I was doing it. I have indeed for many years almost abandoned the
effort to think, trusting myself, with the narrowest thread of
a plot, to work the matter out when the pen is in my hand. But my
mind is constantly employing itself on the work I have done. Had
I left either Framley Parsonage or Castle Richmond half-finished
fifteen years ago, I think I could complete the tales now with very
little trouble. I have not looked at Castle Richmond since it was
published; and poor as the work is, I remember all the incidents.
Castle Richmond certainly was not a success,--though the plot is a
fairly good plot, and is much more of a plot than I have generally
been able to find. The scene is laid in Ireland, during the famine;
and I am well aware now that English readers no longer like Irish
stories. I cannot understand why it should be so, as the Irish
character is peculiarly well fitted for romance. But Irish subjects
generally have become distasteful. This novel, however, is of
itself a weak production. The characters do not excite sympathy.
The heroine has two lovers, one of whom is a scamp and the other
a prig. As regards the scamp, the girl's mother is her own rival.
Rivalry of the same nature has been admirably depicted by Thackeray
in his Esmond; but there the mother's love seems to be justified
by the girl's indifference. In Castle Richmond the mother strives
to rob her daughter of the man's love. The girl herself has no
character; and the mother, who is strong enough, is almost revolting.
The dialogue is often lively, and some of the incidents are well
told; but the story as a whole was a failure. I cannot remember,
however, that it was roughly handled by the critics when it came
out; and I much doubt whether anything so hard was said of it then
as that which I have said here.
I was now settled at Waltham Cross, in a house in which I could
entertain a few friends modestly, where we grew our cabbages
and strawberries, made our own butter, and killed our own pigs. I
occupied it for twelve years, and they were years to me of great
prosperity. In 1861 I became a member of the Garrick Club, with
which institution I have since been much identified. I had belonged
to it about two years, when, on Thackeray's death, I was invited
to fill his place on the Committee, and I have been one of that
august body ever since. Having up to that time lived very little
among men, having known hitherto nothing of clubs, having even as
a boy been banished from social gatherings, I enjoyed infinitely at
first the gaiety of the Garrick. It was a festival to me to dine
there--which I did indeed but seldom; and a great delight to play
a rubber in the little room up-stairs of an afternoon. I am speaking
now of the old club in King Street. This playing of whist before
dinner has since that become a habit with me, so that unless there
be something else special to do--unless there be hunting, or I am
wanted to ride in the park by the young tyrant of my household--it
is "my custom always in the afternoon." I have sometimes felt sore
with myself for this persistency, feeling that I was making myself
a slave to an amusement which has not after all very much to
recommend it. I have often thought that I would break myself away
from it, and "swear off," as Rip Van Winkle says. But my swearing
off has been like that of Rip Van Winkle. And now, as I think of
it coolly, I do not know but that I have been right to cling to it.
As a man grows old he wants amusement, more even than when he is
young; and then it becomes so difficult to find amusement. Reading
should, no doubt, be the delight of men's leisure hours. Had I to
choose between books and cards, I should no doubt take the books.
But I find that I can seldom read with pleasure for above an hour
and a half at a time, or more than three hours a day. As I write
this I am aware that hunting must soon be abandoned. After sixty
it is given but to few men to ride straight across country, and I
cannot bring myself to adopt any other mode of riding. I think that
without cards I should now be much at a loss. When I began to play
at the Garrick, I did so simply because I liked the society of the
men who played.
I think that I became popular among those with whom I associated.
I have long been aware of a certain weakness in my own character,
which I may call a craving for love. I have ever had a wish to be
liked by those around me,--a wish that during the first half of
my life was never gratified. In my school-days no small part of my
misery came from the envy with which I regarded the popularity of
popular boys. They seemed to me to live in a social paradise, while
the desolation of my pandemonium was complete. And afterwards,
when I was in London as a young man, I had but few friends. Among
the clerks in the Post Office I held my own fairly for the first
two or three years; but even then I regarded myself as something of
a pariah. My Irish life had been much better. I had had my wife and
children, and had been sustained by a feeling of general respect.
But even in Ireland I had in truth lived but little in society.
Our means had been sufficient for our wants, but insufficient for
entertaining others. It was not till we had settled ourselves at
Waltham that I really began to live much with others. The Garrick
Club was the first assemblage of men at which I felt myself to be
popular.
I soon became a member of other clubs. There was the Arts Club in
Hanover Square, of which I saw the opening, but from which, after
three or four years, I withdrew my name, having found that during
these three or four years I had not once entered the building.
Then I was one of the originators of the Civil Service Club--not
from judgment, but instigated to do so by others. That also I left
for the same reason. In 1864 I received the honour of being elected
by the Committee at the Athenaeum. For this I was indebted to the
kindness of Lord Stanhope; and I never was more surprised than when
I was informed of the fact. About the same time I became a member
of the Cosmopolitan, a little club that meets twice a week in
Charles Street, Berkeley Square, and supplies to all its members,
and its members' friends, tea and brandy and water without charge!
The gatherings there I used to think very delightful. One met
Jacob Omnium, Monckton Mimes, Tom Hughes, William Stirling, Henry
Reeve, Arthur Russell, Tom Taylor, and such like; and generally
a strong political element, thoroughly well mixed, gave a certain
spirit to the place. Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, William Forster,
Lord Enfield, Lord Kimberley, George Bentinck, Vernon Harcourt,
Bromley Davenport, Knatchbull Huguessen, with many others, used to
whisper the secrets of Parliament with free tongues. Afterwards I
became a member of the Turf, which I found to be serviceable--or
the reverse--only for the playing of whist at high points.
In August, 1861, I wrote another novel for the Cornhill Magazine.
It was a short story, about one volume in length, and was called
The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. In this I attempted a
style for which I certainly was not qualified, and to which I never
had again recourse. It was meant to be funny, was full of slang,
and was intended as a satire on the ways of trade. Still I think