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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..78092e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65376 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65376) diff --git a/old/65376-0.txt b/old/65376-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 90bc4da..0000000 --- a/old/65376-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14957 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Twenty Years of My Life, by Douglas Brooke -Wheelton Sladen - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Twenty Years of My Life - -Author: Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen - -Illustrator: Yoshio Markino - -Release Date: May 18, 2021 [eBook #65376] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: MFR, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE *** - - - - - TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - -[Illustration: - - THE ROOF GARDEN AND POMPEIAN FOUNTAIN AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS. - (_From the Painting by Yoshio Markino._) -] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - TWENTY YEARS - OF MY LIFE - - - - BY - - DOUGLAS SLADEN - - AUTHOR OF “WHO’S WHO” - - - - WITH FOUR COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWELVE PORTRAITS - - BY - YOSHIO MARKINO - - - - Publisher’s Logo - - - - NEW YORK - E·P·DUTTON & COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY - RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, - BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E., - AND BUNGAY SUFFOLK. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED - - TO - - JEROME K. JEROME - - ONE OF THE EARLIEST AND DEAREST OF MY - - LITERARY FRIENDS - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -WHEN I wrote _Who’s Who_, sixteen or seventeen years ago, I used to -receive shoals of funny letters from people who wanted, or did not want, -to be included, and now, when I have not edited the book for more than a -dozen years, I still receive letters of criticism on the way in which I -conduct it, and usually consign them to limbo. A few months ago, -however, I received the subjoined letter, which is so out of the -ordinary that I quote it to show what illustrious correspondents I have. -I must not attach the author’s name, though every grown-up man in the -civilised world would be interested to know it. - - “DEAR SIR, - - “Kindly cease to omit my name from your ever-increasing - list of persons as annually placed before the public for sale at - any price it is worth. Just put me down in place of Victoria - Alice, who is an American pure and simple, while I am left out - in the cold. I am the daughter of King Edward VII....[1] I am - the legal spouse of Nicholas II, Czar of Russia, being legally - married to him in 1890, Aug. 14, a ratification of which - occurrence was held by me in hallway of British Embassy, Paris, - France, 1900, same date. Just give me a notice, will you, - instead of harping on the sisterhood of King George V, who form - among themselves a similar affair to that held by female - contingent of Synagogue, doing more damage in the community, and - eventually in the world, than any one set of people anywhere, - with method so secret that even Rabbi is unable to uncover the - original design known as main point in England. - - “Sincerely, - “Etc., etc. - - “_October 23, 1913._” - -Footnote 1: - - This portion of the letter could not be printed. - -If I could tell all I know about the interesting people I have met, the -book would read like my own _Who’s Who_ re-written by Walter Emanuel for -publication in _Punch_. As it is, the book contains a great deal of -information about celebrities which could never appear in _Who’s Who_, -and all the best anecdotes which I remember about my friends, except -those which would turn my friends into enemies, and even some of those I -mean to give in this preface, minus the names, to prevent their being -lost to posterity. - -The twenty years of my life which I here present to readers are the -twenty years which I spent at 32, Addison Mansions, Kensington, during -which I was in constant intercourse with most of the best-known writers -of the generation. The book is therefore largely taken up with personal -reminiscences and impressions of them—indeed, not a few of them, such as -Conan Doyle, J. K. Jerome, I. Zangwill, H. A. Vachell, Charles Garvice, -Eden Phillpotts, Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Mrs. Croker, Mrs. -Perrin, Madame Albanesi, Compton Mackenzie, and Jeffery Farnol’s mentor, -wrote specially for this book an account of the circumstances which led -to their being authors. For it must be remembered that the majority of -authors start life in some other profession, and drift into authorship -as they discover their aptitude for it. Conan Doyle was a doctor, in -busy practice when he wrote _The White Company_; Jerome was a lawyer’s -clerk when he wrote _Three Men in a Boat_; both Hardy and Hall Caine -began as architects; Zangwill was a teacher, and W. W. Jacobs was a -clerk in the General Post Office. - -An index of the authors of whom personal reminiscences are told in this -book will be found at the end. - -Its earlier chapters deal with my life prior to our going to Addison -Mansions, giving details of my parentage and bringing-up, of the seven -years I spent in Australia and the United States, and my long visits to -Canada and Japan. From that point forward, except for the four chapters -which deal with the writing of my books, the present volume is occupied -chiefly with London literary society from 1891 to 1911. - -It was in the ’nineties that the late Sir Walter Besant’s efforts to -bring authors together by the creation of the Authors’ Club, and their -trade union, the Authors’ Society, bore fruit. English writers, who had -hitherto been the reverse of gregarious, began to meet each other very -often at receptions and clubs. - -In those days one made new friends among well-known authors, artists, -and theatrical people every day, at places like the Authors’, Arts, -Vagabonds, Savage, Hogarth and Argonauts’ Clubs, the Idler teas, and -women’s teas at the Pioneer Club, the Writers’ Club, and the Women -Journalists’, and various receptions in Bohemia. It was almost an -offence to spend an entire afternoon, or an entire evening, in any other -way, and though it made inroads on one’s time for work, and time for -exercise, it gave one an intimacy, which has lasted, with men and women -who have since risen to the head of their professions. That intimacy is -reflected in these pages, which show a good deal of the personal side of -the literary movement of the ’nineties and the literary club life of the -period. - -I have endeavoured in this book to interest my readers in two ways—by -telling them the circumstances in my bringing-up, and my subsequent -life, which made me a busy man of letters instead of a lawyer, and by -giving them my reminiscences of friends who have won the affection of -the public in literature, in art, and on the stage. - -As I feel that a great many of my readers will be much more interested -in my reminiscences than in my life, I advise them to begin at Chapter -VI—or, better still, Chapter VIII—from which point forward, with the -exceptions of Chapters XVI-XIX, the book is taken up more with the -friends I have had the good fortune to know than with myself. - -Before concluding, I will give three or four stories too personal to -have names attached to them. - -I once heard a Bishop, who in those days was a smug and an Oxford Don, -remark to a circle of delighted undergraduates, “My brother Edward -thinks I’m an awful fool.” As his brother Edward was Captain of the Eton -Eleven, and amateur champion of something or other, there is no doubt -that his brother Edward did think him an awful fool. - -I once heard an author, at the very moment that Robert Louis Stevenson, -as we had learnt by telegram that afternoon, was lying in state under -the sky at Samoa, awaiting burial, say, replying to the toast of his -health at a public dinner, that he had been led to write his most -popular book by the perusal of Stevenson’s _Treasure Island_. - -“I said to myself,” he naïvely remarked, “that if I could not write a -better book than that in six weeks, I would shoot myself.” - -The same man, when another of his books had been dramatised, and he was -called before the curtain on the first night of its production, informed -the audience that it was a very good play, and that it would be a great -success when it was decently acted. So complacent was he about it that -the friend who tried to pull him back behind the curtain by the tails of -his dress-coat failed until he had split the coat up to the collar. - -This man has the very best instincts, but he has a genius for poking his -finger into people’s eyes. - -I once knew the brother of a Bishop, who left the Church of England, and -went to America to be a Unitarian clergyman, because he wished to marry -a pretty American heiress, and he had a wife already in England. By and -by his new sect heard of it, and expelled him with conscious or -unconscious humour for “conduct incompatible with membership in the -Unitarian Church.” He hired a hall from the piano company opposite, and -nearly the whole congregation moved across the street with him. Except -in the matter of monogamy, he was a most Christian man, and his -congregation had the highest respect and affection for him and his -bigamous wife; and this in spite of the fact that he constantly alluded -to the Trinity as he warmed to his subject in sermons for the -edification of Unitarians. If he noticed it, he corrected himself and -said Triad. He was one of the most delightful men I ever met, and his -influence on his congregation was of the very best. - -In the days when I saw so much of actors at our own flat, and went every -Sunday night to the O.P., I was once asked to arbitrate in a dispute -between an actor-manager and the critic of a great daily, who had -exchanged “words” in the theatre. The critic either dreaded the expense -of a lawsuit, or had no desire to make money if he could obtain the -_amende honorable_. I heard all they had to say, and then I turned round -and said to the great actor, “Did you say that about Mr. ——?” and he -replied with an Irishism which I got accepted as an apology: “I really -couldn’t say; I’m such a liar that I never know what I have said and -what I haven’t said.” - -These are stories to which I could not append the names, but the reader -will find as good and better if he turns up the names of S. H. Jeyes, -Oscar Wilde and Phil May in the index. