Complete Works of J. M. Barrie

by Unknown

  Rule III. — It will not assist you to call the fowl names. This rule is most frequently broken by a gentleman carving for his own family circle. If there are other persons present, he generally manages to preserve a comparatively calm exterior, just as the felon on the scaffold does; but in privacy he breaks out in a storm of invective. If of a sarcastic turn of mind, he says that he has seen many a duck in his day, but never a duck like this. It is doublejointed. It is so tough that it might have come over to England with the Conqueror.

  Rule IV. — Don’t boast when it is all over. You must not call the attention of the company to the fact that you have succeeded. Don’t exclaim exultingly, “I knew I would manage it,” or “I never yet knew a duck that I couldn’t conquer somehow.” Don’t exclaim in a loud gratified voice how you did it, nor demonstrate your way of doing it by pointing to the debris with the carving knife. Don’t even be mock-modest, and tell everybody that carving is the simplest thing in the world. Don’t wipe your face repeatedly with your napkin, as if you were in a state of perspiration, nor talk excitedly, as if your success had gone to your head. Don’t ask your neighbors what they think of your carving. Your great object is to convince them that you look upon carving as the merest bagatelle, as something that you do every day and rather enjoy.

  WHAT IS SCOTT’S BEST NOVEL?

  Mr. GLADSTONE, I think, pronounces in favor of “Kenilworth.” It is a splendid pageant, and perhaps, of all the Waverleys, tells the most touching story, yet none of the characters is of the first order, and Varney makes it a melodrama. We are only told of Leicester’s accomplishments. Alasco is not great until he reappears in “Quentin Durward” as Galeotti. Mike Lambourne is good if we can forget other soldiers of fortune who are better (Dalgetty, of course, heads the list). Wayland is not one man, but several. Raleigh is merely a smart courtier. In this novel, indeed, Scott only rises to his highest for five minutes. Elizabeth all but accepting Leicester’s hand, and next moment all but sending him to the Tower, is as immortal as the defeat of the Armada. Compare with it the chapter in “The Abbot” in which Mary is forced to resign her crown. These are two of the sublime scenes in fiction, but we cannot estimate Scott without considering them together. That the man who can give us such a Queen Mary should also have sufficient sympathy with her rival to give us such a Queen Elizabeth, is astonishing. This is what it is to have a well-balanced mind as well as to be a genius. Perhaps Mary is the finest of all Scott’s historical characters, though few will call “The Abbot” his best novel. The first third of it is dull and about nothing in particular. Until he gets away from the atmosphere of “The Monastery” the author seems to have lost the knack. To me “The Abbot” opens with Boland’s arrival in Edinburgh, or, if a little before that, with the damsel he met on the way. “Woodstock” is by no means in the first class, yet it, like “Kenilworth,” has its great moment: where Charles consents to fight the duel. An author’s great moments are great moments to his readers also. Suddenly we know what is coming, and our blood runs quicker, and we are as delighted as if it was we who had done it. No other British novelist produces these effects more than once or twice. Thackeray does it, as has been pointed out often, in the scene where Becky admires Rawdon for knocking Lord Steyne down. He does it again in the last chapter of “Esmond.”

  Many will say that the greatest of the Waverleys is Scotch. Yet though five out of every six of Scott’s best characters are Scotchmen, it does not follow that any one of the Scotch novels is greater than any one of the other novels. “Waverley” itself only becomes a novel by losing its way, so to speak. It starts off with the intention of being little more than a record of travel. The hero, too, is even more of a prig than usual. “Guy Mannering” and “The Antiquary” are probably the two Scotch novels that would receive the largest number of votes from the public. Of these I think the second much the better, though it has less of the glamour of romance. Dominie Sampson is a caricature with a catchword, as they say on the stage. He has wandered into Scott out of Dickens. Meg Merrilies was a favorite type of character with the author, but she is, to be blunt, something of a bore. She belongs to the footlights. But think of the Edinburgh scenes! It was impossible for Scott to write about Edinburgh without at once becoming inspired. The name was enough. It was charged with romance. It wrought on his spirit like wine. Down he sat, and turned off reams of delight. Nevertheless, though the Edinburgh of ““Waverley,”

