Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846
ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST
A Letter to T. Smith, Esq., Scene-Painter and Tragedian at the Amphitheatre
My dear Smith, – Your complaint of my unwarrantable detention of the manuscript which, some months ago, you were kind enough to forward for my perusal, is founded upon a total misconception of the nature of my interim employments. I have not, as you somewhat broadly insinuate, been prigging bits of your matchless rhetoric in order to give currency and flavour to my own more maudlin articles. The lemon-peel of Smith has not entered into the composition of any of my literary puddings; neither have I bartered a single fragment of your delectable facetiæ for gold. I return you the precious bundle as safe and undivulged as when it was committed to my custody, and none the worse for the rather extensive journey which it has materially contributed to cheer.
The fact is, that I have been sojourning this summer utterly beyond the reach of posts. To you, whose peculiar vocation it is to cater for the taste of the public, I need hardly remark that novelty is, now-a-days, in literature as in every thing else, an indispensable requisite for success. People will not endure the iteration of a story, however well it may be told. The same locality palls upon their ears, and that style of wit which, last year, was sufficient to convulse an audience, may, if continued for another session, be branded with the infamy of slang. Even our mutual friend Barry, whose jests are the life of the arena, is quite aware of this unerring physiological rule. He does not depend upon captivating the galleries for ever by his ingenious conundrum of getting into an empty quart bottle. His inimitable "be quiet, will ye?" as the exasperated Master of the Ring flicks off an imaginary fly from his motley inexpressibles, is now reserved as a great point for rare and special occasions; and he now lays in a new stock of witticisms at the commencement of each campaign, as regularly as you contract for lamp-black and ochre when there is an immediate prospect of a grand new military spectacle. The want of attention to this rule has, I fear, operated prejudicially upon the fortunes of our agile acquaintance, Hervio Nano, whom I last saw devouring raw beef in the character of a human Nondescript. Harvey depended too much upon his original popularity as the Gnome Fly, and failed through incessant repetition. The public at length would not stand the appearance of that eternal blue-bottle. The sameness of his entomology was wearisome. He should have varied his representations by occasionally assuming the characters of the Spectre Spider, or the Black Tarantula of the Tombs.
Now you must know, that for the last three years I have been making my living exclusively out of the Swedish novels and the Countess Ida von Hahn-Hahn. To Frederike Bremer I owe a prodigious debt of gratitude; for she has saved me the trouble – and it is a prodigious bore – of inventing plots and characters, as I was compelled to do when the Rhine and the Danube were the chosen seats of fiction. For a time the literary plough went merrily through the sward of Sweden; nor can I, with any degree of conscience, complain of the quality of the crop. But, somehow or other, the thing was beginning to grow stale. People lost their relish for the perpetual raspberry jam, tart-making, spinning, and the other processes of domestic kitchen economy which formed our Scandinavian staple; indeed, I had a shrewd suspicion from the first that the market would soon be glutted by the introduction of so much linen and flannel. It is very difficult to keep up a permanent interest in favour of a heroine in homespun, and the storeroom is but a queer locality for the interchange of lovers' sighs. I therefore was not surprised, last spring, to find my publishers somewhat shy of entering into terms for a new translation of "Snorra Gorvundstrul; or, The Barmaid of Strundschensvoe," and, in the true spirit of British enterprise, I resolved to carry my flag elsewhere.
