The Right of Way | Page 2

at these letters I have a great
shrinking, for they were meant only for the eyes of an aged man for
whom I cared enough to let him see behind the curtain. But since they
have been printed, and without a "by your leave," I will use one or two
passages in them to show in what mood, under what pressure of
impulse, under what mental and, maybe, spiritual hypnotism it was
written. I first planned it as a story of twenty-five thousand words, even
as 'Valmond' was planned as a story of five thousand words, and 'A
Ladder of Swords' as a story of twenty thousand words; but I had not
written three chapters before I saw what the destiny of the tale was to
be. I had gone to Quebec to start the thing in the atmosphere where
Charley Steele belonged, and there it was borne in upon me that it must
be a three- decker novel, not a novelette. I telegraphed to Harper &
Brothers to ask them whether it would suit them just as well if I made it
into a long novel. They telegraphed their assent at once; so I went on.
At that time Mr. F. N. Doubleday was a sort of director of Harper's firm.
To him I had told the tale in a railway train, and he had carried me off
at once to Henry M. Alden, to whom I also told it, with the result that
Harper's Magazine was wide open to it, and there in Quebec, soon after
my interview with Mr. Alden and Mr. Doubleday, the book was begun.
The first of the letters published in The House of Harper, however, was
apparently written immediately after my return to London when the
novel was well on its way. Evidently the first paragraph of the letter
was an apology for having suddenly announced the development of the
book from a long short story to a long novel; for I used these words:
"Yet if you really take an interest in the working of the human mind in
its relation to the vicissitudes of life, you will appreciate what I am
going to tell you, and will recognise that there is only stability in
evolution which the vulgar call chance. . . . Now, sir, perpend. Charley
Steele is going to be a novel of one hundred thousand words or one
hundred and twenty thousand--a real bang-up heartful of a novel."
Then there follows the confidence of a friend to a friend. As I look at
the words I am not sorry that I wrote them. They were a part of me.
They were the inveterate truth, but I would not willingly have
uncovered my inner self to any except the man to whom the words
were written. But here is what I wrote:
"I am a bit of a fool over this book. It catches me at every tender corner

of my nature. It has aroused all the old ardent dreams of youth and
springtime puissance. I cannot lay it down, and I cannot shorten it, for
story, character, soul and reflection, imagination, observation are
dragging me along after them. . . . This novel will make me or break
me--prove me human and an artist, or an affected literary bore. If you
want it you must take the risk. But, my dear Alden, you will be
investing in a man's heart--which may be a fortune or a folly. Why, I
ought to have seen--and far back in my brain I did see--that the
character of Charley Steele was a type, an idiosyncrasy of modern life,
a resultant of forces all round us, and that he would demand space in
which to live and tell his story to the world. . . . And behold with what
joy I follow him, not only lovingly but sternly and severely, noting him
down as he really is, condoning naught, forgiving naught, but above all
else, understanding him--his wilful mystification of the world, his
shameless disdain of it, but the old law of interrogation, of sad yet
eager inquiry and wonder and 'non possumus' with him to the end."
This letter was evidently written in December, 1899, and the other went
to Mr. Alden on the 7th August, 1900; therefore, eight or nine months
later. The work had gone well. Week after week, month after month it
had unfolded itself with an almost unpardonable ease. Evidently, the
very ease with which the book was written troubled me, because I find
that in this letter of the 7th August, 1900, to Mr. Alden, I used these
words:
"A kind of terror has seized me, and instead of sending a dozen more
chapters to you as I proposed to do, I am setting to to break