“There is so-and-so’s book. Everywhere you go you hear about it. Your friends have read it. It is in demand at the libraries. You don’t pick up a paper that does not contain a review of the story in question. It is in the ‘Book of the Month’ column. It is even, even – the pinnacle of achievement – in that shining roster, the list of best sellers of the week.
“Why, of course, the author is growing rich! Ah, at last he has arrived! No doubt he will build a country house out of his royalties. Lucky fellow; one envies him.
“Catch him unawares and what is he doing? As like as not writing unsigned book reviews at thirty shillings a week in order to pay his lodging bill – and glad of the chance.”
This is absolutely and literally true.
Yet novelists are perhaps more pestered than any other people by requests for help. A writer who, like myself, can live in fair comfort by means of unceasing labour, but is not even a well-to-do man, to say nothing of a “wealthy one,” receives innumerable letters to which he is quite unable to reply as the applicants would wish, but which are most distressing to read. At a time when I certainly had not a hundred pounds in the world, I received the following letter – of course I suppress the name and address.
“ – Vicarage, “ – shire.
“My dear Sir,
“Thank you a thousand times for When it was Dark. I am now looking forward to Friday, when your next book begins in the Daily Mail. I have been reading about you to-day and have taken courage to ask your help. You say ‘Let nothing disturb thee,’ etc. How can I help it in such trouble as mine. My husband has failed in health from years of hard work, and out of an income of under £200 a year we are paying a curate £100. At this moment we are in extremes. My boy is reading for Holy Orders, and we are in need of funds for his expenses. He has been two years a licensed lay reader, and is a thorough Catholic and has the highest testimonials. Will you help me in my need to-day with a donation. I can give references, and for any help I shall be so thankful. Please forgive me for troubling you.”
I have no doubt that this appeal is quite genuine, and a very poignant comment it is upon the way in which the priests of the Church of England are paid. This type of letter is not a pleasant one to receive when one is sitting down to work. The imagination with which one is endowed and by which one earns one’s bread, is not a faculty very easy to discipline or to control, and the power which should be devoted to the chapter one is engaged upon wanders away and constructs a picture of want and sorrow which one is quite powerless to alleviate.
Nor is it once or twice that such letters as this arrive. Here is a far more piteous document still, if it is genuine. I think that when you have read it you will agree with me that it is genuine enough. There is nothing of the ordinary begging letter about it; and if the writer could invent such a story, he ought not to be so hopelessly unable to earn a single halfpenny by his pen. It is to be observed also that in this case the writer wants work, not money.
“London, N.
“Dear Sir,
“About two years ago I arrived in England from Australia, with the object of striving to gain a footing in literature, but so far have been unsuccessful. I have written two novels and numerous short stories and articles, but I have ever had them rejected, and all I can show for my work is a pile of publishers’ letters. My resources long since gave out, and I worked myself into the lowest poverty, and then I was prostrated by a long illness. Knowing, sir, that you have had much to do with journalistic work, I decided to write and ask you if you knew of any one in the city – or elsewhere – to whom you could refer me for some employment. I am practically destitute, and knowing no one in London makes it extremely difficult for me to get anything to do. About six months ago I was turned out of my lodgings owing to arrears of rent, and then I commenced tramping the country in the hope of getting work. I managed to get three weeks’ hop-picking, but nothing else, and so for a while I tramped aimlessly about, being exposed to all kinds of weather, sleeping in haystacks, or wherever else offered, until at last my health again gave way. It was then that I called on a well-known novelist, and he was very kind and assisted me, at the same time expressing a wish to see my works. They were sent for, and duly forwarded on to his agents, and I have been advised to write books for boys, the agent expressing his opinion that I would succeed in this, but as I am situated writing is out of the question. When I met this novelist my health failed utterly, and I was compelled to go into the infirmary for a while, and whilst there he wrote telling me to try and get some practice in journalistic work and to study for a while until I gained a little more experience.
“I think he is out of England at present, but he gave me permission to use his letter as a reference if I needed it. Well, sir, I returned to London about a month ago, and managed to get a few days’ work envelope addressing at Morgan and Scott’s, in Paternoster Row, but so far I have been unable to find anything else to do. I am very anxious to get some work immediately, and if you could help me in this I should be indeed grateful. I care not of what nature the employment may be, manual or otherwise, if I can only get it at once.
“Apologizing for troubling you,
“I am,
“Dear Sir,
“Yours faithfully.”
