Chapter VI: Part 6

The same Major Dwyer relates at some length the conversations of the guests at Lever’s home in Ireland. Speaking of a visit of Thackeray about 1842, he says: “James had been living at Brussels previously, and an intimacy had sprung up between Lever and him. Thackeray’s star was then barely peeping over the eastern horizon; Lever’s had attained an altitude that rendered it clearly visible to the uncharmed eye, whilst James’s had already passed its point of culmination, and was in its descending node.” I do not know what the eloquent Major meant by an “uncharmed eye,” but his figures of speech are quite luxuriant. He does not think that Thackeray and James met at Lever’s house, but he tells of a dinner there, where a Captain Siborne, Doctor Anster, and the Major were asked to meet James. It appears that after dinner, James took a very decided lead in the conversation on horsemanship and military tactics. “James” remarks the Major, “was not horsey looking; one would at first sight be inclined to set him down as an exception to the general rule, that ‘all Britons are born riders’; he looked more like a seaman than a soldier.” This is deliciously fatuous—as if a man could not talk well about horses unless he had a horsey look or drive fat oxen unless he himself were fat. It is like the Mitchell prattle about his having no scar and wearing no doublet. In talking about horses and riders, James evidently did not foresee that in the future his name would be so closely associated with “one horseman” or even two, threading romantic gorges. Perhaps it would have been better for his fame, if he had eschewed horsemen. “Why,” continues the Major, “he should have selected two such topics puzzled both Siborne and myself, but I subsequently found that James liked to seize upon and talk categorically about things which other individuals of the company present might be suspected of considering their own peculiar hobbies.” This device for enlivening post-prandial dullness by stirring up solemn and conceited prigs is quite familiar, but it does not seem to have occurred to the Major that the clever novelist was making game of the two military magnates. He tells us further how Siborne declined “to discuss professional matters with a civilian,” and closes his pompous and heavy remarks with this gem of concentrated wisdom: “James, so fond of horseflesh, finished his career as Consul General at Venice _where the sight of a horse is never seen_.” I suppose that the Major would have considered it more fitting if James had selected some place to die in where ‘the sight of a horse could be seen’ at all times by merely looking out of the window. It is not difficult to imagine the joy with which the nimble-minded James put through their paces the heavy-witted and cumbrous Captain and Major at the pleasant dinner-table of Charles Lever. It reminds me of an occasion when a sincere and simple-minded Briton undertook to engage in single combat with Mark Twain over a statement thrown out by the equally sincere and simple-minded Clemens that the people of the Phillipine Islands had a perfect right to make arson and murder lawful if they considered it proper to incorporate in their constitution a provision to that effect. His powerful arguments did not produce the slightest change in the convictions of Mr. Clemens.

However severely the sapient compilers of _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_ or the critics of our own generation may sneer at the novels—the fiction of the twentieth century being in the estimation of our contemporaries so vastly superior to all that has gone before—it is something to have had the approval of Christopher North, who was not given to bestowing lavish commendation upon the work of mere Englishmen. If you will take from the shelves the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, you will find these words:

“_North_: Mr. Colburn has lately given us two books of a very
different character, [from that of some previously mentioned],
_Richelieu_ and _Darnley_—by Mr. James. _Richelieu_ is one of the
most spirited, amusing and interesting romances I ever read;
characters well drawn—incidents—well managed—story perpetually
progressive—catastrophe at once natural and unexpected—moral good,
but not goody—and the whole felt, in every chapter, to be the work
of a—gentleman.

_Shepherd_: And what o’_Darnley_?

_North_: Read and judge.”[43]

Edgar Allan Poe, who thought himself a critic while he was an original genius absolutely unfitted for just or accurate criticism, said that James was lauded from mere motives of duty, not of inclination—duty erroneously conceived. “His sentiments are found to be pure,” wrote Poe, “his morals unquestionable and pointedly shown forth—his language indisputably correct.” But he calls him an indifferent imitator of Scott, accuses him of having little pretension to genius, and adds that we “seldom stumble across a novel emotion in the solemn tranquillity of his pages.”[44] Elsewhere Poe says: “James’s multitudinous novels seem to be written upon the plan of the songs of the Bard of Schiraz, in which, we are assured by Fadladeen, ‘the same beautiful thought occurs again and again in every possible variety of phrase.’” This is perhaps, a fair comment upon the work of a writer who produced too many books.

Samuel Carter Hall, who knew James well, and who gossips with garrulous freedom about everybody, speaks of him in an admiring way. After observing that very little was known of James’s life, he says: “I knew him and esteemed him as an agreeable and kindly gentleman, somewhat handsome in person, and of very pleasant manners. He had the aspect, and indeed the character, that usually marks a man of sedentary occupations. His work all day long, and often into the night, must have been untiring, for he by no means drew exclusively on his fancy; he must have resorted much to books and have been a great reader, not only of English, but of continental histories; and he travelled a good deal in the countries in which the scenes of his historic fictions were principally laid. His novels have always been popular—they are so now, although many competitors for fame, with higher aims and perhaps loftier genius, have of late years supplied the circulating libraries. It was no light thing to run a race with Sir Walter Scott, and not to be altogether beaten out of the field. His great charm was the interest he created in relating a story, but he had masterly skill in delineating character, and in ‘chivalric essays’ none of his brethren surpassed him.”[45] He gives to James more praise for character-drawing than most of the critics bestow.