On looking over the map of the world, with the view of selecting a novel field, I was astonished to find that almost every compartment was already occupied by one of our literary brethren. There is in all Europe scarce a diocese left unsung, and, like romance, civilisation is making rapid strides towards both the east and the west. In this dilemma I bethought me of Iceland as a virgin soil. Victor Hugo, it is true, had made some advances towards it in one of his earlier productions; but, if I recollect right, even that daring pioneer of letters did not penetrate beyond Norway, and laid the scene of his stirring narrative somewhere about the wilds of Drontheim. The bold dexterity with which he has transferred the Morgue from Paris to the most artic city of the world, has always commanded my most entire admiration. It is a stroke of machinery equal to any which you, my dear Smith, have ever introduced into a pantomime; and I question whether it was much surpassed by the transit of the Holy Chapel to Loretto. In like manner I had intended to transport a good deal of ready-made London ware to Iceland; or rather – if that will make my meaning clearer – to take my idea both of the scenery and characters from the Surrey Zoological Gardens, wherein last year I had the privilege of witnessing a superb eruption of Mount Hecla. On more mature reflection, however, I thought it might be as well to take an actual survey of the regions which I intend henceforward to occupy as my own especial domain; and – having, moreover, certain reasons which shall be nameless, for a temporary evacuation of the metropolis – I engaged a passage in a northern whaler, and have only just returned after an absence of half a year. Yes, Smith! Incredible as it may appear to you, I have actually been in Iceland, seen Hecla in a state of conflagration; and it was by that lurid light, while my mutton was boiling in the Geyser, that I first unfolded your manuscript, and read the introductory chapters of "Silas Spavinhitch; or, Rides around the Circus with Widdicomb and Co."
I trust, therefore, that after this explanation, you will discontinue the epithet of "beast," and the corresponding expletives which you have used rather liberally in your last two epistles. When you consider the matter calmly, I think you will admit that you have suffered no very material loss in consequence of the unavoidable delay; and, as to the public, I am quite sure that they will devour Silas more greedily about Christmas, than if he had made his appearance, all booted and spurred, in the very height of the dog-days. You will also have the opportunity, as your serial is not yet completed, of reflecting upon the justice of the hints which I now venture to offer for your future guidance – hints, derived not only from my observation of the works of others, but from some little personal experience in that kind of popular composition; and, should you agree with me in any of the views hereinafter expressed, you may perhaps be tempted to act upon them in the revision and completion of your extremely interesting work. First, then, let me say a few words regarding the purpose and the nature of that sort of feuilleton which we now denominate the serial.
Do not be alarmed, Smith. I am not going to conglomerate your faculties by any Aristotelian exposition. You are a man of by far too much practical sense to be humbugged by such outworn pedantry, and your own particular purpose in penning Silas is of course most distinctly apparent. You want to sack as many of the public shillings as possible. That is the great motive which lies at the foundation of all literary or general exertion, and the man who does not confess it broadly and openly is an ass. If your study of Fitzball has not been too exclusive, you may perhaps recollect the lines of Byron: —
"No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade,
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame;
Low may they sink to merited contempt,
And scorn remunerate the mean attempt!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!"
Now these, although they have passed current in the world for some thirty years, are in reality poor lines, and the sentiment they intend to inculcate is contemptible. Byron lived long enough to know the value of money, as his correspondence with the late Mr Murray most abundantly testifies – indeed, I question whether any author ever beat him at the art of chaffering. If it be a legitimate matter of reproach against an author that he writes for money, then heaven help the integrity of every profession and trade in this great and enlightened kingdom! What else, in the name of common sense, should he write for? Fame? Thank you! Fame may be all very well in its way, but it butters no parsnips; and, if I am to be famous, I would much rather case my renown in fine linen than in filthy dowlas. Let people say what they please, the best criterion of every article is its marketable value, and no man on the face of this earth will work without a reasonable wage.
