Note.—Since writing the above I have been asked to state whether, in my arrangements for publishing, I employ a 'literary agent' or use a 'type-writer.' I do not. With regard to the first part of the query, I consider that authors, like other people, should learn how to manage their own affairs themselves, and that when they take a paid agent into their confidence, they make open confession of their business incapacity, and voluntarily elect to remain in foolish ignorance of the practical part of their profession. Secondly, I dislike type-writing, and prefer to make my own MS. distinctly legible. It takes no more time to write clearly than in spidery hieroglyphics, and a slovenly scribble is no proof of cleverness, but rather of carelessness and a tendency to 'scamp' work.
'ON THE STAGE AND OFF'
By Jerome K. Jerome
Jerome K. Jerome
THE story of one's 'first book' I take to be the last chapter of one's literary romance. The long wooing is over. The ardent young author has at last won his coy public. The good publisher has joined their hands. The merry critics, invited to the feast of reason, have blessed the union, and thrown the rice and slippers—occasionally other things. The bridegroom sits alone with his bride, none between them, and ponders.
The fierce struggle, with its wild hopes and fears, its heart-leapings and heart-achings, its rose-pink dawns of endless promise, its grey twilights of despair, its passion and its pain, lies behind. Before him stretches the long, level road of daily doing. Will he please her to all time? Will she always be sweet and gracious to him? Will she never tire of him? The echo of the wedding-bells floats faintly through the darkening room. The fair forms of half-forgotten dreams rise up around him. He springs to his feet with a slight shiver, and rings for the lamps to be lighted.
Ah! that 'first book' we meant to write! How it pressed forward an oriflamme of joy, through all ranks and peoples; how the world rang with the wonder of it! How men and women laughed and cried over it! From every page there leaped to light a new idea. Its every paragraph scintillated with fresh wit, deep thought, and new humour. And, ye gods! how the critics praised it! How they rejoiced over the discovery of the new genius! How ably they pointed out to the reading public its manifold merits, its marvellous charm! Aye, it was a great work, that book we wrote as we strode laughing through the silent streets, beneath the little stars.
My First-born
And, heigho! what a poor little thing it was, the book that we did write! I draw him from his shelf (he is of a faint pink colour, as though blushing all over for his sins), and stand him up before me on the desk. 'Jerome K. Jerome'—the K very big, followed by a small J, so that in many quarters the author is spoken of as 'Jerome Kjerome,' a name that in certain smoke-laden circles still clings to me—'On the Stage—and Off: The Brief Career of a would-be Actor. One Shilling.'
I suppose I ought to be ashamed of him, but how can I be? Is he not my first-born? Did he not come to me in the days of weariness, making my heart glad and proud? Do I not love him the more for his shortcomings?
Somehow, as I stare at him in this dim candlelight, he seems to take odd shape. Slowly he grows into a little pink imp, sitting cross-legged among the litter of my books and papers, squinting at me (I think the squint is caused by the big 'K'), and I find myself chatting with him.
It is an interesting conversation to me, for it is entirely about myself, and I do nearly all the talking, he merely throwing in an occasional necessary reply, or recalling to my memory a forgotten name or face.
We chat of the little room in Whitfield Street, off the Tottenham Court Road, where he was born; of our depressing, meek-eyed old landlady, and of how, one day, during the course of chance talk, it came out that she, in the far back days of her youth, had been an actress, winning stage love and breaking stage hearts with the best of them; of how the faded face would light up as, standing with the tea-tray in her hands, she would tell us of her triumphs, and repeat to us her 'Press Notices,' which she had learned by heart; and of how from her we heard not a few facts and stories useful to us. We talk of the footsteps that of evenings would climb the creaking stairs and enter at our door; of George, who always believed in us (God bless him!), though he could never explain why; of practical Charley, who thought we should do better if we left literature alone and stuck to work. Ah! well, he meant kindly, and there be many who would that he had prevailed. We remember the difficulties we had to contend with; the couple in the room below, who would come in and go to bed at twelve, and lie there, quarrelling loudly, until sleep overcame them about two, driving our tender and philosophical sentences entirely out of our head; of the asthmatical old law-writer, whose never-ceasing cough troubled us greatly (maybe, it troubled him also, but I fear we did not consider that); of the rickety table that wobbled as we wrote, and that, whenever in a forgetful moment we leant upon it, gently but firmly collapsed.
'Yes,' I said to the little pink imp; 'as a study the room had its drawbacks, but we lived some grand hours there, didn't we? We laughed and sang there, and the songs we chose breathed ever of hope and victory, and so loudly we sang them we might have been modern Joshuas, thinking to capture a city with our breath.
'And then that wonderful view we used to see from its dingy window panes—that golden country that lay stretched before us, beyond the thousand chimney pots, above the drifting smoke, above the creeping fog—do you remember that?'
It was worth living in that cramped room, worth sleeping on that knobbly bed, to gain an occasional glimpse of that shining land, with its marble palaces, where one day we should enter, an honoured guest; its wide market-places, where the people thronged to listen to our words. I have climbed many stairs, peered through many windows in this London town since then, but never have I seen that view again. Yet, from somewhere in our midst, it must be visible for friends of mine, as we have sat alone, and the talk has sunk into low tones, broken by long silences, have told me that they, too, have looked upon those same glittering towers and streets. But the odd thing is that none of us has seen them since he was a very young man. So, maybe, it is only that the country is a long way off, and that our eyes have grown dimmer as we have grown older.
'And who was that old fellow that helped us so much?' I ask of my little pink friend; 'you remember him surely—a very ancient fellow, the oldest actor on the boards he always boasted himself—had played with Edmund Kean and Macready. I used to put you in my pocket of a night and meet him outside the stage door of the Princess's; and we would adjourn to a little tavern in old Oxford Market to talk you over, and he would tell me anecdotes and stories to put in you.'
'You mean Johnson,' says the pink imp; 'J. B. Johnson. He was with you in your first engagement at Astley's, under Murray Wood and Virginia Blackwood. He and you were the High Priests in "Mazeppa," if you remember, and had to carry Lisa Weber across the stage, you taking her head and he her heels. Do you recollect what he said to her, on the first night, as you were both staggering towards the couch?—"Well, I've played with Fanny Kemble, Cushman, Glyn, and all of them, but hang me, my dear, if you ain't the heaviest lead I've ever supported."'