R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Novelists of the 'Seventies 43never believe what it cost if you had not seen the bill. Ten millionssterling was as good as buried in the desert, when one tenth of itwould have saved a hundred thousand people from starvation athome, and one hundredth part of it would have taken the fettersoff the hapless prisoner's feet.And does not this concluding paragraph strike hometo-day?Our hero was nearly fifteen years old when he left the Club toplunge into the world. He was not long in converting his spoilsinto money, and a very short time in spending it. Then he had topit his wits against starvation, and some of his throws were desperate.Wherever he went the world seemed terribly full. If heanswered an advertisement for an errand boy, there was a scorekicking their heels at the rendezvous before him. Did he try tolearn a useful trade, thousands of adepts were not only ready tounderbid him, but to knock him on the head for an interloper.Even the thieves, to whom he gravitated, were jealous of hisaccession, because there were too many competitors already intheir department. Through his career of penury, of honest and dishonestcallings, of 'scapes and captures, imprisonments and otherpunishments, a year's reading of Metropolitan Police Reportswould furnish the exact counterpart.I recommend Ginx's Baby to some enterprising publisher.Meanwhile in its pages one hears sounded thedoom of Victorian uplift and moral behaviour. On everyside the new forces come sweeping in. Harry Richmond,Beauchamp's Career, Travels with a Donkey, Far from theMadding Crowd. These, however little it was recognisedat the time, were the books of the modern world. Theold novel was killed by three destructive forces—thesense of Form that came with the aid of Mr Vizetelly,Mr George Moore and others from France, the sense ofReality given to us by Thomas Hardy and GeorgeGissing, the New Morality introduced to us by the NewWoman.The sense of Form taught us that it mattered whetherour books were well-constructed, whether our sentenceswere well-balanced, whether our sequences were