Hall quotes from Alison: “There is a constant appeal in his brilliant pages, not only to the pure and generous, but to the elevated and noble sentiments. He is imbued with the very soul of chivalry, and all his stories turn on the final triumph of those who are influenced by such feelings. Not a word or a thought which can give pain to the purest heart ever escapes from his pen.”

The genial journalist, William Jerdan, in his Autobiography, pays a deserved tribute to James. He says:

“Among the warm friendships to which I may allude, there is not one
more sincere, more lasting, or more grateful to my feelings, than that
which I have the honour and delight to couple with the admired and
estimable name of G. P. R. James. I think it was the production of
‘The Ruined City’, for private circulation, which first introduced us
to each other; and from that hour (I remember the pleasure I received
from his volunteering a trial of his skill occasionally in the
‘Gazette’) I now look back on a quarter of a century upon a close
intercourse of minds and hearts without a passing shade to dull its
bright and cheering continuity. I need not dwell on those voluminous
writings which have placed Mr. James in the foremost rank of our
national fictitious literature, nor need I, in his case, illustrate my
theme of the uncertainty of literature as a remunerative pursuit—with
a private fortune, and the genius which has produced so many admirable
works, the author has now fallen back upon a consulate at Norfolk, in
America, where, if report speaks truth, he is exposed even to danger
in consequence of petty resentment against something he wrote long ago
about Slavery!—but, I may say, from nearer and more abundant
observation than the world could attain, that the utmost appreciation
of his genius must fall short of what is due to his personal worth and
nobility of nature. As no author ever excelled him in the purity and
rectitude of his publications—every tone of which tends to inspire
just moral sentiment, and exalted virtue, and brotherly love, and
universal benevolence, and the improvement carrying with it the
progress and happiness of his fellow creatures—so no man in private
life ever more zealously practiced the precepts which he taught, and
was charitable, liberal, and generous, aye, beyond the measure of cold
prudence, and without an atom of selfish reserve. To his
fellow-labourers on the oft-ungrateful soil of letters, he was ever
indulgent and munificent; and were this the fitting time, I could
record acts of his performing that would shed a lustre on any
character, however celebrated in merited biographical panegyric. I
trust I may state, without compromising the privacy of friendly
confidence, that I knew him, as he was ever ready to make sacrifices
to friendship, sacrifice half a fortune, legally in his possession, to
a mere point of honorable, I might say, romantically honourable
feeling, and founded indeed on one of those family romances in which
we find fact more extraordinary than fiction; and amongst lesser
instances of his general sympathies for all who stood in need of
succour, I may mention his procuring me the gratification of handing
over £75 to the Literary Fund, as the price received from Messrs.
Colburn and Bentley for a manuscript entitled “The String of
Pearls.””[46]

I have referred to the remark in _Chambers’ Cyclopædia_ about the custom of James to dictate to an amanuensis, a custom he attempted to defend. The writers for this useful work, now rather antiquated, were quite given to the exercise of censorious judgment about authors who did not preserve their popularity. They say of James, however, that he was perhaps the best of the numerous imitators of Scott, and that if he had concentrated his powers on a few congenial subjects or periods of history, and “resorted to the manual labor of penmanship as a drag-chain on the machine, he might have attained to the highest honors of this department of composition. As it is, he has furnished many light, agreeable and picturesque books, none of questionable tendency.” The Cyclopædia breaks into exclamation points when it chronicles the fact that the original works of Mr. James “extend to one hundred and eighty-nine volumes,” and that he edited almost a dozen more. It then quotes from some unnamed critic whom it calls a “lively writer,”[47] and as I am endeavoring to present the contemporary estimates of James, I venture to reproduce the quotation:

“There seems to be no limit to his ingenuity, his faculty of getting
up scenes and incidents, dilemmas, artifices, _contretemps_, battles,
skirmishes, disguises, escapes, trials, combats, adventures. He
accumulates names, dresses, implements of war and peace, official
retinues, and the whole paraphernalia of customs and costumes, with
astounding alacrity. He appears to have exhausted every imaginable
situation, and to have described every available article of attire on
record. What he must have passed through—what triumphs he must have
enjoyed—what exigencies he must have experienced—what love he must
have suffered—what a grand wardrobe his brain must be! He has made
some poetical and dramatic efforts, but this irresistible tendency to
pile up circumstantial particulars is fatal to those forms of art
which demand intensity of passion. In stately narratives of chivalry
and feudal grandeur, precision and reiteration are desirable rather
than injurious—as we would have the most perfect accuracy and finish
in a picture of ceremonials; and here Mr. James is supreme. One of his
court romances is a book of brave sights and heraldic magnificence—it
is the next thing to moving at our leisure through some superb and
august procession.”

The lively writer has a style which displays the worst faults of the middle nineteenth century, but he is really not far wrong in his conclusions. The Cyclopædia sums up the matter in a sentence which tells the story and signifies that the man wrote too much:

“The sameness of the author’s style and characters is, however, too marked to be pleasing.”

I timidly venture to suggest that the same thing may be true of Kipling and hope that I may not be annihilated by the bolts of Jupiter for such a daring piece of sacrilege. Having gone so far—but I will refrain from mentioning some other makers of novels with regard to whom the same fable might be narrated.