Your first and great purpose, therefore, is to make money, and to make as much as you can. But then there is another kind of purpose, which, if I was sure you could comprehend me, I should call the intrinsic one, and which must be considered very seriously before you obtrude yourself upon the public. In other words, what is to be the general tendency of your work? "Fun," I think I hear you reply, "and all manner of sky-larking." Very good. But then, my dear friend, you must consider that there is a sort of method even in grimacing. There is a gentleman connected with your establishment, who is popularly reported to possess the inestimable talent of turning his head inside out. I never saw him perform that cephalic operation, but I have heard it highly spoken of by others who have enjoyed the privilege. But this it is obvious, though a very admirable and effective incident, could hardly be taken as the groundwork of a five-act play, or even a three-act melodrama; and, in like manner, your fun and sky-larking must have something of a positive tendency. I don't mean to insinuate that there is no story in Silas Spavinhitch. He is, if I recollect aright, the younger son of a nobleman, who falls in love – at Astley's, of course – with Signora Estrella di Canterini, the peerless Amazon of the ring. He forsakes his ancestral halls, abjures Parliament, and enlists in the cavalry of the Hippodrome. In that gallant and distinguished corps he rises to an unusual rank, utterly eclipses Herr Pferdenshuf, more commonly known by the title of the Suabian acrobat – wins the heart of the Signora by taming Centaur, the fierce Arabian stallion; and gains the notice and favour of royalty itself, by leaping the Mammoth horse over nineteen consecutive bars. Your manuscript ends at the point where Spavinhitch, having accidentally discovered that the beautiful Canterini is the daughter of Abd-el-Kader by a Sicilian princess, resolves to embark for Africa with the whole chivalry of the Surrey side, and, by driving the French from Algiers, to substantiate his claim upon the Emir for his daughter's hand. There is plenty incident here; but, to say the truth, I don't quite see my way out of it. Are you going to take history into your own hands, and write in the spirit of prophecy? The experiment is, to say the least of it, dangerous; and, had I been you, I should have preferred an earlier period for my tale, as there obviously could have been no difficulty in making Spavinhitch and his cavaliers take a leading part in the decisive charge at Waterloo.
Your serial, therefore, so far as I can discover, belongs to the military-romantic school, and is intended to command admiration by what we may call a series of scenic effects. I an not much surprised at this. Your experience has lain so much in the line of gorgeous spectacle, and, indeed, you have borne a part in so many of those magnificent tableaux in which blue fire, real cannon, charging squadrons, and the transparency of Britannia are predominant, that it was hardly to be expected that the current of your ideas would have flowed in a humbler channel. At the same time, you must forgive me for saying, that I think the line is a dangerous one. Putting tendency altogether aside, you cannot but recollect that a great many writers have already distinguished themselves by narratives of military adventure. Of these, by far the best and most spirited is Charles Lever. I don't know whether he ever was in the army, or bore the banner of the Enniskillens; but I say deliberately, that he has taken the shine out of all military writers from the days of Julius Cæsar downwards. There is a rollocking buoyancy about his battles which to me is perfectly irresistible. In one chapter you have the lads of the fighting Fifty-fifth bivouacking under the cork-trees of Spain, with no end of spatchcocks and sherry – telling numerous anecdotes of their early loves, none the worse because the gentleman is invariably disappointed in his pursuit of the well-jointured widow – or arranging for a speedy duel with that ogre of the army, the saturnine and heavy dragoon. In the next, you have them raging like lions in the very thick of the fight, pouring withering volleys into the shattered columns of the Frenchmen – engaged in single-handed combats with the most famous marshals of the empire, and not unfrequently leaving marks of their prowess upon the persons of Massena or Murat. Lever, in fact, sticks at nothing. His heroes indiscriminately hob-a-nob with Wellington, or perform somersets at leap-frog over the shoulders of the astounded Bonaparte; and, though somewhat given to miscellaneous flirtation, they all, in the twentieth number, are married to remarkably nice girls, with lots of money and accommodating papas, who die as soon as they are desired. It may be objected to this delightful writer – and a better never mixed a tumbler – that he is, if any thing, too helter-skelter in his narratives; that the officers of the British army do not, as an invariable rule, go into action in a state of delirium tremens; and that O'Shaughnessy, in particular, is rather too fond of furbishing up, for the entertainment of the mess, certain stories which have been current for the last fifty years in Tipperary. These, however, are very minor points of criticism, and such as need not interfere with our admiration of this light lancer of literature, who always writes like a true and a high-minded gentleman.