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - I MY LIFE (1856-1886) 1 - - II MY LIFE (1886-1888) 20 - - III I GO TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 26 - - IV I GO TO JAPAN 35 - - V BACK TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 46 - - VI LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS 52 - - VII WE START OUR LITERARY AT-HOMES IN LONDON 57 - - VIII OUR AT-HOMES: YOUNG AUTHORS WHO ARE NOW 73 - GREAT AUTHORS - - IX THE HUMORISTS AT OUR AT-HOMES 82 - - X THE POETS AT OUR AT-HOMES 103 - - XI LADY AUTHORS AT ADDISON MANSIONS 119 - - XII LITERARY CLUBS: MY CONNECTION WITH THE 146 - AUTHORS’ CLUB - - XIII LITERARY CLUBS: THE IDLERS AND THE 162 - VAGABONDS - - XIV LITERARY CLUBS: THE SAVAGE CLUB 183 - - XV MY CONNECTION WITH JOURNALISM 188 - - XVI THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART I 204 - - XVII THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART II 216 - - XVIII THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART III 223 - - XIX HOW I WROTE “WHO’S WHO” 233 - - XX AUSTRALIANS IN LITERATURE 240 - - XXI MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART I 251 - - XXII MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART II 279 - - XXIII MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART III 288 - - XXIV OTHER AUTHOR FRIENDS 300 - - XXV FRIENDS WHO NEVER CAME TO ADDISON 307 - MANSIONS - - XXVI MY TRAVELLER FRIENDS 312 - - XXVII MY ACTOR FRIENDS 328 - - XXVIII MY ARTIST FRIENDS 346 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - COLOURED PICTURES BY YOSHIO MARKINO - - THE ROOF GARDEN OF 32 ADDISON MANSIONS Frontispiece - - THE MOORISH ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS 72 - - THE DINING-ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS IN 204 - WHICH MOST OF MY BOOKS WERE WRITTEN - - THE JAPANESE ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS 306 - - - PORTRAITS BY YOSHIO MARKINO - - DOUGLAS SLADEN 26 - - ISRAEL ZANGWILL 50 - - SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE 74 - - JEROME K. JEROME 98 - - MISS BRADDON 124 - - CHARLES GARVICE 150 - - G. B. BURGIN 174 - - SIDNEY LOW 119 - - HALL CAINE 224 - - W. B. MAXWELL 279 - - SIR GILBERT PARKER 324 - - SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM-TREE 344 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - INDEX OF REMINISCENCES - - -AT the end of the book will be found an index of the well-known people -about whom personal reminiscences or new facts are told—such as Prince -Alamayu of Abyssinia, Mme. Albanesi, Sir Edwin Arnold, Lena Ashwell, -Sarah Bernhardt, Sir Walter Besant, Rolf Boldrewood, Hall Caine, Dion -Clayton Calthrop, Mrs. Clifford, Bishop Creighton, Mrs. Croker, Sir A. -Conan Doyle, Lord Dundonald, Sir J. Forbes-Robertson, Charles Garvice, -Bishop Gore, Sarah Grand, George Grossmith, Thomas Hardy, Bret Harte, W. -E. Henley, Robert Hichens, John Oliver Hobbes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, -Anthony Hope, J. K. Jerome, S. H. Jeyes, C. Kernahan, A. H. Savage -Landor, Maarten Maartens, Compton MacKenzie, Yoshio Markino, “Bob” -Martin, George Meredith, Frankfort Moore, Dr. G. E. Morrison of Peking, -F. W. H. Myers, Nansen, Cardinal Newman, Mrs. Perrin, Eden Phillpotts, -Rt. Hon. Sir Geo. Reid, Whitelaw Reid, Lord Roberts, the late Lord -Salisbury, F. Hopkinson Smith, Father Stanton, Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, -August Strindberg, Mark Twain, H. A. Vachell, J. M. Whistler, Percy -White, Oscar Wilde, Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Lord Willoughby de -Broke, Margaret Woods, Sir Charles Wyndham and Israel Zangwill. - - D. S. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE - - - - - CHAPTER I - - MY LIFE (1856-1886) - - -I WAS born on February 5, 1856, in the town-house of my maternal -grandfather. My father, a solicitor by profession, who died in the last -days of 1910, at the age of eighty-six, was almost the youngest of the -sixteen children of my paternal grandparents, John Baker Sladen, D.L., -J.P., of Ripple Court, near Dover, and Etheldred St. Barbe. The name St. -Barbe has been freely bestowed on their descendants because the first -St. Barbe in this country has the honour of appearing on the Roll of -Battle Abbey. - -My maternal grandparents were John Wheelton and Mary Wynfield. Mr. -Wheelton (I was never able to discover any other person named Wheelton, -till I found, among the survivors of the loss of the _Titanic_, a -steward called Wheelton; truly the name has narrowly escaped -extinction), from whom I get my third Christian name, was in business as -a shipper on the site of the General Post Office, and was Master of the -Cordwainers’ Company. He was Sheriff of London in the year of Queen -Victoria’s marriage. Though he lived at Meopham near Tonbridge, he came -from Manchester, and I am, therefore, a Lancashire man on one side of -the house. But oddly enough I have never been to Manchester. - -Charles Dickens, when he first became a writer, was a frequent guest at -his hospitable table, and has immortalised him in one of his books. He -was in a way immortalised by taking a leading part in one of the most -famous law cases in our history, Stockdale _versus_ Hansard. As Sheriff -he had to levy an execution on Hansard, the printer to the House of -Commons, who had published in the reports of the debates a libel on Mr. -Stockdale. The House declared it a breach of privilege, and sentenced -the Sheriff to be imprisoned in the Speaker’s house, from which he was -shortly afterwards released on the plea of ill-health. But with the City -of London as well as the Law Courts against them, the members of the -House of Commons determined to avoid future collisions by bringing in a -bill to make the reports of the proceedings of Parliament privileged and -this duly became law. - -I have in my possession an enormous silver epergne, supported by -allegorical figures of Justice and others, which the City of London -presented to my grandfather in honour of this occasion, with a few -survivors of a set of leather fire-buckets, embellished with the City -arms, which now do duty as waste-paper baskets. - -I was baptised in Trinity Church, Paddington, and shortly afterwards my -parents went to live at 22, Westbourne Park Terrace, Paddington, -continuing there till 1862. - -It was in this year that my last sister, Mrs. Young, was born, just -before we changed houses. My eldest sister, who married the late Rev. -Frederick Robert Ellis, only son of Robert Ridge Ellis, of the Court -Lodge, Yalding, Kent, and for many years Rector of Much Wenlock, was -born in 1850. My second sister, who married Robert Arundel Watkins, -eldest surviving son of the Rev. Bernard Watkins, of Treeton, and -afterwards of Lawkland Hall, Yorkshire, was born in 1851; and my -brother, the Rev. St. Barbe Sydenham Sladen, who holds one of the City -livings, St. Margaret Patten, was born in 1858. - -My father, having become better off by the death of my two grandfathers -in 1860 and 1861, bought a ninety-six years’ lease of Phillimore Lodge, -Campden Hill, which I sold in 1911. - -I believe that I never left London till I was four years old, when we -all went to stay with my uncle, the Rev. William Springett, who still -survives, at Dunkirk Vicarage, near Canterbury. While we were there I -first saw and dipped my hands in the sea, which I was destined to -traverse so often, at a place called Seasalter, to which we drove from -Dunkirk. - -From 1862 to 1868, when my mother died, we children generally spent the -summer at Brighton, from which my father went away to a moor in -Yorkshire for the grouse-shooting. As a child, I soon grew tired of -Brighton, which seemed so like a seaside suburb of London. I used to -think that the sea itself, which had no proper ships on it, was like a -very large canal. I longed for real sea, like we had seen at Deal, where -we went to stay in my grandmother Sladen’s dower-house, shortly after -our visit to Dunkirk. There we had seen a full-rigged ship driven on to -the beach in front of our house in a gale, and had seen the lifeboat and -the Deal luggers putting out to wrecks on the Goodwin Sands, and had -seen the largest ships of the day in the Downs. I loved the woods we had -rambled in, between Dunkirk and Canterbury, even better still. I never -found the ordinary seaside place tolerable till I became enamoured of -golf. Without golf these places are marine deserts. - -I never tasted the real delights of the country till we went in the -later ’sixties to a farmhouse on the edge of the Duke of Rutland’s moors -above Baslow, in Derbyshire. With that holiday I was simply enchanted. -For rocks meant fairyland, as they still do, to me. And there I had, -besides rocks, like the Cakes of Bread, the clear, trout-haunted -mountain-river Derwent, and romantic mediæval architecture like Haddon -Hall. Besides, we were allowed to run wild on the farm, to sail about -the shallow pond in a cattle-trough, to help to make Wensleydale cheeses -(this part of Derbyshire arrogates the right to use the name), and to -hack the garden about as much as we liked. It was there that I had my -first real games of Red Indians and Robinson Crusoe, and there that I -had the seeds of my passion for architecture implanted in me. - -We drove about a great deal—to the Peak, with its caverns and its queer -villages, to the glorious Derbyshire Dales, and to great houses like -Chatsworth. Certainly Baslow was my fairy-godmother in authorship, and -my literary aspirations were cradled in Derbyshire. My father gave me a -good schooling in the beauties of England. We were always taken to see -every place of any interest for its scenery, its buildings, or its -history, which could be reached in a day by a pair of horses from the -house, where we were spending our summer holidays. He had the same -_flair_ for guide-books as I have, and taught me how to use them -intelligently. - -Up till 1864 I was taught by governesses with my elder sisters. There -were three of them, Miss Morrison, Miss Bray, and Miss Rose Sara Paley, -an American Southerner, whose parents had been ruined by the Civil War. -She was a very charming and intelligent woman, and taught my eldest -sister to compose in prose and verse. For a long time this sister was -the author of our home circle. I was too young to try composition in -those days, but seeing my eldest sister do it familiarised me with the -idea of it. I also had a music mistress, because it was hoped that -playing the piano would restore my left hand to its proper shape, after -the extraordinary accident which I had when I was only two years old. -She was Miss Rosa Brinsmead, a daughter of the John Brinsmead who -founded the famous piano-making firm. The point which I remember best -about her was that she had fair ringlets like Princess (now Queen) -Alexandra, who had just come over from Denmark and won all hearts. - -The accident happened by my falling into the fireplace, when my nurse -left me for a minute. To raise myself up I caught hold of the bar of the -grate with my left hand, and scorched the inside out. It is still -shrivelled, though fifty-five years have passed since that awful day for -my mother, when she found her only son, as she thought, crippled for -life. - -But though it chapped terribly every winter, and would not open properly -for the next three or four years, I soon got back the use of my hand, -and no one now suspects it of being the least disfigured till I hold it -open to show them. The back was uninjured, and it looks a very nice hand -by X-rays, when only the bones are visible. - -The doctor recommended that, being a child of a very active brain (I -asked quite awkward questions about the birth of my brother shortly -afterwards), I should be taught to read while I was kept in bed, as the -only means of keeping my hand out of danger, and I was given a box of -letters which I always arranged upon the splint of my wounded hand. By -the time that it was well I could read, and on my fifth birthday I was -given the leather-bound Prayer-book which I had been promised whenever I -could read every word in it. I have the Prayer-book still, half a -century later. - -Poor Miss Brinsmead had a hopeless task, for though I could learn to -read so easily, I never could learn to play on the piano with both hands -at the same time, except in the very baldest melodies, like “God Save -the Queen,” and the “Sultan’s Polka.” These I did achieve. - -In 1864 I was sent to a dame’s school in Kensington Square, kept by the -Misses Newman, from which I was shortly afterwards transferred to -another kept by Miss Daymond, an excellent teacher, where I had Johnny -and Everett Millais, and sons of other great artists, for my -schoolfellows. - -In 1866, though it nearly broke my mother’s heart, I was sent to my -first boarding-school, Temple Grove, East Sheen—in the old house where -Dorothy Temple had lived, and Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, -the greatest of that illustrious race, was born—the school, moreover, -which had numbered Benjamin Disraeli among its pupils. How many people -are there who know that Dizzy was schooled in the house in which -Palmerston was born—those two great apostles of British prestige? - -Here I stayed for three years before I won the first junior scholarship -at Cheltenham College, and here, from my house-master, I had a fresh and -wonderful department of knowledge opened to me, for he used to take me -naturalising (both by day and by night, when the other boys were in bed) -on Sheen Common, then wild enough to have snakes and glow-worms and -lizards, as well as newts and leeches, and rich in insect prizes. I won -this favour because he accidentally discovered that I knew “Mangnall’s -Questions” and “Common Subjects” by heart. But though he was Divinity -Master, he never discovered that I knew my Bible quite as well. - -He also taught me to lie. I had never told a lie till I went to Temple -Grove. But as he prided himself on his acuteness, he was -constitutionally unable to believe the truth. It was too obvious for -him. When I found that he invariably thought I was lying while I still -obeyed my mother’s teaching, and was too afraid of God to