The
Translation of a Savage was written in the early autumn of 1893, at
Hampstead Heath, where for over twenty years I have gone, now and then,
when I wished to be in an atmosphere conducive to composition.
Hampstead is one of the parts of London which has as yet been scarcely
invaded by the lodging-house keeper. It is very difficult to get
apartments at Hampstead; it is essentially a residential place; and,
like Chelsea, has literary and artistic character all its own. I
think I have seen more people carrying books in their hands at
Hampstead than in any other spot in England; and there it was, perched
above London, with eyes looking towards the Atlantic over the leagues
of land and the thousand leagues of sea, that I wrote 'The Translation
of a Savage'. It was written, as it were, in one concentrated
effort, a ceaseless writing. It was, in effect, what the Daily
Chronicle said of 'When Valmond Came to Pontiac', a tour de
force. It belonged to a genre which compelled me to dispose of a
thing in one continuous effort, or the impulse, impetus, and fulness of
movement was gone. The writing of a book of the kind admitted of
no invasion from extraneous sources, and that was why, while writing
'The Translation of a Savage' at Hampstead, my letters were only
delivered to me once a week. I saw no friends, for no one knew
where I was; but I walked the heights, I practised with my golf clubs
on the Heath, and I sat in the early autumn evenings looking out at
London in that agony of energy which its myriad lives
represented. It was a good time.
The story had a basis of
fact; the main incident was true. It happened, however, in
Michigan rather than in Canada; but I placed the incident in Canada
where it was just as true to the life. I was living in
Hertfordshire at the time of writing the story, and that is why the
English scenes were worked out in Hertfordshire and in London.
When I had finished the tale, there came over me suddenly a kind of
feeling that the incident was too bold and maybe too crude to be
believed, and I was almost tempted to consign it to the flames; but the
editor of 'The English Illustrated Magazine', Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke,
took a wholly different view, and eagerly published it. The
judgment of the press was favourable,—highly so—and I was as much
surprised as pleased when Mr. George Moore, in the Hogarth Club one
night, in 1894, said to me: "There is a really remarkable play in
that book of yours, 'The Translation, of a Savage'."
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