  “The Abbot,” and “The Heart of Midlothian” is for reading about at least once a year, it is ill-treating one’s self not to turn to the Edinburgh of “Guy Mannering” every six months. But I am not giving up “The Antiquary.” It is the best of the Scotch Waverleys. Monkbarns and Edie, and the sister of Monkbams, and a certain fishwife, and the postoffice of Fairport — where shall we find the like in one book? Lovel’s history and Dousterswivel’s schemes are of no account, but no effort is required to forget them. Think of Steenie’s death, and it is done.

  Nearly every year Scottish theatre-managers “put on” a semi-operatic adaptation of “Rob Roy,” and the piece never fails to attract. This is so much the most popular of Scott’s novels when deformed into acts, that there may be a public which considers “Bob Roy” his masterpiece. Certainly others of his stories would adapt as well, or as ill. But probably it is Rob’s personality that takes the hearts of theatregoers. The book is hardly among the author’s six best, though it is better than “The Bride of Lammermoor,” which is second favorite with the playwrights. There are two figures in “Old Mortality” quite good enough to be in “The Antiquary,” Mause Headrigg and Cuddie. I would not complain if told that Mause was one mark better than even Edie Ochiltree. But, like “The Heart of Midlothian,” the story suffers by its long-drawn-out ending. “The Heart of Midlothian” has one claim for first place. It contains Scott’s only heroine — if by heroine we mean the young woman who is loved by the nominal hero. “The Fair Maid of Perth,” again, contains Scott’s only interesting hero. Jeanie Deans and Hal o’ the Wynd are of lower social rank than any others of Scott’s heroines and heroes. They are almost the only ones who do not speak of their ancestors. As a recompense, they are human. To Scott it is usually enough if his hero is a pretty fighter, of a daring temper, or a melancholy cast of countenance. He seems to fear getting upon intimate terms with these heroes. Or perhaps he had a notion that high-spirited young gentlemen are much, alike. His heroines are beautiful, and what more can a hero want? But Jeanie and Hal are treated with humor, and we know them as a consequence as well as if they were only people whom the hero and heroine had met on the road. Obviously, then, not even Scott’s greatest novel is perfect. Each of the dozen chief ones has its outstanding merits, and fails where some other is strongest. If there is an exception it is “The Legend of Montrose.” It is only a sketch, perhaps, but what would one like to see out of it?

  “Ivanhoe” is best. It contains characters nearly as good as Monkbarns and the rest, the story is nearly as interesting as “Kenilworth.” Together these are the most brilliant historical novels ever written. Richard is nearly as good as Queen Mary. But Ivanhoe stands apart. On the whole it is the most delightful thing in English fiction. Who would dare to draw a tournament after that one of Scott’s? He has stopped the attempt as thoroughly as by act of Parliament. And even as tournaments are his, so are Robin Hood and his merry men. As if the Saxons and Isaac of York and Richard and the siege of Torquilstone were not enough, he has flung in Rebecca and the Templar, to show that he is not “subjective” merely because to be “objective” is better. Scott’s greatest day was when he decided to finish “Waverley.” Next comes the day when he sat down to write “Ivanhoe.”

  MY FAVORITE AUTHORESS.

  JUST out of the four-mile radius — to give the cabby his chance — is a sleepy lane, lent by the country to the town, and we have only to open a little gate off it to find ourselves in an old-fashioned garden. The house, with its many quaint windows, across which evergreens spread their open finger
s as a child makes believe to shroud his eyes, has a literary look — at least, so it seems to me, but perhaps this is because I know the authoress who is at this moment advancing down the walk to meet me.

