Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (520 page)

Yours ever, JEROME.

In addition to humour there is in Jerome’s early writings much imaginative beauty and poetic vision, which no doubt played their part in making his writings popular. Before dealing with his novels, a few extracts are quoted which show that in his younger days his mind was running in the direction of serious work:

NIGHT

Then night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained face up to hers, and smiles, and though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot, flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone.

Sometimes our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night’s heart is full of pity for us; she cannot ease our aching; she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God.

Only those who have worn the crown of suffering can look upon that wondrous light, and they, when they return, may not speak of it, or tell the mystery they know.

(“Three Men in a Boat.”)

A GOOD FACE

I could also speak of this gentle, simple priest, “the father of the valley”, who now lies in silence among his children that he loved so well.... There is a portrait of him over the bed. What a plain, homely, good face it is! How pleasant, how helpful it is to come across a good face now and then! I do not mean a sainted face, suggestive of stained-glass and marble tombs, but a rugged, human face that has had the grit and rain and sunshine of life rubbed into it, and that had gained its expression, not by looking up with longing at the stars, but by looking down with eyes full of laughter and love at the human beings around it.

(“The Diary of a Pilgrimage.”)

SILENCE

One cathedral is very much like another. Their beauty, to me, lies in their echoing vastness, their deep silence.

There is much help in silence.... From contact with it we rise healed of our hurts and strengthened for the fight.

Amid the babel of the schools we stand bewildered and affrighted. Silence gives peace and hope. Silence teaches no creed, only that God’s arms are around the Universe.

How small and unimportant seem all our fretful troubles and ambitions when we stand with them in our hand before the great calm face of Silence! We smile at them ourselves, and are ashamed.

In silence we hear the voice of Truth.... In silence falsehood cannot live. Leave a lie on the bosom of Silence and it sinks. Silence is a part of the eternal. All things that are lasting and true have been taught to men’s hearts by silence.

Among all nations there should be vast temples raised where the people might worship Silence and listen to it, for it is the voice of God.

(“Diary of a Pilgrimage.”)

“John Ingerfield” was published in 1894. This book contains several fascinating stories. In order that it should be judged from some other standpoint than that of humour, Jerome wrote in the preface:

Once upon a time I wrote a little story of a woman who was crushed to death by a python. A day or two after its publication a friend stopped me in the street. “Charming little story of yours,” he said, “that about the woman and the snake, but it’s not as funny as some of your things!” The next week a newspaper, referring to the tale, remarked: “We have heard the incident related before, but with infinitely greater humour.” With this and many similar experiences in mind, I wish distinctly to state that “John Ingerfield”, “The Woman of the Soeter” and “Silhouettes” are not intended to be amusing.

In the stories contained in this book there are strong common-sense, shrewd observation, and a sense of the intangible spirit of beauty. There is, in fact, Jerome’s real self.

The following extract is taken from a review written by Mr. Coulson Kernahan in
The Star
when “John Ingerfield” was published:

Jerome K. Jerome, the editor of
The Idler,
no less than the author of “Catriona” (R. L. Stevenson), has recognized the dangers which beset the writers who work a successful vein too far. Mr.

Jerome is one of the intellectual forces of his day. He is a man who has probed deeply, and even probed for himself, the problems of life which those who sneer at him have merely played with....

In Mr. Jerome’s book, “John Ingerfield and Other Stories”, he exhibits new and perhaps unsuspected qualities of tenderness, delicacy, and restraint, which will come as a surprise to many readers.... “John Ingerfield” is a story singularly beautiful, and it is told with simplicity, strength, art, and true human tenderness. That it is quite convincing in its psychology I am not sure....

The art with which Mr. Jerome indicates in his closing sentence, and almost in a word, that Anne did not long survive her husband, is masterly, and reminds us of a similar touch in which Thackeray tells us of the death of George Osborne in “Vanity Fair”.

Of all the forms of literary expression it is generally conceded that poetry ranks first. The novel comes next, because, like poetry, it requires the power to create. In all ages imaginative men and women have created characters, and have endowed them with a vitality and humanness which have rendered them perhaps more potent in their influence upon mankind than actual personages who had made history in the world. For instance, “The Good Samaritan”,
Hamlet,
“David Copperfield”, “The Stranger” in
The Passing of the Third Floor Back.
These are all creations of the imagination, and it would be difficult to measure the profound influence they have had in shaping the massed conscience and character of humanity.

It was in this way that Jerome hoped to influence men and women. He believed that by devoting his gifts to fiction he could rouse those emotions which make people desire social betterment, and thus render a service to mankind.

Jerome’s educational preparation for a literary career was meagre, but his innate love of knowledge and the tremendous struggle he had to acquire it stood him in good stead. It is a profound saying of Shakespeare: “In the reproof of chance lies the proof of men.” Without “the reproof of chance” and its moral and mental discipline, the world might never have had “Three Men in a Boat” or
The Passing of the Third Floor Back.

Jerome’s experience as a journalist was an invaluable preparation for this higher form of literature. Journalists record the life of the whole community, and as a rule accurately reflect the mind of the age in which they live. Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, gladly acknowledged his debt to contemporary journalism. Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Sir James Barrie, Sir Hall Caine, Arnold Bennett, and other famous novelists were journalists first.

A novelist may be a philosopher, an historian, a social reformer, a religious teacher, or all these combined; so that his horizon is a very wide one. The collecting and acquiring a knowledge of the raw material used in fiction is a science; but the working up of these materials and fashioning them into a novel is an art. Immediately the emotions are touched and terror or fear, joy or sorrow are excited
Fine
Art begins. Fiction may be just as much a fine art as music, poetry, sculpture, and architecture.