We may easily understand that the accusation of “sameness” is one which is not very serious when preferred against the author of nearly two hundred volumes. As Allibone says, “he who composes a library is not to be judged by the same standard as he who writes but one book.” We must remember that not only Professor Wilson, but Leigh Hunt, about whose taste and discrimination there can be no question, says of him:

“I hail every fresh publication of James, though I half know what he
is going to do with his lady, and his gentleman, and his landscape,
and his mystery, and his orthodoxy, and his criminal trial. But I am
charmed with the new amusement which he brings out of old materials. I
look on him as I look on a musician famous for ‘variations.’ I am
grateful for his vein of cheerfulness, for his singularly varied and
vivid landscapes, for his power of painting women at once lady-like
and loving, (a rare talent,) for making lovers to match, at once
beautiful and well-bred, and for the solace which all this has
afforded me, sometimes over and over again in illness and in
convalescence, when I required interest without violence, and
entertainment at once animated and mild.”

Allan Cunningham, in his _Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the Last Fifty Years_ (1833) refers to his excellent taste, extensive knowledge of history, right feeling of the chivalrous, and heroic and ready eye for the picturesque, adding that his proprieties are admirable and his sympathy with whatever is high-souled and noble, deep and impressive. Cunningham was on terms of intimacy with him, as a number of letters from James addressed to him abundantly prove. The _Edinburgh Review_ estimated highly his abilities as a romance writer, declaring that his works were lively and interesting, and animated by a spirit of sound and healthy morality in feeling and of natural deliberation in character which should secure for them a calm popularity which would “last beyond the present day.”

He was not regarded so favorably by the _London Athenæum_, which said of him: “The first and most obvious contrivance for the attainment of quantity, is, of course, dilution; but this recourse has practically its limit, and Mr. James had reached it long ago. Commonplace in its best day, anything more feeble, vapid—_sloppy_ in fact, (for we know not how to characterize this writer’s style but by some of its own elegancies)—than Mr. James’s manner has become, it were difficult to imagine. Every literary grace has been swamped in the spreading marasmus of his style.”[48]

The bewildered reader of reviews is often at a loss to reconcile the censure of one and the praise of another; and it was not very long before the appearance of this slashing article that the _Dublin University Magazine_ had thus expressed its opinions: “His pen is prolific enough to keep the imagination constantly nourished; and of him, more than of any modern writer, it may be said, that he has improved his style by the mere dint of constant and abundant practice. For, although so agreeable a novelist, it must not be forgotten that he stands infinitely higher as an historian.*** The most fantastic and beautiful coruscations which the skies can exhibit to the eyes of mankind dart as if in play from the huge volumes that roll out from the crater of the volcano.*** The recreation of an enlarged intellect is ever more valuable than the highest efforts of a confined one. Hence we find in the works before us, lightly as they have been thrown off, the traces of study—the footsteps of a powerful and vigorous understanding.”[49] The works were _Corse de Léon_, _The Ancient Régime_, and _The Jacquerie_—none of them as deserving as _Richelieu_, _Henry Masterton_, or _Mary of Burgundy_. James was a member of the _Dublin_ staff and his friend Lever may have inspired the compliments.

One more review may be noticed. Mr. E. P. Whipple, whose criticisms have not become immortal, evidently disapproved of James, and did not hesitate to say so. It is the old charge of sameness and overproduction. Whipple scored James in the North American Review of April, 1844.

“He is a most scientific expositor of the fact that a man may be a
maker of books without being a maker of thoughts; that he may be the
reputed author of a hundred volumes and flood the market with his
literary wares, and yet have very few ideas and principles for his
stock in trade. For the last ten years he has been repeating his own
repetitions and echoing his own echoes. His first novel was a shot
that went through the target, and he has ever since been assiduously
firing through the hole.*** When a man has little or nothing to say,
he should say it in the smallest space. He should not, at any rate,
take up more room than suffices for a creative mind. He should not
provoke hostility and petulance by the effrontery of his demands upon
time and patience. He should let us off with a few volumes, and gain
our gratitude for his benevolence, if not our praise for his
talents.”[50]

Whipple’s _critiques_ are far more obsolete than James’s novels; and a good deal of what he says of James is fairly applicable to his own essays. Even Whipple concedes the excellence of _Richelieu_, notwithstanding the fact that it did not emanate from New England.