Now, my dear Smith, I must own that I have some fear of your success when opposed to such a competitor. You have not been in the army – that is, the regulars – and I should say that you were more conversant in theory and in practice with firing from platforms than firing in platoons. I have indeed seen you, in the character of Soult, lead several desperate charges across the stage, with consummate dramatic effect. Your single combat with Gomersal as Picton, was no doubt a masterpiece of its kind; for in the course of it you brought out as many sparks from the blades of your basket-hilts, as might have served in the aggregate for a very tolerable illumination. Still I question whether the style of dialogue you indulged in on that occasion, is quite the same as that which is current on a modern battle-field. "Ha! English slave! Yield, or thou diest!" is an apostrophe more appropriate to the middle ages than the present century; and although the patriotism of the following answer by your excellent opponent is undeniable, its propriety may be liable to censure. Crossing the stage at four tremendous strides, the glorious Gomersal replied, "Yield, saidst thou? Never! I tell thee, Frenchman, that whilst the broad banner of Britain floats over the regions on which the day-star never sets – while peace and plenty brood like guardian angels over the shores of my own dear native isle – whilst her sons are brave, and her daughters virtuous – whilst the British lion reposes on his shadow in perfect stillness – whilst with thunders from our native oak we quell the floods below – I tell thee, base satellite of a tyrant, that an Englishman never will surrender!" In the applause which followed this declaration, your remark, that several centuries beheld you from the top of a canvass pyramid, was partially lost upon the audience; but to it you went tooth and nail for at least a quarter of an hour; and I must confess that the manner in which you traversed the stage on your left knee, parrying all the while the strokes of your infuriated adversary, was highly creditable to your proficiency in the broadsword and gymnastic exercises.
But all this, Smith, will not enable you to write a military serial. I therefore hope, that on consideration you will abandon the Algiers expedition, and keep Silas in his native island, where, if you will follow my advice, you will find quite enough for him to do in the way of incident and occupation.
Now let us return to the question of tendency. Once upon a time, it was a trite rule by which all romance writers were guided, that in the denoûment of their plots, virtue was invariably rewarded, and vice as invariably punished. This gave a kind of moral tone to their writings, which was not without its effect upon our grandfathers and grandmothers, many of whom were inclined to consider all works of fiction as direct emanations from Beelzebub. The next generation became gradually less nice and scrupulous, demanded more spice in their pottage, and attached less importance to the prominence of an ethical precept. At last we became, strictly speaking, a good deal blackguardised in our taste. Ruffianism in the middle ages bears about it a stamp of feudality which goes far to disguise its lawlessness, and even to excuse its immorality. When a German knight of the empire sacks and burns some peaceful and unoffending village – when a Bohemian marauder of noble birth bears off some shrieking damsel from her paternal castle, having previously slitted the weasand of her brother, and then weds her in a subterranean chapel – or when a roaring red-bearded Highlander drives his dirk into a gauger, or chucks a score of Sassenachs, tied back to back, with a few hundredweight of greywacke at their heels, into the loch – we think less of the enormity of the deeds than of the disagreeable habits of the times. It does not follow that either German, Bohemian, or Celt, were otherwise bad company or disagreeable companions over a flagon of Rhenish, a roasted boar, or a gallon or so of usquebæ. But when you come to the Newgate Callendar for subjects, I must say that we are getting rather low. I do not know what your feelings upon the subject may be, but I, for one, would certainly hesitate before accepting an invitation to the town residence of Mr Fagin; neither should I feel at all comfortable if required to plant my legs beneath the mahogany in company with Messrs Dodger, Bates, and the rest of their vivacious associates. However fond I may be of female society, Miss Nancy is not quite the sort of person I should fancy to look in upon of an evening about tea-time; and as for Bill Sykes, that infernal dog of his would be quite enough to prevent any advances of intimacy between us. In fact, Smith, although you may think the confession a squeamish one, I am not in the habit of selecting my acquaintance from the inhabitants of St Giles, and on every possible occasion I should eschew accepting their hospitalities.
I have, therefore, little opportunity of judging whether the characters depicted by some of our later serialists, are exact copies from nature or the reverse. I have, however, heard several young ladies declare them to be extremely natural, though I confess to have been somewhat puzzled as to their means of accurate information. But I may be allowed en passant to remark, that it seems difficult to imagine what kind of pleasure can be derived from the description of a scene, which, if actually contemplated by the reader, would inspire him with loathing and disgust, or from conversations in which the brutal alternates with the positive obscene. The fetid den of the Jew, the stinking cellar of the thief, the squalid attic of the prostitute, are not haunts for honest men, and the less that we know of them the better. Such places no doubt exist – the more is the pity; but so do dunghills, and a hundred other filthy things, which the imagination shudders at whenever they are forced upon it, – for the man who willingly and deliberately dwells upon such subjects, is, notwithstanding all pretext, in heart and soul a nightman! Don't tell me about close painting after nature. Nature is not always to be painted as she really is. Would you hang up such paintings in your drawing-room? If not, why suffer them in print to lie upon your drawing-room tables? What are Eugene Sue and his English competitors, but coarser and more prurient Ostades?
