. . . I have delayed this letter in a scandalous manner because I hoped I might have the arrangements with the Daily News to tell you; as that is again put off, I must tell you later. The following, however, are grounds on which I believe everything will turn out right this year. It is arithmetic. "The Speaker" has hitherto paid me £70 a year, that is £6 a month. It has now raised it to £10 a month, which makes £120 a year. Moreover they encourage me to write as much as I like in the paper, so that assuming that I do something extra (poem, note, leader) twice a month or every other number, which I can easily do, that brings us to nearly £150 a year. So much for "The Speaker." Now for the "Daily News," both certainties and probabilities. Hammond (to whom you will favour me by being eternally grateful) pushed me so strongly with Lehmann for the post of manager of the literary page that it is most probable that I shall get it. . . . If I do, Hammond thinks they couldn't give me less than £200 a year. So that if this turns out right, we have £350, say, without any aid from "Bookman," books, magazine articles or stories.
Let us however, put this chance entirely on one side and suppose that they can give me nothing but regular work on the "Daily News." I have just started a set of popular fighting articles on literature in the "Daily News" called "The Wars of Literature." They will appear at least twice a week, often three times. For each of these I am paid about a guinea and a half. This makes about £3 a week which is £144 a year. Thus with only the present certainties of "Speaker" and "Daily News" we have £264 a year, or very likely (with extra "Speaker" items) £288, close on £300. This again may be reinforced by all sorts of miscellaneous work which I shall get now my name is getting known, magazine articles, helping editors or publishers, reading Mss. and so on. In all these calculations I have kept deliberately under the figures, not over them: so that I don't think I have failed altogether to bring my promise within reasonable distance of fact already. Belloc suggested that I should write for the "Pilot" and as he is on it, he will probably get me some work. Hammond has become leader-writer on the "Echo" and will probably get me some reviewing on that. And between ourselves, to turn with intense relief, from all this egotism, Hammond and I have a little scheme on hand for getting Oldershaw a kind of editorial place on the "Echo" where they want a brisk but cultivated man of the world. I think we can bring it off: it is a good place for an ambitious young man. It would give me more happiness than I can say, while I am building my own house of peace, to do something for the man who did so much in giving me my reason for it.
For well Thou knowest, O God most wise
How good on earth was his gift to me
Shall this be a little thing in thine eyes
That is greater in mine than the whole great sea?
I am afraid . . . that this is a very dull letter. But you know what I am. I can be practical, but only deliberately, by fixing my mind on a thing. In this letter, I sum up my last month's thinking about money resources. I haven't given a thought yet to the application and distribution of them in rent, furniture, etc. When I have done thinking about that you will get another dull letter. I can keep ten poems and twenty theories in my head at once. But I can only think of one practical thing at a time. The only conclusion of this letter is that on any calculation whatever, we ought to have £300 a year, and be on the road to four in a little while. With this before you I daresay you (who are more practical than I) could speculate and suggest a little as to the form of living and expenditure. . . .
Gilbert's mother perhaps needed more convincing. The letter to her has no postmark but the £300 a year has grown to almost £500 and a careful economy is promised.
Mrs. Barnes
The Orchards
Burley. Hants.
MY DEAREST MOTHER,
Thank you very much for your two letters. If you get back to Kensington before me (I shall return on Thursday night: I find I work here very well) would you mind sending on any letters. You might send on the cheque: though that is not necessary.
There is a subject we have touched on once or twice that I want to talk to you about, for I am very much worried in my mind as to whether you will disapprove of a decision I have been coming to with a very earnest belief that I am seeking to do the right thing. I have just had information that my screw from "The Speaker" will be yet further increased from £120 a year to £150, or, if I do the full amount I can, £190 a year. I have also had a request from the "Daily News" to do two columns a week regularly, which [is] rather over £100 a year, besides other book reviews. My other sources of income which should bring the amount up to nearly £150 more, at any rate, I will speak of in a moment.
There is something, as I say, that is distressing me a great deal. I believe I said about a year ago that I hoped to get married in a year, if I had money enough. I fancy you took it rather as a joke: I was not so certain about it myself then. I have however been coming very seriously to the conclusion that if I pull off one more affair—a favourable arrangement with Reynolds' Newspaper, whose editor wants to see me at the end of this week, I shall, unless you disapprove, make a dash for it this year. When I mentioned the matter a short time ago, you said (if I remember right) that you did not think I ought to marry under £400 or £500 a year. I was moved to go into the matter thoroughly then and there, but as it happened I knew I had one or two bargains just coming of which would bring me nearer to the standard you named, so I thought I would let it stand over till I could actually quote them. Believe me, my dearest mother, I am not considering this affair wildly or ignorantly: I have been doing nothing but sums in my head for the last months. This is how matters stand. The Speaker editor says they will take as much as I like to write. If I write my maximum I get £192 a year from them. From the Daily News, even if I do not get the post on the staff which was half promised me, I shall get at least £100 a year with a good deal over for reviews outside "The Wars of Literature." That makes nearly £300. With the Manchester Sunday Chronicle I have just made a bargain by which I shall get £72 a year. This makes £370 a year altogether. The matter now, I think, largely depends on Reynolds' Newspaper. If I do, as is contemplated, weekly articles and thumbnail sketches, they cannot give me less than £ 100 a year. This would bring the whole to £470 a year, or within £30 of your standard. Of course I know quite well that this is not like talking of an income from a business or a certain investment. But we should live a long way within this income, if we took a very cheap flat, even a workman's flat if necessary, had a woman in to do the laborious Daily work and for the rest waited on ourselves, as many people I know do in cheap flats. Moreover, journalism has its ups as well as downs, and I, I can fairly say, am on the upward wave. Without vanity and in a purely businesslike spirit I may say that my work is talked about a great deal. It is at least a remarkable fact that every one of the papers I write for (as detailed above) came to me and asked me to do work for them: from the Daily News down to the Manchester Sunday Chronicle. I have, as I say, what seems to me a sufficient income for a start. That I shall have as good and better I am as certain as that I sit here. I know the clockwork of these papers and among one set of them I might almost say that I am becoming the fashion.