PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 102.

January 30, 1892.

CONFESSIONS OF A DUFFER.

III.—THE LITERARY DUFFER.

"I have worn a cloak and a Tyrolese hat, and attitudinised in the Picture-galleries."

Why I am not a success in literature it is difficult for me to tell; indeed, I would give a good deal to anyone who would explain the reason. The Publishers, and Editors, and Literary Men decline to tell me why they do not want my contributions. I am sure I have done all that I can to succeed. When my Novel, Geoffrey's Cousin, comes back from the Row, I do not lose heart—I pack it up, and send it off again to the Square, and so, I may say, it goes the round. The very manuscript attests the trouble I have taken. Parts of it are written in my own hand, more in that of my housemaid, to whom I have dictated passages; a good deal is in the hand of my wife. There are sentences which I have written a dozen times, on the margins, with lines leading up to them in red ink. The story is written on paper of all sorts and sizes, and bits of paper are pasted on, here and there, containing revised versions of incidents and dialogue. The whole packet is now far from clean, and has a business-like and travelled air about it, which should command respect. I always accompany it with a polite letter, expressing my willingness to cut it down, or expand it, or change the conclusion. Nobody can say that I am proud. But it always comes back from the Publishers and Editors, without any explanation as to why it will not do. This is what I resent as particularly hard. The Publishers decline to tell me what their Readers have really said about it. I have forwarded Geoffrey's Cousin to at least five or six notorious authors, with a letter, which runs thus:—

"DEAR SIR,—You will be surprised at receiving a letter from a total stranger, but your well-known goodness of heart must plead my excuse. I am aware that your time is much occupied, but I am certain that you will spare enough of that valuable commodity to glance through the accompanying MS. Novel, and give me your frank opinion of it. Does it stand in need of any alterations, and, if so, what? Would you mind having it published under your own name, receiving one-third of the profits? A speedy answer will greatly oblige."

Would you believe it, Mr. Punch, not one of these over-rated and overpaid men has ever given me any advice at all? Most of them simply send back my parcel with no reply. One, however, wrote to say that he received at least six such packets every week, and that his engagements made it impossible for him to act as a guide, counsellor, and friend to the amateurs of all England. He added that, if I published the Novel at my own expense, the remarks of the public critics would doubtless prove most valuable and salutary.

This decided me; I did publish, at my own expense, with Messrs. SAUL, SAMUEL, MOSS & CO. I had to pay down £150, then £35 for advertisements, then £70 for Publisher's Commission. Other expenses fell grievously on me, as I sent round printed postcards to everyone whose name is in the Red Book, asking them to ask for Geoffrey's Cousin at the Libraries. I also despatched six copies, with six anonymous letters, to Mr. GLADSTONE, signing them, "A Literary Constituent," "A Wavering Anabaptist," and so forth, but, extraordinary to relate, I have received no answer, and no notice has been taken of my disinterested presents. The reviews were of the most meagre and scornful description. Messrs. SAUL, SAMUEL, Moss & Co. have just written to me, begging me to remove the "remainder" of my book, and charging £23 15s. 6d. for warehouse expenses. Yet, when I read Geoffrey's Cousin, I fail to see that it falls, in any way, beneath the general run of novels. I enclose a marked copy, and solicit your earnest attention for the passage in which Geoffrey's Cousin blights his hopes for ever. The story, Sir, is one of controversy, and is suited to this time. Geoffrey McPhun is an Auld Licht (see Mr. BARRIE's books, passim). His cousin is an Esoteric Buddhist. They love each other dearly, but Geoffrey, a rigid character, cannot marry any lady who does not burn, as an Auld Licht, "with a hard gem-like flame." Violet Blair, his cousin, is just as staunch an Esoteric Buddhist. Nothing stands between them but the differences of their creed.

"How can I contemplate, GEOFFREY," said VIOLET, with a rich blush, "the possibility of seeing our little ones stray from the fold of the Lama of Thibet into a chapel of the Original Secession Church?"

They determine to try to convert each other. Geoffrey lends Violet all his theological library, including WODROW's Analecta. She lends him the learned works of Mr. SINNETT and Madame BLAVATSKY. They retire, he to the Himalayas, she to Thrums, and their letters compose Volume II. (Local colour à la KIPLING and BARRIE.) On the slopes of the Himalayas you see Geoffrey converted; he becomes a Cheela, and returns by overland route. He rushes to Ramsgate, and announces his complete acceptance of the truth as it is in Mahatmaism. Alas! alas! Violet has been over-persuaded by the seductions of Presbyterianism, she has hurried down from Thrums, rejoicing, a full-blown Auld Licht. And, in her Geoffrey, she finds a convinced Esoteric Buddhist! They are no better off than they were, their union is impossible, and Vol. III. ends in their poignant anguish.

Now, Mr. Punch, is not this the very novel for the times; rich in adventure (in Kafiristan), teeming with philosophical suggestiveness, and sparkling with all the epigrams of my commonplace book. Yet I am about £300 out of pocket, and, moreover, a blighted being.

I have taken every kind of pains; I have asked London Correspondents to dinner; I have written flattering letters to everybody; I have attempted to get up a deputation of Beloochis to myself; I have tried to make people interview me; I have puffed myself in all the modes which study and research can suggest. If anybody has, I have been "up to date." But Fortune is my foe, and I see others flourish by the very arts which fail in my hands.

I mention my Novel because its failure really is a mystery. But I am not at all more fortunate in the reception of my poetry. I have tried it every way—ballades by the bale, sonnets by the dozen, loyal odes, seditious songs, drawing-room poetry, an Epic on the history of Labducuo, erotic verse, all fire, foam, and fangs, reflective ditto, humble natural ballads about signal-men and newspaper-boys, Life-boat rescues, Idyls, Nocturnes in rhyme, tragedies in blank verse. Nobody will print them, or, if anybody prints them, he regrets that he cannot pay for them. My moral and discursive essays are rejected, my descriptions of nature do not even get into the newspapers. I have not been elected by the Sydenham Club (a clique of humbugs); I have let my hair grow long; I have worn a cloak and a Tyrolese hat, and attitudinised in the picture-galleries, but nobody asked who I am. I have endeavoured to hang on to well-known poets and novelists—they have not welcomed my advances.

My last dodge was a Satire, the Logrolliad, in which I lashed the charlatans and pretenders of the day.