Hall Caine, the Man and the Novelist

by C. Fred Kenyon

This at once put at rest all doubts that troubled Mr Caine, and a long, ardent correspondence ensued.

During the time that Hall Caine was engaged in writing to Rossetti, his life was an exceedingly busy one, and full of many and varied interests. As we have seen, he was engaged all day in office work—uncongenial, one can imagine, and perhaps even irksome. At night—sometimes all night—he worked at his books, reading and writing, for he had a good deal to do in order to catch up with others who had enjoyed better opportunities. His life was far from unhappy, in spite of the checked ambition which was beginning to dominate him. He had friends of like mind and tastes with his own, and his work in connection with the Liverpool Notes and Queries Shakespearian Society brought him in contact with many interesting people. Still, he was longing to be away—longing to test his strength with the strength of the world, and desiring nothing better than to work out his destiny. The story of how he threw off the shackles of conventional life in Liverpool and escaped to the mountains of Cumberland is by no means uncharacteristic, and I may perhaps be pardoned if I tell it here pretty much as Mr Caine himself related it to me.

In 1881 his health seemed on the point of breaking down. He mentioned the fact to his employer, with whom, by now, he was on terms of friendship. Perhaps business was pressing, perhaps there were good and sufficient reasons of some other kind, but at all events little attention was taken, and for a week or two Mr Caine worked on uncomplainingly. But a time came when he felt that if he wished to preserve his health he must have an immediate holiday, so, giving up his keys to his fellow clerk, he walked out of the office and never returned, in spite of the affectionate and solicitous letters which followed him. But he had had more than enough of office life, and had made up his mind to devote his energies to Literature. At this time he possessed a sum of about thirty pounds, and was delivering a course of twenty-four lectures for the Liverpool Corporation. For each lecture he received two or three guineas, but that was all that stood between him and the bottom of the purse. But in his heart of hearts he knew that Literature was the only profession in the world for him, and that the sooner he began to devote his life to it the better. At this date, Hall Caine had twice stayed with Rossetti at his house in Chelsea. He had found the poet cheerful and in good health, but the mental atmosphere in which he lived was almost morbid. “The gloom, the mediæval furniture, the brass censers, sacramental cups, lamps and crucifixes conspired, I thought, to make the atmosphere of a dwelling-house heavy and unwholesome.” But he felt that by personal contact with the man he had been brought much nearer to him in spirit, and there existed between them an affectionate regard such as father and son might have for each other. The younger man was soon to be called upon to make a sacrifice on behalf of his friend, and with that “genius for friendship” of which we have already heard, the sacrifice was made eagerly enough. Hall Caine had not been settled long at the Vale of St John before Rossetti wrote saying that he too was ill—bodily and mentally, and that he must soon leave London. If only he could get away to the country, he was sure he would be better. “Supposing,” he wrote, “I were to ask you to come to town in a fortnight’s time from now—I returning with you for a while into the country—would that be feasible to you?” For a few days he remained undecided, but at length wrote to the Vale of St John asking Mr Caine to come to him. Mr Caine went, but on arriving at Rossetti’s house found the poet unwilling to move. A great change had now taken place. Rossetti had lost his cheerfulness, his fund of good spirits. He was ill, and more than ever a slave to chloral. His mind was unsettled and gloomy, and he suffered from the hallucination that nearly all his friends had proved faithless. He longed to escape from London, but yet he had not the strength of mind to take the necessary steps. His doctor gave his permission for a visit to Cumberland, but still Rossetti would not go. At last, yielding to the persuasion of Mr Caine, strongly supported by the advice of Rossetti’s older and more immediate friends, Theodore Watts, Frederick Shields and William Rossetti, his brother, who thought the bracing mountain air of Cumberland would work wonders, Rossetti consented to go. And now ensued a time of anxiety for Hall Caine. They were entirely alone in the little house they had rented in the mountains, save for a nurse to attend to the wants of the sick man; and Caine had the real responsibility of Rossetti’s life on his shoulders. Rossetti could not sleep, so night was turned into day and day into night. They would sit up through the dark hours together, with the sound of the flooded ghyll outside, and within the tones of Caine’s voice as he read aloud to Rossetti to while the hours away. And as he read, the poet would walk up and down the oblong room, restless, nervous, and longing to get at the chloral which was safely locked away in a place he knew not of. The hot, quick, anguishing thirst for chloral was on him during these days, and when Rossetti used to come to Hall Caine’s bedside and beg for an extra dose, the younger man found him simply irresistible, and often had to give way to his friend’s earnest pleading. There were other grave responsibilities thrust upon him of which I cannot speak; suffice it to say that he bore them bravely and uncomplainingly, and came out from his trial a more experienced and a stronger man.