  She has hastily laid aside her hoop, and crosses the grass with the dignity that becomes a woman of letters. Her hair falls over her forehead in an attractive way, and she is just the proper height for an authoress. The face, so open that one can watch the process of thinking out a new novel in it, from start to finish, is at times a little careworn* as if it found the world weighty, but at present there is a gracious smile on it, and she greets me heartily with one hand, while the other strays to her neck, to make sure that her lace collar is lying nicely. It would be idle to pretend that she is much more than eight years old, “but then Maurice is only six.”

  Like most literary people who put their friends into books, she is very modest, and it never seems to strike her that I would come all this way to see her.

  “Mamma is out,” she says simply, “but she will be back soon; and papa is at a meeting, but he will be back soon, too.”

  I know what meeting her papa is at. He is crazed with admiration for Stanley, and can speak of nothing but the Emin Relief Expedition. While he is away proposing that Stanley should get the freedom of Hampstead, now is my opportunity to interview the authoress.

  “Won’t you come into the house?”

  I accompany the authoress to the house, while we chat pleasantly on literary topics.

  “Oh, there is Maurice, silly boy!”

  Maurice is too busy shooting arrows into the next garden to pay much attention to me; and the authoress smiles at him good-naturedly.

  “I hope you’ll stay to dinner,” he says to me, “because then we’ll have two kinds of pudding.” The authoress and I give each other a look which means that children will be children, and then we go indoors.

  “Are you not going to play any more?” cries Maurice to the authoress.

  She blushes a little.

  “I was playing with him,” she explains, “to keep him out of mischief till mamma comes back.”

  In the drawingroom we talk for a time of ordinary matters — of the allowances one must make for a child like Maurice, for instance — and gradually we drift to the subject of literature. I know literary people sufficiently well to be aware that they will talk freely — almost too freely — of their work if approached in the proper spirit.

  “Are you busy just now?” I ask, with assumed carelessness, and as if I had not been preparing the question since I heard papa was out.

  She looks at me, suspiciously, as authors usually do when asked such a question. They are not certain whether you are really sympathetic. However, she reads honesty in my eyes.

  “Oh, well, I am doing a little thing.” (They always say this.)

  “A story or an article?”

  “A story.”

  “I hope it will be good.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like it much.” (This is another thing they say, and then they wait for you to express incredulity.)

  “I have no doubt it will be a fine thing. Have you given it a name?”

  “Oh, yes; I always write the name. Sometimes I don’t write any more.”

  As she was in a confidential mood this seemed an excellent chance for getting her views on some of the vexed literary questions of the day. For instance, everybody seems to be more interested in hearing during what hours of the day an author writes than in reading his book.

  “Do you work best in the early part of the day or at night?”

  “I write my stories just before tea.”

  “That surprises me. Most writers, I have been told, get through a good deal of work in the morning.”

  “Oh, but I go to school as soon as breakfast is over.”

  “And you don’t write at night?”

  “No; nurse always turns the gas down.”

  I had read somewhere that among the novelist’s greatest difficulties is that of sustaining his own interest in a novel day by day until it is finished.

  “Until your new work is completed do you fling your whole heart and soul into it? I mean, do you work straight on at it, so to speak, until you have finished the last chapter?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  The novelists were lately reproved in a review for working too quickly, and it was said that one wrote a whole novel in two months.

  “How long does it take you to write a novel?”

  “Do you mean a long novel?”

  “Yes.”

  “It takes me nearly an hour.”

  “For a really long novel?”

  “Yes, in three volumes. I write in three exercise-books — a volume in each.”

  “You write very quickly.”

  “Of course, a volume doesn’t fill a whole exercise-book. They are penny exercise-books. I have a great many three-volume stories in the three exercise-books.”

  “But are they really three-volume novels?”

  “Yes, for they are in chapters, and one of them has twenty chapters.” — .

  “And how many chapters are there in a page?”

  “Not very many.”

  Some authors admit that they take their characters from real life, while others declare that they draw entirely upon their imagination.

  “Do you put real people into your novels?”

