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THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
in which he expresses his critical opinion of the work. To this
I append a letter from his aunt, Lady Leslie, whom I used to
know well, in which she expresses her critical opinion of Mr.
Winston Churchill in his youth. I am sorry to say that I cannot
remember whether the meeting she was trying to arrange did
or did not take place.
46 Grosvenor Square, W.
Dear Mr. Haggard, – Thank you so much for sending
me “Allan Quatermain,” it was so good of you. I like “A. Q.”
better than “King Solomon’s Mines”; it is more amusing.
I hope you will write a great many more books.
I remain,
Yours truly,
Winston S. Churchill.
11 Stratford Place, W.
February 11, 1888.
Dear Mr. Haggard, – The little boy Winston came here
yesterday morning, not having been in London on Sunday,
and beseeching me to take him to see you before he returns
to school at the end of the month. I don’t wish to bore so
busy a man as yourself, but will you, when you have time,
please tell me, shall I bring him on Wednesday next, when
Mrs. Haggard said she would be at home? Or do you prefer
settling to come here some afternoon when I could have
the boy to meet you? He really is a very interesting being,
though temporarily uppish from the restraining parental
hand being in Russia.
Yours very truly,
Constance Leslie.
321
H. RIDER HAGGARD
By one of the saddest of all coincidences, if such things are
pure coincidence, “Allan Quatermain” opens with a description
of the death of Quatermain’s only son. I dedicated it to my only
son, and shortly afterwards that fate overtook him also!
I fi nd letters from Lang imploring me not to kill Allan Quatermain. But when he wrote Allan had already been killed, and
how could the end of the story be altered? Besides his day was
done and his tale told. But he left others behind him.
Before fi nally leaving the subject of “Cleopatra” I will quote
a couple of letters that I received from W. E. Henley. I should
here mention that I was well acquainted with this able and
interesting man, some of whose poems will, I think, survive in
our literature.
I remember once driving to the British Museum with him
and Lang, or it may have been Gosse, or both of them, in a fourwheeled cab, to see some Japanese prints that were on show.
On the way I told him that personally I admired statuary, and
especially Greek statuary, much more than I did pictorial art.
He was greatly astonished.
“I think it wonderful,” he said, “that you being what you are,
and your work what it is, you should prefer form to colour.”
It seemed curious to him that a man who wrote romances
should have other sides to his nature. He was extremely fond of
war and fi ghting, witness his Ode to the Sword, and at the club
would insist upon my telling him stories by the yard about the
Zulus and their blood-thirsty battles and customs. With it all
he was very domestic, and much attached to his “placens uxor”
and the little girl whom, most unhappily, he lost. The last note
I ever received from him, written some years after our acquaintance had practically ceased, was on this sad subject.
322
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
The fi rst of the three letters which I am going to quote is
not on the subject of “Cleopatra” but in answer to one of mine
expressing my admiration of his volume of verses. As it is, however, the earliest in date it shall have preference.
June 9, 1888.
My dear Haggard, – I found yours at the Club last
night. I do care for your approbation very much; for I do
not think I should have it if my verses hadn’t a kind of basis
of life.
Lang hates ’em, I believe; and I shall tell him of your
note with pride and glee.
For myself I prefer the “Life and Death” lot. But the In
Hospital sets forth a special experience and is, of course,
of particular interest.
Always yours sincerely,
W. E. H.
The next letter is written from 11 Howard Place, Edin-
burgh, July 20, 1889.
My dear Haggard, – I got a week at Windermere and
took “Cleopatra” with me. I was alone, and I found her
very good company.
You were terribly handicapped by the inevitable comparison; but you came off better (to be frank) than I’d
expected you would. The inventionthroughout is admirable – is good enough, indeed, to carry off the archaeology
and the archaical style, though they are both large orders.
And in Charmion you have given us, I think, your best
creation; or if not that, a creation fi t to rank with Um-
323
H. RIDER HAGGARD
slopogaas and the King in “Solomon’s Mines.” And you
know that I mean a good deal when I say that.
I am glad to have read the book, and glad to have it
by me to read again. It has plenty of faults, but it has an
abundance of promise and some excellent – some really
excellent – achievement. There is never a sign of exhaustion, but on the contrary no end of proof that you have
scarce got into your stride.