Some time ago a drawing appeared in the Daily Mail of a Cornish cottage where I was then living. Within a week, by a curious coincidence, I received three water-colour drawings of the place, made from the sketch in the newspaper. Two were excellent, and accompanied by the kindest letters; they hang on my walls now. The third was by no means a work of art, to say the very least of it, and this letter came with it: —
“North Kensington.
“I am sending you a copy of the cottage I have painted from the sketch in the Daily Mail of November 16 last, if you will accept it.
“I must explain that I am only a very poor hand at such work. The fact of the matter is that through much illness and lost trade that I am left very badly off, and seeing the sketch and account of your work, thought perhaps if I could paint a few copies and you would introduce the matter to your many friends I could sell some to them, which would assist me to earn something, my health being bad and getting on to seventy years of age it is not much I can do. You will understand that I do not know anything of the appearance of the country around the cottage. I have not been in that part, so all I have put in is imaginary. Will you please say what you think to it, and how much you think I could sell them for. I have not means to buy canvas so have painted on card. Your kind assistance in this matter will great oblige
“Yours truly.”
I have quoted but three letters from a vast pile of others. “Que vivre est difficile ô mon cœur fatigué!” says the French poet, and nobody knows it better than the English novelist. But with the best will in the world we cannot help everybody. Charity begins at home, its sun rises there and should set abroad, but it is limited by the purse of the giver. Among all the contents of his post-bag such letters are the most distressing to the author, and add enormously to a difficult and often very thankless task.
But such letters as these and all worries ejusdem generis are, after all, only a small portion of my post-bag. During the last year or two I have received hundreds and hundreds of letters from all parts of the world – letters which have given me inexpressible happiness. I think I may be forgiven for quoting some of them here. The real reward of an author’s labours lies in the sympathy and appreciation of his readers, and in that alone. When, moreover, a writer works with a definite object in view, the purpose of leading others to believe what he himself believes, such letters are indeed a strong stay and holdfast which console for any amount of misrepresentation and bring a veritable oil of joy for mourning.
A priest writes: —
“Sir
“I don’t ask you because I know you will pardon a stranger for addressing you, and I shall not say much. And the little I mean to say I hardly know how to express. Some few years ago I was a vicar in – . Now I am sick in body and soul. I had lost all my faith, but I have been reading Made in His Image, and to-day I prayed for the first time for more than a year, and tears came, and I don’t know if you heard my voice calling to you.
“I should like to see you. Can it be?
“Yours,
“De Profundis.”
A gentleman from Hull tells me: —
“Dear Sir,
“You will please pardon the intrusion of this letter. I am a Sunday School teacher, and have been a Christian for three years.
“A month ago, as a result of reading the Clarion and Haeckel, I became disturbed in my mind, and wished to resign my class. I sought the assistance of my minister. Instead of answering my doubts himself he placed a copy of When it was Dark in my hand, telling me to read it prayerfully, and go to him again. The following evening I completed the reading of a book whose influence will live with me. My dear sir, I feel I cannot thank you half enough, and I shall never cease to thank God that the book was written.
“I saw my minister, not with any doubts this time, but with my faith renewed, and with a fixed determination to work harder for my Divine Master.
“I expect you will receive many letters expressing thanks, but I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony.
“Allow me to remain, sir,
“Yours very faithfully.”
And here is another kind letter from Bridgewater, again from a man: —
“Dear ‘Mr. Thorne,’
“Will you please accept my best thanks for your book, When it was Dark. I started to read it as one distinctly prejudiced against it, but I finished the last page saying, ‘It is wonderful.’ I only wish that those who condemn it would read it for themselves and see the forcible manner in which you have depicted what the world would be if the Resurrection was a myth. Faith cannot but be strengthened by reading it, and the coming Eastertide will be more real to me through having read When it was Dark.
“Wishing you every success and happiness.”
From Brantford in far-away Canada this letter reaches me: —
“Dear Sir and Friend,
“After reading your splendid edition, When it was Dark, I take this manner in addressing. The book impressed me very greatly from start to finish, and it always will be henceforth a great pleasure, and I am sure a great help, to read your publications. We greatly need in this world to-day good strong men who will set forth their thoughts in a fearless manner. This is in a very large measure the way the book appealed to me.
“It is with a great deal of sincere pleasure I note in the – Magazine (which publication is in our home) for a coming issue the beginning of one of Guy Thorne’s stories. The writer is a young man of twenty years and a Methodist, and presume I am taking up too much of a good man’s time. But I might say my idea in writing was to convey from a Canadian my thanks for the good which I have received, and many others in our city, from the reading of this one work.
“Wishing you every success in your work,
“Yours sincerely.”
From Brixton: —