The Slave of the Lamp | Page 3

The novel "Dross" was produced in America in 1899, having appeared
serially in this country in a well-known newspaper. Written during a
period of ill-health, Merriman thought it beneath his best work, and,
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 Königsberg; 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 Hôtel Gemosac in Paris--not far from the Palais d'Orsay
Hôtel--"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