"WITH THE AUTHOR'S COMPLIMENTS."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1485, 6 July 1912, Page 9

"WITH THE AUTHOR'S COMPLIMENTS."

\ —- —: ' ■ ' . ,"Homo sum"—but tho proverb is something musty (begins the Rt. Hon. G. W. E. Russell in one of his recent gossipy .week-end articles). "I too am an author* —so Matthew -Arnold exclaimed when he beheld tho portrait of the "author of the immortal 'Guide to Mormonism."' Our. common, humanity binds us all together, and tho common labours and experiences of authorship tighten the bond. I recognise tho voice not merely of a fellowcreature, but of a brother—"a"loriorn and shipwrecked brother," as Longfellow beautifully says—in tho plaintive cry .which has just reached me. "I. feel that I must, acknowledge your acknowledgment of 'The Polity of the Ancient Hittites,' if for no better reason than that, in return for some twenty books sent out by mo to various persons and personages (some old friends), yours is the solitary, acknowledgment. • Peoplo whom I have never heard of and shall never see are writing.to me from all over tho country, both kindly and abusively; but people I often see bave not even taken the trouble to complain that the book arrived with tho corners rathor damaged. I wonder if'you,'with so much wider, opportunity, have had something liko the sarae_ experience. Of course, the old saying is that every.copy an author gives away robs him of ten purchasers." Thus Ernest Struggles'. The name is not of my inventing, but it will serve— *'most conscientious student and u. painstaking writer. ■ Ho has giv«?,u some of the best years of his lifo to the-, subject of the Hittites, and this is his reward. Even beforo he commenced his Oriental studies he _ was a practised performer in the regions of research. His "Inquiry into the Authorship of the Letters of Junius" was called by all the reviews exhaustive. His Monograph on tho Man in the Iron Jlaskopened a new era in the history of that inexhaustible theme; and his fragnienf'On the Traces of Bacon's Influence in the 'Merry Wives of Windsor,'" was dedicated, by permission, to its "onlio begetter," Sir Edwin D.-L. But these productions were (like Mr. Casaubon's Second Excursus on Crete) mero "parerga": the *<"* of bis life has'been "to elucidate tho_ Polity of tho Hittites. In pursuit of it ho has mado a pilgrimago (under the guidance of Sir Henrv Lunu) to Palestine; ho has rnnsa'cked all tho libraries _ of Europe; and ho has laid all the existing resources of Assyrian scholarship under contribution. In short, if I may uso a handy colloquialism, what Ernest. Straggles doesn't know about the Hittites isn't worth knowing. And, yet. mark (he reception accorded to tho gathered fruit of all this toil.. He sent out twenty copies of his handsome and expensive book, ns free gifts to "old friends" and other acquaintances, and only one had the grace to acknowledge his attention. "Peoplo be often sees" avoid the subject in conversation, and so meekly docs lie l>enr himself in tho faco of this discouragement that he would rather have a complaint that the book arrived with damaged corners than no acknowledgment at all. To be ignored is bad enough, though perhaps under certain circumstances explicable; but Struggles, where he is not ignored, !s actually attacked. Feoplo whom he does not know "write to him abusively." Tho mutual ferocities of impassioned students make the history of scholarship. Dead controversies' havo a wonderful power of revival. E'en in their ashes live their wonted fire 5,...... and a casual reference to a bygono dispute may act as dangerously as a cartridge in a coal-scuttle. Some years ago an eminent scholar discovered traces of a vanished. peoplo in the valley of tho Orontes, who were called the Kliatti,-mid he nroiiounced impressively that, "if the identity of these people with tho Hittites should prove to. be correct, it would afford a duo to the meaning of some puzzluiz passages." A. violent controversy immediately broke put b'»twfM Identitarians end Separatists, raged for a season and died down.

