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THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
When “She” was in proof for serial publication in
the Graphic I showed it to Andrew Lang. He writes to me on
July 12, 1886:
I have pretty nearly fi nished “She.” I really must congratulate you; I think it is one of the most astonishing romances I
ever read. The more impossible it is, the better you do it, till it
seems like a story from the literature of another planet. I can’t
give a better account of the extraordinary impression it makes
upon me; as to the Public I never can speak.
Then he makes some criticisms of the style, the comic element and the horrors, and ends with a P.S. “I know I shan’t
sleep.”
On the 25th of the same month Lang writes again:
I have just fi nished “She,” previously I skipped a bit to get to
the end. I certainly still think it the most extraordinary romance
I ever read, and that’s why I want you to be very careful with
the proofs, before it goes out in a volume.... I nearly cried over
Ayesha’s end. But how did she come to Kor? There is a diffi culty
about Leo. He is not made a very interesting person. Probably
he was only a fi ne animal. Anyhow that can’t be helped now
and never could perhaps. I dare say Kallikrates was no better.
But some of the chaff in awful situations lets one down too
suddenly. I’d take other fellows’ advice about it, in some of the
marked places. I hope they fi nd She in Thibet, and all die to-
1
gether.
By George, I’d have gone into the fi re and chucked in
She too, perhaps it would have picked her up again.
In another letter he says:
It is awfully good of you to think of putting my name in
“She” and I consider it a great distinction. The only thing is
1
They did, practically, twenty years later, see “Ayesha.” – H. R. H.
291
H. RIDER HAGGARD
that, if you do, I shan’t be able to review it, except with my
name signed thereto and my honest confession. Probably I
could do that in the Academy. It is rather curious (plagiarism on your side again) that I was going to ask you to let
me dedicate my little volume of tales, “That Missionary,” etc.
to you.
I may say here that Lang did review “She” in the Acade-
my over his own name, but, I am almost sure, nowhere else,
although I believe he was accused of having written a dozen
or more notices of this work, and that he did dedicate “In the
Wrong Paradise” to me in very charming language.
Having run through the Graphic, where it attracted a good
deal of attention, “She” appeared as a six-shilling volume, I
think the fi rst or one of the fi rst novels that was published in
that form, some time in December 1886. It was brought out by
Messrs. Longmans and very well got up, the elaborate sherd
compounded by my sister-inlaw, then Miss Barber, and myself being reproduced in two plates at the beginning of the
volume. The illustrations by Messrs. Greiffenhagen and Kerr
were, however, added afterwards. By the way, the reproduction
of this sherd was shown as being from a genuine antique to
Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Evans, who of course was a great expert on such matters. For a long while he peered at it through
his eyeglasses and at last put it down, remarking, “All I can say
is that it might possibly have been forged” – which I consider
great testimony to the excellency of the sherd, which now reposes in a cupboard upstairs.
1
1
It is now in Norwich Museum with the original MSS. of many
of Sir Rider’s tales. – Ed.
292
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
The title “She,” if I remember aright, was taken from a certain rag doll, so named, which a nurse at Bradenham used to
bring out of some dark recess in order to terrify those of my
brothers and sisters who were in her charge.
“She” proved a great and immediate success, and I received
many letters, of which I will quote one from Sir Walter Besant,
and one from Mr. (now Sir Edmund) Gosse.
12 Gayton Crescent, Hampstead:
January 2, 1887.
My dear Haggard, – While I am under the spell of
“Ayesha,” which I have only just fi nished, I must write to
congratulate you upon a work which most certainly puts
you at the head – a long away ahead
– of all contemporary imaginative writers. If fi ction is
best cultivated in the fi eld of pure invention then you are
certainly the fi rst of modern novelists. “Solomon’s Mines”
is left far behind. It is not only the central conception that
is so splendid in its audacity, but it is your logical and pitiless working out of the whole thing in its inevitable details
that strikes me with astonishment.
I do not know what the critics will say about it. Probably they will not read more than they can help and then
let you off with a few general expressions. If the critic is a
woman she will put down this book with the remark that it
is impossible – almost all women have this feeling towards
the marvellous.
Whatever else you do, you will have “She” always behind you for purposes of odious comparison. And whatever critics say the book is bound to be a magnifi cent success. Also it will produce a crop of imitators. And all the
293
H. RIDER HAGGARD
little conventional story-tellers will be jogged out of their
grooves – until they fi nd new ones....
