The Slave of the Lamp | Page 3

true to that principle which ruled his life as an author, to give to the public so far as he could of that best, and of that best only, he declined (of course to his own monetary disadvantage) to permit its publication in England in book form.
Its _mise-en-scène_ is France and Suffolk; its period the Second Empire--the period of "The Last Hope." Napoleon III., a character by whom Merriman was always peculiarly attracted, shadows it: in it appears John Turner, the English banker of Paris, of "The Last Hope"; an admirable and amusing sketch of a young Frenchman; and an excellent description of the magnificent scenery about Saint Martin Lantosque, in the Maritime Alps.
For the benefit of "The Isle of Unrest," his next book, Merriman had travelled through Corsica--not the Corsica of fashionable hotels and health-resorts, but the wild and unknown parts of that lawless and magnificent island. For "The Velvet Glove" he visited Pampeluna, Saragossa, and Lerida. The country of "The Vultures"--Warsaw and its neighbourhood--he saw in company with his friend, Mr. Stanley Weyman. The pleasure of another trip, the one he took in western France--Angoulême, Cognac, and the country of the Charente--for the scenery of "The Last Hope," was also doubled by Mr. Weyman's presence. In Dantzig--the Dantzig of "Barlasch of the Guard"--Merriman made a stay in a bitter mid-winter, visiting also Vilna and K?nigsberg; part of the route of the Great Retreat from Moscow he traced himself. He was inclined to consider--and if an author is not quite the worst judge of his own work he is generally quite the best--that in "Barlasch" he reached his high-water mark. The short stories, comprised in the volume entitled "Tomaso's Fortune," were published after his death. In every case, the locale they describe was known to Merriman personally. At the Monastery of Montserrat--whence the monk in "A Small World" saw the accident to the diligencia--the author had made a stay of some days. The Farlingford of "The Last Hope" is Orford in Suffolk: the French scenes, as has been said, Merriman had visited with Mr. Weyman, whose "Abbess of Vlaye" they also suggested. The curious may still find the original of the H?tel Gemosac in Paris--not far from the Palais d'Orsay H?tel--"between the Rue de Lille and the Boulevard St. Germain."
"The Last Hope" was not, in a sense, Merriman's last novel. He left at his death about a dozen completed chapters, and the whole plot carefully mapped out, of yet another Spanish book, which dealt with the Spain of the Peninsular War of 1808-14. These chapters, which were destroyed by the author's desire, were of excellent promise, and written with great vigour and spirit. His last trip was taken, in connection with this book, to the country of Sir Arthur Wellesley's exploits. The plot of the story was concerned with a case of mistaken identity; the sketch of a Guerilla leader, Pedro--bearing some affinity to the Concepcion Vara of "In Kedar's Tents"--was especially happy.
It has been seen that Merriman was not the class of author who "sits in Fleet Street and writes news from the front." He strongly believed in the value of personal impressions, and scarcely less in the value of first impressions. In his own case, the correctness of his first impressions--what he himself called laughingly his _"coup d'oeil"_--is in a measure proved by a note-book, now lying before the writers, in which he recorded his views of Bastia and the Corsicans after a very brief acquaintance--that view requiring scarcely any modification when first impressions had been exchanged for real knowledge and experience.
As to his methods of writing, in the case of all his novels, except the four early suppressed ones, he invariably followed the plan of drawing out the whole plot and a complete synopsis of every chapter before he began to write the book at all.
Partly as a result of this plan perhaps, but more as a result of great natural facility in writing, his manuscripts were often without a single erasure for many pages; and a typewriter was really a superfluity.
It is certainly true to say that no author ever had more pleasure in his art than Merriman. The fever and the worry which accompany many literary productions he never knew.
Among the professional critics he had neither personal friends nor personal foes; and accepted their criticisms--hostile or favourable--with perfect serenity and open-mindedness. He was, perhaps, if anything, only too ready to alter his work in accordance with their advice: he always said that he owed them much; and admired their perspicuity in detecting a promise in his earliest books, which he denied finding there himself. His invincible modesty made him ready to accept not only professional criticism but--a harder thing--the advice of critics on the hearth. It was out of compliance with such a domestic