tell a lie, I -suddenly made up my mind that I would humour him, and tell whatever lie -was necessary to this transparent Sherlock Holmes. After this he always -believed me, unless I accidentally forgot and told him the truth. And I -liked him so much that I wished him to believe me. - -He did not injure my character as much as he might have done, because I -was born with a loathing for insincerity. The difficulty came when he -and Waterfield, the head master, questioned me about the same thing, for -Waterfield mesmerised one into telling the truth, and he tempted one to -tell a lie. It reminds me now of Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love.” - -At Temple Grove I acquired my taste for games and taste for natural -history. - -In 1868, my mother, to whom I was passionately attached, died. I used to -dream that she was alive for months afterwards. And the great -theosophist to whom I mentioned this sees in it an astral communication. -To divert my thoughts from this, the greatest grief I had ever had, I -was sent to stay with my cousin, Colonel Joseph Sladen, who had already -succeeded to Ripple Court, and was then a Gunner Captain, stationed at -Sheerness. He belonged to the Royal Yacht Squadron, and had a schooner -yacht in which we used to go away for cruises up the Channel. I was a -little boy of twelve, and his two eldest sons, Arthur Sladen, now H.R.H. -the Duke of Connaught’s Private Secretary in Canada, and Sampson Sladen, -now the Chief of the London Fire Brigade, were hardly more than babies, -but I enjoyed it very much, because I was interested in the yachting and -in the firing of the hundred-pounder Armstrongs, which were the monster -guns of those days. We went in my cousin’s yacht to see the new ironclad -fleets of Great Britain and France, and we went over the _Black Prince_ -and the _Minotaur_, the crack ships of the time. - -A year after that, exactly on the first anniversary of my mother’s -death, I went to Cheltenham College, where I had taken a scholarship. I -was at Cheltenham College six years, and took four scholarships and many -prizes at the school, the most interesting of which, in view of my after -life, was the prize for the English Poem. I was also Senior Prefect, -Editor of the school magazine, Captain of Football, and Captain of the -Rifle Corps. I shot for the school four times in the Public School -competitions at Wimbledon, and in 1874 won the Spencer Cup, which was -open to the best shot from each of the Public Schools. I was the school -representative for it also in 1873. - -At Cheltenham, I suppose, I laid the foundations of my literary career, -because, besides editing the school magazine for a couple of years, and -writing the Prize Poem, I read every book in the College library. It was -such a delight to me to have the run of a well-stocked library. The -books at home were nearly all religious books. I was brought up on the -sternest low-Church lines; we went to church twice a day on Sunday, -besides having prayers read twice at home, and hymns sung in the -afternoon. The church we attended was St. Paul’s, Onslow Square, where I -had to listen to hour-long sermons from Capel Molyneux and Prebendary -Webb-Peploe. The dull and long services were almost intolerable, except -when Millais, the great painter, who had the next pew, asked me into his -pew to relieve the crush in ours. Millais sat so upright and so forward -when he was listening that my father could not see me, and I used to -bury my face in the beautiful Mrs. Millais’ sealskin jacket; I had such -an admiration for her that I did not go to sleep. Millais—he was not Sir -John in those days—did not make his children go to church; I suppose he -went because he was fascinated by the eloquence of the sermons. -Molyneux, Marston and Peploe were all great preachers, though they bored -an unfortunate small boy to the verge of nervous prostration. We were -only allowed to read Sunday books on Sunday, and the newspapers were put -away, as they were to the day of my father’s death in 1910. - -After my mother’s death I always longed to get back to school, because, -though we had to go to chapel every day, and twice on Sunday, there was -not that atmosphere of religion which made me, as a small boy, begin to -feel unhappy about lunch-time on Saturday, and not thoroughly relieved -till after breakfast on Monday. I hated Sunday at home; the two-mile -walk to and from church was the best part of it. - -I have forgotten two other preparations for a literary career which I -perpetrated at Cheltenham. I and my greatest friend, a boy called Walter -Roper Lawrence (now Sir W. R. Lawrence, Bart., G.C.I.E.), who afterwards -rose to a position of the highest eminence in India, wrote verses for -the school magazine, and I published a pamphlet to avenge a contemptuous -reference, in the Shotover Papers, and was duly summoned for libel. The -late Frederick Stroud, the Recorder of Tewkesbury, who was at that time -a solicitor, got me off. I never saw him in after life, which I much -regretted, because he was, like myself, a great student of everything -connected with Adam Lindsay Gordon, the Australian poet. He died while I -was writing our life of Gordon. - -At the beginning of 1875 I won an open classical scholarship at Trinity -College, Oxford, where I commenced residence in the following October. -At Oxford again I read voraciously in the splendid library of the Union. - -There my love of games continued unabated. I shot against Cambridge four -years, and won all the shooting challenge-cups. I also played in the -’Varsity Rugby Union Football XV when I first went up. - -I had delightful old panelled rooms on Number 7 staircase—a chance fact, -which won me a great honour and pleasure. One afternoon, when I came in -from playing football, the College messenger met me, saying, “Grand -company in your rooms this afternoon, Mr. Sladen—the President, and all -the Fellows, and Cardinal Nooman,” and he added, “When the President -looked at your mantelpiece, sir, he _corfed_.” My mantelpiece was strewn -with portraits of Maud Branscombe, Eveleen Rayne, Mrs. Rousby, and other -theatrical stars of that day—about a couple of dozen of them. - -Shortly afterwards the President’s butler arrived with a note, which I -supposed was to reproach me with the racy appearance of my mantelpiece, -but it was to ask me to spend the evening with the President, because -Cardinal Newman had expressed a desire to meet the present occupant of -his rooms. - -The Cardinal, a wan little man with a shrivelled face and a large nose, -and one of the most beautiful expressions which ever appeared on a human -being, talked to me for a couple of hours, prostrating me with his -exquisite modesty. He wanted to know if the snapdragons, to which he had -written a poem, still grew on the wall between Trinity and Balliol; he -wanted to compare undergraduate life of his day with the undergraduate -life of mine; he asked me about a number of Gothic fragments in Oxford -which might have perished between his day and mine, and fortunately, I -had already conceived the passion for Gothic architecture which pervades -my books, and was able to tell him about every one. He told me the marks -by which he knew that those were his rooms; he asked me about my -studies, and hobbies, and aims in life; I don’t think that I have ever -felt any honour of the kind so much. - -At Oxford I spent every penny I could afford, and more, on collecting a -library of standard works, and I have many of them still. I remember -that the literary Oxonians of that day discussed poetry much more than -prose, and could mostly be classified into admirers of William Morris -and admirers of Swinburne, and I think the Morrisians were more -numerous. All of them had an academic admiration for Matthew Arnold’s -poems, and could spout from “Thyrsis” and the “Scholar Gipsy,” which was -compared with Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale.” - -Thackeray’s daughter (Lady Ritchie) was at that time the latest star in -fiction, as I occasionally remind her. - -I had the good fortune to know some of the greatest of the authors who -lived at Oxford when I was an undergraduate—Max Müller, Bishop Stubbs -the historian, Edward Augustus Freeman, Lewis Carroll, Dean Kitchin, -Canon Bright and W. L. Courtney. - -Oxford in those days (as I suppose it does still) revolved largely round -“Bobby Raper,” then Dean of Trinity, a man of infinite tact and -kindness, swift to discern ability and character in an undergraduate, -and to make a friend of their owner, and blessed with a most saving -sense of humour. When they had finished at Oxford, a word from him found -them coveted masterships, or secretaryships to Public Men. He was the -link between Oxford and Public life, as much as Jowett—the “Jowler” -himself—who sat in John Wycliffe’s seat at Balliol. Lord Milner, St. -John Brodrick and George Curzon have gone farthest of the Balliol men of -my time. Asquith was before me, Edward Grey after. Trinity ran to -Bishops. Most of the men who sat at the scholars’ table at Trinity in my -time who went into Holy Orders are Bishops now, Archie Robertson, now -Bishop of Exeter, being the senior of them, Bishop Gore of Oxford, who -had rooms on the same floor as I had, and was one of my greatest friends -in my first year, was the Junior Fellow. He was a very well-off young -man, and used to spend huge sums on buying folios of the Latin Fathers, -and then learn them by heart. There is no one who knows so much about -the Fathers as the Bishop of Oxford. The present Archbishop of -Canterbury was at Trinity, but before my time, and so was Father -Stanton, who went there because he came of a hunting family, and it was -a hunting College, and he was a Rugby man. Bishop Stubbs and Freeman -were also Trinity men, and generally at the College Gaudies, where the -Scholars used to dine at the same table as the Dons and their guests. -Sir Richard Burton came once to a Gaudy when I was there, and told me -that he was very surprised that they had asked him, because he had been -sent down. - -I said, “You are in very good company. The great Lord Chatham and Walter -Savage Landor were sent down from Trinity as well as you.” - -But one well-known literary man of the present day holds the record over -them all, because he was sent down from Trinity twice. - -Although I was a classical scholar, I refused to go in for Classics in -the Final Schools. “Greats,” otherwise _Literæ Humaniores_, as this -school is called at Oxford, embraces the study of Philosophy in the -original Greek and Latin of Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, and Philosophy -and Logic generally. I was sick of the Classics, and I never could take -the smallest interest in Philosophy, so I knew that I should do no good -in this school, and announced my intention of going in for the School of -Modern History. This was too revolutionary for my tutor. He said— - -“Classical scholars are expected to go in for Greats, and if you fail to -do so, we shall have to consider the taking away of your scholarship.” - -I was astute in my generation; I went to Gore (the Bishop), who was my -friend, and always met undergraduates as if he were one of themselves, -and said to him, “Will you do something for me, Gore?” - -“It depends on what it is,” he replied, with his curious smile. - -“Tell the Common-room (_i. e._ the Dons, who used to meet in the -Common-room every night after dinner) that I really mean to go in for -History whether they take away my scholarship or not, but that if they -do take it away, I shall take my name off the books of Trinity and go -and ask Jowett if he will admit me at Balliol. You were a Balliol -undergrad; you know the kind of answer that Jowett would make to a man -who was willing to give up an eighty pounds a year scholarship in order -to go in for the School which interested him.” - -“Jowett will take you,” he said, “but I will see what can be done here.” - -That night I received the most unpleasant note an undergraduate can -receive—a command to meet the Common-room at ten o’clock the next -morning. They were all present when I went in. The President invited me -to take a seat, and my tutor (the Rev. H. G. Woods, now Master of the -Temple, of whom I still see something) said— - -“Are you quite determined to go in for the School of History, Mr. -Sladen?” - -“Quite,” I replied. - -“Then we hope that the degree you take will justify