Books and Persons by Arnold Bennett

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Books and Persons

BEING COMMENTS ON A
PAST EPOCH
1908-1911
BY
ARNOLD BENNETT

LONDON
Chatto & Windus
1917

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

_NOVELS_

A MAN FROM THE NORTH
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
LEONORA
A GREAT MAN
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
BURIED ALIVE
THE OLD WIVES' TALE
THE GLIMPSE
HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
CLAYHANGER
HILDA LESSWAYS
THE CARD
THE REGENT
THE PRICE OF LOVE
THESE TWAIN
THE LION'S SHARE

_FANTASIAS_

THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
THE GATES OF WRATH
TERESA OF WATLING STREET
THE LOOT OF CITIES
HUGO
THE GHOST
THE CITY OF PLEASURE

_SHORT STORIES_

TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS

_BELLES-LETTRES_

JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
FAME AND FICTION
HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
MENTAL EFFICIENCY
HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
THE HUMAN MACHINE
LITERARY TASTE
FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
THOSE UNITED STATES
PARIS NIGHTS
MARRIED LIFE
LIBERTY
OVER THERE: WAR SCENES
THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT

_DRAMA_

POLITE FARCES
CUPID AND COMMONSENSE
WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
THE HONEYMOON
THE GREAT ADVENTURE
MILESTONES. (_In Collaboration with Edward Knoblock_)

(_In Collaboration with Eden Phillpotts_)

THE SINEWS OF WAR: A ROMANCE
THE STATUE: A ROMANCE

Books and Persons

BEING COMMENTS ON A
PAST EPOCH
1908-1911
BY
ARNOLD BENNETT

LONDON
Chatto & Windus
1917

_First published June 1917_
_Second Impression Aug. 1917_

PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS
WEST NORWOOD
LONDON

TO
HUGH WALPOLE

PREFATORY NOTE

The contents of this book have been chosen from a series of weekly
articles which enlivened the _New Age_ during the years 1908, 1909, 1910,
and 1911, under the pseudonym "Jacob Tonson." The man responsible for the
republication is the dedicatee, who, having mysteriously demanded from me
back numbers of the _New Age_, sat in my house one Sunday afternoon and in
four hours read through the entire series. He then announced that he had
made a judicious selection, and that the selection must positively be
issued in volume form. Mr. Frank Swinnerton approved the selection and
added to it slightly. In my turn I suggested a few more additions. The
total amounts to one-third of the original matter. Beyond correcting
misprints, softening the crudity of several epithets, and censoring lines
here and there which might give offence without helping the sacred cause,
I have not altered the articles. They appear as they were journalistically
written in Paris, London, Switzerland, and the Forest of Fontainebleau.
In particular I have left the critical judgments alone, for the good
reason that I stand by nearly all of them, though perhaps with a less
challenging vivacity, to this day.

ARNOLD BENNETT

_February 1917_

CONTENTS

1908

WILFRED WHITTEN'S PROSE 3
UGLINESS IN FICTION 8
LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA 11
FRENCH PUBLISHERS 16
WORDSWORTH'S SINGLE LINES 18
NOVELISTS AND AGENTS 22
THE NOVEL OF THE SEASON 26
GERMAN EXPANSION 30
THE BOOK-BUYER 32
JOSEPH CONRAD AND THE _ATHENAEUM_ 36
THE PROFESSORS 41
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD'S HEROINES 47
W.W. JACOBS AND ARISTOPHANES 53
KENNETH GRAHAME 57
ANATOLE FRANCE 59
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY 63
MALLARME, BAZIN, SWINBURNE 65
THE RUINED SEASON 68

1909

"ECCE HOMO" 77
HENRY OSPOVAT 79
FRENCH AND BRITISH ACADEMIES 81
POE AND THE SHORT STORY 84
MIDDLE-CLASS 88
THE POTENTIAL PUBLIC 101
H.G. WELLS 109
TCHEHKOFF 117
THE SURREY LABOURER 120
SWINBURNE 123
THE SEVENPENNIES 130
MEREDITH 134
ST. JOHN HANKIN 140
UNCLEAN BOOKS 143
LOVE POETRY 145
TROLLOPE'S METHODS 148
CHESTERTON AND LUCAS 150
OFFICIAL RECOGNITION OF POETRY 155
ARTISTS AND CRITICS 158
RUDYARD KIPLING 160
CENSORSHIP BY THE LIBRARIES 167

