heard. There are two kinds of confidence which a reader may have
in his author,--which two kinds the reader who wishes to use his
reading well should carefully discriminate. There is a confidence
in facts and a confidence in vision. The one man tells you accurately
what has been. The other suggests to you what may, or perhaps what
must have been, or what ought to have been. The former require simple
faith. The latter calls upon you to judge for yourself, and form
your own conclusions. The former does not intend to be prescient,
nor the latter accurate. Research is the weapon used by the former;
observation by the latter. Either may be false,--wilfully false; as
also may either be steadfastly true. As to that, the reader must
judge for himself. But the man who writes currente calamo, who
works with a rapidity which will not admit of accuracy, may be as
true, and in one sense as trustworthy, as he who bases every word
upon a rock of facts. I have written very much as I have, travelled
about; and though I have been very inaccurate, I have always
written the exact truth as I saw it ;--and I have, I think, drawn
my pictures correctly.
The view I took of the relative position in the West Indies
of black men and white men was the view of the Times newspaper at
that period; and there appeared three articles in that journal, one
closely after another, which made the fortune of the book. Had it
been very bad, I suppose its fortune could not have been made for
it even by the Times newspaper. I afterwards became acquainted with
the writer of those articles, the contributor himself informing me
that he had written them. I told him that he had done me a greater
service than can often be done by one man to another, but that I was
under no obligation to him. I do not think that he saw the matter
quite in the same light.
I am aware that by that criticism I was much raised in my position
as an author. Whether such lifting up by such means is good or bad
for literature is a question which I hope to discuss in a future
chapter. But the result was immediate to me, for I at once went to
Chapman & Hall and successfully demanded (pounds)600 for my next novel.
CHAPTER VIII THE "CORNHILL MAGAZINE" AND "FRAMLEY PARSONAGE"
Soon after my return from the West Indies I was enabled to change
my district in Ireland for one in England. For some time past my
official work had been of a special nature, taking me out of my
own district; but through all that, Dublin had been my home, and
there my wife and children had lived. I had often sighed to return
to England,--with a silly longing. My life in England for twenty-six
years from the time of my birth to the day on which I left it, had
been wretched. I had been poor, friendless, and joyless. In Ireland
it had constantly been happy. I had achieved the respect of all
with whom I was concerned, I had made for myself a comfortable
home, and I had enjoyed many pleasures. Hunting itself was a great
delight to me; and now, as I contemplated a move to England, and a
house in the neighbourhood of London, I felt that hunting must be
abandoned. [Footnote: It was not abandoned till sixteen more years
had passed away.] Nevertheless I thought that a man who could
write books ought not to live in Ireland,--ought to live within
the reach of the publishers, the clubs, and the dinner-parties of
the metropolis. So I made my request at headquarters, and with some
little difficulty got myself appointed to the Eastern District of
England,--which comprised Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire,
Huntingdonshire, and the greater part of Hertfordshire.
At this time I did not stand very well with the dominant interest
at the General Post Office. My old friend Colonel Maberly had
been, some time since, squeezed into, and his place was filled by
Mr. Rowland Hill, the originator of the penny post. With him I never
had any sympathy, nor he with me. In figures and facts he was most
accurate, but I never came across any one who so little understood
the ways of men,--unless it was his brother Frederic. To the two
brothers the servants of the Post Office,--men numerous enough to
have formed a large army in old days,--were so many machines who
could be counted on for their exact work without deviation, as
wheels may be counted on, which are kept going always at the same
pace and always by the same power. Rowland Hill was an industrious
public servant, anxious for the good of his country; but he was
a hard taskmaster, and one who would, I think, have put the great
department with which he was concerned altogether out of gear by
his hardness, had he not been at last controlled. He was the Chief
Secretary, my brother-in-law--who afterwards succeeded him--came
next to him, and Mr. Hill's brother was the Junior Secretary. In
the natural course of things, I had not, from my position, anything
to do with the management of affairs;--but from time to time I found
myself more or less mixed up in it. I was known to be a thoroughly
efficient public servant; I am sure I may say so much of myself
without fear of contradiction from any one who has known the Post
Office;--I was very fond of the department, and when matters came
to be considered, I generally had an opinion of my own. I have
no doubt that I often made myself very disagreeable. I know that I
sometimes tried to do so. But I could hold my own because I knew
my business and was useful. I had given official offence by the
publication of The Three Clerks. I afterwards gave greater offence
by a lecture on The Civil Service which I delivered in one of the
large rooms at the General Post Office to the clerks there. On this
occasion, the Postmaster-General, with whom personally I enjoyed
friendly terms, sent for me and told me that Mr. Hill had told him
that I ought to be dismissed. When I asked his lordship whether
he was prepared to dismiss me, he only laughed. The threat was
no threat to me, as I knew myself to be too good to be treated in
that fashion. The lecture had been permitted, and I had disobeyed
no order. In the lecture which I delivered, there was nothing
to bring me to shame,--but it advocated the doctrine that a civil
servant is only a servant as far as his contract goes, and that he
is beyond that entitled to be as free a man in politics, as free in
his general pursuits, and as free in opinion, as those who are in
open professions and open trades. All this is very nearly admitted
now, but it certainly was not admitted then. At that time no one
in the Post Office could even vote for a Member of Parliament.
Through my whole official life I did my best to improve the style
of official writing. I have written, I should think, some thousands
of reports,--many of them necessarily very long; some of them
dealing with subjects so absurd as to allow a touch of burlesque;
some few in which a spark of indignation or a slight glow of pathos
might find an entrance. I have taken infinite pains with these
reports, habituating myself always to write them in the form in
which they should be sent,--without a copy. It is by writing thus
that a man can throw on to his paper the exact feeling with which
his mind is impressed at the moment. A rough copy, or that which