us in assenting to -such a very unusual procedure.” - -Then they all smiled very pleasantly, and I thanked them and went out. - -They must have felt quite justified when, two years afterwards, I took -my First in History with congratulatory letters from all my examiners, -while all the scholars of Trinity who went in for the _School of Literæ -Humaniores_ took Seconds and Thirds. I should have got a Fourth, I am -convinced. - -Again I read voraciously. For the first year I hardly bothered about my -text-books at all. I read biographies, books about architecture and art -and literature, historical novels, the writings of historical -personages, everything which threw brilliant sidelights on my subject. -And in the second year I learnt my text-books almost by heart, except -Stubbs’s _Constitutional History_ and _Selected Charters_. I simply -could not memorise them—they were so dry, and I hated the dry bones of -_Constitutional History_ almost as badly as philosophy. I learned -digests of them, which took less time, and were no dryer, and proved -equally efficacious in answering the papers. - -In after years, when I was entertaining Bishop Stubbs at a reception, -which Montague Fowler and I gave in honour of Mark Twain at the Authors’ -Club, he roared with laughter when I told him that I got a First in -History without reading his books, by learning the Digests of them by -heart. - -He said, “I know they are dreadfully dull. Did you find my lectures very -dull when you came to them?” He had not forgotten that I had attended -his lectures for a couple of years. - -I said, “No, not at all.” - -“Honestly, did you get any good from them?” - -“Quite honestly?” - -He nodded. - -I said, “Not in the usual way.” - -“Well,” he asked, “how did you get any good from them?” - -“You must forgive me if I tell you.” - -“Tell me; it cannot be worse than what you said about my books.” - -“Well,” I confessed, “the reason why I attended your lectures was that -you never bothered as to whether I was there or not, and I hardly ever -was there. I did not think any lectures were any good, but my tutor made -me attend sixteen a week, and the time which I was supposed to spend at -your lectures, I used to spend in my rooms reading. You were the only -gentleman among my lecturers—all the rest used to call the names, and -report me to my tutor if I was absent.” - -He was immensely tickled, and said, “You deserved to get a First, if you -took things as seriously as that.” - -But Bishop Stubbs was very human. He always read the lightest novel he -could lay hands on before he went to bed, to relieve his mind after -working, and save him from insomnia. - -“They are so light,” he said, “that I keep other books in front of them -in my book-case.” - -As an author, I have found the education I was given and gave myself a -very useful foundation. Those ten years I gave to the study of Latin and -Greek and classical history and mythology were not thrown away, because -I have written so many books about Italy and Sicily and Egypt, in which -having the classics at my fingers’ ends made me understand the history, -and the allusions in the materials I had to digest. It is impossible to -write freely about Italy and Greece unless you know your classics. - -The two years of incessant study which I gave to taking my degree in -Modern History at Oxford have been equally useful, because it is -impossible to write guide-books and books of travel unless you have a -sound knowledge of history. - -For a brief while my degree in history had a most practical and -technical value, for it won me the Chair of Modern History in the -University of Sydney, New South Wales. - -Beyond a week or two in Paris, I had never left England before I went to -Australia in the end of 1879, a few months after I left Oxford, but I -knew my England pretty well, because my father had always encouraged me -to see the parts of England which contained the finest scenery and the -architectural _chefs d’œuvres_, like cathedrals. Ireland I had never -visited, and of Scotland I only knew Dumfriesshire, where my father -rented a shooting-box and a moor for four years; and where I had enjoyed -splendid rough shooting when I was a boy, in the very heart of the land -of Burns. “The Grey Mare’s Tail” was on one shooting which we had, and -the Carlyle cottage was right under our Craigenputtock shooting. - -When I left Oxford my father gave me three hundred pounds to spend on a -year of travel, and I chose to go to Australia to stay with his eldest -brother, Sir Charles Sladen, K.C.M.G., who had been Prime Minister of -the Colony of Victoria, and was at that time leader of the Upper House, -and of the Constitutional Party in Victoria. I wanted to see if I should -like to settle in the Colonies, and go to the Bar with a view to a -political career. We were not rich enough for me to think of the House -of Commons seriously, and I have always taken a very keen interest in -politics. - -Further, I wanted to go and stay on my uncle’s station to get some -riding and shooting, and to see something of the outdoor life of -Australia, of which I had heard so much. And I wanted desperately to try -living in a hot country. I knew by intuition that I should like heat. - -I had not been staying with my uncle for a year before I had made up my -mind to live in Australia, a conclusion to which I was assisted by my -marriage with Miss Margaret Isabel Muirhead, the daughter of a Scotsman -from Stirling, who had owned a fine station called the Grampians in the -Western District of Victoria, and had been killed in a horse accident. -As I had not been called to the Bar before I left home, I found that I -had to go through a two years’ course, and take a law degree at the -Melbourne University. This I did, though the position was sufficiently -anomalous. For instance, I had to attend lectures by a Member of the -Government, the Solicitor-General. I knew him intimately at the -Melbourne Club and in private life, and we generally used to walk down -to the Club after the lecture. Sometimes we went into a pub, to have a -drink together, and we discussed anything from the forthcoming -Government Bills to Club stories. He told me one day, before the public -knew anything about it, of the intention of the Government to bring in a -Bill to make sweeps on racing illegal. As much as forty-five thousand -pounds had been subscribed for the Melbourne Cup Sweep the year before. - -I said, “It is no good making them illegal; it only means that they will -be carried on under the rose, and that a whole lot of the sweeps will be -bogus. You can’t stop sweeps; all you can do is to put the bogus sweep -on a level with Jimmy Miller’s.” - -“What would you do, then?” he asked. - -“Well, if you really want to stop them, you should legalise them, and -put a twenty-five per cent., or fifty per cent. for the matter of that, -tax upon them. You’d spoil the odds so that sweeps would die a natural -death; and if they didn’t, you’d get a nice lot of money to save the -taxpayer’s pocket. You would be like the Prince of Monaco, who lives by -the gambling at Monte Carlo.” - -He duly put the suggestion before the Government, but they thought that -this would be paltering with eternal sin, and passed their Bill to help -the bogus-sweep promoter. - -This same man and I were asked one night to take part in a Shakespeare -reading at the Prime Minister’s. My friend was late, and the Prime -Minister, who was not a discreet man, began talking about him. Somebody -remarked what a wonderfully well-informed man he was. - -“Yes,” said the Prime Minister, “my Solicitor-General is one of those -people who know nothing about everything. And the way he does it is that -he never opens a book; he just reads what the magazines and papers have -to say about books.” - -Suddenly the Premier felt that his remarks were no longer being received -with enthusiasm, and looking up, saw his Solicitor-General waiting to -shake hands with him. - -At the Melbourne University I formed one intimate friendship, which has -lasted ever since. Among my fellow-students was Dr. George Ernest -Morrison, the famous _Times_ correspondent of Peking. He was famous in -those days as the finest football player in the Colony, and he began his -adventures while he was at the University. For months we missed him; -nobody knew where he was—or if his father, who was head master of -Geelong College, did know, he never told. Then suddenly he turned up -again, and said that he had been walking from Cape York, which was the -northernmost point of Australia, to Melbourne. He had undertaken—and I -don’t think he had any bet on it—to make his way from Cape York to -Melbourne, alone, unarmed and without a penny in his pocket. In the -northernmost part of his journey, at any rate, there were a great many -wild blacks, and many rivers full of crocodiles to swim. But there are, -of course, no large carnivora in Australia, and a snake can be killed -with a stick. When he was swimming a river he used to construct a raft, -and put his clothes and his pack on it; he carried a pack like any other -sun-downer, and when he got to a station, did his bit of work to pay for -his bed and supper, and when he left it, if the next station south was -more than a day’s journey, he was given enough food to carry him -through. This is, of course, the universal custom in Australia when a -man is going from station to station in search of work, such as -shearing. - -He had not a single misadventure. The reason why he took so long was -that his way from station to station naturally took him out of the -direct line to the south, and he made a stay at some of them. The -newspapers were so impressed with his feat that, shortly afterwards, -when the _Age_ organised an expedition to explore New Guinea, he was -given command of it. That was the last I saw of Morrison till we met a -few years afterwards at my house in London. - -I never practised for the Melbourne Bar, for no sooner had I taken my -law degree than I was appointed to the vacant chair of Modern History in -the University of Sydney. - -I had, since I landed in Australia, made my debut as an author, and had -already published two volumes of verse, _Frithjof and Ingebjorg_ and -_Australian Lyrics_. During the year that I held my chair, we had -apartments in the Old Government House, Parramatta, which had become a -boarding-house, and spent our vacations on the Hawkesbury and in the -Blue Mountains. - -While I was at Parramatta I published a third volume of verse, _A Poetry -of Exiles_. - -Then occurred an event which deprived me of one of my principal reasons -for remaining in Australia, the premature death of my uncle. This closed -my short cut to a political career; and I had long since come to the -conclusion that Australia was not the place for a literary career, -because there was no real publishing in Australia. Publishers were -merely booksellers, who acted as intermediaries between authors and -printers; they took no risks of publication; the author paid, and they -received one commission as publishers and another as booksellers. This -did not signify much for verse; the printing bill for books of verse is -not large, and poets are accustomed to bringing out their works at their -own risk in other countries besides Australia. But a large prose work of -a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand words is, at Australian -prices, extremely expensive to produce, and when it is produced, has -only a small sale because it does not bear the name of any well-known -English publishing house. - -So I suddenly made up my mind to return to England. - -The five years I spent in Australia were fruitful for my career as an -author, though I have never published anything about Australia, except -my own verses, and anthologies of Australian verse, and a life, and an -edition of the poems, of Adam Lindsay Gordon. The last was phenomenally -successful; I am sure that no volume of Browning has ever sold so well. -And one of the anthologies had a sale of twenty thousand copies in the -first ten years of its existence. - -Australia supplied exactly the right element for my development. At -Cheltenham I was the most prominent boy of my time, and the prestige -with which I came up from school gave me a certain momentum at Oxford. -So I went out to Australia with a very good opinion of Public Schools, -and Oxford, and myself. - -I soon discovered that nothing was of any