The raw material used by Jerome in his novels was human life. He held the mirror up to the life that surrounded him. He saw things in the light of his sound commonsense. He not only saw them, but felt them; he felt the sorrows and joys, the humour and pathos of common life. What he felt more than anything else was the cry of pain from the suffering under-world, which he had heard from boyhood.

“Paul Kelver” was published in 1902. It was written for the most part in Germany, and is easily the best of Jerome’s books. It put the coping-stone to the edifice of his reputation. He was a many-sided man — here he turns a fresh side to his readers.

When “Paul Kelver” appeared,
The Times
reviewer wrote:

No contemporary writer has been more persistently under-rated by the critics than Jerome K. Jerome. They would not see that the merits of “Three Men in a Boat” were not merely in its irresistible fun, but in its shrewd observation of a certain habit of mind and type of character. While his serious work has generally been received with supercilious prejudice. The critics have done him an injustice by creating for him a false reputation, which he has had to live down, and it is more difficult to live down a reputation than to make one. So far as that reputation was an undesirable one, “Paul Kelver” killed it at one blow.

Other reviewers wrote in similar terms, and Jerome realized that he was now being understood, and the critics began to realize that he was an abler man than they had imagined.

“Paul Kelver” is a great book. It is crowded with human sympathy and wisdom. It is a fascinating story, and the fiction is so perfectly adapted to the general aspect of life, that it is difficult to know where reality ends and fiction begins. It is autobiographical. Paul represents Jerome himself. It recalls, with the interpretive genius of the novelist, his childhood days in the slums of London, his terrific struggles against a host of difficulties and his early ambitions. These things, considered in conjunction with his mother’s untiring devotion and love, bring to mind G. W. Donne’s lines:

“What is that, mother? The eagle boy! Proudly careering his course of joy.

Boy, let the eagle’s flight ever be thine, Onward and upward, true to the line.”

The story deals with “the fashioning of Paul”. He writes:

I am a youngster, and life opens out before me — immeasurable, no goal too high. This child of my brain, my work, it shall spread my name throughout the world. It shall be a household word in lands that I shall never see. Friends whose voices I shall never hear will speak of me. I shall die, but it shall live, yield fresh seed, bear fruit I know not of. Generations yet unborn shall read it and remember me. My thoughts, my words, my spirit, in it I shall live again; it shall keep my memory green.

The book shows that Paul had faith in himself. When he fell, he got up himself, he did not wait to be picked up; those who want to be lifted up, nearly always flop back again. His difficulties strengthened him as “storms make oaks take deeper root”; and finally it shows how “Paul finds his way”. It contains much wise counsel to young men, and it is not difficult to understand why it is a favourite book with thousands of people in various parts of the world. A lady writes:

I have a clever grandson at Cambridge who seems to think more of his pleasure than anything else, though he certainly has his good points. I mean to lend him “Paul Kelver”.

Another lady writes from Montreal, Canada:

I read “Paul Kelver” on the sand of the seaside at Nassau in the Bahamas, and was then and there impelled to write to Mr. Jerome — the first time I had ever written to an author — an unknown man! There was something about Paul that went to my innermost soul, and I just had to tell him how I loved it. Mr. Jerome replied: “‘Paul Kelver’ has brought me many friends, but none so appreciative and sympathetic as you.”

“Paul Kelver” was also Jerome’s own favourite book. Writing to Mr. F. H. Visiak, 30, Cavendish Road, London, he said:

Dear Sir, Personally my affection is chiefly for “Paul Kelver”, but for the life of me I could not tell you why. Does anyone know why one loves?

Yours sincerely, Jerome K. Jerome.

There are in “Paul Kelver” many shrewd and witty sayings, and they are J. K. J.’s own:

An ounce of originality is worth a ton of convention. Little tin ladies and gentleman all made to pattern, one can find them everywhere!

I hate talking to anyone who agrees with me. It is like taking a walk with a looking-glass.

Put Carlyle in your pocket. He is the best maker of men I know.

God made women weak to teach us men to be tender.

“Paul Kelver” is perhaps truer to actual life than other novels which are more widely read. Novel readers crave for something spectacular and fanciful. Jerome had but little use for artificialities and embroideries, and it is because of this that “Paul Kelver” will probably be read as long as novels are read at all.

The test of a good book is whether the readers live more intensely for having read it; whether it so stimulates their emotions and mental faculties as to make life more real and earnest.

At a complimentary dinner given to Jerome by the O. P. Club, Mr. Pett Ridge said: “It is fair to say that through ‘Paul Kelver’ posterity will share the delight we all feel in the power and genius of Jerome K. Jerome.”

“Tea-Table Talk”, illustrated by Fred Pegram, was published in 1903. The talks are supposed to be between “The woman of the world”, “The minor poet”, “The Girton girl”, “The Philosopher” and “The old maid”. They discuss with shrewdness and good humour such subjects as “Art”, “Philosophy”, “Socialism”, “Individualism”, etc., etc. A few brief extracts are:

You can generally make people ridiculous by taking them at their word.

Class for class, woman does her share of the world’s work. Among the poor, of the two, it is she who labours the longer.

Man works, as he thinks for beer and baccy, in reality for the benefit of unborn generations.

“The Angel and the Author, and Others” was published in 1908.

This book may be summed up as being a commonsense way of dealing with commonplace questions. Each topic is handled with originality, a touch of humour and satire, and is looked at not only with the eyes of a skilful observer, but with those of a comprehending spirit: