(4) Having a message to deliver.
And first of vanity or conceit. How easy this is to diagnose in the literary works of others; how impossible to admit, even for a moment, that it is at all a permissible suggestion about the motive of our own work. And yet if one will be honest with oneself, what is there in life that ministers to the delightful pleasure of vanity so thoroughly and satisfactorily as the sight of one’s first printed production. I remember well the first book I ever published. It was, curiously enough, a Life of Queen Elizabeth, a subject I returned to in later years. It was not a large book—but then at the time I published it I was not a large person, being only nine years old, and the physical act of writing was burdensome to me; spelling also had more difficulties about it than perhaps it has to-day. No, it was not a large volume: to be exact it contained two pages demi octavo of rather large print. It was not however, intended to be printed in book form at all. It was rather a first effort at journalism, and was written for the pages of an excellent periodical called Little Folks, which had offered a prize for the best life of the Maiden Queen. The prize, no doubt, was, as these things often are, carelessly adjudged to some budding author, who has probably never been heard of since. Anyhow, I did not get it, and my MS. was returned,—you send a stamped envelope if you want it returned, never forget that—mine was returned “highly commended.” That Editor has saved himself a lot of nasty abuse from literary historians of the next century by those two words, “highly commended.” He made a mistake, no doubt, about the prize; but I, who have had to give many hundred decisions in my later years—not perhaps verdicts of such moment, but concerning smaller matters, where right decision is equally advisable—know the difficulties of coming to a true result, and have long ago readily forgiven him. Doubtless the poor fellow did his best, and if he is still alive—more power to his elbow, if he has gone
Where the Rudyards cease from Kipling,
And the Haggards ride no more
then—peace to his ashes.
The world was not however to lose this masterpiece. I remember showing it to my father when it came back in its stamped envelope, and he put it in his pocket, gravely expressing a desire to read it. I am not sure that he did read it, but he had it printed—at Guildford, I believe, when he was away on circuit.
I remember him placing the parcel in my hands on his return and my delight in opening it, and my wild surprise at the discovery of the contents, and the awed silence that came over my soul when I saw the print on the pages and knew I was an author. I can hear my father’s good-natured laugh over the affair, and my mother’s insistence on my autograph on the front page “with the author’s compliments.” I spelt compliment with an “e.” It is absurd having two ways of spelling one word. Afterwards I have a dim remembrance of walking about on air for a few days, and finding it difficult to sit on chairs for any length of time, and quite impossible to learn lessons. All my spare time was taken up by reading the great work in solitary corners, and marvelling at the beauty of the language and the respectability of the spelling. When I went for a walk in Kensington Gardens I shrank from the gaze of the populace, much as a real grown-up author might do, who had lived at the Isle of Man or Stratford-on-Avon. After a time I became normal again, but the mischief was done: I had, in the seventeenth century phrase, “commenced author.”
Looking back at the matter from the cold, grey standpoint of a grandfather, there is this to be said for my first book. It is out of print. It is so rare that I doubt if an American millionaire could buy one. The last copies of it that I saw fell out of an old desk many years ago, and were made into paper boats by my children. Luckily I have plenty more materials for paper boats for the next generation when they shall need them.
I have written down this little experience because, to my mind, it is perhaps the one certain instance I can testify to, of a book being written wholly and entirely from motives of vanity or conceit. The prize did not attract me in the least; it was, I believe, a book of religious tendency. There was no greed about the matter. I did not do it for the love of the thing, for in those days I spent my spare time in carpentering and producing pantomime in a toy theatre. As for any sense of having a message to deliver that was absurd, because I copied the bulk of it out of Little Arthur’s History of England, carefully paraphrasing the language to hide from the over-curious the source of my authorities. There is no doubt that this book was written and produced solely by the author’s—and perhaps his parents’—strong sense of vanity and conceit. I can speak about the author impersonally to-day for he seems to me such an entirely different person from myself.
I have asked many living writers whether they have ever knowingly written anything purely from motives of vanity and conceit. They all answer me in a pained and haughty negative. For myself, I rather glory in it. It is good to have done something that nobody else has achieved. It is a big thing to have written at least one book that does not lie on the shelves of the British Museum, a book the original edition of which no gold can buy, a book that has given, to one reader at least, moments of more thrilling joy than any book that was ever printed.