Ernest Struggles has burnt his fingers when grubbing in the embers, and has reawakened the dormant passions of people who took opposite sides. Himself a convinced Idantitarian (as in tho BaconShakosnearo controversy), ho receives "kind letters from people all over tho country," who spend quiet lives in truing theso identities; and reams of abuse from ethnological Separatists, who know all about tho Khatti, and would dio sooner than admit that they ever cams within n thousand miles of the Hittitcs. Smarting under these annoyances, Struggles asks mo if my experience tallies with his own.' Homo sum again— ho seems to feel that pain is more endurable when shared with a fellowcreature; and 1 hasten, so far ns I can, to sootho him. I, too, have suffered; but I wear my rue with n'difference. In the. first place, I'studiously avoid such subjects as those in which my friend delights. Tho Man in the Iron Mask, nnd the authorship of Junius, and tho sido of Whitehall on which Charles was beheaded, and' the hiding-places of the Young Pretender, are mysteries which I am content to leave The whole literature which is summed up in the one word "Bakespoaro" Is to mo as interestlug ,as.'Conic Sections or Proportional Representation, Poor Mr. Casaubon, of whose parerga I spoko just now, stands as the eternal warning against absorption in research. How would his friend Carp, of Brasenose, havo received a pre-sentation-cony of "The Key to All Mythologies"? In the second place,' I do not shower my gifts so indiscrimnatelv. Mv friend V,'W 0S ™ vo tn'onty copies 'of the Hitfites. This surely was "pomp and prodigality, if not "ridiculous excess Jly subtler plan is to keep mv works by mo until I hear of a friend fi ? ln £ to . fco married, and then a copy of Captain Sumph's Recollections," witli his Best Wishes in autograph on the ny-leaf, • makes an acceptable weddiii" present, and costs considerably- less than a rose-bowl or a 'bracelet. Then, again, self-knowledge, added to a wide acqunintonce with other people, leads me to keep out of the way of those.to whom I have presented my works.. I know, in my own case, the shamo and .confusion of face, not seldom leading to discreditable equivocation, which- one feels when one meets the author of the book which one has not read. As Bacon justly, observes: One need havo much cunning to seem to know'that which he doth not"; and, as a rule, tho pretence is easily penetrable. "I bave not had time really- to read your book yet. It is too important a took to be read in all tho racket of London. We havo been moving about. My wifo has been ill. Tho children havo had measles. • AVo have had .workmen in the house. My library is turned upside down. My oldest boy was so delighted with it that he took it back to Oxford," and tho whole chapter of accidents leading up to the high resolve—"But I am promising myself a delightfr.l week with it at Whitsuntide, and I can tell; by what I have already seen, that I shail simply revel in' it."

Such are the commonplaces of tho nn read Presentation Copy, but they cannot, with any show of plausibility, bo uttered over such works as "The Polity of the Ancient Hittites." Even Struggles would see through thein. In respect of "letter l ! from nil over tho • country, both kindly and abusive," m'y experience is the same as his. I liavc repeatedly acknowledged the goodwill, courtesy, and helpfulness of my readers; and now and then havo noted exceptions to the rule. There was the lady who keeps the school for little boys at St. /Annes-on-Sea, and who accused, me of trafficking in "Chestnuts"andquito lately I have been told (on a postcard) that Tommy Transonic is' a "Bounder," and that in that respect he resembles me. But of these rebuffs I say, as the great Dr. Kenealy said of certain aspersions arising out of the Tichborne Trial, "I shakp them off with scorn, as a lion shakes tlie dew-drops from his mane.". .

_ When an enthusiastic lndv said to Mr. /nngwill, "I aumiro .'The Children of the (ihctto, so . much that- I hnvo read it seven times,", he • replied, ."Madam, you do mc .'proud, •-but' I .wish •I 0 " ! la: ' bought seven copies." ■Something. of,tlio.same-.spirit,'sccms.t<) reveal itself in Struggles nml his ne'xtcom'plamt. He writes rather pecvishlv,of.,the rccipiont who;,;saysi; : :"-.I : like-'t.oliJSfcli&Wi tsb much tha'rr'''iim :s lendiiig'it-'t™'all- ; iny friends." ..Hero'my wholo heart, goes out to Struggles: the practice of lending'books is. wholly vilo; i and..he 'who' lends injures ■not.only:the author,'.but-alio'.-(happily) :>I know, no'*; mote .distressing ; Sight-than n/serics'of, eight nicely-bound volumes, with' a -'ghastly . space-, where Vol. IV. should bo: looking as if 'ttio bookshelf had been fighting, and had got .one of its'front teeth knocked down its throat. But Struggles has other'grievances, and one'of them concerns the ingratitudo of recipients. It appears that pome of those to whom ho has presented his Hittites, "with the author's compliments," have replied with niggling criticisms of small errors and proof-readers' oversights. "Are you accurate when you say that the Khatti wore first mentioned in 'The Land and the Book'? Did not Sir Henry liawlinson read a paper on them before the Royal Asiatic Society'six months earlier?" .

Awl even this does not exhaust his list of rebuffs. Poor Struggles confesses, with a simplicity whiohl cannot help ■ liking, that ho tried, and failed, to-square the reviewers. Ho has friends, or what he esteemed such, belong to that treacherous ljand, and to. these ho sent bound copies of his Hittites, with disarming and obsequious inscriptions on the flyleaf. This is what he got for his pains:— "Many .thanks for your work. I should be pleased to review it somewhere or other, but unfortunately it doesn't happen to be a subject in which I take a very keen interest, and so I should probably only make, a.fool of you." So much for tho polity of the Ancient Hittites; and so much for Ernest Straggles. What, then, is the conclusion of tho wholo matter?; Surely that those who wish to read our works should be encouraged to buy them; and that "With the author's compliments" should be reserved for use in tho Six Copies which the Publisher so handsomely supplies free of charge.