Always yours,
W. E. H.
The third letter is evidently in answer to one of mine. It
is headed: The Scots Observer: A Record and Review, 2 Thistle
Street, Edinburgh, July 26, 1889:
My dear Haggard, – It is pleasant to know that I have
paid a very little of my debt. I think the Romance and
Fame in the current S.O. will not displease you. The writer
is a strange, old, brilliant creature whom I have found here,
and whose opinion is worth having. Meanwhile, you may
put down the attacks partly to envy (for you can’t deny that
you’ve had a dam good innings) and partly to the inevitable
reaction – for I don’t know that your admirers have praised
you in quite the right way. And you need bother yourself no
more about them. Why should you? You are bound to win,
and you need not care three straws for anything they say.
You need only do your best, and leave the rest to time.
That I believe to be the right philosophy of things. And
so farewell.
Ever yours,
W. E. H.
324
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
Archer has just writ the loveliest review of my second edition; and the P.M.G., after accepting and printing, declines to
publish! So you see!
After “Cleopatra” was fi nished I undertook various things.
One was a tale called “Nesta Amor,” which was never published, although I fi nished it. Indeed I agree with Lang that it
was not worth publishing in its existing form, though it might
have been, perhaps, if rewritten, which I have never found
time to do. Another was a romance of Helen, to be written
jointly with Lang, which, after many vicissitudes and adventures, ultimately materialised as “The World’s Desire.” Also I
conceived the idea of writing a saga, but determined that before I attempted this, I would visit Iceland and study the local
colouring on the spot.
I remember that I was a good deal sneered at for my habit
of actually investigating the countries where the events had
happened about which I intended to write. Literature, I was
told, should be independent of such base actualities. I do not
at all agree with those critics. If a man wishes to produce a
really good romance dealing with some past epoch, the best
thing he can do is to see the land in which the folk lived of
whom he means to tell, and, as it were, to soak himself in the
surroundings that were their surroundings. So he may hope
to catch some of the atmosphere which doubtless they took
from their native earth and skies. Then, if he possesses any,
imagination may do the rest. Who could write a saga who had
not visited Iceland, or an Egyptian novel who did not know
Egypt – I mean one worth reading?
325
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Also I wrote a very successful little African story called
“Maiwa’s Revenge” and my novel “Beatrice,” which I think one
of the best bits of work I ever did. Here is Charles Longman on
“Beatrice,” no doubt after he had read the MS. His letters are
dated August 2 and August 4, 1888.
I was very much interested in “Beatrice.” It is of course
a terrible tragedy – unrelieved in its gloom which increases
from start to fi nish. Still there is no denying its power....
From the letter of August 4th:
I think, too, that “Beatrice” is your best piece of purely
modern, nineteenth century work. I believe I like you best
among the caves of old Kor, or looking back over King Solomon’s great road to the old civilisations dead two thousand
years ago. But it is a great thing to have several strings and not
always harp on the same. And there is the same feeling in all
your books – that of a power or Fate or whatever it is behind
man controlling his actions and driving him blindly forward.
All ages have felt it and have tried to explain it in their own
way. But what the facts may be – we may know some day....
We are thinking of beginning to set the type of “Quaritch, V.C.” on Sept. 1st. You will give us your fi nally corrected sheets, I suppose. We have sold 20,000 copies of
“Maiwa” on day of publication.
But of “Beatrice” more later; let us return to “The World’s
Desire,” “The Song of the Bow” as it was called at fi rst.
Roughly the history of this tale, which I like as well as any
with which I have had to do, is that Lang and I discussed it.
Then I wrote a part of it, which part he altered or rewrote.
326
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
Next in his casual manner he lost the whole MS. for a year or
so; then it was unexpectedly found, and encouraged thereby I
went on and wrote the rest.
The MS. in its fi nal form I have, bound up, and with it a
very interesting preface or rather postscript by Lang which
was never published, eight sheets long; also notes of his as to
the scheme of the story and the originals of his verses, some of
which I drafted in prose. The MS. contains fi fty-three sheets at
the beginning written or re-written by Lang, and about 130
sheets in my writing, together with various addenda. The best
history of the thing is to extracted from Lang’s letters, from
which I make some quotations.
The fi rst of these that I can fi nd is dated from an hotel in
Paris on March 8th, probably 1888.