Oh, but there is a moral in these things! No doubt of it. There is a moral in all sin and misery, as there is in all virtue and happiness. There is a moral every where, and the veriest bungler cannot fail to seize it. But is that a reason why the minds of our sons and daughters should be polluted by what is notoriously the nearest thing to contact with absolute vice – namely, vivid and graphic descriptions of it by writers of undenied ability? Did Life in London, or the exploits of Tom, Jerry, and Logic, make the youth of the metropolis more staid, or inspire them with a wholesome horror of dissipation? Did the memoirs of Casanova ever reclaim a rake – the autobiography of David Haggart convert an aspiring pickpocket – or the daring feats of Jack Sheppard arrest one candidate for the gallows? These are the major cases; but look at the minor ones. What are the favourite haunts of the heroes in even the most blameless of our serials? Pot-houses – cigariums – green-rooms of theatres – hells – spunging-houses – garrets – and the scullery! Nice and improving all this – isn't it, Smith? – for the young and rising generation! No need now for surreptitious works, entitled, "A Guide to the Larks of London," or so forth, which used formerly to issue from the virgin press of Holywell Street. Almost any serial will give hints enough to an acute boy, if he wishes to gain an initiative knowledge of subjects more especially beneath the cognisance of the police. They will at least guide him to the door with the red lamp burning over it, and only one plank betwixt its iniquity and the open street. And all this is for a moral! Heaven knows, Smith, I am no Puritan; but when I think upon the men who now call themselves the lights of the age, and look back upon the past, I am absolutely sick at heart, and could almost wish for a return of the days of Mrs Radcliffe and the Castle of Otranto.
Now, my dear fellow, as I know you to be a thoroughly good-hearted man – not overgiven to liquor, although your estimate of beer is a just one – a constant husband, and, moreover, the father of five or six promising olive-branches, I do not for a moment suppose that you are likely to inweave any such tendencies in your tale. You would consider it low to make a prominent character of a scavenger; and although some dozen idiots who call themselves philanthropists would brand you as an aristocrat for entertaining any such opinion, I think you are decidedly in the right. But there is another tendency towards which I suspect you are more likely to incline. You are a bit of a Radical, and, like all men of genius, you pique yourself on elbowing upwards. So far well. The great ladder, or rather staircase of ambition, is open to all of us, and it is fortunately broader than it is high. It is not the least too narrow to prevent any one from approaching it, and after you have taken the first step, there is nothing more than stamina and perseverance required. But then I do not see that it is necessary to be perpetually plucking at the coat-tails, or seizing hold of the ankles of those who are before. Such conduct is quite as indecorous, and indeed ungenerous, as it would be to kick back, and systematically to smite with your heel the unprotected foreheads of your followers. Nor would I be perpetually pitching brickbats upwards, in order to show my own independence; or raising a howl of injustice, because another fellow was considerably elevated above me. In the social system, Smith, as it stands at present, has always stood, and will continue to stand long after Astley's is forgotten, it is not necessary that every one should commence at the lowest round of the staircase. Their respective fathers and progenitors have secured an advantageous start for many. They have achieved, as the case may be, either rank or fame, or honour, or wealth, or credit – and these possessions they are surely entitled to leave as an inheritance of their offspring. If we want to rise higher in the social scale than they did, we must make exertions for ourselves; if we are indolent, we must be contented to remain where we are, though at imminent risk of descending. But you, I take it for granted, and indeed the most of us who owe little to ancestral enterprise and are in fact men of the masses, are struggling forward towards one or other of the good things specified above, and no doubt we shall in time attain them. In the meanwhile, however, is it just – nay, is it wise – that we should mar our own expectancies, and depreciate the value of the prizes which we covet, by abusing not only the persons but the position of those above us? How are they to blame? Are they any the worse that they stand, whether adventitiously or not, at a point which we are endeavouring to reach? Am I necessarily a miscreant because I am born rich, and you a martyr because you are poor? I do not quite follow the argument. If there is any one to blame, you will find their names written on the leaves of your own family-tree; but I don't see that on that account you have any right to execrate me or my ancestors.