1910

CENSORSHIP BY THE LIBRARIES 181
BRIEUX 195
C.E. MONTAGUE 201
PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS 204
TOURGENIEV AND DOSTOIEVSKY 208
JOHN GALSWORTHY 214
SUPPRESSIONS IN "DE PROFUNDIS" 217
HOLIDAY READING 222
THE BRITISH ACADEMY OF LETTERS 228
UNFINISHED PERUSALS 235
MR. A.C. BENSON 239
THE LITERARY PERIODICAL 242
THE LENGTH OF NOVELS 248
ARTISTS AND MONEY 250
HENRI BECQUE 255
HENRY JAMES 263
ENGLISH LITERARY CRITICISM 267
MRS. ELINOR GLYN 271
W.H. HUDSON 278
NEO-IMPRESSIONISM AND LITERATURE 280

1911

BOOKS OF THE YEAR 289
"THE NEW MACHIAVELLI" 294
SUCCESS IN JOURNALISM 300
MARGUERITE AUDOUX 305
JOHN MASEFIELD 311
LECTURES AND STATE PERFORMANCES 315
A PLAY OF TCHEHKOFF'S 321
SEA AND SLAUGHTER 325
A BOOK IN A RAILWAY ACCIDENT 328
"FICTION" AND "LITERATURE" 331

INDEX 333

1908

WILFRED WHITTEN'S PROSE

[_4 Apr. '08_]

An important book on an important town is to be issued by Messrs. Methuen.
The town is London, and the author Mr. Wilfred Whitten, known to
journalism as John o' London. Considering that he comes from
Newcastle-on-Tyne (or thereabouts), his pseudonym seems to stretch a
point. However, Mr. Whitten is now acknowledged as one of the foremost
experts in London topography. He is not an archaeologist, he is a
humanist--in a good dry sense; not the University sense, nor the silly
sense. The word "human" is a dangerous word; I am rather inclined to
handle it with antiseptic precautions. When a critic who has risen high
enough to be allowed to sign his reviews in a daily paper calls a new book
"a great human novel," you may be absolutely sure that the said novel
consists chiefly of ridiculous twaddle. Mr. Whitten is not a humanist in
that sense. He has no sentimentality, and a very great deal of both wit
and humour.

* * * * *

He is also a critic admirably sane. Not long ago he gave a highly
diverting exhibition of sanity in a short, shattering pronouncement upon
the works of Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson and the school which has
acquired celebrity by holding the mirror up to its own nature. The wonder
was that Mr. Benson did not, following his precedent, write to the papers
to say that Mr. Whitten was no gentleman. In the days before the _Academy_
blended the characteristics of a comic paper with those of a journal of
dogmatic theology, before it took to disowning its own reviewers, Mr.
Whitten was the solid foundation of that paper's staff. He furnished the
substance, which was embroidered by the dark grace of the personality of
Mr. Lewis Hind, whose new volume of divagations is, by the way, just out.

* * * * *

But my main object in referring to Mr. Whitten is to state formally, and
with a due sense of responsibility, that he is one of the finest prose
writers now writing in English. His name is on the title-pages of several
books, but no book of his will yet bear out my statement. The proof of it
lies in weekly papers. No living Englishman can do "the grand
manner"--combining majestic dignity with a genuine lyrical
inspiration--better than Mr. Whitten. These are proud words of mine, but I
am not going to disguise my conviction that I know what I am talking
about. Some day some publisher will wake up out of the coma in which
publishers exist, and publish in volume form--probably with coloured
pictures as jam for children--Mr. Whitten's descriptions of English towns.
Then I shall be justified. I might have waited till that august moment.
But I want to be beforehand with Dr. Robertson Nicoll. I see that Dr.
Nicoll has just added to his list of patents by inventing Leonard Merrick,
whom I used to admire in print long before Dr. Nicoll had ever heard that
Mr. J.M. Barrie regarded Leonard Merrick as the foremost English novelist.
Dr. Nicoll has already got Mr. Whitten on to the reviewing staff of the
_Bookman_. But I am determined that he shall not invent Mr. Whitten's
prose style. I am the inventor of that.

[_2 May '08_]

A few weeks ago I claimed to be the discoverer of Mr. Wilfred Whitten as a
first-class prose writer. I relinquish the claim, with apologies. Messrs.
Methuen have staggered me by sending me Mrs. Laurence Binyon's "Nineteenth
Century Prose," in which anthology is an example of Mr. Whitten's prose.
Though staggered, I was delighted. I should very much like to know how
Mrs. Binyon encountered the prose of Mr. Whitten. Did she hunt through the
files of newspapers for what she might find therein, and was she thus
rewarded? Or did some tremendous and omniscient expert give her the tip? I
disagree with about 85 per cent. of the _obiter dicta_ of her preface, but
her anthology is certainly a most agreeable compilation. It shows, like
sundry other recent anthologies, the strong liberating influence of Mr.
E.V. Lucas, whose "Open Road" really amounted to a renascence of the
craft.