Back in the forties, there was a magazine, published in Philadelphia, known as _Graham’s American Monthly Magazine_, in which the chief American writers of the day, including Poe, Bryant, Cooper, Longfellow, Willis, and Lowell occasionally figured as contributors. It had its page of reviews and in the number of November, 1848, it enlightened its readers with a disquisition on “Vanity Fair”; by W. M. _Thackerway_ (_sic_), beginning “This is one of the most striking novels of the season.” If Lamb could only have met that reviewer, he surely would have danced about, as on a memorable occasion, singing “diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John” and endeavored to examine the reviewer’s bumps. _Graham_ (November, 1844) was very severe with poor James, in a notice of _Arrah Neil_. The reviewer says: “In our opinion, there is hardly an instance on record of an author who has contrived to earn an extensive reputation as a writer of works of imagination, with such slender intellectual materials as Mr. James. No one has ever written so many books, purporting to be novels, with so small a stock of heart, brain, and invention. He is continually infringing his own copyright, by reproducing his own novels. Far from being surprised that he has written so much, we are astonished that he has not written more. From his first novel, all the rest can be logically deduced; and the reason that they have not appeared faster, may be found in the fact that he has been economical in the employment of amanuenses.” More of this kind of talk is indulged in without a single word about the book itself or its merits; which proves quite clearly that the reviewer was merely following the path marked out by some other critic, and there is no evidence whatever that he had ever read the work he was reviewing. Thus it is to-day; a parrot-cry of “diffuseness, dilution, re-copying, repetition,”—so easy to proclaim, so difficult to answer, all born of the disposition of newspaper and magazine critics to accept the view which needs no exercise of brains to approve and to announce. It is not without significance that when James was in America, he was a contributor to this same magazine, which had scored him so unmercifully; for example, in the volume for 1851 I find two stories by him—_Christian Lacy, a Tale of the Salem Witchcraft_, and _Justinian and Theodora_,—as well as a rather graceful sonnet to Jenny Lind.

James C. Derby mentions the fact that James was a friend of Philip Pendleton Cooke, the Virginian poet, and relates that Thackeray visited James when in the South, but that James “resented the latter’s [Thackeray’s] flings at him as a ‘solitary horseman’, the meaning of which those who have read James’s novels will understand. James once told Cooke of his intention to write his own memoirs—a purpose never fulfilled. Incidentally, he told Cooke a story of Washington Irving, his early adviser, who amiably approved of his earliest essays in literature. It seems that James was in Bordeaux, and after strolling all day, returned to his inn. On his way through a long, dark passage he saw some one in front carrying a candle, a man in black slowly ascending the old-fashioned staircase. On the landing the man stopped, and holding up his candle looked at a cat lying on the window-sill, regarding the gazer with a surprised and frightened expression. The stranger in black looked at the cat for some time mutely and then muttered sadly, ‘Ah, pussy! pussy! If you had seen as much trouble as I have, you would not be surprised at anything.’ After which he went on up the stairs,’ said James, ‘and as I heard that Irving was in Bordeaux, I said to myself: ‘That can be nobody in the world but Irving’, which turned out to be a fact.[51]

Frederick Locker-Lampson visited Walter Savage Landor at Fiesole in the early sixties, and found him reading a Waverly novel. Lampson congratulated the old poet on having so pleasant a companion in his retirement, and Landor, with a winning dignity, replied: “Yes, and there is another novelist whom I equally admire, my old friend [G. P. R.] James.”[52] Locker-Lampson does not seem to have shared Landor’s appreciation of James. He says, later in his memoirs: “It is a law of literature that every generation should be industrious in burying its own, especially novels. What has become of Smollett and Mackenzie—the cockpit of the ‘Thunder’ or the sentimental Harley? Where is the shadowy Mr. G. P. R. James and where is that witty old ghost of the Silver Fork school, Mrs. Gore?*** Yet they all had vogue.”[53] It is odd that almost every one, in speaking of James, recites his numerous initials and bestows upon him the title of “Mr.” which carries with it the suggestion of a sneer.

In my small collection of Gladstone letters I find one addressed to James which shows not only that the statesman liked the books but that he and the author were on terms of some intimacy.

“WHITEHALL, May 17, ’43.

MY DEAR SIR: I thank you very much for your renewed kindness. The
perusal of your last work gave me very great pleasure, most of all
(though that is but a very slender testimony in their favour) Evesham
and Simon de Montfort, of whom I never had before an adequate
conception. It is true I am adopted into the Cabinet, & will I fear be
alleged as a proof of its poverty. In point of form I cannot succeed
Lord Ripon until the Queen holds a Council.[54] The true and whole
secret of the difficulty about Canada corn (and I do not mean that we
can wonder at it) is, as I believe, that wheat, without great
abundance, is at 46 / a quarter.

I remain, my dear sir,
Yours faithfully & obliged,
W. E. GLADSTONE.

G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.,
The Shrubbery,
Walmer.

Donald G. Mitchell, describing the little red cottage of Hawthorne, in the Berkshire hills, reminds us that among those who used to come a-visiting the great American romancer, was “G. P. R. James, that kindly master of knights ‘in gay caparison’;” and elsewhere says that at the Cooper Memorial meeting in Metropolitan Hall, on February 25, 1852, where Webster, Bryant and Hawks paid their tribute to the author of the Leatherstocking tales, “Mr. G. P. R. James—then chancing to be a visitor in New York,—lent a little of his rambling heroics to the interest of the occasion.”[55] I have before me the _Memorial_, printed by Putnam in 1852, containing a full report of the meeting, including the remarks of James, and I do not find anything which may fairly be called “heroics”, rambling or otherwise. The speech was manifestly extemporaneous. He began by expressing his pride in being an Englishman, a romance writer, and a man of the people, and his pleasure in paying an humble tribute to an American romance writer and a man of the people. He praised the addresses of those who preceded him, corrected a trifling error of Bryant’s in regard to a Mr. James, a surgeon, and declared that the proposed statue to Cooper was not merely to a novelist, but to a genius—to truth—to truth, genius and patriotism combined. He closed by urging all present to use every exertion to procure contributions for the purpose of erecting such a statue. To any unprejudiced mind, what James said was appropriate and dignified; well suited to the occasion; wholly natural and unaffected; and compared favorably, to say the least, with the dull and ponderous commonplaces of Daniel Webster who had the chair and who was singularly unfitted to preside over such a meeting. Of Webster’s platitudes, Professor Lounsbury is quite contemptuous, remarking that the distinguished orator “had nothing to say and said it wretchedly.”[56] I believe that the projected statue was never built. James was evidently a favorite dinner-speaker. It is pleasant to know that he spoke at a ‘printer’s banquet’ in New York in the latter part of 1850, and that he paid a well-merited tribute to a man destined to become a distinguished figure in literature. Bayard Taylor, writing to his friend George H. Boker, on January 1, 1851, says: “By the bye, James paid me a very elegant compliment, in his speech at the ‘printer’s banquet’ the other night, referring to me as the best landscape painter in words that he had ever known. This is something from an Englishman.”[57] He always said kind and appreciative words about his fellow-authors, if they were deserving.