importance in Australia except -sport and money. If Tennyson or Walter Scott had gone to a -bush-township, he would have been judged merely by his proficiency or -absence of proficiency as a groom. Horsemanship is the one test of the -inhabitants of a bush-township. - -In Melbourne and Sydney and on “stations” it was different. Hospitality -was prodigal, and there was a disposition to regard with charity one’s -shortcomings from the Colonial point of view, and to accept with -sympathy the fact that one had distinguished oneself elsewhere. The -Australian man is very manly, and very hearty; the Australian woman is -apt to be very pretty, and to have a strong personality—to be full of -character as a lover. - -The climate of Australia I found absolutely delightful. It is a land of -eternal summer: its winters are only cooler summers. The unchanging blue -of its skies is appalling to those whose prosperity depends on the -rainfall. - -When I went out to Australia, just after leaving Oxford, I was enough of -a prig to profit very greatly by being suddenly thrown into an -absolutely democratic community. I was saved from finding things -difficult by the fact that I was born a Bohemian, in spite of my very -conventional parentage, and really did delight in roughing it. The free -and easy Colonial life was a great relief to me after the prim life in -my English home; and staying about on the great stations in the western -district of Victoria, which belonged to various connections of my -family, furnished the finest experience of my early life. I spent most -of my first year in Australia in that way, returning, in between, to pay -visits to my uncle at Geelong. Being in the saddle every day never lost -its thrill for me, because I had hardly ever been on a horse before I -went to Australia; and wandering about the big paddocks and the -adjoining stretches of forest, gun in hand—I hardly ever went out -without a gun—had something of the excitement of the books about the -American backwoods which I read in my boyhood. It is true that I would -rather have shot grizzly bears than the native bears of Australia, mere -sloths, and lions and tigers than kangaroos, but a big “forester” is not -to be sneezed at, and Australia has an extraordinary wealth of strange -birds—the cockatoos and parrots and parakeets alone give a sort of -tropical aspect to the forest, and the snakes give an unpleasantly -tropical aspect, though, fortunately, in Australia, they shrink from -human habitations. - -When I married I went to live in Melbourne, close to public gardens of -extraordinary beauty and almost tropical luxuriance, and soon became -absorbed in the maelstrom of dancing and playing tennis, and watching -first-class cricket and racing. - -When we went to Parramatta it was easy to make excursions to the -marvellous gorges of the Blue Mountains, which are among the grandest -valley scenery in the world. - -Everything was large, and free, and sparsely inhabited—most expanding to -the mind, and the glimpse of the tropical glories of Oriental Ceylon, -which I enjoyed for four days on my voyage home, made me hear the “East -a callin’” for ever afterwards. - -I found London desperately dull when we returned to it in 1884. I had no -literary friends, except at Oxford, where we took a house for three -months to get some colour into life again. It was on the banks of the -Cherwell, facing the most beautiful buildings of Magdalen, and the -Gothic glories of Oxford were manna to my hungry soul. - -The summer, spent in Devonshire and Cornwall and Scotland, was well -enough, and in the winter, which we spent at Torquay, we had grand -scenery and beautiful ancient buildings, but the climate seemed -treacherous and cold after the fierce bright summers of Australia. - -I must not forget that I came very near not going to Australia at all. I -felt the parting with my father extremely, and he was quite prostrated -by it. I had, a few days before starting, been introduced to the captain -of the old Orient liner _Lusitania_, in which I made the voyage—a hard, -reckless sea-dog—and he did me good service on that occasion. Two -letters came on board for me when we put in at Plymouth to pick up the -last mails and passengers. One of these letters contained a letter from -my father to the effect that if I wished to give up the passage and -return home I might do so. The captain, for some reason or other, -whether from having had a conversation with my father, or what, -suspected that the letter might have some message of that kind—he may -have had the same thing occurring in his experience before—so he did not -give me the letter till the next day, when I had no possible chance of -communicating with England until I got to the Cape de Verde Islands. By -that time, of course, I had thoroughly settled down to the enjoyments of -the voyage, and looked at the matter in a different light. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER II - - MY LIFE (1886-1888) - - -ABOUT this time I was struck with the idea that for a person who -intended to make his living by writing books, Travel was a necessity, -and while one had no ties, it cost no more to live in various parts of -the Continent than to live in London. - -The desire materialised sooner than it might have done, because Arthur -Chamberlain, whom we had met when we were sharing a house in Scotland -with the Wilkies (wife and daughters of the famous Melbourne doctor), -wrote letters, which would brook no refusal, for us to come and join him -at Heidelberg, where he was now a student, for the Quincentenary of the -Heidelberg University. - -Before we went abroad we had a foretaste of the many pilgrimages to -archæological paradises which we were to make. We spent six weeks at -Canterbury, peculiarly delightful to me, because my family have been -landowners in East Kent from time immemorial, which made the -neighbourhood of Canterbury full of landmarks for me, and Canterbury is, -after Oxford, fuller of the Middle Ages than any town in England. Here, -having the run of the Cathedral library given me by its curator, Dr. -Shepherd (I hope I have spelt his name right), I commenced my studies of -Edward, the Black Prince—the local hero, who lies buried in the -Cathedral. This led to my writing the most ambitious of my poems, -“Edward, the Black Prince.” I wrote it among the ruins of the old -Cathedral Monastery at Canterbury, and the first edition was printed in -the Piazza of Santa Croce at Florence. - -At Heidelberg, living for economy in a delightful pension kept by Miss -Abraham, who had been the Kaiser’s English governess, we met the set who -pass their years in wandering from one pension to another on the -Continent. Our immediate future was marked out for us. One family booked -us for a favourite pension at Zurich, another for Lucerne, another for -Lugano, another for Florence, another for Rome, another for Castellamare -di-Stabia below Pompeii. - -And so we began the great trek. We summered at Heidelberg. Autumn in -Switzerland was perfectly beautiful, but the two or three months which -we spent in Florence formed one of the turning-points of my life. It was -there that we found a pension, which called itself an hotel, replete -with the atmosphere and charm and the little luxuries which Italy knows -so well how to give for seven francs a day. There we met people who came -to Florence year after year, and knew every picture, almost every stone, -in it—almost every ounce of pleasure which was to be got out of it. They -initiated us, in fact, into Florence, which was more of an education -than anything in the world. - -Florence is Renaissance in architecture, Gothic in feeling. Its -inhabitants, native and foreign, live in the past. It was here that I, -born with a passion for realising the Middle Ages, acquired the undying -desires which have taken me back so often and for such long periods, and -have inspired me to write so many books about Italy and Sicily. From the -very beginning I plunged into the life of Florence and the study of -things Italian with extraordinary zest. - -Going on to Rome for a month or two inspired me with the same feeling -for the classics as Florence had inspired in me for the Middle Ages. - -I own that, when I was persuaded to go on from Rome to Castellamare, I -did so with certain misgivings. There did not seem to be the same -chances in it. We were going to a villa outside the town, whose sole -attraction seemed to be that it was six miles from Pompeii. - -But when we got there, it had a profound influence on our lives. It -proved to be the villa where the Countess of Blessington had entertained -Byron and others of the immortals, a beautiful southern house, standing -on the green hill which buries in its bosom the ashes of Vesuvius, and -the ruins of Stabiæ, a city which shared the fate of Pompeii. It had a -vineyard round it; its quaint garden was overrun with sleepy lizards, -which you never catch asleep—the lizards in which the genius of Italy -seems to live. - -We saw the sunset every night on the Bay of Naples and Ischia, which all -the world was talking about then because of the earthquake which had -lately ravished it. Every night we saw a tree of fire rising from -Vesuvius. - -We used to spend our days in the orange groves of Sorrento, or driving -in donkey-carts to Pompeii, that city of the resurrection of the ancient -world. The weather was somnolently mild; for the first time we were -eating of the fruit of the lotus, which we have eaten so often since, -and which has pervaded my writings. - -If Castellamare had only done that for us, it would be a milestone in my -life, but it also planted the seeds of unrest—_die Wanderlust_—in my -veins. Some one we met there—I don’t remember who it was now—had a craze -for Greek ruins; Roman ruins meant nothing to him, he said; there were -only two places for him, Athens and Sicily. - -In Sicily it was Girgenti which won his heart, not Syracuse or Taormina, -and he almost persuaded us to go there. He obviously preferred it, even -to Athens. But the name meant nothing to me; I had read of Agrigentum in -the classics, and he showed me photographs of the glorious Greek -temples, which are still preserved in the environs of modern Girgenti. -Athens, on the contrary, had been before my mind ever since I was a boy. -The literature of Greece is, with the exception of Homer and Theocritus, -roughly speaking, the literature of Athens. I knew most of its principal -buildings almost as well as if I had seen them. I heard the call of -Athens, and to Athens we went from Castellamare. - -Going there showed how comparatively cheap and easy it is to get to -distant places. We went through Taranto—Tarentum—to Brindisi; from -Brindisi to Corfu, in the Ionian Islands, the earthly paradise of the -fair Nausicaa, and the empresses of to-day; from Corfu to Patras and -Corinth; from Corinth to Athens. - -The moral effect began before ever we reached Athens; it was so -vivifying to a student of the classics to pass Tarentum, and Cæsar’s -Brundusium, the Lesbos of Sappho, the Ithaca of Ulysses, Corinth and the -Piræus. - -Lesbos! Corinth! Athens! Sappho! Ulysses! there was romance and undying -poetry in the very names. - -The Greece of those days really was something out of the beaten track. -There were only two little railways of a few miles each, and there was -not an hotel worthy of the name anywhere outside of Athens. Even in -Athens, if you were not at a first-class hotel, kid’s flesh, and -sheep’s-milk butter, black bread and honey of Hymettus, and wine which -was full of resin, were the staples of diet. But what did it matter? We -lived in a house and a street with beautiful classical names—we lived in -the house of Hermes. And when we climbed up to the Acropolis at sunset, -we were in an enchanted land midway between earth and heaven, for we -were in the very heart of history surrounded by milk-white columns of -the marble of Pentelicus, and facing a rich curtain of sunset, which -hung over Ægina, and trailed into the waters of the Bay of Salamis. -Athens is gloriously romantic and beautiful, and Time has laid its -lightest fingers on her rocks and ruins, whose names are the -commonplaces of Greek history. - -We spent some glorious weeks at Athens, made interesting by the -acquaintance of Tricoupis, the famous Prime Minister, and the presence -of the President of my college at Oxford—now Bishop of Hereford, from -whom I heard only the