Finn, in which I commenced a series of semi-political tales. As I
was debarred from expressing my opinions in the House of Commons,
I took this method of declaring myself. And as I could not take my
seat on those benches where I might possibly have been shone upon
by the Speaker's eye, I had humbly to crave his permission for a
seat in the gallery, so that I might thus become conversant with
the ways and doings of the House in which some of my scenes were
to be placed. The Speaker was very gracious, and gave me a running
order for, I think, a couple of months. It was enough, at any rate,
to enable me often to be very tired,--and, as I have been assured
by members, to talk of the proceedings almost as well as though
Fortune had enabled me to fall asleep within the House itself.
In writing Phineas Finn, and also some other novels which followed
it, I was conscious that I could not make a tale pleasing chiefly,
or perhaps in any part, by politics. If I write politics for my
own sake, I must put in love and intrigue, social incidents, with
perhaps a dash of sport, for the benefit of my readers. In this
way I think I made my political hero interesting. It was certainly
a blunder to take him from Ireland--into which I was led by the
circumstance that I created the scheme of the book during a visit
to Ireland. There was nothing to be gained by the peculiarity, and
there was an added difficulty in obtaining sympathy and affection
for a politician belonging to a nationality whose politics are not
respected in England. But in spite of this Phineas succeeded. It
was not a brilliant success,--because men and women not conversant
with political matters could not care much for a hero who spent
so much of his time either in the House of Commons or in a public
office. But the men who would have lived with Phineas Finn read the
book, and the women who would have lived with Lady Laura Standish
read it also. As this was what I had intended, I was contented. It
is all fairly good except the ending,--as to which till I got to
it I made no provision. As I fully intended to bring my hero again
into the world, I was wrong to marry him to a simple pretty Irish
girl, who could only be felt as an encumbrance on such return. When
he did return I had no alternative but to kill the simple pretty
Irish girl, which was an unpleasant and awkward necessity.
In writing Phineas Finn I had constantly before me the necessity
of progression in character,--of marking the changes in men and
women which would naturally be produced by the lapse of years. In
most novels the writer can have no such duty, as the period occupied
is not long enough to allow of the change of which I speak. In
Ivanhoe, all the incidents of which are included in less than a
month, the characters should be, as they are, consistent throughout.
Novelists who have undertaken to write the life of a hero or heroine
have generally considered their work completed at the interesting
period of marriage, and have contented themselves with the advance
in taste and manners which are common to all boys and girls as
they become men and women. Fielding, no doubt, did more than this
in Tom Jones, which is one of the greatest novels in the English
language, for there he has shown how a noble and sanguine nature
may fall away under temptation and be again strengthened and made
to stand upright. But I do not think that novelists have often
set before themselves the state of progressive change,--nor should
I have done it, had I not found myself so frequently allured back
to my old friends. So much of my inner life was passed in their
company, that I was continually asking myself how this woman would
act when this or that event had passed over her head, or how that
man would carry himself when his youth had become manhood, or
his manhood declined to old age. It was in regard to the old Duke
of Omnium, of his nephew and heir, and of his heir's wife, Lady
Glencora, that I was anxious to carry out this idea; but others added
themselves to my mind as I went on, and I got round me a circle of
persons as to whom I knew not only their present characters, but
how those characters were to be affected by years and circumstances.
The happy motherly life of Violet Effingham, which was due to the
girl's honest but long-restrained love; the tragic misery of Lady
Laura, which was equally due to the sale she made of herself in her
wretched marriage; and the long suffering but final success of the
hero, of which he had deserved the first by his vanity, and the
last by his constant honesty, had been foreshadowed to me from
the first. As to the incidents of the story, the circumstances by
which these personages were to be affected, I knew nothing. They
were created for the most part as they were described. I never
could arrange a set of events before me. But the evil and the good
of my puppets, and how the evil would always lead to evil, and the
good produce good,--that was clear to me as the stars on a summer
night.
Lady Laura Standish is the best character in Phineas Finn and its
sequel Phineas Redux,--of which I will speak here together. They
are, in fact, but one novel though they were brought out at a
considerable interval of time and in different form. The first was
commenced in the St. Paul's Magazine in 1867, and the other was
brought out in the Graphic in 1873. In this there was much bad
arrangement, as I had no right to expect that novel readers would
remember the characters of a story after an interval of six years,
or that any little interest which might have been taken in the
career of my hero could then have been renewed. I do not know that
such interest was renewed. But I found that the sequel enjoyed the
same popularity as the former part, and among the same class of
readers. Phineas, and Lady Laura, and Lady Chiltern--as Violet
had become--and the old duke,--whom I killed gracefully, and the
new duke, and the young duchess, either kept their old friends or
made new friends for themselves. Phineas Finn, I certainly think,
was successful from first to last. I am aware, however, that there
was nothing in it to touch the heart like the abasement of Lady
Mason when confessing her guilt to her old lover, or any approach
in delicacy of delineation to the character of Mr. Crawley.
Phineas Finn, the first part of the story, was completed in
May, 1867. In June and July I wrote Linda Tressel for Blackwood's
Magazine, of which I have already spoken. In September and October
I wrote a short novel, called The Golden Lion of Granpere, which
was intended also for Blackwood,--with a view of being published
anonymously; but Mr. Blackwood did not find the arrangement to be
profitable, and the story remained on my hands, unread and unthought
of, for a few years. It appeared subsequently in Good Words. It
was written on the model of Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel, but
is very inferior to either of them. In November of the same year,
1867, I began a very long novel, which I called He Knew He Was
Right, and which was brought out by Mr. Virtue, the proprietor of
the St. Paul's Magazine, in sixpenny numbers, every week. I do not
know that in any literary effort I ever fell more completely short
of my own intention than in this story. It was my purpose to create