Returning to the Hawthorne cottage, Julian Hawthorne gives a brief account of one of the visits of James, who, it appears, was living near by during the summer of 1851. As the narrator was five years old at the time of this visit, his estimate of the visitors must have been founded upon something other than his personal observation. He says:

“James was a commonplace, meritorious person, with much blameless and
intelligent conversation, but the only thing that recalls him
personally to my memory is the fact of his being associated with a
furious thunderstorm.”

He relates how the storm raged and how the door burst open,—his father and he were alone in the cottage—

“and behold! of all persons in the world—to be heralded by such
circumstances—G. P. R. James! Not he only, but close upon his heels
his entire family, numerous, orthodox, admirable, and infinitely
undesirable to two secluded gentlemen without a wife and mother to
help them out.*** They dripped on the carpet, they were conventional
and courteous; we made conversation between us but whenever the
thunder rolled, Mrs. James became ghastly pale. Mr. James explained
that this was his birthday, and that they were on a pleasure
excursion. He conciliated me by anecdotes of a pet magpie, or raven,
who stole spoons. At last the thunderstorm and the G. P. R. Jameses
passed off together.[58]

It is not uninteresting to compare this rather patronizing and supercilious narration of a trivial incident with that which is given in his own Journal by the father of this precocious young gentleman of five years; and it is probably the fact that the story was related by the son not from his own memory but from the record of the Journal, reproduced in “Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife,” by Julian Hawthorne.[59] Nathaniel Hawthorne evidently liked James. Under date of July 30, 1851, he says:

“We walked to the village for the mail, and on our way back we met a
wagon in which sat Mr. G. P. R. James, his wife and daughter, who had
just left their cards at our house. Here ensued a talk, quite pleasant
and friendly. He is certainly an excellent man; and his wife is a
plain, good, friendly, kind-hearted woman, and his daughter a nice
girl. Mr. James spoke of ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ and of
‘Twice-Told Tales,’ and then branched off upon English literature
generally.”[60] The acquaintance between the two authors must have
been deemed to be of advantage to both, for the supercilious Master
Julian takes care to present in full a note of invitation addressed by
James to the elder Hawthorne asking the latter ‘with his two young
people’ to visit him, saying: “We are going to have a little haymaking
after the olden fashion, and a syllabub under the cow; hoping not to
be disturbed by any of your grim old Puritans, as were the poor folks
of Merrymount. By the way, you do not do yourself justice at all in
your preface to the ‘Twice-Told Tales,’—but more on that subject
anon.”[61]

Under the date of August 9, 1851, Hawthorne gives his own version of the thunderstorm episode, in marked contrast with the condescending remarks of his hopeful son. It reveals the difference between parent and child.

“The rain was pouring down,” says Hawthorne senior, “and from all the
hillsides mists were steaming up, and Monument Mountain seemed to be
enveloped as if in the smoke of a great battle. During one of the
heaviest showers of the day there was a succession of thundering
knocks at the front door. On opening it, there was a young man on the
doorstep, and a carriage at the gate, and Mr. James thrusting his head
out of the carriage window, and beseeching shelter from the storm! So
here was an invasion. Mr. and Mrs. James, their eldest son, their
daughter, their little son Charles, their maid-servant, and their
coachman;—not that the coachman came in; and as for the maid, she
stayed in the hall.[62] Dear me! where was Phoebe in this time of
need? All taken aback as I was, I made the best of it. Julian helped
me somewhat, but not much. Little Charley is a few months younger than
he, and between them they at least furnished subject for remark. Mrs.
James, luckily, happened to be very much afraid of thunder and
lightning; and as these were loud and sharp, she might be considered
_hors de combat_. The son, who seemed to be about twenty, and the
daughter, of seventeen or eighteen, took the part of saying nothing,
which I suppose is the English fashion as regards such striplings. So
Mr. James was the only one to whom it was necessary to talk, and we
got along tolerably well. He said that this was his birthday, and that
he was keeping it by a pleasure excursion, and that therefore the rain
was a matter of course.[63] We talked of periodicals, English and
American, and of the Puritans, about whom we agreed pretty well in our
opinions; and Mr. James told how he had recently been thrown out of
his wagon, and how the horse ran away with Mrs. James; and we talked
about green lizards and red ones. And Mr. James told Julian how, when
he was a child, he had twelve owls at the same time; and, at another
time, a raven, who used to steal silver spoons and money. He also
mentioned a squirrel, and several other pets; and Julian laughed most
obstreperously. As to little Charles, he was much interested with
Bunny (who had been returned to us from the Tappans, somewhat the
worse for wear), and likewise with the rocking-horse, which luckily
happened to be in the sitting-room. He examined the horse most
critically, and finally got upon his back, but did not show himself
quite as good a rider as Julian. Our old boy hardly said a word.
Finally the shower passed over, and the invaders passed away; and I do
hope that on the next occasion of the kind my wife will be there to
see.”[64]

I give the story in full, not only because of its relation to James and his family, but for its revelation of Hawthorne himself; the little touch of parental pride is amusing as well as affecting. What Nathaniel Hawthorne thought of James in those days is far more important than what Julian Hawthorne thinks of him now.

Mr. Charles L. James writes to me:

“Yes, I have read Hawthorne’s account of our visit in a thunderstorm;
and what is more, I remember the occurrence. I was little Charley,
whom he mentions. I remember not only getting upon Julian’s
rocking-horse, but pulling out his tail and being aghast at what I had
done, for I did not possess a wooden horse and it had not occurred to
me that the tail was movable.”

I am glad that Charles pulled out that tail; perhaps the memory of the outrage inspired the owner of the steed when he wrote his little story.

Longfellow regarded James with a degree of kindness and esteem quite comparable to that with which Hawthorne looked upon him. In his Journal for September 17, 1850, he says, after mentioning several visitors: “Then Fields, with G. P. R. James, the novelist, and his son. He is a sturdy man, fluent and rapid, and looking quite capable of fifty more novels.”[65] Later, on November 17, he says: “James, the novelist, came out to dinner with Sumner. He is a manly, middle-aged man, _tirant sur le grison_, as Lafontaine has it, with a gray mustache; very frank, off-hand, and agreeable. In politics he is a Tory, and very conservative.”[66] James certainly had no reason to complain of his reception by the best of our own literary men of that day.

It is an evidence of the fact that James was admired and his ability appreciated by other authors, that he was suspected by no less a person than William Harrison Ainsworth of being the writer of _Jane Eyre_. I have before me an autograph letter from Ainsworth to James (November 14, 1849), in which he says: “Anything I can do for you at any time you know you may command, and I shall only be too happy in the opportunity of making kindly mention in the N. M. M. of your Dark Scenes of History. The times are not propitious to us veterans and literature generally has within the last two years suffered a tremendous depreciation.*** Do you know I took it into my head that you were the author of ‘Jane Eyre,’ but I have altered my opinions since I read a portion of ‘Shirley.’ Currer Bell, whoever he or she may be, has certainly got some of your ‘trick’ *** but ‘Shirley’ has again perplexed me.”

Robert Louis Stevenson had a modified fondness for James, which is expressed in a letter written by him from Saranac, February, 1888, to E. L. Burlingame. He says:

“Will you send me (from the library) some of the works of my dear old
G. P. R. James? With the following especially I desire to make or to
renew acquaintance: _The Songster_, _The Gipsey_, _The Convict_, _The
Stepmother_, _The Gentleman of the Old School_, _The Robber_. _Excusez
du peu._ This sudden return to an ancient favourite hangs upon an
accident. The Franklin County Library contains two works of his, _The
Cavalier_ and _Morley Ernstein_. I read the first with indescribable
amusement—it was worse than I had feared, and yet somehow engaging;
the second (to my surprise) was better than I had dared to hope; a
good, honest, dull, interesting tale, with a genuine old-fashioned
talent in the invention when not strained, and a genuine old-fashioned
feeling for the English language. This experience awoke appetite, and
you see I have taken steps to stay it.

R. L. S.”

I have a number of holograph letters of James, some of which show his pleasant ways and attractive playfulness. They constitute the _raison d’ étre_ of this commentary and so I will not apologize for giving them almost in full. He speaks for himself far better than I can speak for him. He was surely not a Siborne or a Major Dwyer. To my mind these letters reveal the man, and they tell of an honest, genial man who was able to write.

He writes to C. W. H. Ranken, at Bristol, thus:

RENNES, 16 January, 1826.

RANKENO AMICO CARISSIMO:

That unfortunate Gentleman upon whose back all the evils of this world
have been laid from time immemorial, I mean the Devil, has certainly
(to give him his due) been tormenting my poor friend and schoolfellow
pretty handsomely. What with your cough in the first place and your
abscess in the second you have been quite a martyr, but remember the
martyrs always reach heaven at last and I doubt not that your
sufferings will soon be over and that in the little Paradise you have
planned for yourself some five or six miles from London (rather a
cockney distance by the by) you will enjoy the happiness of the blest
with those you love best. I think I shall make the same compact with
you that I have made with Becknell namely that in after years when
time has laid his heavy hand upon us all and when you are happy in
your children and your children’s children you will still give the
crusty old Bachelor a place at your fireside and your Sophia shall
furnish me with strong green tea and I will take my pinch of snuff and
tell you Graddam’s tales to amuse the little ones or recount the
wonderful things I have seen in my travels or growl at the degeneracy
of the world and praise the good old days when I was young and gay and
did many a wondrous deed for “Ladye love and pride of Chivalrie” and
you shall forgive many a cross word and ill tempered remark for old
friendship’s sake and say “He was not always so but this world’s
sorrows have soured his temper, poor old Man.”

You tell me to continue my history of Bretagne, but in sooth I know
not where I left off. Memory, that lazy slut, has forgot to mend her
pocket which has had a hole in it for some time and the consequence is
that, of all I give her to keep for me, the dross alone remains and
the better part is dropped by the wayside. But I am not at all in the
mood to give any descriptions. I am philosophical and therefore will
tell you a story.

In that mighty empire which exceeds all others as much in wisdom as it
does in size—in the time of Fo Whang, who was the six hundredth
emperor of the ninety-seventh dynasty which has sat on the throne of
Cathay, there lived a philosopher whose doctrine was such that every
Chinese from the mandarin who enjoys the light of the celestial
presence to the waterman who paddles his Junk in the river of Canton
became proselytes.

Every one knows that every Chinese from generation to generation is in
manners, customs, dress, and appearance so precisely what his father
was before him that a certain Mandarin who had thought proper to fall
into a trance for a century or so, waking from his sleep and entering
his paternal mansion, found his great grandson, who was at dinner, so
strikingly like himself that he was struck dumb with astonishment.
There were the same wide thin eye-brows, there were the same beautiful
black eyes no bigger than peas, there was the same delicate
tea-colored complexion. He wore the same silk his ancestor had worn
and the same chopsticks carried his food to his mouth. The Great
Grandson instantly recognized his predecessor, but the resuscitated
Mandarin, forgetting the lapse of years, mistook his descendant for
his own grandfather and each casting themselves on their belly
wriggled towards each other with all symptoms of respect. Such being
the laudable reverence of this people for all customs sanctified by
time, it may be well supposed that that doctrine was magnificent which
could take a Chinese by the ear, and such indeed was the doctrine of
the Philosopher, namely, that wisdom is folly and folly is wisdom.
Which he proved thus: “The end of wisdom” said the Philosopher, “is to
be happy. And the fewer are our wants the fewer can be our
disappointments and consequently the happier we are. The fool has
fewer wants than the wise man and the ignorant less wishes than the
learned, and therefore the fool being the happiest is the wisest and
the wise man is but a fool.” Now the wise men (even in China) being
lamentably in the minority the Philosopher had all the voices for
himself. Now there was a young Man named To-hi, who never pretended to
be a wise man but was nevertheless not a fool, and going to the
Philosopher he said to him—“Father, I cannot help thinking that your
doctrine means more than it appears to mean and I think I have found
its explication.” “Speak freely, my Son” replied the Philosopher, “and
tell me what you suppose it to be.” “I imagine,” said To-hi, “that you
wish to inculcate that Men seek for wisdom above their power and
destroy their happiness by examining too near the objects which
produce it. For I remark that all that is beautiful in nature as well
as in life is little better than a delusion which to be enjoyed must
be seen from a distance. When I look at the hills of Tartary, they
seem from here grand and soft and blue and changing all sorts of
colors from the reflection of the Sun, but when I approach them I find
nothing but heaps of barren rocks and frightful deserts. If we regard
the finest skin with a magnifying glass, it is like coarsest cloth of
Surat and the sunset that we admire for its soft splendor to the
nations on the edge of the horizon is but the glare of midday. Thus
then we ought to enjoy whatever the world offers us without searching
for faults and be as happy as we can without seeking to be too wise.
Is not this what you meant?” “My Son,” replied the Philosopher “like
many other Philosophers I did not well know what I meant and you, like
many other commentators, have given an explanation which the author
never intended.”

Rennes, first of Feby.

As you will see, my Dear Ranken, this letter has been written half a
century but I have been wandering about the country and forgot to
finish it before I went. Long before this however I hope you are
fundamentally cured and prepared to set up on your own bottom.
Doubtless you will find a vast fund of nonsense in the former part of
this ’pistle but if it serves to give you a minute’s amusement it will
answer the object of

Yours sincerely
G. P. R. JAMES.

Everybody seems to have written affectionately to Charles Ollier, the publisher—Lamb, Hunt, Keats, Shelley, and a host of others. His son, Edmund, ‘beheld Charles Lamb with infantile eyes and sat in poor Mary Lamb’s lap.’[67] James writes to the elder Ollier, from the Chateau du Buisson, Garumbourg, _près_ Evreux, on August 7, 1829:

“MY DEAR MR. OLLIER.

I take advantage of a friend’s departure for London, to write to you
though I have nothing to say. I have done so much of my new book as I
permit myself to do per diem and having nothing else to do my vile
_cacoethes scribendi_ prompts me to indite this epistle to your
manifest trouble and annoyance. My father informs me you have been ill
and calls your complaint ‘nothing but Dis-pep-sia.’ I hope and trust
however that you have no such long word in your stomach, but if you
have, nothing can be so good for it as crossing the water and visiting
a friend in France. One of my visitors lately brought me over about
twenty newspapers and also the information that my unfortunate _Adra_
had never made her appearance. Incontinent, I fell into one of my
accustomed fits of passion which was greatly increased by finding that
in none of the twenty journals was any advertisement or mention
whatever of _Richelieu_ which together with the news that about four
and twenty people had asked for _Richelieu_ and could not get it in
England, Scotland or Ireland, made me write instantly to Mr. Bentley a
very flaming letter about printing _Adra_ &c. &c. &c. I had written to
Mr. Colburn sometime ago without his doing me the _honor_ to answer
me, and therefore I write not there again. I have since received an
answer from Mr. R. Bentley and all has gone right. But I am most
profanely ignorant of all news and therefore will beg you to answer me
the following Qys. if you can.

