It was indeed a rapturous moment when I heard this news. If I had been allowed, I would forthwith have thrown up my place at the W.B. Lead office and taken service—even the humblest—on the Press. But on this point my father was firm. I must stick to my proper work for the present, though there could be no harm in my devoting my evenings to such study and practice as might fit me for journalism hereafter. Not that he or my mother desired to see me become a journalist. The Press—at all events in provincial towns—in those days was the reverse of respectable in the eyes of the world; and truly there was some reason for the low esteem in which it was held. The ordinary reporter on a country paper was generally illiterate, was too often intemperate, and was invariably ill-paid. Again and again did my mother seek to check my eager yearning for a life on the Press with the repetition of dismal stories dinned into her ears by sympathising friends, who deplored the fact that her son should dream of leaving so secure and respectable a position as a clerkship in the W.B. Lead Office for the poor rewards and dubious respectability of a newspaper career.
There was an old friend of my father's—Innes by name—who took it upon himself to remonstrate with me. After exhorting me fervently for some time, he sought to illustrate the dangers of the course on which I was anxious to embark by a personal experience. "Thomas," he said solemnly (and oh, how I hated to be called Thomas!), "I knew a laddie called Forster. His father was a most respectable, decent man, that kept a butcher's shop at the top o' the Side—a first-rate business; and this laddie—his name was John—got just such notions into his head as ye have; he was always reading and writing, and nothing would suit him but to go to college instead of sticking to the shop. And at last he went away to London, and his poor father died, and the business went all to pieces, and I've never heard tell of that laddie from the day he went to London until now. He's died of starvation, most likely, by this time."
"Why, Mr. Innes," I cried, "do you really mean to say that you have never heard of Mr. Forster's books—his Life of Oliver Goldsmith and 'The Arrest of the Five Members'? He's one of our great writers now, and if I could only reach a position like his—" But this prospect was so dazzling that it fairly took my breath away, and I lapsed into silence, delighted to find that my old friend's "awful example" should have been a man in whose footsteps I most ardently desired to tread.
As I have mentioned the opposition which my parents offered to my design to become a journalist, it is only right that I should say that if it had not been for the atmosphere in which I lived at home, the accomplishment of that design would never have become possible. Ours was a home of narrow and stinted means, but of wide and generous sympathies. We children learned from the example of our dear father and mother to look beyond ourselves and our own small interests upon the battle of life as it was being fought in the world at large. If our table was of the plainest, there were always books and newspapers in the house, and they were not there for show. My mother had a genuine taste for literature, and a judgment which, if not infallible, was at least sound. Many a time would we discuss together the books we were reading. They were not, as a rule, hot from the Press; but why should they have been, in the case of a boy with all the literary treasures of the world still untasted? My father leaned, as was natural, to the more serious side of literature; but he had a keen interest in public affairs, and he brought to their study a sagacious and well-informed mind. Whilst the spirit in which both he and my mother viewed life and the problems which it daily presented to them was that of a pure and lofty Puritanism, it was broadened and softened, more particularly in the case of my father, by the gentleness and liberality of their own characters. So it was in an atmosphere of culture and liberal thought that I lived my life in those days both at home and at the W.B. Lead Office.
The Northern Daily Express was a penny newspaper which laid claim to be the first provincial daily published at that price. The claim has, I believe, been disputed by Mr. Justin McCarthy, who claims the honour for a Liverpool journal with which he was himself at one time connected. But whether first or second, it is certain that the Express was very early in the field. It had been started at Darlington in 1855 by a gentleman named Watson. A year later it was transferred to Newcastle, and it was in the Express office that I first became acquainted with actual newspaper work. A very curious place was that office when I first knew it. It consisted simply of two rooms and two cellars in a house in West Clayton Street. One of the rooms was devoted to the compositors who set the little sheet; the other was by day the counting-house and the place where the papers were sold and advertisements received, whilst at night it became the editorial office—the editor, sub-editor, and reporters all working together here at the desks occupied by the clerks during the day. I ought, perhaps, to explain that the staff was not quite so large as my description of it might lead people to suppose. The sub-editor, for instance, doubled his part and acted as reporter also. Still, it was a tight fit in that little room in West Clayton Street when I went there of an evening to write some paragraph or letter for the next morning's paper. In the cellars was the machine on which the Express was printed, and the stock of paper.
