“A Pedlar Crying Stuff”: Selling the Wares (1880–1889)

Abstract

Allen got back from Hyères in May 1880. As we have seen, he had not idled his way through the months of recuperation. Indeed, in the month after his return there appeared in Fraser’s Magazine an article, “Geology and History,” which is a very typical and fine example of his early work. It explains how the agriculture, the manufactures, the arts, and even the religion of a society stands, quite literally and well as metaphorically, on its geology. Britain’s recent history was founded on coal; just as Egypt’s civilization was based on granite and Nile mud; Greece’s, on marble; China’s, on kaolin clay; Assyria and upper India’s, on sun-dried brick. He points out that the delicate tracery of English cathedrals would never have existed if the only building material had been ragstone or basalt. Fortunately, there was the limestone of Caen, Bath, and Portland to hand. For twelve pages Allen expands this notion with the most fluent and confident generalizations and a wealth of illustration.¹ Still, he must have been only too aware by this time how hard it was to make a living wage by doing this kind of thing for the monthlies, and he must have been uncomfortable with the thought that he had no book on the stocks for 1880. But a big breakthrough, and something of a change of direction, came almost as soon as he was back. It was another opportunity with a newspaper, but work of a much more appealing kind than scribbling leaders or reviews for the Daily News.