  “Yes, Maurice and other people, but generally Maurice.” *

  “I have heard that some people are angry with authors for putting them into books.”

  “Sometimes Maurice is angry, but I can’t always make him an engine-driver, can I?”

  “No. I think it is quite unreasonable on his part to expect it. I suppose he likes to be made an engine-driver’?”

  “He is to be an engine-driver when he grows up, he says. He is a silly boy, but I love him.”

  “What else do you make him in your books?”

  “To-day I made him like Stanley, because I think that is what papa would like him to be; and yesterday he was papa, and I was his coachman.”

  “He would like that?”

  “No, he wanted me to be papa and him the coachman. Sometimes I make him a pirate, and he likes that, and once I made him a girl.”

  “He would be proud?”

  “That was the day he hit me. He is awfully angry if I make him a girl, silly boy. Of course he doesn’t understand.”

  “Obviously not. But did you not punish him for being so cruel as to hit you?”

  “Tes, I turned him into a cat, but he said he would rather be a cat than a girl. You see he’s not much more than a baby — though I was writing books at his age.”

  “Were you ever charged with plagiarism? I mean with copying your books out of other people’s books.”

  “Yes, often.”

  “I suppose that is the fate of all authors. I am told that literary people write best in an old coat—”

  “Oh, I like to be nicely dressed when I am writing. Here is papa, and I do believe he has another portrait of Stanley in his hand. Mamma will be so annoyed.”

  ECHOES OF THE WAR

  CONTENTS

  THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS

  THE NEW WORD

  BARBARA’S WEDDING

  A WELL-REMEMBERED VOICE

  THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS

  Three nice old ladies and a criminal, who is even nicer, are discussing the war over a cup of tea. The criminal, who is the hostess, calls it a dish of tea, which shows that she comes from Caledonia; but that is not her crime.

  They are all London charwomen, but three of them, including the hostess, are what are called professionally ‘charwomen and’ or simply ‘ands.’ An ‘and’ is also a caretaker when required; her name is entered as such in ink in a registry book, financial transactions take place across a counter between her and the registrar, and altogether she is of a very different social status from one who, like Mrs. Haggerty, is a charwoman but nothing else. Mrs. Haggerty, though present, is not
at the party by invitation; having seen Mrs. Dowey buying the winkles, she followed her downstairs, so has shuffled into the play and sat down in it against our wish. We would remove her by force, or at least print her name in small letters, were it not that she takes offence very readily and says that nobody respects her. So, as you have slipped in, you sit there, Mrs. Haggerty; but keep quiet.

  There is nothing doing at present in the caretaking way for Mrs. Dowey, our hostess; but this does not damp her, caretaking being only to such as she an extra financially and a halo socially. If she had the honour of being served with an incometax paper she would probably fill in one of the nasty little compartments with the words, ‘Trade — charring; Profession (if any) — caretaking.’ This home of hers (from which, to look after your house, she makes occasionally temporary departures in great style, escorting a barrow) is in one of those what-care-I streets that you discover only when you have lost your way; on discovering them, your duty is to report them to the authorities, who immediately add them to the map of London. That is why we are now reporting Friday Street. We shall call it, in the rough sketch drawn for tomorrow’s press, ‘Street in which the criminal resided’; and you will find Mrs. Dowey’s home therein marked with a X.

  Her abode really consists of one room, but she maintains that there are two; so, rather than argue, let us say that there are two. The other one has no window, and she could not swish her old skirts in it without knocking something over; its grandest display is of tin pans and crockery on top of a dresser which has a lid to it; you have but to whip off the utensils and raise the lid, and, behold, a bath with hot and cold. Mrs. Dowey is very proud of this possession, and when she shows it off, as she does perhaps too frequently, she first signs to you with closed fist (funny old thing that she is) to approach softly. She then tiptoes to the dresser and pops off the lid, as if to take the bath unawares. Then she sucks her lips, and is modest if you have the grace to do the exclamations.