other day. From Athens Miss Lorimer’s unappeasable -hunger to see the world swept us on, after several happy weeks, to -Constantinople—the outpost of the East in Europe. Constantinople was one -of the most delightful experiences of my life. There is no call which I -hear like the call of the East, and in Constantinople you have the -noblest mosques west of India, and bazaars almost as barbarous as the -bazaars of North Africa, thronged, like the broad bridge of boats which -crosses the Golden Horn, with the mixed races of the Levant, in their -gay, uncouth costumes. The scene, too, is one of rare beauty, for the -great mosques are rooted in dark cypress-groves, and rear their domes -and minarets on the horizon, and the calm waters of the Golden Horn and -the Sea of Marmora are dotted with fantastic _caïques_. - -We spent all too short a time there, dipping into the bowl of Oriental -mystery, in perfect April weather, when we were called home to meet a -sister-in-law coming from Australia. - -I had, in the interval, published two more volumes of verse, _A Summer -Christmas_ and _In Cornwall and Across the Sea_, and I had printed at -Florence _Edward, the Black Prince_, begun during that long visit to -Canterbury in the spring of 1886, during which I steeped myself deeper -and deeper in the study of Gothic architecture, not yet realising what -an important part it was to play in my writing. - -When we returned from Constantinople I had _The Black Prince_ properly -published in England, and though its sales were trifling, like those of -_A Summer Christmas_, it met with warm commendation from the critics. - -Shortly after this we were inspired with the desire to visit the United -States in the autumn of 1888, and as we were going so far, we determined -so stay in one place while we were in England. - -The place we chose was Richmond. I had always loved it since I was a -little boy at Temple Grove School in the neighbouring village of East -Sheen. It was sufficiently in the country for us to pass a spring and -summer there without irksomeness, and sufficiently beautiful and -old-fashioned to satisfy my cravings. - -At Richmond we took a house in the Queen’s Road, and but for the very -large sum demanded for fixtures, we should have abandoned our American -trip, and taken the part of the Old Palace which has now been restored -at great expense by Mr. J. L. Middleton, for which I had a great -inclination. Mr. Middleton is a friend of mine and I have been over it -many times with him. It stands right opposite my study window. We liked -Richmond as much then as we do now, except for the long trail up from -the railway station to the Queen’s Road when we went to the theatre. We -were in the Park or on the adjoining commons every day, watching the -operations of Nature from the growth to the fall. - -It was a busy time, for I wrote _The Spanish Armada_ on the occasion of -the Tercentenary of the immortal sea-fight, and I edited two anthologies -of Australian verse, _Australian Ballads_ and _A Century of Australian -Song_, for Walter Scott, Ltd. The pleasure of compiling these two -anthologies, the first books by which I ever made any money, was -enhanced because I did them at the unsolicited invitation of the late -William Sharp, the poet and author of the rhapsodies of “Fiona Macleod,” -who afterwards became a dear and intimate friend. He introduced me to -Charles Mackay, the editor of the famous _Thousand and One Gems of -English Poetry_, who adopted Marie Corelli as his daughter, and was -father of Eric Mackay. It was through him that I received the invitation -to do the Australian part of the _Slang Dictionary_, edited by M. -Barrére, the French Ambassador’s brother, for which also I received some -money. - -These encouragements made me ask my friend, the late S. H. Jeyes, who -went to Trinity, Oxford, on the same day as I did, and was at the time -one of the editors of the _St James’s Gazette_, from which he afterwards -changed to the _Standard_, whether he thought that I ought to go to -America, or stay and pursue my chances in England. - -He said, “Go; in America they will take you at your own valuation, and -when you get back, it will _be_ your valuation.” - -And so it came that we took our passages in the old Cunarder _Catalonia_ -from Liverpool to Boston. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER III - - I GO TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA - - -The only literary at-homes I had been to before I went to America were -Edmund Gosse’s in Delamere Terrace, Louise Chandler Moulton’s in -Weymouth Street, and W. E. Henley’s in an old house in which he resided -at Chiswick. - -I have written elsewhere how the Gosses used to receive their friends on -Sunday afternoons. Not many came, but those who did come were generally -famous in the world of letters. - -Mrs. Moulton, on the other hand, often had a crowd at her receptions. It -was in her drawing-room that I first met Sir Frederick Wedmore, Mrs. -Alexander the novelist, and Coulson Kernahan, and Theodore Watts. She -herself was a charming poet, and liked entertaining poets. I met her -first at Sir Bruce and Lady Seton’s, at Durham House, which at that time -contained the finest collection of modern paintings in London. - -[Illustration: - - THE AUTHOR - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -It was fortunate that Henley’s friends were devoted to him, because he -was an invalid and could not get about. He was already a great power in -journalism. His paper, called at first _The Scots Observer_, and later -on _The National Observer_, had taken the place of the _Saturday -Review_, which was not at that time conducted with the ability of the -old _Saturday_. The men who gathered round him were very brilliant. I -forget what evening of the week it was that he was at home, but whatever -evening it was he kept it up very late, with much smoke and consumption -of whiskey; and the conversation was always worth listening to. Henley -was a magnificent talker, with a fund of curious knowledge, and he had a -knack of turning the conversation on to some strange kind of sin or some -strange kind of occultism, which was thoroughly threshed out by the -clever people present. He rather liked morbid subjects. - -Edmund Gosse gave me introductions to H. O. Houghton, head of the -publishing firm of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and he and Henley and -Katherine Tynan gave me introductions to various authors. But my most -useful introduction I had through my chief American friend of that time, -Ada Loftus, who made the London correspondents of the _New York Herald_ -and the _Boston Globe_ give full-length announcements of my approaching -visit to America—as long as they would give to William Watson now. They -labelled me in those announcements the “Australian Poet,” and that label -stuck to me during the whole of that visit to the United States. They -asked Mrs. Loftus, I suppose, what I had done, and she told them that I -had written several volumes of verse about Australia. Be that as it may, -those friendly announcements resulted in so many hospitalities being -offered to us by American authors and literary clubs that we really did -not need our introductions, especially in Boston, where Mrs. Moulton was -waiting to welcome us, and where I had old schoolfellows—the -Peabodys—connected with most of the leading families. - -But I did present the introduction to Mr. Houghton—when does an author -neglect an introduction to a publisher?—and he showed us innumerable -kindnesses all the time we remained in Boston. It was to him that I owed -the invitations from Oliver Wendell Holmes and Whittier, and -Longfellow’s family to visit them in their homes—inestimable -opportunities. We spent three months in Boston, seeing all the best of -Boston literary society and the University bigwigs at Harvard, and then -we went for a month to New York until it was time for the ice-carnival -season at Montreal. At New York, with Edmund Clarence Stedman, the first -of American critics, as a godfather, the hospitalities of Boston were -repeated to us. But this was not our principal visit to New York. - -Our first trip to Canada was intensely interesting to us, because there -we were in a new world, where the temperature was below zero, and the -snow several feet high in the streets, and the ice several feet thick on -the great river, up which ocean liners come from spring to autumn. The -ice-palace was already built, and rose like a mediæval castle of -alabaster; in the centre of the city the habitants were selling their -milk in frozen lumps in the market; all the world wore furs, for the -poorest could buy a skin of some sort made up somehow. There were still -buffalo-skin coats in those days in plenty, at three pounds apiece, and -those who could not afford a fur cap to their liking, wore a woollen -tobogganing tuque, which could be drawn down over the forehead and the -ears, just as some of the younger women and the children wore their -blanket tobogganing coats. - -It was a new world, where nobody skated in the open, because of the -impossibility of keeping the ice free from snow, and where skating was -so universal an accomplishment that in the rinks people danced on skates -as naturally as on their feet in a ballroom. - -One soon took for granted the monstrous cold, learned to swathe in furs -every time one left the house, even if it was only to go to the post, to -wear thin boots, because they were always covered with “arctics” when -one went out, and thin underclothing because one’s furs were so thick -out of doors, and the houses so furiously hot indoors; to have double -windows always closed, and hot air flowing into the room till the -temperature reached 70° and over. - -It is no wonder that ice-cream, as they call it, is a feature at dinner -in winter in a Canadian hotel. - -Outside, all the land was white, and all the sky was blue. Wrapped up in -furs, people so despised the intense cold that there was not one closed -sleigh—at Montreal in winter all the cabs were sleighs. By day we -sleighed up the mountain for tobogganing and came back in time for -tea-parties; by night we sleighed to dances or picnics. The merry jingle -of sleigh-bells was never out of one’s ears; and everything was so -delightfully simple—it was always beer and not champagne—and every one -took an interest in Australia and Colonial poetry. The tea-parties were -generally impromptus got up on the telephone. Every one in Montreal had -a telephone, though it was only the beginning of 1889. - -Lighthall, the Canadian littérateur, came to call upon us the very first -afternoon that we were in Montreal, and he introduced us to our -life-long friends, the Robert Reids, and the George Washington -Stephens’s. Mrs. Reid and Mrs. Stephens were sisters. Mr. Stephens, the -Astor of Montreal, shortly afterwards became Treasurer of the Colony. -Lighthall introduced us also to Sir William Van Horne, the President of -the great Canadian Pacific Railway, which led to important results. We -only stayed in Canada a month then, but that was sufficient to convince -me that I did not want to live in a climate where the cold was as -dangerous as a tiger. It was brought home to me in an extraordinary way. -I was out walking with Mrs. Reid’s daughter, coming back from a -tea-party one evening. We saw a drunken man lying in the gutter. She -said, “We must get a sleigh and take that drunk to the police-station. -He will be dead in an hour if he lies there.” - -When roused, he was sufficiently coherent to tell us where he lived, and -we took him home. The cold was so intense that she found one of her ears -frost-bitten before she got home; she had gone out in an ordinary hat -instead of a fur cap, because it was a tea-party and near home. The -unexpected delay in the open air to rouse the man, and driving him home, -made her pay the penalty of risking a frost-bite. We knew that it was -frost-bitten, because it had turned as white as if it had been powdered. -The policeman took up a handful of snow, and rubbed it for her—another -act of ordinary good Samaritanism in Canada. - -We went straight down from Canada to Washington to see the change of -Administration from President Cleveland’s regime to President -Harrison’s. The climatic contrast was strong; Washington was as warm as -Rome. Our arctics and furs looked simply idiotic when we arrived in the -station. - -The change of