AUTHOR’S QUARRELS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4285, 27 May 1940, Page 6

AUTHOR’S QUARRELS

SOME NOTABLE EXAMPLES Literary history contains many records of quarrels between authors. More than a hundred years ago Isaac Disraeli published a work in three volumes on the subject, and since then literary quarrels continued to break out. In English literature the Victorian age seems to have been very fruitful in quarrels. One of the best known is that between Dickens and Thackeray, resulting from the indiscretions of Dickens’s youthful friend Edmund Yates in criticising Thackeray in “Town Talk/’ a new weekly paper of which Yates was editor. The estrangement of the two great Victorian novelists lasted five years, though _ Thackeray, who more than one occasion to Dickens’s was the injured party, expressed on daughter his hope that a reconciliation would be effected. The reconciliation was brought about on Thackeray’s initiative. Sir Theodore Martin, a scholarly poet and biographer, relates that one day in December, 1863, he was standing talking to Thackeray in the hall of the Athenaeum Club, when Dickens came out of the room where he had been reading the morning pajjers, and, passing close to them without making any sign of recognition, crossed the hall to the staircase that led to the library. Thackeray broke away from his companion, and reached Dickens just as the latter had his foot on the staircase.

“Dickens turned to him,” wrote Sir Theordore Martin, “and I saw

Thackeray speak and presently hold out his hand to Dickens. They shook hands, a few words were exchanged, and immediately Thackeray returned to me, saying, *1 am glad I have done this. I said to Dickens. “It’s time this foolish estrangement should cease, and that we should be to each other what we used, to be. Come, shake hands!" Dickens, he said, seemed at first rather taken aback, but held out his hand, and some friendly words were exchanged.” Thackeray said to Sir Theordore Martin, “I love this man and could not resist the impulse.” Thirteen days later Dickens stood at the graveside of Thackeray, who died on Christmas Eve, 1863, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. . TWO OF A KIND Two other prominent novelists of the Victorian era, Anthony Trollope and Charles Reade, quarrelled, after having been friends for years. When Trollope was visiting Australia and New Zealand in 1871-72, Reade dramatised Trollope’s novel “Ralph, the Heir” without the author’s knowledge. He intended to give Trollope half the profits from the play, but the production was a failure, and there were no profits. When Trollope returned to England he was very angry about the liberty Reade had taken with his work, and his anger was increased by the fact that Reade had appeared in the courts at least half a dozen times in defence of his rights as an author against infringement. He demanded to know how a man so aggressive as Reade in defending his own rights as an author could have reconciled with his conscience the shameless theft of

another author’s pioperty. He added fuel to the flames by declaring that Reade, not content with theft and hypocrisy, had altered his story in such a way as to make it obscene. Reade, like Trollope, was a man of quick temper, and there was no soothing note in his reply to his bld friend. Thereafter when the two novelists met in the street one of them would cross to the other side in order to avoid the hated presence of the other. When they met at the Garrick Club they glared angrily at one another. After five years of this sort of thing the fires of hatred died down, and a reconciliation was made. But after Trollope’s death in 1882, his autobiography, published by his son, was found to contain a bitter denunciation of Reade. This had been written before their reconciliation, a,nd Trollope had not taken the trouble to revise the manuscript of his autobiography. In commenting on contemporary writers, Trollope wrote in his autobiography that he had been puzzled by “the eccentricities, impracticabilities and capabilities” of Charles Reade. “I look upon him as endowed almost with genius, but as one who has not been gifted by nature with ordinary powers of reasoning. He 'can see what is grandly noble and admire it with all his heart. He can see, too, what is foully vicious and hate it with equal ardour. But in the common affairs of life he cannot see what is right or wrong, and as he is altogether unwilling to be guiddd by the opinion of others, he is constantly making mistakes in his literary career, and subjecting himself to reproach which he hardly deserves. He means to be honest. He means to

