My feasts, my frolics, are already gone,
And now, it seems, my verses must go too."
This Is Conington's translation, but it seems to me to be a little
flat.
"Years as they roll cut all our pleasures short;
Our pleasant mirth, our loves, our wine, our sport,
And then they stretch their power, and crush at last
Even the power of singing of the past."
I think that I may say with truth that I rode hard to my end.
"Vixi puellis nuper idoneus,
Et militavi non sine gloria;
Nunc arma defunctumque bello
Barbiton hic paries habebit."
"I've lived about the covert side,
I've ridden straight, and ridden fast;
Now breeches, boots, and scarlet pride
Are but mementoes of the past."
CHAPTER XX "THE WAY WE LIVE NOW" AND "THE PRIME MINISTER"--CONCLUSION
In what I have said at the end of the last chapter about my hunting,
I have been carried a little in advance of the date at which I
had arrived. We returned from Australia in the winter of 1872, and
early in 1873 I took a house in Montagu Square,--in which I hope
to live and hope to die. Our first work in settling there was to
place upon new shelves the books which I had collected round myself
at Waltham. And this work, which was in itself great, entailed
also the labour of a new catalogue. As all who use libraries know,
a catalogue is nothing unless it show the spot on which every
book is to be found,--information which every volume also ought to
give as to itself. Only those who have done it know how great is
the labour of moving and arranging a few thousand volumes. At the
present moment I own about 5000 volumes, and they are dearer to
me even than the horses which are going, or than the wine in the
cellar, which is very apt to go, and upon which I also pride myself.
When this was done, and the new furniture had got into its place,
and my little book-room was settled sufficiently for work, I
began a novel, to the writing of which I was instigated by what I
conceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age. Whether the
world does or does not become more wicked as years go on, is a
question which probably has disturbed the minds of thinkers since
the world began to think. That men have become less cruel, less
violent, less selfish, less brutal, there can be no doubt;--but
have they become less honest? If so, can a world, retrograding from
day to day in honesty, be considered to be in a state of progress?
We know the opinion on this subject of our philosopher Mr. Carlyle.
If he be right, we are all going straight away to darkness and the
dogs. But then we do not put very much faith in Mr. Carlyle,--nor
in Mr. Ruskin and his other followers. The loudness and extravagance
of their lamentations, the wailing and gnashing of teeth which comes
from them, over a world which is supposed to have gone altogether
shoddy-wards, are so contrary to the convictions of men who cannot
but see how comfort has been increased, how health has been improved,
and education extended,--that the general effect of their teaching
is the opposite of what they have intended. It is regarded simply
as Carlylism to say that the English-speaking world is growing
worse from day to day. And it is Carlylism to opine that the general
grand result of increased intelligence is a tendency to deterioration.
Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent
in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at
the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be
reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that
dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.
If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all
its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory
in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into
Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful,
and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel.
Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down
in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured
to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the
iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an
onslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who want
to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain
single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to
cheat the public into buying their volumes.
The book has the fault which is to be attributed to almost all
satires, whether in prose or verse. The accusations are exaggerated.
The vices are coloured, so as to make effect rather than to represent
truth. Who, when the lash of objurgation is in his hands, can
so moderate his arm as never to strike harder than justice would
require? The spirit which produces the satire is honest enough, but
the very desire which moves the satirist to do his work energetically
makes him dishonest. In other respects The Way We Live Now
was, as a satire, powerful and good. The character of Melmotte is
well maintained. The Beargarden is amusing,--and not untrue. The
Longestaffe girls and their friend, Lady Monogram, are amusing,--but
exaggerated. Dolly Longestaffe, is, I think, very good. And Lady
Carbury's literary efforts are, I am sorry to say, such as are too
frequently made. But here again the young lady with her two lovers
is weak and vapid. I almost doubt whether it be not impossible to
have two absolutely distinct parts in a novel, and to imbue them
both with interest. If they be distinct, the one will seem to be
no more than padding to the other. And so it was in The Way We Live
Now. The interest of the story lies among the wicked and foolish
people,--with Melmotte and his daughter, with Dolly and his family,
with the American woman, Mrs. Hurtle, and with John Crumb and the
girl of his heart. But Roger Carbury, Paul Montague, and Henrietta
Carbury are uninteresting. Upon the whole, I by no means look upon
the book as one of my failures; nor was it taken as a failure by
the public or the press.
While I was writing The Way We Live Now, I was called upon by the
proprietors of the Graphic for a Christmas story. I feel, with regard
to literature, somewhat as I suppose an upholsterer and undertaker
feels when he is called upon to supply a funeral. He has to supply
it, however distasteful it may be. It is his business, and he will
starve if he neglects it. So have I felt that, when anything in the
shape of a novel was required, I was bound to produce it. Nothing
can be more distasteful to me than to have to give a relish of
Christmas to what I write. I feel the humbug implied by the nature
of the order. A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be
the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire
for Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities,--or,
better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with Dickens
when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that the
things written annually--all of which have been fixed to Christmas
like children's toys to a Christmas tree--have had no real savour
of Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas!