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THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
of his poems, and, in truth, few are more easily or more deeply
moved by anything that appeals to the heart, be it national, or
personal.
Of his abilities I speak with some diffi dence. On all hands
he is admitted to be perhaps the soundest and ablest critic of
his time, but when it comes to his place as an historian, or as a
student and recorder of matters connected with myth, ritual,
and religion, I fi nd myself incompetent to judge of his real status, which doubtless the future will decide, though personally
I believe it will be a very high one. On such matters, however,
only experts can express opinions of real value. Lang never
claimed to be a creator, and whenever he sets to work to create, which he has not done of late years, his wide knowledge
and his marvellous memory of everything he has read – and
little worth studying in ancient or modern literature has escaped him – prove positive stumbling-blocks in his path. I noticed this particularly when we were evolving “The World’s
Desire.” With that modesty which so often distinguishes those
who have much to be proud of, he once described himself to
me as “A hodman of letters,” a description that may be paralleled by Mrs. Lynn Linton’s rather sharp saying – to myself I
believe, although of this I am not sure – that “Andrew Lang
would be the greatest writer in the language if only he had
something to write about.” The fact is, of course, that he has always had too much. Like the amorous Frenchman he has ever
been wont to eparpiller son coeur upon a hundred subjects. I
should add that Mrs. Linton was one of his great admirers. In
a letter which she wrote to me in 1890, and which is before
me at this moment, she says, “I simply adore his work.” Again,
271
H. RIDER HAGGARD
further on in the same epistle, she speaks of her “delight in his
most exquisite work.”
The truth is that Lang is par excellence a litterateur of the
highest sort, perhaps the most literary man in England or
America. When he is not reading he is writing, and he writes
more easily than he talks, at any rate to most people. Also some
of his poetry is wonderfully beautiful. If verses like “The White
Pacha,” its companion “Midnight, January 25th, 1886,” and
“A Dream” are doomed to die, and with them others as good,
I wonder what will live! Again, what majestic lines are these
upon the Odyssey:
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy fl owers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
Of his extraordinary readiness I need say little, as it is
known to all men. Still, as it may be forgotten when this book
is published, if that ever happens, I will give two instances.
Once he called on me; we were going for a walk together, but
I was not ready to start. So he asked for paper, and in half
an hour or so fi nished a leading article – I think it was for
the Daily News – which he sent straight to the offi ce by a cabman, to appear without the submission of a proof. I read that
article afterwards; it was on some Shakespearian subject which
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THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
involved many allusions and much quotation. I believe that it
contained no error.
On another occasion I was travelling with them from St.
Andrews to Edinburgh, and Dr. Boyd, better known as A.K.H.B.,
was our fellow-voyager. He was a great conversationalist and
talked to Lang almost without ceasing. Presently Lang took off
the tall hat he was wearing, placed it on his knee, produced
paper and pencil, set the paper on the crown of the hat and
began to write like a spiritualist automatist, if that is the right
word, all the time keeping up a fl ow of argument and conversation with A.K.H.B. At Edinburgh I saw him post the results,
without rereading, to the editor of the Saturday Review. The
article appeared in due course without his seeing a proof, and
written in his usual clear and beautiful style.
Such is the professional man, but of the friend I know not
what to say, save that I reckon it as one of the privileges of my
life to be able to call him by that much-misused name; the tenderest, the purest and the highest-minded of human creatures,
one from whom true goodness and nobility of soul radiate in
every common word and act, though often half-hidden in a
jest, the most perfect of gentlemen – such is Andrew Lang.
To return to the history of “King Solomon’s Mines.” Ultimately that book found its way to Messrs. Cassells, recommended to them, I believe, by Mr. Henley. Subsequently Henley reproached me with having taken it out of his hands, and
said that he could have got me much better terms. But I never
did take it out of his hands; indeed I never knew that it was in
his hands. If my memory serves me, I heard direct from Messrs.
273
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Cassells informing me that they would publish the book and
asking me to call rethe agreement.
At any rate I called and in that great building saw a business-like editor whose name I never knew. He pointed out that
the company was prepared to offer me an alternative agreement. The fi rst of the two agreements conveyed the copyright
to Messrs. Cassells in return for a sum of, I think, 100 pounds
paid down. The second offered me 50 pounds on account of
royalties, to be calculated “at the rate of ten per cent. of the
published price of the book on all copies sold by them during
the continuance of the copyright, reckoning thirteen copies to
the twelve.”
After my previous experiences as an author 100 pounds on
the nail had great attractions. I had no particular belief in the
story which I had thrown off in my leisure hours as a mere jeu
d’esprit, especially after its rejection in other quarters. Even Mr.
Lang’s kind expressions of opinion carried no conviction to my
mind, for I did not understand all that it meant coming from
such a source. I set him down as an amiable gentleman with a
taste for savages and boys’ books; it did not occur to me that he
saw such things every day, and that when he wrote to one who
was practically a stranger that he almost preferred this particular boys’ book to “Treasure Island,” the compliment was high
and indeed extraordinary. So after a brief moment of refl ection
I told the business-like editor that I would sell the copyright
for 100 pounds, and he departed to fetch the agreement.
As it chanced, however, there sat in the corner of the room
a quiet clerk, whom I had never even noticed. When the editor
had departed this unobtrusive gentleman addressed me.
274
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
“Mr. Haggard,” he said in a warning voice, “if I were you I
would take the other agreement.”
Then hearing some noise, once more he became absorbed
in his work, and I understood that the conversation was not to
be continued.
Still a moment remained for thought.
“Why the dickens,” I refl ected to myself, “did he say that to
me? He must have had some reason.” The business-like editor
re-entered the room bearing the document in hand.
“I have changed my mind,” I said as he presented it to me: “I
will not sell the copyright; I will take the royalty agreement.”
Undoubtedly the quiet clerk in the corner, who was acquainted with the estimate that had been formed of the book
by his employers, did me a very good turn, as did my knowledge of men when I acted so promptly on his hint.
The royalty that I accepted might have been higher, at any
rate after the sale of a certain number of copies, but it was infi nitely better than the acceptance of a small sum down for the
copyright of “King Solomon’s Mines,” of which the sale has
been very great and at present shows signs of increase rather
than of diminution.
Many years later this gentleman wrote reminding me of
the incident and forwarding a book that he had published.
“King Solomon’s Mines,” which was produced as a fi veshilling book, proved an instant success. Published about the
beginning of October, on December 9th Messrs. Cassells wrote
to me that they had already sold 5000 copies more or less, a
large sale for a boys’ book by a practically unknown man. I
wonder how many copies they have sold up to Christmas
275
H. RIDER HAGGARD
1911! In one form and another the total must run to hundreds
of thousands.
Before the book appeared we had gone down to Norfolk
for part of the long vacation, not to Ditchingham, which was
let, but to a farmhouse at Denton adjoining a farm of our
own, where I employed my holiday in writing “Allan Quatermain,” the continuation of “King Solomon’s Mines.” One day
I chanced to visit the little town of Bungay and there to see a
copy of the Saturday Review which contained a two-column
notice of the latter work. It was written by Lang, although this
I did not know at the time. With delight my eye fell upon such
sentences as “All through the battle piece, ‘The Last Stand of
the Greys,’ Mr. Haggard, like Scott at Flodden, ‘never stoops
his wing’”; and “to tell the truth we would give many novels,
say eight hundred (that is about the yearly harvest), for such a
book as ‘King Solomon’s Mines.’”
By the way, things in this respect have changed since 1885.
I believe that the “yearly harvest” of British novels now numbers nearly three thousand.
I went back to the farm that night feeling sure that my
book was going to succeed. A week or so later I received a note
from Lang in which he says: “The Spectator in a ‘middle’ gives
you more praise than I did, and is neither known personally
to you, I fancy, nor an amateur of savages, like me. I hope they
will give a review also.... I never read anything in the Specta-
tor before with such pleasure.”
One day I took the manuscript of “King Solomon’s Mines”
to be bound by Mr. H. Glaisher the bookseller. In the carriage
of the Underground Railway I perceived an old lady engaged
276
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
in a close, indeed an almost ferocious study of the map printed
at the beginning of the printed volume which rested on her
knees. This was too much for me. Drawing the original map
from my pocket, I placed it on my knee – we were seated opposite to each other – and began to study it with like attention.
The old lady looked up and saw. She stared fi rst at her map
and then at mine, and stared, and stared. Twice she opened
her mouth to speak, but I suppose was too shy, nor did I, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of my map, written
in blood upon a dirty piece of torn linen, the shirt-tail of Don
Jose de Silvestra, give her the slightest encouragement. The
end of it was that she seemed to come to the conclusion that
that railway carriage in which we were alone together was no
place for her. Suddenly, as we were about to leave a station,
she sprang up and leapt from the train, at which, the unfolded
map still in her hand, she gazed bewildered until it vanished
into the tunnel.
Among the many letters that I received about “King Solomon’s Mines,” perhaps the most interesting that I can fi nd are
from Robert Louis Stevenson. The fi rst of these, undated, as
they all are, is written from Skerryvore, Bournemouth, where
he was living at the time. Here I should state that to my sorrow
I never met Stevenson face to face: always we just missed each
other.
Dear Sir, – Some kind hand has sent me your tale of
Solomon’s Mines; I know not who did this good thing to
me; and so I send my gratitude to headquarters and the
fountainhead. You should be more careful; you do quite
well enough to take more trouble, and some parts of your
277
H. RIDER HAGGARD
book are infi nitely beneath you. But I fi nd there fl ashes of a
fi ne weird imagination and a fi ne poetic use and command
of the savage way of talking: things which both thrilled me.
The refl ections of your hero before the battle are singularly
fi ne; the King’s song of victory a very noble imitation. But
how, in the name of literature, could you mistake some
lines from Scott’s “Marmion” – ay, and some of the best –
for the slack-sided, clerical-cob effusions of the Rev. Ingoldsby? Barham is very good, but Walter Scott is vastly
better. I am, dear sir,
Your obliged reader,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Of course I answered Stevenson’s letter – by the way, I
have not the least idea who sent him the book – thanking
him and pointing out that he had overlooked the fact that Allan Quatermain’s habit of attributing sundry quotations to
the Old Testament and the Ingoldsby Legends, the only books
with which he was familiar, was a literary joke.
Stevenson wrote back, again in an undated letter from
Bournemouth and on a piece of manuscript paper:
Dear Mr. Haggard, – Well, yes, I have sinned against
you; that was the part of a bad reader. But it inclines me
the more to explain my dark saying. As thus:
You rise in the course of your book to pages of eloquence and poetry; and it is quite true that you must rise
from something lower; and that the beginning must infallibly (?) be pitched low and kept quiet. But you began
(pardon me the word) slipshod. If you are to rise, you
278
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
must prepare the mind in the quiet parts, with at least an
accomplished neatness. To this you could easily attain. In
other words, what you have still to learn is to take trouble
with those parts which do not excite you.
Excuse the tone of a damned schoolmaster, and believe me,
Yours truly,
Robert Louis Stevenson.
The next letter, also from Skerryvore, Bournemouth, which,
because of its allusions to “King Solomon’s Mines,” although
undated, must have been written at this time, is an enigma to
me. I have not the faintest idea to what it refers.
Dear Mr. Haggard, – Is it not possible to make a gratuitous donation inter vivos? Could not that be done in a
separate instrument? I know not if it matters; but if there
were any ready way of gaining the point, I might adopt it.
My law is all to the wind; and indeed I never knew but a
taste.
I thank you at least for the remark.
I come rarely to town, and am usually damned sick
when I do. But if I can, I’ll try to see you. (I know a cousin
of yours here by the way.)
What are you about? I am again at a boys’ story; but
I’ve been a year at it already and may be longer.
Yours very truly,
R. L. Stevenson.
P.S. – Further refl ection on “K.S.M.” makes me think
you are one who gets up steam slowly. In that case, when
279
H. RIDER HAGGARD
you have your book fi nished, go back and rewrite the beginning up to the mark.
My case is the reverse: I always begin well, and often
fi nish languidly or hurriedly.
P.P.S. – How about a deed of partnership?
This “deed of partnership” on the face of it would seem
to suggest some scheme of collaboration. Yet I do not think
that this could have been the case – for the following reason. I
remember that my late brother Bazett, who was afterwards an
intimate friend of Stevenson’s in Samoa, told me that someone,
I know not who, had written to him suggesting that he and
I should collaborate in a story, and that he had returned an
angry and offensive answer to the suggestion, as I dare say it
was quite natural that he should do. This answer, it seems, had
however weighed upon his mind. At any rate Bazett informed
me that Stevenson on several occasions spoke to him with deep
regret as to his petulant reply. This is all I know, or at any rate
all that I can recollect, of the matter. Yet what else can have
been referred to in the above letter I am at a loss to guess.
Stevenson’s remark as to his fi nishing languidly is interesting, and, so far as my judgment goes, his romantic work shows
its truth. Thus to my fancy the fi rst part of “Treasure Island”
is far and away better than its end. In an adventure story what
is called style, however brilliant, is not enough: the living interest must be kept up to the last page; it should increase to
the very end. Of course I know that many of our critics, like
those of Alexandria in the fi rst centuries of our era, think and
preach that style is the really important thing, much more im-
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