I am the more anxious to caution you against putting any such rubbish into your pages, because I fear you have contracted some sort of intimacy with a knot of utilitarian ninnyhammers. The last time I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Ducrow's Head, there was a seedy-looking, ill-conditioned fellow seated on your right, who, between his frequent draughts of porter, (which you paid for,) did nothing but abuse the upper classes as tyrants, fools, and systematical grinders of the poor. I took the liberty, as you may remember, of slightly differing from some of his wholesale positions; whereupon your friend, regarding me with a cadaverous sneer, was pleased to mutter something about a sycophant, the tenor of which I did not precisely comprehend. Now, unless I am shrewdly mistaken, this was one of the earnest men – fellows who are continually bawling on people to go forward – who set themselves up for popular teachers, and maunder about "a oneness of purpose," "intellectual elevation," "aspirations after reality," and suchlike drivel, as though they were absolute Solons, not blockheads of the muddiest water. And I was sorry to observe that you rather seemed to agree with the rusty patriot in some of his most sweeping strictures, and evinced an inclination to adopt his theory of the coming Utopia, which, judging from the odour that pervaded his apostolic person and raiment, must bear a strong resemblance to a modern gin-shop. Now, Smith, this will not do. There may be inequalities in this world, and there may also be injustice; but it is a very great mistake to hold that one-half of the population of these islands is living in profligate ease upon the compulsory labour of the other. I am not going to write you a treatise upon political economy; but I ask you to reflect for a moment, and you will see how ludicrous is the charge. This style of thinking, or, what is worse, this style of writing, is positively the most mischievous production of the present day. Disguised under the specious aspect of philanthropy, it fosters self-conceit and discontent, robs honest industry of that satisfaction which is its best reward, and, instead of removing, absolutely creates invidious class-distinctions. And I will tell you from what this spirit arises – it is the working of the meanest envy.
There never was a time when talent, and genius, and ability, had so fair a field as now. The power of the press is developed to an extent which almost renders exaggeration impossible, and yet it is still upon the increase. A thousand minds are now at work, where a few were formerly employed. We have become a nation of readers and of writers. The rudiments of education, whatever may be said of its higher branches, are generally distributed throughout the masses – so much so, indeed, that without them no man can hope to ascend one step in the social scale. This is a great, though an imperfect gain, and, like all such, it has its evils.
Of these not the least is the astounding growth of quackery. It assails us every where, and on every side; and, with consummate impudence, it asserts its mission to teach. Look at the shoals of itinerant lecturers which at this moment are swarming through the land. No department of science is too deep, no political question too abstruse, for their capacity. They have their own theories on the subjects of philosophy and religion – of which theories I shall merely remark, that they differ in many essentials from the standards both of church and college – and these they communicate to their audience with the least possible regard to reservation. Had you ever the pleasure, Smith, of meeting one of these gentlemen amongst the amenities of private life? I have upon various occasions enjoyed that luxury; and, so far as I am capable of judging, the Pericles of the platform appeared to me a coarse-minded, illiterate, and ignorant Cockney, with the manners and effrontery of a bagman. Such are the class of men who affect to regenerate the people with the tongue, and who are listened to even with avidity, because impudence, like charity, can cover a multitude of defects; and thus they stand, like so many sons of Telamon, each secure behind the shelter of his brazen shield. As to the pen-regenerators, they are at least equally numerous. I do not speak of the established press, the respectability and talent of which is undeniable; but of the minor crew, who earn their bread partly by fostering discontent, and partly by pandering to the worst of human passions. The merest whelp, who can write a decent paragraph, considers himself, now-a-days, entitled to assume the airs of an Aristarchus, and will pronounce opinions, ex cathedrâ, upon every question, no matter of what importance, for he too is a teacher of the people!