Yours very sincerely,
Walter Besant.
Certainly Besant was quite right when he said that I should
always have “She” behind me “for purposes of odious comparison.” I always have. Quite a large proportion of my critics during many years have mentioned in the course of their reviews
of various works from my pen that the one under consideration
is not another “She,” or words to that effect. As though a man’s
brain could harbour a host of “Shes”! Such literary polygamy is
not possible. Only one love of this kind is given to him.
The second letter that I will quote from is from a friend
who I am glad to say still lives, Mr. Edmund Gosse, the distinguished author and man of letters.
1
29 Delamere Terrace: January 8, 1887.
My dear Mr. Rider Haggard, – I feel constrained to
write again to you about “She” before the impression the
book has made upon my mind in any degree wears off.
In construction I think you have been successful to a very
marvellous degree. The quality of the invention increases
as you go on, and the latest chapters are the best. Indeed
it does not appear to me that I have ever been thrilled and
terrifi ed by any literature as I have by pp. 271–306 of
“She.” It is simply unsurpassable.
1
Now Sir Edmund Gosse, C.B.
294
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
All through the book there are points which I have noted for the highest praise, the three white fi ngers on Ustane’s
hair, the dream about the skeletons, the meeting of the Living and the Dead, the Statue of Truth – these are only a
few of the really marvellous things that the book contains.
I was a great admirer and, as you know, a warm welcomer
of “King Solomon’s Mines,” but I confess that exceedingly
picturesque and ingenious book did not prepare me for
“She”; and I do not know what to say, of hope or fear,
about any future book of adventure of yours. I don’t know
what is to be imagined beyond the death of Ayesha.
Accept again my thanks for the gift of your book, which
I put among my treasures, and now the expression of my
sincere and cordial admiration.
Yours most truly,
Edmund Gosse.
P.S. – May I say, without impertinence, I think
the style strikes me as a vast improvement upon that of
“K.S.M.”?
To turn to something humorous – I fi nd the following in
the handwriting of the late Rev. W. J. Loftie, headed “SHE” in
large letters.
Are you acquainted with the story of the lady who
wrote poetry? She had begun an epic –
“Man was made innocent and good, but he” –
when a visitor called. She left the paper on the table:
the visitor came in, waited a little and departed. When she
returned she found the couplet completed:
“Man was made innocent and good, but he –
Would doubtless have continued so – but SHE!”
295
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Well, “She” came out and was a great success. On March
15th Charles Longman wrote to me in Egypt:
I am glad to tell you that “She” keeps on selling capitally. We have printed 25,000 already, and have ordered
another 5000, and I do not think we shall have many left
when the printers deliver them.... Last week we sold over
1000 copies!
This was a large number as books sold in those days, when
people were not accustomed to buying novels in one volume,
having been in the habit of borrowing them from the library
in three. Moreover, from that day to this the sale of “She” has
never ceased, whilst in America it was pirated by the hundred
thousand.
All the reviews of it were not good; indeed some of them
attacked it strongly. Others, were enthusiastic. The Times (a
review in The Timesthen, before the days of Literary Supplements, if good, was very valuable) spoke extremely well of
it. The Times reviewer, however, criticises the Greek upon the
sherd. Had he known that it was the work of Dr. Holden, one
of the best Greek scholars of the day, he might have preferred
to leave it unquestioned. Here is the doctor’s letter on the subject, written from the Athenaeum in March 1886.
Dear Haggard, – Your task is not quite so big as one
of the labours of Hercules, but by no means easy without
further data. Do you want the Greek to be such as to deceive the learned world into thinking that it is no forgery,
but a genuine bit of antiquity? If so, the style will have to
be taken into account: it won’t do to imitate Herodotus,
296
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
though it is just the bit suitable for his style, because of the
date B.C. 200.
Anyhow, I am just going down to Harrow to examine
the Sixth Form for Scholarships, and shall be fully occupied
there for a fortnight. I hope therefore you are not in any
particular hurry: if so, I must return you your MS., which
I cannot do justice to without some further consideration
of the subject.
Yours sincerely,
H. A. Holden.
That my old master did consider it very thoroughly I know
for a fact. I remember his telling me that he would have liked
to be able to give six months to study before he ventured on
this particular piece of Greek. I said that with all his great
learning this was surely unnecessary.
“My dear boy,” he answered, “I have been soaking myself
in the classics for over forty years, and I am just beginning to
learn how little I know about them!”