It was during these long sleepless nights that Hall Caine first told Rossetti the outline of the story which was afterwards to be the framework of his first novel, The Shadow of a Crime. This story, which is dealt with in an ensuing chapter, although it appealed to Rossetti’s imagination, did not convince him that it would make a good novel. It was too terrible—too unsympathetic. He urged Caine to try his hand at a Manx novel, and told him that it would be no mean ambition to strive to become the bard of Manxland. The plot was discussed from every point of view, but as yet the writing of it had not been commenced. Perhaps the young student of Literature did not yet feel quite strong enough in experience and imagination to attempt so large a scheme; perhaps he was too engrossed reading Smollett, Fielding and Richardson for his Liverpool lectures; or perhaps he had seen that Rossetti’s criticism was a just one, and that the story would prove cold and inhuman. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that he did not begin to work on his first novel until some time afterwards when Rossetti lay in his grave, but month by month, week by week, it was getting a stronger and yet stronger hold on his imagination, until it dominated him entirely. The familiar legend of his youth became a part of his everyday life, a part of his very being. It obsessed him almost entirely to the exclusion of all other interests; but he restrained himself day by day, until restraint was no longer possible, and then in a fever of impatience and enthusiasm he began to write.

Meanwhile Rossetti was gradually becoming worse and worse, and Caine more and more anxious. What was to be done? They were hundreds of miles away from home and older and more experienced friends, and Rossetti seemed too ill to travel. It was a critical time for both of them. Rossetti was by turns irritable and genial, bad-tempered and high-spirited, full of life and languidly indolent; but these various moods were not reflected in his companion—he was always anxious, always wondering what was going to happen. The solitude, the anxiety and the poor state of his own health made him suffer keenly; yet even now he confesses that he looks back with great tenderness and gratitude to those four weeks with Rossetti among the Cumberland hills. At length it was decided that they should return home, and the instant the decision was made Rossetti’s spirits rose. Perhaps he had already a premonition of his nearly-approaching death, and felt more at ease that he was to die near friends and kindred instead of in the almost tragic silence and loneliness of Cumberland. He returned worse in health and spirits than he had come, and as soon as his doctor saw him he realised that the time had arrived when drastic measures should be taken. Rossetti had an attack of paralysis, and from that time his drug was absolutely forbidden him. The pain that ensued was intense, and he became delirious with desire for chloral. A few days after, however, he rallied and became more cheerful, and it was decided that he should stay for a time at a bungalow at Birchington-on-Sea which had very opportunely been placed at his service. Thither he went with Hall Caine, his constant friend and comforter, and there he died shortly afterwards—literally in his young friend’s arms, for at the last moments Caine had put his arm about Rossetti to raise him up, in order to relieve his apparent pain.

In attempting to gauge the kind of influence which Rossetti exercised over Hall Caine, it must not be overlooked that the poet was old enough to be the younger man’s father; indeed, both in letters and conversation, he more than once expressed the wish that he was his father. When Caine first knew Rossetti, the latter’s health and nerves were already on the point of breaking down, and he was even then a victim to the chloral-taking habit. He was morbid and fanciful; his body diseased, and his mind unhealthy. Caine, on the other hand, had fair health and a vigorous, lusty mind. What came to pass is only what a spectator might have guessed; the older man attracted and fascinated the younger, and there can be little doubt that this fascination had by no means an entirely healthy influence over Hall Caine. Indeed, he tells us in his Recollections of Rossetti that one day he found himself becoming the victim of the very delusions which so tortured his friend, and this is but one instance out of many by means of which it might be shown that the poet’s influence over the budding novelist was one of at least questionable value. As I have already remarked, it would have required a peculiarly strong and vigorous mind and body to have lived with Rossetti towards the end of his life without being detrimentally influenced by his personality; but fortunately for Hall Caine, this doubtful part of the influence was only temporary, while the good and noble part of it was permanent, and was felt long after the personal intercourse came to its end. It must not be forgotten, too, that Hall Caine’s imagination was with him a masterful power which he had not yet learned to control properly, and his sensitive, responsive disposition made him particularly impressionable. But it cannot be doubted that the friendship of these two men, both strongly, indeed peculiarly individual, had a great deal to do in developing the character of the younger man. It was inevitable that a man of Rossetti’s genius and character should inflame his imagination and light up many beacons of his intellect.

When a year or two later Hall Caine began to strike out for himself it was bruited abroad that he was making capital out of the names of his friends—in other words, that he was making a bid for Fame by the help of those who constituted the Rossetti circle.

This, of course, was as absurd as it was untrue. People said that Caine had been Rossetti’s secretary, and some foolish gossips went so far as to declare that he had been his valet. The only relationship that existed between them was one of friendship. Hall Caine looked on Rossetti with enthusiastic admiration and something almost approaching reverence, and Rossetti regarded him with the keen interest one naturally takes in the career of a young man of genius. For Rossetti often encouraged his young friend by bidding him have no anxiety as to what the future held for him, declaring that Fame was bound to come to him sooner or later. It speaks much for Rossetti’s perspicacity that he was able to discern the genius of his friend, for at this time Hall Caine had produced little or nothing that he cares to recognise now. He had written a quantity of mediocre verse, and a few sonnets of real and lasting beauty; but that was all. Rossetti insisted that Caine’s vocation lay in the writing of fervid and impassioned prose, and the truth of this remark has been demonstrated over and over again since it was first uttered.