And here is the tail-end of the extract which Mrs. Binyon has perfectly
chosen from the essays of Mr. Whitten:

"...The moon pushing her way upwards through the vapours, and the scent of
the beans and kitchen stuff from the allotments, and the gleaming rails
below, spoke of the resumption of daily burdens. But let us drop that
jargon. Why call that a burden which can never be lifted? This calm
necessity that dwells with the matured man to get back to the matter in
hand, and dree his weird whatever befall, is a badge, not a burden. It is
the stimulus of sound natures; and as the weight of his wife's arm makes a
man's body proud, so the sense of his usefulness to the world does but
warm and indurate his soul. It is something when a man comes to this mind,
and with all his capacity to err, is abreast of life at last. He shall not
regret the infrequency of his inspirations, for he will know that the day
of his strength has set in. And if, for poesy, some grave Virgilian line
should pause on his memory, or some tongue of Hebrew fire leap from the
ashes of his godly youth, it will be enough. But if cold duck await--why,
then, to supper!"

UGLINESS IN FICTION

[_9 May '08_]

In the _Edinburgh Review_ there is a disquisition on "Ugliness in
Fiction." Probably the author of it has read "Liza of Lambeth," and said
Faugh! The article, peculiarly inept, is one of those outpourings which
every generation of artists has to suffer with what tranquillity it can.
According to the Reviewer, ugliness is specially rife "just now." It is
always "just now." It was "just now" when George Eliot wrote "Adam Bede,"
when George Moore wrote "A Mummer's Wife," when Thomas Hardy wrote "Jude
the Obscure." As sure as ever a novelist endeavours to paint a complete
picture of life in this honest, hypocritical country of bad restaurants
and good women; as sure as ever he hints that all is not for the best in
the best of all possible islands, some witling is bound to come forward
and point out with wise finger that life is not all black. I once resided
near a young noodle of a Methodist pastor who had the pious habit of
reading novels aloud to his father and mother. He began to read one of
mine to them, but half-way through decided that something of Charlotte M.
Yonge would be less unsuitable for the parental ear. He then called and
lectured me. Among other aphorisms of his which I have treasured up was
this: "Life, my dear friend, is like an April day--sunshine and shadow
chasing each other over the plain." That he is not dead is a great tribute
to my singular self-control. I suspect him to be the _Edinburgh_ Reviewer.
At any rate, the article moves on the plane of his plain.

* * * * *

The Reviewer has the strange effrontery to select Mr. Joseph Conrad's
"Secret Agent" as an example of modern ugliness in fiction: a novel that
is simply steeped in the finest beauty from end to end. I do not suppose
that the _Edinburgh Review_ has any moulding influence upon the evolution
of the art of fiction in this country. But such nonsense may, after all,
do harm by confusing the minds of people who really are anxious to
encourage what is best, strongest, and most sane. The Reviewer in this
instance, for example, classes, as serious, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad,
and John Galsworthy, who are genuine creative forces, with mere dignified
unimportant sentimentalizers like Mr. W.B. Maxwell. While he was on the
business of sifting the serious from the unserious I wonder he didn't
include the authors of "Three Weeks" and "The Heart of a Child" among the
serious! Perhaps because the latter wrote "Pigs in Clover" and the former
was condemned by the booksellers! Nobody could have a lower opinion of
"Three Weeks" than I have. But I have never been able to understand why
the poor little feeble story was singled out as an awful example of female
licentiousness, and condemned by a hundred newspapers that had not the
courage to name it. The thing was merely infantile and absurd. Moreover, I
violently object to booksellers sitting in judgment on novels.

LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA

[_16 May '08_]

The result of _Murray_ v. _The Times_ is very amusing. I don't know why
the fact that the _Times_ is called upon to pay L7500 to Mr. John Murray
should make me laugh joyously; but it does. Certainly the reason is not
that I sympathize with the libelled Mr. Murray. The action was a great and
a wonderful action, full of enigmas for a mere man of letters like myself.
For example, Mr. Murray said that his agreement with the "authors" (I
cannot imagine how Lord Esher and Mr. A.C. Benson came to be the "authors"
of the late Queen's correspondence) stipulated that two-thirds of the
profits should go to the "authors" and one-third to Mr. Murray. Secondly,
Mr. Murray said that he paid the authors L5592 14s. 2d. Thirdly, he said
that his own profit was L600. Hence L600 is the half of L5592 14s. 2d. I
have no doubt that there exists some quite simple explanation of this new
arithmetic; only it has not occurred to me, my name not being Colenso. The
whole enterprise was regal, as befitted. Proof-corrections cost twice as
much as the original setting up! A mere man of letters would be inclined
to suspect that the printing was begun too soon; it is usual to postpone
setting-up a book until the book is written. Balzac partially beggared
himself by ignoring this rule. Balzac, however, was not published by Mr.
Murray. L950 was paid to the amanuensis! Oh, amanuensis, how I wonder who
you are, up above the world so high, like a fashionable novelist in the
sky! And so on.

* * * * *

The attitude of Tunbridge Wells (the most plutocratic town in England, by
the way) towards the book was adorable. "Mr. Daniel Williams, a bookseller
and librarian, of Tunbridge Wells, said that after the review by 'Artifex'
people complained that the price of the book was too high. No complaints
were made before that." They read their _Times Literary Supplement_ at the
Wells, and they still wait for it to thunder, and when it has
thundered--and not before--they rattle their tea-trays, and the sequel is
red ruin! Again, Mr. Justice Darling, in his ineptly decorated summing-up,
observed that it was hardly too much to say that "the plaintiff's
house--the house of Murray," was a national institution. It would be
hardly too much to say that also the house of Crosse and Blackwell is a
national institution, and that Mr. Justice Darling is a national
institution. By all means let us count the brothers Murray as a national
institution, even as an Imperial institution. But let us guard against the
notion, everywhere cropping up, that such "houses" as the dignified and
wealthy house of Murray are in some mysterious way responsible for English
literature, part-authors of English literature, to whom half of the glory
of English literature is due. It is well to remember now and then that
publishers who have quite squarely made vast sums out of selling the work
of creative artists are not thereby creative artists themselves. A
publisher is a tradesman; infinitely less an artist than a tailor is an
artist. Often a publisher knows what the public will buy in literature.
Very rarely he knows what is good literature. Scarcely ever will he issue
a distinguished book exclusively because it is a distinguished book. And
he is right, for he is only a tradesman. But to judge from the otiose
majesty of some publishers, one would imagine that they had written at
least "Childe Harold." There is the case of a living publisher (not either
of the brothers Murray) whose presence at his country chateau is indicated
to the surrounding nobility, gentry, and peasantry by the unfurling of
the Royal standard over a turret.

* * * * *

To return to the subject, the price at which the house of Murray issued
the "Letters of Queen Victoria" was not "extortionate," having regard to
the astounding expenses of publication. But why were the expenses so
astounding? If the book had not been one which by its intrinsic interest
compelled purchase, would the "authors" have been remunerated like the
managers of a steel trust? Would the paper have been so precious and
costly? Would the illustrations have so enriched photographers? And would
the amanuensis have made L350 more out of the thing then Mr. Murray
himself? The price was not extortionate. But it was farcical. The entire
rigmarole combines to throw into dazzling prominence the fact that modern
literature in this country is still absolutely undemocratic. The time will
come, and much sooner than many august mandarins anticipate, when such a
book as the "Letters of Queen Victoria" will be issued at six shillings,
and newspapers will be fined L7500 for saying that the price is
extortionate and ought not to exceed half a crown. Assuredly there is no
commercial reason why the book should not have been published at 6s. or
thereabouts. Only mandarinism prevented that. Mr. Murray's profits would
have been greater, though "authors," amanuenses, photographers,
paper-makers, West-End booksellers, and other parasitic artisans might
have suffered slightly.

FRENCH PUBLISHERS

[_23 May '08_]

It has commonly been supposed that the publication of Flaubert's "Madame
Bovary" resulted, at first, in a loss to the author. I am sure that every
one will be extremely relieved to learn, from a letter recently printed in
_L'Intermediaire_ (the French equivalent of _Notes and Queries)_, that the
supposition is incorrect. Here is a translation of part of the letter,
written by the celebrated publishers, Poulet-Malassis, to an author
unnamed. The whole letter is very interesting, and it would probably
reconcile the "authors" of the correspondence of Queen Victoria to the
sweating system by which they received the miserable sum of L5592 14s. 2d.
from Mr. John Murray for their Titanic labours.

October 23, 1857.