It occurs to me that you had better read the Helen of
Euripides in a prose crib. There’s a bad one. I have forgotten the play, all but half a dozen lines, but it is about Helen
in Egypt and may suggest something. The name “The Wanderer” is already taken by one of Lord Lytton’s poems. I
had thought of “A Priestess of Isis.”
The next is from Florence on March 25th:
Just had your letter on the Jews. Do you think it worth
while, if it won’t run easily? You have so much on hand,
and I am afraid you will tire out your invention. The idea
327
H. RIDER HAGGARD
of Odysseus and Helen is a good one, but don’t thrash a
willing and perhaps weary Pegasus.
Then comes one from Marloes Road – he is back again in
England now – without the slightest indication of a date.
Odysseus calls himself Eperitus, as a by-name, in Od.
24. Or Laertiades.
Helen should be a priestess in Egypt, say of Pasht.
You won’t want much help from me. All the local colour
is in the Odyssey.
After this I believe that I worked away at the story, of which
I did a good deal, and sent it to Lang, who promptly lost it so
completely and for so long a time that, not having the heart to
recommence the book, the idea of writing it was abandoned. It
appears that he thrust the MS. into a folio volume, which was
replaced among his numerous books, where it might have remained for generations had he not chanced to need to consult
that particular work again.
I’ve found your lost MS.! I don’t think it is a likely thing,
style too Egyptian and all too unfamiliar to B.P.
Then under date of October 11th:
I only had time for a glance at the lost MS. Now I have
read it. There are jolly things in it – the chess, and the incantation, and the ship; but I fear it is too remote for this
people. It isn’t my idea how to do it (not that that mat-
328
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE
ters), for I’d have begun with Odysseus in a plague-stricken Ithaca and have got on to Egypt. And I’ve had written
in modern English. However, as it stands, I don’t care quite
for the way the Wanderer is introduced. He comes rather
perfunctorily and abruptly on the scene to my feeling. It
is a subject that wants such a lot of thinking out. It would
be jolly if one had more time in this world of ours. Also,
if the public had, for after “Cleopatra” they would not
rise at Egyptological romance for a long time. I can’t help
regretting my veteran Odysseus – I don’t think he would
have been too “grey-eyed.” If we really collaborated, as we
proposed originally, I’d begin with him; bring him in your
way to Egypt, introduce him to the old cove who’d tell him
about Hatasu (as in yours) and then let things evolve, but
keep all the English modern, except in highly-wrought passages, incantations, etc. I dare say it would make a funny
mixture.
Just fancy a total stranger writing to ask me for Matthew Arnold’s autograph. Wot next!
Oct. 17th. Having nothing to do this afternoon I did
a lot of Ulysses. I brought him home from the people who
never saw salt in a boat of Dreams, and I made him fi nd
nobody alive in Ithaca, a pyre of ashes in the front garden and a charred bone with Penelope’s bracelet on it! But
the bow was at home. If you can make it alive (it’s as dead
as mutton), the “local colour” is all right. Then I’d work
in your bit, where the Sidonians nobble him, and add local
colour.
329
H. RIDER HAGGARD
Nov. 2nd. I have done a little more. Taken Od. into
the darkness and given him a song, but I think he had been
reading Swinburne when he wrote it.
The next letter is undated:
Certainly the bow must sing, but I don’t think words.
As readers of the book will know, the bow was ultimately made to sing in words. I suggested to Lang that such
words might be arranged to imitate the hiss of arrows and
the humming of the string. The result was his “Song of the
Bow,” which I think a wonderfully musical poem.
Nov. 27th. The typewritten “Song of the Bow” has
come. The Prologue I wrote is better out. It is very odd
to see how your part (though not your chef d’oeuvre) is
readable, and how mine – isn’t. Tell Longman the “Bow”
is a Toxophilite piece.
The chaff about the Bow being a Toxophilite piece refers to Charles Longman’s fondness for archery.
Jan 1st, 1889. Splendid idea, no two people seeing Helen the same. So Meriamun might see her right in her vision,
and never see her so again, till she fi nds her with Odysseus. Indeed this is clearly what happens; take the case of
Mary Stuart: no two portraits alike – or Cleopatra. I bar
the bogles rather. They’d need to be very shadowy at least.
If you have them, they should simply make room for him.
But the shifting beauty is really poetical to my mind.
330
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