands, a sorry, spoilt, piteous thing. True, I found some sort of an ending six months later; but that was not the same. There was no fun in that. You remember the party in the cabrioily that called on Mrs. Bardell? There was a dispute about the precise situation of Mrs. Bardell’s house, and finally the driver, who had dismounted, led the horse by the bridle to the house with the red door.

Here was a mean and low way of arriving at a friend’s house! No dashing up with all the fire and fury of the animal; no jumping down of the driver; no loud knocking at the door; no opening of the apron with a crash at the very last moment.... The whole edge of the thing had been taken off; it was flatter than walking.

So with me and my story: I got to the house with the red door eventually; but the whole edge of the thing had been taken off. And so it has been with most of my books; I get, somehow or other, to the house with the red door, or to a house which I try to persuade myself is just as good; but on the way in the cabrioily I have suffered so many disappointments that I am in no condition to enjoy the pleasure of Mrs. Bardell’s society. I remember that, in writing “The Hill of Dreams,” I sat down every night for three weeks with blank paper before me, trying to get the second chapter. On some nights I wrote half a dozen lines, on other nights a couple of pages—before the evening’s work went, hopeless, into the drawer. A few months later, having fallen on the wrong path, I had the pleasure of casting aside about 30,000 words that I had written; and by the time the book was at last ended there were two neat piles of MS. in my drawer; the one a little higher than the other. The bigger pile consisted of the folios that I had written and had been forced to reject. And think of what that means: a heartbreak to every other page and the comment of the author on himself and to himself: “You fool! Why do you pass your life in rending your heart, in trying to do the thing that you can’t do? Why weren’t you brought up to sit by a brazier in the streets, to see that nobody steals the planks and railings and the wood pavement: to do something that with an effort you might be able to do?” Or, to return to our former metaphor: “Don’t you see that you haven’t the knack of the toy maker? Then why will you persist in trying to make toys which always break in your hands, while you fill the air with lamentable boohoos?”

And yet, as I have said, such has been my employment, with intermissions, from 1880 to 1922. It was like that in 1885–86. Night after night, when my father had knocked out his last pipe at eleven o’clock, did I draw out my papers from the table-drawer and set them under the lamp. Winds came from the mountain of the west and shook the trees about the house and sighed and wailed; snows came from the mountains of the north and whitened the terraced lawn, black clouds drifted over Wentwood, the winter rains scourged the land; and still I wrote on in the silent house; struggling against the bitter conviction of my incapacity, as a man struggles and claws at the crumbling earth when his foot has slipped and he is over the edge of the cliff. Yet, stubborn, I wrote on late into the night, far into the morning, and as the year advanced I often drew the heavy crimson curtain and looked out after I had put away my papers in the drawer, and saw a red or golden dawn streaming above the forest in the east. And as to the work itself? Let us not enquire too curiously; though I have always been proud of my parody of the terms of an ancient writ. Diem clausit extremum, he has ended his last day, was the title of the writ, which is moved now and then even in these days: my writ was called Cyathum hausit extremum: he has drained his last cup. And then there is the merum et mixtum cervisium, and the Charter of Terra Sabulosa or Sandy Soil, and the offices of Tankard Marshal and Clericus Spigotti, or Clerk of the Spigot; all choice jests—to adopt the manner of the work in question. But, as I say, let us not enquire too curiously into the merits of “The Chronicle of Clemendy.” I am content to abide by the verdict of M. Octave Uzanne, who is held, I believe, to be a good judge of letters. He said that it was “le renouveau de la Renaissance,” and that I was sure of my place beside Rabelais and Boccaccio, on the serene, immortal seats. I am surrendering my judgment wholly to that of M. Octave Uzanne.

By the way; I do not know how it was, but the only copy sent out for review was addressed to “Le Livre,” which was then edited by M. Uzanne. Somehow, no review copies found their way to the English papers. But the MS. had been shown to a pushing young literary gentleman, and he said that if it were properly “cut” it might make a good Christmas book for boys.

And then, again, the question returns: why did I compel myself to undergo all the toil and misery and disappointment that the writing of this “Chronicle of Clemendy” involved? It was my own choice, nobody stood over me with a stick to force me to do it. Why? Why do men row themselves into blueness and incipient heart disease at Henley and Putney? Why do men expose themselves to horrors, miseries and the instant risk of death on all the most desperate mountains of the world? The answer is the same in all these cases: that cold mutton (or life) is in itself intolerable; that Le Gigot de Mouton froid, sauce Cyanide de Potasse is better than the same dish nature.

And, going further, the reason of this odd state of things is plain enough. The fact is, that what we commonly call life is not life at all. All the things that are considered serious, important and vital: the faithful earning of a living, the going to the City every morning to copy letters, keep accounts or float companies; the toils of the Chancery barrister, of the factory hand, of the doctor, of the shop-keeper, of the mining engineer, the affairs of all the serious and necessary employments of life; these things are not life at all. They are the curse of life, or, as it is sometimes called, the curse of Adam; as the theologians might have told us if they had not been too busy over the “curse of alcohol,” over the dubious moral influence of “the pictures,” over the decidedly frivolous character of the lighter fiction of the day, and the demoralising effects of putting a bob on the winner—this dreadful offence, I believe, is held to “harden the heart” more quickly and thoroughly than any other method. But this curse of getting a livelihood remains profoundly unnatural to man, in spite of his long experience of it: hence his frantic efforts to escape from what he erroneously calls life by running himself red in the face at Lord’s, by rowing himself blue in the face at Henley, by drinking methylated spirit, by “putting on” those criminal bobs, by playing mind-torturing games like chess, by knocking small balls into small holes, by climbing Alps—and even by writing books. He will do anything to get away from what are called the serious facts of life and follow any track however desperate, trivial, perilous, or painful, if only those serious facts can be evaded and forgotten, though it be but for a few hours. And so I wrote on, night after night, till the August of 1886 saw my task ended; and I immediately began to think of what I could write next.