In the same way the black-letter, mediaeval Latin inscription and the old English translation thereof, etc., were the work
of my late friend, Dr. Raven, who was a very great authority on
monkish Latin and mediaeval English.
Twenty years later, the time that I had always meant to
elapse, I wrote a sequel under the title of “Ayesha, or The Return of She.” Of course, although successful in a way, it was
more or less pooh-poohed and neglected on the principle that
sequels must always be of no worth.
Of the scores of letters which I received about “She” from
correspondents personally unknown to me, the following is
297
H. RIDER HAGGARD
perhaps one of the most curious. It is written from the Electric–Technical Factory of Messrs. Ganz and Co., Budapest.
Dear Sir, – In explanation of the following lines please
to learn that during the course of the last few weeks, we,
whose signatures you will fi nd adjoined, have had the
pleasure of reading your celebrated novel, “She.”
Despite our various tastes, characters and nationalities we
have, one and all, taken a most lively interest in your story.
It appears that each of us found in it a something which
appealed to his sympathies; to one the ethnographical and
topographical descriptions may have given satisfaction; to
another the frequently occurring remembrances of athletic
sports; in a third, perhaps, sweet memories of bygone classical studies have been awakened.
The last time we dined in company it was decided that we
should proffer to you, in humble acknowledgment of our respect and thanks, our united most hearty good wishes for your
happiness, contentment and general well-being, with the hope
that you may be spared to enrich your fellow-creatures and
coming generations with the fair products of your fertile mind.
We beg you, dear sir, to believe us,
Yours faithfully,
A. Damek, Crawford, C. Horstek,
German; Scotchman; Englishman;
S. Jordan, E. Poesetzlin, L. Stark,
Frenchman; Swiss; Hungarian;
Electrical Engineers.
This, I think, was a very satisfactory letter for an author to
receive.
298
CHAPTER 11
EGYPT
After “She” had been fairly launched, and the proofs of
“Jess” passed for press, I started, in January 1887, on a journey
to Egypt. From a boy ancient Egypt had fascinated me, and I
had read everything concerning it on which I could lay hands.
Now I was possessed by a great desire to see it for myself, and
to write a romance on the subject of “Cleopatra,” a suffi ciently
ambitious project.
A friend of mine who is a mystic of the fi rst water amused
me very much not long ago by forwarding to me a list of my
previous incarnations, or rather of three of them, which had
been revealed to him in some mysterious way. Two of these
were Egyptian, one as a noble in the time of Pepi II who lived
somewhere about 4000 B.C., and the second as one of the minor Pharaohs. In the third, according to him, I was a Norseman
of the seventh century, who was one of the fi rst to sail to the
Nile, whence he returned but to die in sight of his old home.
After that, saith the prophet, I slumbered for twelve hundred
years until my present life.
I cannot say that I have been converted to my friend’s perfectly sincere beliefs, since the reincarnation business seems
to me to be quite insusceptible of proof. If it could be proved,
how much more interesting it would make our lives. But that,
299
H. RIDER HAGGARD
I think, will never happen, even if it be true that we return
again to these glimpses of the moon, which, like everything
else, is possible.
Still it is a fact that some men have a strong affi nity for certain lands and periods of history, which, of course, may be explained by the circumstance that their direct ancestors dwelt
in those lands and at those periods. Thus I love the Norse people of the saga and presaga times. But then I have good reason
to believe that my forefathers were Danes. I am, however, unable to trace any Egyptian ancestor – if such existed at all it is
too long ago.
However these things may be, with the old Norse and the
old Egyptians I am at home. I can enter into their thoughts
and feelings; I can even understand their theologies. I have
a respect for Thor and Odin, I venerate Isis, and always feel
inclined to bow to the moon!
Whatever the reason, I seem to myself to understand the
Norse folk of anywhere about 800 A.D. and the Egyptians from
Menes down to the Ptolemaic period, much better than I understand the people of the age in which I live. They are more
familiar to me. They interest me much more. For instance, I
positively loathe the Georgian period, about which I can never
even bring myself to read. On the other hand, I have the greatest sympathy with savages, Zulus for instance, with whom I
always got on extremely well. Perhaps my mystical friend has
left a savage incarnation out of his list.
For these reasons I know well that I could never be a success as a modern novelist. I can see the whole thing; it goes
on under my eyes, and as a magistrate and in other ways I am
300
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