live.
Many people would say that we were two fools to encounter such
poverty together. I can only reply that since that day I have never
been without money in my pocket, and that I soon acquired the means
of paying what I owed. Nevertheless, more than twelve years had to
pass over our heads before I received any payment for any literary
work which afforded an appreciable increase to our income.
Immediately after our marriage, I left the west of Ireland and the
hunting surveyor, and joined another in the south. It was a better
district, and I was enabled to live at Clonmel, a town of some
importance, instead of at Banagher, which is little more than a
village. I had not felt myself to be comfortable in my old residence
as a married man. On my arrival there as a bachelor I had been
received most kindly, but when I brought my English wife I fancied
that there was a feeling that I had behaved badly to Ireland
generally. When a young man has been received hospitably in an
Irish circle, I will not say that it is expected of him that he
should marry some young lady in that society;--but it certainly is
expected of him that he shall not marry any young lady out of it.
I had given offence, and I was made to feel it.
There has taken place a great change in Ireland since the days in
which I lived at Banagher, and a change so much for the better,
that I have sometimes wondered at the obduracy with which people
have spoken of the permanent ill condition of the country. Wages
are now nearly double what they were then. The Post Office, at any
rate, is paying almost double for its rural labour,--9s. a week
when it used to pay 5s., and 12s. a week when it used to pay 7s.
Banks have sprung up in almost every village. Rents are paid with
more than English punctuality. And the religious enmity between
the classes, though it is not yet dead, is dying out. Soon after I
reached Banagher in 1841, I dined one evening with a Roman Catholic.
I was informed next day by a Protestant gentleman who had been
very hospitable to me that I must choose my party. I could not sit
both at Protestant and Catholic tables. Such a caution would now
be impossible in any part of Ireland. Home-rule, no doubt, is a
nuisance,--and especially a nuisance because the professors of the
doctrine do not at all believe it themselves. There are probably
no other twenty men in England or Ireland who would be so utterly
dumfounded and prostrated were Home-rule to have its way as the
twenty Irish members who profess to support it in the House of
Commons. But it is not to be expected that nuisances such as these
should be abolished at a blow. Home-rule is, at any rate, better
and more easily managed than the rebellion at the close of the
last century; it is better than the treachery of the Union; less
troublesome than O'Connell's monster meetings; less dangerous than
Smith O'Brien and the battle of the cabbage-garden at Ballingary,
and very much less bloody than Fenianism. The descent from O'Connell
to Mr. Butt has been the natural declension of a political disease,
which we had no right to hope would be cured by any one remedy.
When I had been married a year my first novel was finished. In
July, 1845, I took it with me to the north of England, and intrusted
the MS. to my mother to do with it the best she could among the
publishers in London. No one had read it but my wife; nor, as far
as I am aware, has any other friend of mine ever read a word of
my writing before it was printed. She, I think, has so read almost
everything, to my very great advantage in matters of taste. I am sure
I have never asked a friend to read a line; nor have I ever read a
word of my own writing aloud,--even to her. With one exception,--which
shall be mentioned as I come to it,--I have never consulted a friend
as to a plot, or spoken to any one of the work I have been doing.
My first manuscript I gave up to my mother, agreeing with her that
it would be as well that she should not look at it before she gave
it to a publisher. I knew that she did not give me credit for the
sort of cleverness necessary for such work. I could see in the
faces and hear in the voices of those of my friends who were around
me at the house in Cumberland,--my mother, my sister, my brother-in-law,
and, I think, my brother,--that they had not expected me to come
out as one of the family authors. There were three or four in the
field before me, and it seemed to be almost absurd that another
should wish to add himself to the number. My father had written
much,--those long ecclesiastical descriptions,--quite unsuccessfully.
My mother had become one of the popular authors of the day. My
brother had commenced, and had been fairly well paid for his work.
My sister, Mrs. Tilley, had also written a novel, which was at the
time in manuscript--which was published afterwards without her name,
and was called Chollerton. I could perceive that this attempt of
mine was felt to be an unfortunate aggravation of the disease.
My mother, however, did the best she could for me, and soon reported
that Mr. Newby, of Mortimer Street, was to publish the book. It
was to be printed at his expense, and he was to give me half the
profits. Half the profits! Many a young author expects much from such
an undertaking. I can, with truth, declare that I expected nothing.
And I got nothing. Nor did I expect fame, or even acknowledgment.
I was sure that the book would fail, and it did fail most absolutely.
I never heard of a person reading it in those days. If there was
any notice taken of it by any critic of the day, I did not see it.
I never asked any questions about it, or wrote a single letter on
the subject to the publisher. I have Mr. Newby's agreement with me,
in duplicate, and one or two preliminary notes; but beyond that I
did not have a word from Mr. Newby. I am sure that he did not wrong
me in that he paid me nothing. It is probable that he did not sell
fifty copies of the work;--but of what he did sell he gave me no
account.
I do not remember that I felt in any way disappointed or hurt. I
am quite sure that no word of complaint passed my lips. I think I
may say that after the publication I never said a word about the
book, even to my wife. The fact that I had written and published
it, and that I was writing another, did not in the least interfere
with my life, or with my determination to make the best I could of
the Post Office. In Ireland, I think that no one knew that I had
written a novel. But I went on writing. The Macdermots was published
in 1847, and The Kellys and the O'Kellys followed in 1848. I
changed my publisher, but did not change my fortune. This second
Irish story was sent into the world by Mr. Colburn, who had
long been my mother's publisher, who reigned in Great Marlborough
Street, and I believe created the business which is now carried on
by Messrs. Hurst & Blackett. He had previously been in partnership
with Mr. Bentley in New Burlington Street. I made the same agreement
as before as to half profits, and with precisely the same results.
The book was not only not read, but was never heard of,--at any
rate, in Ireland. And yet it is a good Irish story, much inferior
to The Macdermots as to plot, but superior in the mode of telling.