Has _Richelieu_ been reviewed in the New Monthly? Has it ever been
advertised? Does the sale proceed as successfully as when I left
London? Will you see that its first success does not make Mr. Colburn
relax in his efforts in its favor? Will you manage the reviewing of
Adra and take care that it be sent to and noticed by as many
publications as possible? Will you see that the list of persons to
whom I desired it to be sent and which I left in Burlington street be
attended to? Will you let me know whether there be anything in which I
can in any way serve or pleasure you? I am sincere and ever yours.

G. P. R. JAMES.

This letter dated at Maxpoffle, near Melrose, Roxburghshire, 14th June 1832, is addressed to Allan Cunningham.

MY DEAR SIR:

When you were in this country last year, I told you not to forget me;
and you promised that you would not; yet I doubt not that when you see
the signature to this, memory will have much ado to call up the person
who writes. Nevertheless I cannot forbear—even at the distance of time
which has since elapsed, and the distance of space which
intervenes—from telling you how much delighted I have been with your
Maid of Elnar. I have not seen the whole; but various passages in
various reviews, have shown me so much surpassing beauty, that I do
not wait even till I have been delighted with the whole, to tell you
how great has been the pleasure I have felt from a part.

I do not know very well how or why, but I have been lately sickening
of poetry; and though once as great a dreamer as ever felt the sweet
music of imagination in his heart of hearts, within the last four or
five years I have found it all flat, stale, and unprofitable; and
began to fancy myself a devout adorer of dull prose. I thank you then
for showing me that there is still such a thing as poetry; and it
would not at all surprise me to feel myself—after reading the Maid of
Elnar through—taking the top of the wave, and going over every poet
again from Chaucer to Byron. Can you tell me what it is that causes
such a strange revolution in tastes? I declare for the last five years
since the Byron mania was upon me, I have looked upon poetry as the
most sappy, senseless misapplication of good words, that ever the
whimsical folly of the universal fool, mankind, devised. A spark or
two of the old faggot was rekindled in my heart about six weeks ago,
by hearing a sonnet of Wordsworth’s read aloud; and that I believe
induced me to read the extracts from your book; and now I am all
ablaze. What I like in the various scattered passages of the Maid of
Elnar, would be endless to tell without writing a review; but there is
something throughout the whole which has enchanted me—a mingling of
the fine spirit of old chivalry, with the sweet home feeling of calm
happy nature that is something newer than even Spenser. As Oliver
Cromwell used to say, I would say something—Ay verily—but I won’t for
fear you should think me exaggerating and therefore I will bid you
farewell. It is natural of course for me to hate you; for every author
is bound to detest any other person who writes what is good. I would
therefore fain pay you that compliment, but your book will not let me;
and I must beg you to believe me

Ever yours most truly
G. P. R. JAMES.

I send this to your Bookseller, because I do not know where else to
send it; and I pay it, because many a good wholesome letter which has
been addressed to the care of mine, has never reached me for want of
that precaution on the part of my correspondents. Before the letter
reaches you, I shall have got and read the whole book; and by heaven,
if the rest does not come up to the extracts, I shall either lampoon
you or your critics.

Another letter to Cunningham follows:

MAXPOFFLE NEAR MELROSE ROXBURGHSHIRE
17th May 1833.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

To show you how little the fault that you notice is attributable to
myself, I have only to tell you that I could not get a copy of _Mary
of Burgundy_ till three days after you had received it and my sister
in law writes to Mrs. James, by the post that brought your letter,
that although she had ordered the book through her own bookseller, she
has not yet been able to get it, while friends of hers have obtained
it at the circulating libraries. Not having lived in London for many
years, I am quite unacquainted with all the ins and outs of these
affairs and do not even know who is the Editor of the Athenæum; but I
think it somewhat hard measure on his part to make an author pay for
the sins of his Bookseller and very different indeed from the usual
liberal spirit that I have seen in his paper.

However, I never courted a Journalist in my life and although I know
that I have suffered greatly on this account, yet I shall pursue the
same plan; and only by endeavoring to make my works better than they
have been, force all honest writers to give them their due share
whatever it may be. At the same time I will endeavour as far as in me
lies to prevent any such instances of neglect as those of which you
complain taking place for the future, especially in regard to a paper
which deserves so well of the public. Having done so, whatever be the
result the Editor must “tak his wull o’t, as the cat did o’ the
haggis.” I never reply to criticism unless it be very absurd which is
not likely to be the case with his; so let him “pour on, I will
endure.”

In regard to the _String of Pearls_ I not only begged a copy to be
sent to you before any one else; I wrote you a long letter to be sent
with it; but this is only one out of the many shameful pieces of
negligence which Mr. Bentley has shown in my affairs.