In one respect, the Express was better equipped than is many a pretentious journal of to-day. Its editor—Manson by name—was a man of remarkable ability, and his carefully-prepared leading articles were certainly second to none in the newspaper press of his day. This is a strong saying, but my reader will not think it unjustified when he hears that Manson's services had been eagerly sought for by more than one London newspaper, including the Times. He was a man of real genius, but, unfortunately, not without the defects of his qualities. In my young eyes he was a marvel, and almost an idol. To sit beside him, as I sometimes did, whilst he forged the thunderbolts which produced so great an effect upon the opinion of the town, was to me a joy almost too great for words. I would sit and watch the untiring hand moving across the slips of blue paper with a mind filled with the awe and reverence with which a pupil of Michael Angelo might have watched the master at work. I had at last got my foot on the first rung of the ladder, and my soul was filled with absolute content. True, my days were given to the W.B. Lead Office; but seldom did an evening come round without finding me, on one pretext or another, in the house in West Clayton Street. Indeed, I had now become almost a recognised member of the staff, and my little contributions in the shape of paragraphs, letters, and the inevitable verses appeared almost daily.
I had been trying to teach myself shorthand, and had made some progress with Pitman's system of phonography; but now, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Marshall, I secured the services of a first-rate teacher, and soon made rapid progress in that difficult art. My teacher was Mr. Lowes, an admirable shorthand writer, who wrote a system of his own. To Mr. Lowes, phonography appeared to be the chief evil afflicting mankind. What little things divide the world! In my teacher's opinion it was divided into phonographers and stenographers, and never did the schoolmen of old show more bitterness in maintaining their own shibboleths than did Lowes in asserting the superiority of his system to that of Mr. Pitman—an opinion which I need scarcely say was not shared by the world.
Lowes was a good fellow, and a most kind and patient teacher. Under his guidance I soon acquired a certain amount of facility in ordinary press-work. Contributions to Chambers's Journal, the Leisure Hour, and one or two minor religious magazines, gave me as the years passed an opportunity of addressing a wider audience than the readers of the Express, and though I had as many misfortunes and disappointments as most young writers, I stuck steadily to my task, and bit by bit strengthened my position in the world of journalism.
There were other fields of activity, besides the press, that I assiduously cultivated. For example, in the plenitude of my wisdom, at the age of seventeen I founded an institution in the west end of Newcastle, not far from my father's church. I called it the "West End Literary Institute," and truly it was designed upon a most ambitious scale. When I recall the way in which I begged money from all and sundry among my friends for the purpose of starting the institute, and the manner in which I pestered distinguished authors for presentation copies of their books, in order to furnish the shelves of the library, I am driven to the painful conclusion that I must have been a terrible person in the days of my youth, and something of a prig to boot. Apropos of the begging for books as free gifts from authors, I had one or two amusing experiences. Among those whom I importuned in this impertinent way were Charles Kingsley, and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Longley. Kingsley replied to my request in a manner that was as sensible as it was severe, bluntly telling me that he was a poor man who wrote books in order to get money, and who could not afford to give them away. I have written books myself since then, and have had many an application as unreasonable as that which I addressed to the author of "Alton Locke." This fact, perhaps, explains my entire approval of the snubbing which that distinguished man administered to me.
Very different, however, was the response of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a courteous and dignified epistle, expressing his pleasure at being able to comply with my request, and fifteen handsome octavo volumes of sermons were forthwith forwarded to me from Hatchard's. I had other similar experiences, and the result was that when my library was thrown open to the public the amount of theology which it contained far outweighed every other department of literature. However, people came to my reading-room, and I was fortunately able to provide them with other entertainment besides the reading of old sermons. I started a course of lectures and readings. I blush to say that I distinguished myself one evening by reading the play of Macbeth to an unhappy audience of bored victims. Heaven forgive me! I carried on my West End Institute for some years, started a flourishing penny bank in connection with it, and formed numerous acquaintances among the more intelligent artisans of the district; but at last the building was wanted for an extension of the Sunday schools connected with my father's congregation, and the little performance came to an end. I trust it had not made me an incurable prig, but I fear that it did not do anybody very much good; though, perhaps, it kept some out of mischief.