be especially honest—imore honest than other people. He has written a book called ‘The Eighth Commandment’ on behalf of honesty in literary transactions. . . And yet, of all the writers of my day, he has seemed to understand literary honesty the least.” MORE TROUBLE Another noted literary quarrel of the Victorian era was that started by Robert Buchanan’s attack on the poetry of Rossetti, Swinburne, Morris and others in an article entitled The Fleshy School of Poetry published in the “Contemporary Review” of October, 1871. The article was published over the name of Thomas Maitland, and when it became known that Buchanan was its author, the fact that a well-known poet of the day had adopted a disguise in order to stab some of his contemporary poets in the back was regarded as one of the worst aspects of his offence. Abuse was heaped on him; he was called “coward,” “craven” and “assassin,” and for years afterwards he dared not print any of his work in his own name for fear it would not receive fair treatment from the critics who had abused him. Buchanan’s charge ' against the fleshly poets was that they had “bound themselves into a solemn league and covenant to extol fleshness as the distinct and supreme end of poetic and pictorial art; to aver that poetic expression is greater than poetic thought, and by infereriee that the body is greater than the soul, and sound superior to sense.” But Buchanan lived to regret having written the article, and to regard its accusations as absurdly extravagant. Writing to Rossetti’s youthful friend Hall Caine, after Rossetti’s death in 1882, he said:“My protest was received in a way which turned irritation to wrath, and wrath into violence, and then ensued the paper- war, which lasted for years. When you compare what I have written of Rossetti with what his admirers have written of myself, I think you will admit that there has been some cause for me to complain, to shun society, to feel bitter against the world; but happily I have a thick epidermis and the courage of an approving conscience. I was unjust, as I have said; most unjust when I impugned ( the purity and misconceived the passion of writings too hurriedly read and reviewed; but I was at least honest and fearless, and wrote with no personal malignity.” In the previous year Buchanan had dedicated his novel “God and the Man” to Rossetti, with the following inscription:— To An Old Enemy I would have snatched a bay leaf from thy brow, Wronging the chaplet on an honoured head; In peace and charity I bring thee now A lily flower instead. Pure as thy purpose, blameless as thy song, Sweet as thy spirit' may this offering be. Forget the bitter blame that did thee wrong, And take the gift from me. TWO FAMOUS RUSSIANS

When Tolstoy was a young man Turgenex, who was ten years his senior, was the rising star of Russian literature. Tolstoy paid his tribute of admiration to Turgenev, and dedicated one of his early stories to him. When Tolstoy went to St. Petersburg, then the capital of Russia, he was invited to stay at Turgenev’s flat, and he continued to be a guest there for several months, although his presence disturbed domestic arrangements, for he slept on an improvised bed in the drawingroom .and seldom rose before 2 p.m. Turgenev was a lazy, self-indul-gent hypochondriac; Tolstoy, was robust and full of Vigour, and also very opinioned and intolerant of the opinions of others, if they did not harmonise with his own. Host and guest quarrelled often, made friends again, and quarrelled again. Usually it was the younger man who triumphed in this discord, because he was so emphatic and vehement in expressing his views. Turgenev, who had a high-pitched voice, would attempt to end a dispute by clasping his throat and declaring that he was suffering from bronchitis. Tolstoy would shout at hint, “Bronchitis is an imaginary disease.” Their friendship lasted for five years, though after Tolstoy’s first protracted visit they did not meet often. A break came in 1801, when Turgenev was 43 years of age and Tolstoy 33. They had been driven in the same carriage to the country home of a mutual friend. Turgenev spoke with pride of the English governess whom he had engaged for the education of his illegitimate daughter, and mentioned that she instilled the spirit of charity by teaching her charge to mend the clothes of the poor. Tolstoy was in a cantankerous mood, partly because Turgenev had found him, a few hours earlier, fast asleep with Turgenev’s famous novel, “Rather and Son,” on his lap. He knew that Turgenev felt aggrieved, and this annoyed him, although he realised that Turgenev was justified. So he added to his first offence by unpardonable rudeness. “In my opinion a well-dtessed girl with dirty, stinking rags on her- lap is acting an insincere, theatrical farce,” he said. “If she were your legitimate daugh ter you would bring her up differently.” Turgenev threatened to box his ears, but instead of doing so put

his hands to his hjead and rushed from the room.

Tolstoy wrote a letter to Turgenev demanding an apology, and followed it up with a challenge to a duel. In the meantime Turgenev had despatched a letter of apology which Tolstoy grudgingly adeepted. Three months later Turgenev in Paris heard that Tolstoy had been calling him a coward, so he challenged Tolstoy to fight a, duel. Tolstoy apologised, and that terminated. the relations of the authors for sixteen years. When Tolstoy became converted, he felt the need of becoming reconciled with all his enemies, and he wrote to Turgenev:—“Remembering my relations with you, I felt to my surprise and joy that I have no enmity toward you. God grant your feelings taay be the same.” Turgenev burst into tears on receiving this letter, and replied to it in a similar strain. He visited Tolstoy at the latter’s home at Yasnaya Polyanza, where, instead of arguing and quarelling, they played chess. Their renewed friendship lasted until Turgenev’s death five years later.