"I think, sir, that you are in error as to Messrs. Levy's method of doing
business. Messrs. Levy buy for 400 francs [L16] the right to publish a
book during four years. It was on these terms that they bought the stories
of Jules de la Madeleine, Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary,' etc. These facts are
within my knowledge. To take an example among translations, they bought
from Baudelaire, for 400 francs, the right to publish 6000 copies of his
Poe. We do not work in this way. We buy for 200 francs (L8) the right to
publish an edition of 1200 copies.... If the book succeeds, so much the
better for the author, who makes 200 francs out of every edition of 1200
copies. If M. Flaubert, whose book is in its third edition, had come to us
instead of to Messrs. Levy, his book would already have brought him in
1000 francs (L40); during the four years that Messrs. Levy will have the
rights of his book for a total payment of 400 francs, he might have made
two or three thousand francs with us.... Votre bien devoue,

"A.P. MALASSIS."

* * * * *

We now know that Flaubert made L16 in four years out of "Madame Bovary,"
which went into three editions within considerably less than a year of
publication. And yet the house of Levy is one of the most respectable and
grandiose in France. Moral: English authors ought to go down on their
knees and thank God that English publishers are not as other publishers.
At least, not always!

WORDSWORTH'S SINGLE LINES

[_30 May '08_]

I have had great joy in Mr. Nowell Charles Smith's new and comprehensive
edition of Wordsworth, published by Methuen in three volumes as majestic
as Wordsworth himself at his most pontifical. The price is fifteen
shillings net, and having regard to the immense labour involved in such an
edition, it is very cheap. I would sooner pay fifteen shillings for a real
book like this than a guinea for the memoirs of any tin god that ever sat
up at nights to keep a diary; yea, even though the average collection of
memoirs will furnish material to light seven hundred pipes. We have lately
been much favoured with first-rate editions of poets. I mention Mr. de
Selincourt's Keats, and Mr. George Sampson's amazing and
not-to-be-sufficiently-lauded Blake. Mr. Smith's work is worthy to stand
on the same shelf with these. A shining virtue of Mr. Smith's edition is
that it embodies the main results of the researches and excavations not
only of Professor Knight, but, more important, of the wonderful Mr.
Hutchinson, whose contributions to the _Academy_, in days of yore, were
the delight of Wordsworthians.

* * * * *

Personally, I became a member of the order of Wordsworthians in the
historic year 1891, when Matthew Arnold's "Selections" were issued to the
public at the price of half a crown. I suppose that Matthew Arnold and Sir
Leslie Stephen were the two sanest Wordsworthians of us all. And Matthew
Arnold put Wordsworth above all modern poets except Dante, Shakespeare,
Goethe, Milton, and Moliere. The test of a Wordsworthian is the ability to
read with pleasure every line that the poet wrote. I regret to say that,
strictly, Matthew Arnold was not a perfect Wordsworthian; he confessed,
with manly sincerity, that he could not read "Vaudracour and Julia" with
pleasure. This was a pity and Matthew Arnold's loss. For a strict
Wordsworthian, while utterly conserving his reverence for the most poetic
of poets, can discover a keen ecstasy in the perusal of the unconsciously
funny lines which Wordsworth was constantly perpetrating. And I would back
myself to win the first prize in any competition for Wordsworth's funniest
line with a quotation from "Vaudracour and Julia." My prize-line would
assuredly be:

_Yea, his first word of greeting was,--_
_"All right...._

It is true that the passage goes on:

_Is gone from me...._

But that does not impair the magnificent funniness.

* * * * *

From his tenderest years Wordsworth succeeded in combining the virtues of
Milton and of _Punch_ in a manner that no other poet has approached. Thus,
at the age of eighteen, he could write:

_Now while the solemn evening shadows sail,_
_On slowly-waving pinions, down the vale;_
_And fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines_
_Its darkening boughs...._

Which really is rather splendid for a boy. And he could immediately follow
that, speaking of a family of swans, with:

_While tender cares and mild domestic loves_
_With furtive watch pursue her as she moves,_
_The female with a meeker charm succeeds...._

Wordsworth richly atoned for his unconscious farcicalness by a multitude
of single lines that, in their pregnant sublimity, attend the
Wordsworthian like a shadow throughout his life, warning him continually
when he is in danger of making a fool of himself. Thus, whenever through
mere idleness I begin to waste the irrecoverable moments of eternity, I
always think of that masterly phrase (from, I think, the "Prelude," but I
will not be sure):

_Unprofitably travelling towards the grave._

This line is a most convenient and effective stone to throw at one's
languid friends. Finally let me hail Mr. Nowell Smith as a benefactor.

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