Administration in the United States is invested with a -good deal of magnificence. All the important people in America, who can -spare the time, go to Washington for it. There were many functions -during our visit. We were President Cleveland’s guests at his -farewell-party, and went to all the Harrison functions. Mrs. Cleveland -had a delightful personality; she was very pretty, very elegant, very -gracious, a tall woman, rather suggestive of the beautiful Dowager Lady -Dudley, with brilliant dark eyes and a brilliant smile. Cleveland was -not a pleasant man to meet. When I knew him he was a very strong man who -had become very stout. Everything about him suggested power. His face, -in spite of its fleshiness, was very powerful. He had a deliberate, -rather ungracious way of speaking, and his silences, accentuated by -rather resentful eyes, were worse. But a man who starts to sweep the -Augean stable for America needs these qualities; and he undoubtedly -improved the tone of the party opposed to him in the State by giving -them an opposition which they had to respect. But he had no conscience -in foreign politics. - -The most interesting house we went to was Colonel John Hay’s. Hay was a -millionaire twice over, and had been Abraham Lincoln’s private -secretary. He was one of America’s best poets, and no man in the country -was more renowned for his personal charm or his lofty character. He was -afterwards Secretary of State, and Ambassador to Great Britain, and -could have been either then, if President Harrison had been able to -overcome Hay’s rooted objection to office. And Adalbert Hay, the -American Consul-general, who did so much for captive Britons in the Boer -War, was his son. - -At Hay’s house you met alike the most famous politicians, the most -famous members of the Diplomatic Corps, and the most famous authors and -artists in America. There we met all the most distinguished members, -perhaps I might say the leaders, of the Republican Party. - -Washington will always be a bright spot in my memory for another thing. -Henry Savage Landor, the explorer, was turned out of his room because -the whole hotel was wanted for President Harrison’s party, and as there -was not a room to be had in Washington, he slept for the remainder of -the time on a shakedown in my room. Both he and I used to spend a great -deal of our time with our next-door neighbour in K Street, General -William Tecumseh Sherman, the hero of the famous march through Georgia -in the Civil War—a grand old man, with a hard-bitten face, but very -human. I was present at his funeral in New York; thirty thousand -veterans—“the Grand Army of the Republic”—marched behind the riderless -horse, which bore his jack-boots and his sword. - -From Washington we went to New York, and stayed there till the heat -drove us back to Canada, where we had an extraordinarily delightful -holiday in store for us. Sir William Van Horne had invited us to go as -the guests of the Canadian Pacific Railway right over their line from -Montreal to Vancouver and back, and as we had a month or more to spare -before the time we settled for our journey, we went first of all to the -land of Evangeline—Nova Scotia—and afterwards across the Bay of Fundy to -the valley of the St. John river in New Brunswick, and thence to Quebec -and Montreal, where we were the guests of the Reids, and for a fortnight -of the Stephens’s, in their summer home on the shores of Lac Eau Clair -in the Maskinonge forest, and of Agnes Maule Machar at Gananoque on the -Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence. - -This experience of Canadian summer life was an extraordinary education -in beauty. A more perfect summer could not be imagined; the sky was -always blue, the sun was always vigorous, and there was generally a -light breeze. We half lived on the water, since all Canadians near a -river or lake have canoes and can manage them with the skill of an -Indian. The bathing was enchanting: we could catch a hundredweight of -fish sometimes, in that land of many waters. The wild flowers and wild -fruits of the meadows and woods were as plentiful as buttercups and -daisies in England; it was a land of many forests, many lakes, many -rivers; mountains near or distant were always in sight. - -Nor was this all. On the lofty shores of the Bay of Fundy and the rock -of Quebec, and under the “Royal Mountain” at Montreal there were dear -old French houses, built in the days of the Thirteenth or Fourteenth -Louis, and most of them intertwined in the romance of Canadian history. - -What a lovely and romantic land it was! And we saw it to perfection, for -Bliss Carman and Roberts, two Canadian poets, were our guides -everywhere. In all my years in Australia I never had half the enjoyment -out of the country-life that I derived from those two or three months of -a Canadian summer. - -The wonders of our journey had hardly begun, though the first sight of -the old fortress of Quebec towering over the St. Lawrence, and of the -historic Fields of Abraham, are events never to be forgotten. - -Still, we felt that a new era in our lives was beginning on that night -in early autumn when we steamed out of the chief station of the world’s -greatest railway westwards on a journey which would not terminate till -we stood on the shores of English Bay, and looked out on to the Pacific -Ocean. - -We were so anxious to hurry out west to the new land that we only spared -ourselves a few days at Toronto to cross Lake Ontario to Niagara, and -spend an afternoon and evening with Goldwin Smith and George Taylor -Denison. They presented such a contrast—Goldwin Smith, the Cassandra -whose voice was always lifted against his country, except when he was -among her enemies, and Denison, a descendant of the famous Loyalist, and -the leader of Canadian loyalty to England. Denison was the winner of the -Emperor of Germany’s prize for the best book on Cavalry Tactics. - -From Toronto we had not far to go by train before we found ourselves at -Lake Huron, and took a steamer of the company, built like a sea-going -vessel, to cross those two vast lakes, Huron and Superior, to Port -Arthur. They look like seas, and have storms as violent, though they are -fresh water, and in Lake Superior, at any rate, you could immerse the -whole of the British Islands. From Port Arthur we trained to Winnipeg, -the city of the plains, where we only stayed a few days before flying -across the prairie—a limitless plain as broken as the Weald of Kent, -jewelled with flowers in spring, and with game fleeing to the horizon -when cover is short. - -After three days of eye-roaming, we woke to find our view barred by the -long wall of the Rocky Mountains, like castles of the gods. - -At Banff, in the Rocky Mountains, we were to stay to contemplate the -finest open mountain scenery conceivable, and at the Glacier House to -contemplate a glacier, a forest and a stupendous peak threatening to -overwhelm a mountain inn. The scenery between the two was finer than -anything in the Apennines, with its torrents dashing between mighty -precipices, and its pine forests sweeping like a prairie fire over -mountain and valley, and its background of heaven-piercing Alps. - -We entered the Glacier House at a dramatic moment, for Jim, the sports’ -guide from Missouri, had just finished pegging out on the floor of one -of the sitting-rooms a trophy of his rifle that took me straight back to -the happy hours of my boyhood which I spent with Captain Mayne Reid—the -rust-coloured skin of a mighty grizzly bear which had turned the scale -at twelve hundredweight. Jim the guide had on a buckskin coat and -breeches, much stained with killing or skinning the bear: the spectacle -was a most impressive one. - -From the glacier we tore down the valleys of the Thompson and the Fraser -to Vancouver, then a new wooden town perched on a forest clearing with -the tree stumps still scattered about its roads, but one of the great -seaports of the world in embryo—Canada’s Western Gate, the realisation -of the dream of La Salle. - -We loved Vancouver, because here we were in a town and country in the -making, with a glorious piece of the forest primeval preserved for ever -as a national park. For a month we lived there, going every day to see -the sun set over the ocean which divided us from the mysterious -Orient—thinking over all that we had seen of a country which is like a -continent, in that three or four thousand miles’ journey on the -newly-opened line. - -Then one day a little old bull-dog of a Cunarder, in the service of the -great railway, ran up the harbour, and moored herself to the wharf -beside the railway station. A tall dark officer, whose voice I heard -across the telephone a few hours before writing these lines, was leaning -over the gunwale. He and our party smiled pleasantly at each other, and -he invited us to go on board. The litter of the Orient was about the -decks. Chinese seamen and Japanese passengers were talking the -pigeon-English of the East to each other. And we felt that here was the -opportunity for stretching our hands across to the East. I accepted the -omen, and we booked our passages to Japan—drifting on as we had drifted -ever since we landed at Boston a year before. - -The stout old _Parthia_ was going to lie a week or two in port before -she turned her head round for Yokohama and Hong Kong, and we spent most -of this time in an excursion across the strait to Victoria, the capital -of Vancouver’s Island, a little bit of England in the West, with a -dockyard still in Imperial hands. - -As we returned from Victoria early in November, we met, on the -steamer, Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, who was about to be -Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, on his way back from a -Big-horn expedition in the North. - -“Where are you on your way to?” he asked me. - -“Japan,” I replied. - -“What now?” he said; “you must be fond of bad weather.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - I GO TO JAPAN - - -THE Admiral’s prognostications were correct. We met such heavy seas -passing Cape Flattery that the ship seemed to be trying to turn turtle. -We were unable to sit on deck from that day until the day that we -sighted Japan, and once we had to heave-to for eighteen hours. The worst -of the weather being so terrible was that the Captain was unable to -execute the Company’s instructions to take us to see the Aleutian -Islands, which only whalers know, and drop some stores there for -shipwrecked mariners. - -But on that December morning, when we found ourselves in smooth water -and soft, summery temperature off the flat-topped hills of Japan, -surrounded by the billowing sails of countless junks, the very first -vessels we had seen since Cape Flattery faded out of sight, we felt -rewarded. - -The East, the Far East, which I had heard “a-calling” all my life, was -right within my grasp. In a few hours’ time I should be standing on the -shores of fanciful and mysterious Japan, able to remain there as long as -I chose, for we had no fixed plans. We were just drifting on—drifting -through our lives—drifting across the world. My heart beat high; I might -have written nothing but a few books of verse which hardly anybody read, -but, at any rate, I had gone half round the world, and if I wished to -stay and dream for the rest of my life in the East, who was to say me -nay? - -Whatever the causes, the effect was to give me the subject for which I -had been waiting to make my position as an author. From the day that I -published _The Japs at Home_, I shed my label of the “Australian Poet,” -and became known as the author who has been to Japan. - -I even enriched the English language with a word—_Japs_. It had long -been in use in America, but no one had ventured to put it into a book in -England. Some thought it was undignified; some thought that it would -incense the Japanese. I not only put it into a book, but on the cover of -a book, which has sold a hundred and fifty thousand copies. Only to-day -I discovered that Japan’s great poet, Yone Noguchi, and the Japanese -publicist, T. G. Komai, use it in their books, which are written in -English. - -I had, in Montreal, bought a No. 1 Kodak—a novelty in those days—and -with it I took several hundred photographs in Japan—it was from these -that Fenn, the artist, of McClure’s Syndicate, afterwards drew his -illustrations for my articles, which were reproduced in the earlier -editions of the book. The “Kodaks” not only served as the basis of the -illustrations, they made a most admirable journal for me to write from. - -I commenced Kodaking and taking notes from the hour that we entered the -harbour of Yokohama, and kept it up without flagging till the day that -we left Yokohama for San Francisco. It was to those snapshots with -camera and pencil that my books on Japan owed the lively touches which -gave them their popularity. - -We were a winter and a spring and a summer in Japan—for all except six -weeks which we spent in China. I paid most of my hotel bills in Japan by -writing my _Handbook to Japan_ for the Club Hotel Company. - -In Japan we spent our entire days in sight-seeing. If we were not going -over interesting buildings (and I over Yoshiwaras), temples, castles, -baths or tea-houses in marvellous gardens—we were wandering about the -streets or the country in our _rikishas_, dismounting when there was -anything to photograph or examine or purchase. The _rikisha_ is a most -convenient way of getting about for a person who is making notes, -because he can write as he goes along, and pull up as often as he likes -when there is anything which needs his attention. Also, your -_Jinrikisha_ boy, if you choose carefully, speaks enough English to act -as an interpreter, and, from having taken foreigners to the sights so -often, is usually a tolerably efficient guide. Besides which, it is a -novel, pleasant and exciting method of locomotion. - -We hired the best two _rikisha_ men we could hear of by the week, and -never regretted the extravagance. They were always there when we wanted -them, and in a very few days grasped exactly what we wished to do and -see. One was called Sada and the other Taro. - -It was in this way that I acquired my knowledge of the Japan which can -be seen on the surface, and which is all that the average foreigner -wishes to see, and gave myself one of the three or four subjects with -which my name is identified. - -We spent the first month in Yokohama, a much-maligned place, for it had -in those days an unspoiled native town at the back of the settlement, -and its environs were charming, whether one went towards Negishi or -towards Ikegami: I found enough to keep me hard at work for a month. - -On the last day of the year we went to Tokyo. We had a reason for that; -we wished to see the great fair in the Ginza, which is one of the most -typical sights of Japan. Savage Landor, who had been in Tokyo for some -time, wrote that we must on no account miss it, and he took rooms for us -in the Tokyo hotel—which the Japanese called _Yadoya_, “the hotel.” - -The Tokyo hotel was an experience: it had originally been the _Yashiki_ -or town-house of a feudal prince, in the days when the Shogun reigned at -Tokyo. It had a moat (into which Miss Lorimer, who accompanied us on all -our travels, fell on the first night we were there, but which -fortunately contained more mud than water), and stood in an angle of the -outer works of the castle. - -Just below it, small craft made a port of the outer moat of the castle: -in its courtyard carpenters were using up the large amount of waste -space which there is in a _Yashiki_ by nailing fresh rooms on to the -Daimio’s house, to make the hotel larger. It could not be called -anything but nailing on, because it was made of wood and paper, and was -not properly dovetailed into the existing building, but simply tacked -on. We learnt many upside-down notions by watching the builders and -carpenters, who did most things inside-out or upside-down, according to -our notions. Also the Japanese manager, the Abè San who was murdered a -few months ago, borrowed my clothes to have them copied by a Japanese -tailor, and the waiters wore their European clothes over their native -dress, and wriggled out of them behind a screen as soon as a meal was -over. If you called them at such a moment, whatever your sex, they might -come forward with their trousers half on and half off. The Japanese have -their own ideas of conventions between the sexes. - -Wandering through that fair at the Ginza took one into the very heart of -Japan: it is held to enable people to settle their debts before New -Year’s Day. - -Apart from the obituary parks of Shiba and Ueno, Tokyo is not reckoned -rich in temples, though it has a few very famous temples in the suburbs, -and more than a few within a short excursionary distance. But Shiba and -Ueno—and especially the former—present an epitome of Japanese life, art, -scenery and history. - -It is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful than Shiba, though -the Japanese have a proverb that you must not call anything beautiful -till you have seen Nikko. The fir woods in which it stands are on a low -ridge commanding an exquisitive view of the Gulf of Tokyo, and in this -wood are embosomed the mausolea of most of the earlier Shoguns of the -Tokugawa House, which came to an end this winter with the death of the -abdicated Shogun. Each mausoleum has a beautiful temple beside the tomb. -The presence of so many temples has led the Japanese to exhaust their -landscape art on Shiba with lake and cherry-grove and cryptomeria. Such -natives as do not go there for religion are attracted by the pleasure -city, with its famous tea-houses, like the Maple Club, its shows, and, -above all, by its dancing. Here you may see the _No_-dance, the -_Kagura_-dance, and some of the best Geishas. - -But the chief charm of Shiba to me was its absolute Orientalness -compared to the rest of Tokyo. - -No sooner are you inside the great red gateway of the temples than you -are in the world of fairy-tales. For temple after temple opens up before -you, low fantastic structures, on which Oriental imagination has run -riot in colour and form. You are bewildered by the innumerable -courtyards of stone lanterns, the paraphernalia of drum-tower and -bell-tower, fountain and dancing-stage, which surround them. You are -sobered by the dark groves between the temples, which contain the tombs. - -Temple and tomb are thronged by streams of dignified natives, some come -to worship and some to see the sights. Here you will find a service -going on, with white-robed priests kneeling on the mirrored floor of -black lacquer, for which you have to remove your boots. Outside the -actual temples the shows are in full blast, and picnicking proceeds -everywhere. All the Japanese are in their native dress. Gay little -musumes and gorgeous geishas flutter before you. The grand tea-houses -offer fresh visions of the Orient with their Geisha dances and their -fantastic gardens. - -Ueno has the added charm of a large lake, covered with lotus-blossoms in -summer. - -At no great distance from Shiba is the Shinagawa Yoshiwara, which, for -fantastic beauty, surpasses anything in Japan. With these and the water -life of the Nihombashi, and the life of the poor going on all day in the -streets—for the poor Japanese takes the front off his house all through -the day to air it—I should have found good occupation for my notebook -and camera for years. - -If we had not been urged by other foreigners, I do not know when we -should have left Tokyo. And we saw little enough of them except at -meal-times, or when we went to the Frasers (Hugh Fraser was British -Minister of Tokyo, and husband of the well-known author, Mrs. Hugh -Fraser, Marion Crawford’s sister), or the Napiers. The Master of Napier, -the Lord Napier and Ettrick, just dead, was his First Secretary. But at -meal-times they talked so much of Easter at Miyanoshita, and the -cherry-blossom festival at Kyoto, and the annual festival at Nikko, and -the Great Buddha at Kamakura, and the sacred shrines of Ise, that we -fortunately felt obliged to visit them. - -Miyanoshita, the favourite holiday-resort of the Europeans in Japan, is -high up in the mountains. The valley on the right of the long ridge -which leads up to it in spring is ablaze with azaleas and flowering -trees. It, itself, is perched on a mountain-side, above a densely-wooded -valley. Exquisite walks can be taken from it, such as the trip to -Hakone, the beautiful village which stands on the blue lake at the foot -of Fujiyama, in which the immortal grace of the great mountain is -reflected whenever the sun or moon is above the horizon. Miyanoshita is -equally famous for its mountain air and its mountain baths. The boiling -water, highly impregnated with sulphur, is brought down in bamboo pipes -from the bosom of the mountain to deep wooden baths sunk in the floor of -the hotel bathing-house. Life here is one long picnic: the energetic -take walks, the lazy are carried in chairs over the hills: people fly -here for week-ends in spring, and from the heat and damp of the summer. - -Its great rival is Nikko, another mountain village, embosomed in shady -groves, with woods full of wild hydrangeas. In June Nikko is crowded for -the festival of Toshogu, the deified founder of the dynasty of Shoguns, -which was ended by the revolution of 1868—the principal festival of -Japan, inaugurated with the grandest procession to be seen nowadays, in -which all who take part in it wear the ceremonial dresses of three -hundred years ago. - -Nikko has the two most beautiful temples in the magic land—those of -Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty, and his grandson, -Iyemitsu. Here you see the most perfect lacquer and carving in all -Japan. And their courtyards are exquisitely terraced on the -mountain-side. Here, too, besides these and other glorious temples, -there are the added charms of scenery, a foaming sky-blue river, running -beneath the sacred scarlet bridge, and between the avenue of Buddhas, -commons of scarlet azalea, and thickets of wild wistaria. - -Having seen Nikko, the sacred city of the Shoguns, one must needs see -Kyoto, the city of the Mikados, and Nara. - -For seven centuries prior to the revolution in our own day, Kyoto was -the capital of the Mikados. Here they lived like gods behind a veil, -only penetrated by the hierarchy: they never left the palace gates -except in a closed palanquin: they added little but tombs to the city, -and their tombs were never shown. But the Shoguns, who ruled in their -name, and others great in the land, adorned Kyoto with some of the -greatest and most interesting temples in Japan, such as the temples of -the Gold and Silver Pavilions, the two Hongwanji temples, the temple of -the Thirty-Three Thousand Images, and the chief temple of Inari the -Goddess of Rice. And it being the ancient capital, we found the city -full of old prints and curios, and the old-fashioned pleasure resorts of -Japan. - -Kyoto was a city of the pleasure-seeker of old time, as capitals are -wont to be. It has wonderful tea-houses in the city; its temple grounds -are like permanent fairs; and within a _rikisha_ drive is Lake Biwa, one -of the most exquisite lakes in the world, whose shores exhibit the -_chefs d’œuvres_ of the Japanese landscape-creator. Nothing could be -more exquisite than the temple grounds on the shores of Lake Biwa. - -Of the many old-time festivals of Kyoto, the most famous survival is the -Miyako-odori, or cherry-blossom festival, held every year, when visitors -flock to Kyoto to see the cherry-groves in full blossom. The feature of -the festival is a wonderful ballet, for which the best dancers in Japan -gather in Kyoto. Even the Duke and Duchess of Connaught came to Kyoto -for it, when they were in Japan. We stayed for a long time at Yaami’s -when they were there, and when the Duke learned from Colonel Cavaye, his -private secretary, that I was a journalist, he gave me permission to -accompany his party to any function or expedition which I wished to -describe. The most interesting of them was the shooting of the rapids of -the Katsuragawa, some miles from Kyoto, where thirteen miles of -cataracts are negotiated in huge punts, built of springy boards. As we -were buffeting down the rapids, the Duke told me that our present King, -then Prince George of Wales, had said that shooting those rapids, and -the baths of Miyanoshita, where you have natural hot water in wooden -boxes sunk in the floor, were the two best things in the world. - -In Kyoto, an antique city on a broad plain, embosomed in hills, capped -by temples, one has the very essence of old Japan. We stayed there a -long time, absorbing an atmosphere which may soon pass away, never to -return. - -Within a day’s _rikisha_ drive of Kyoto is Nara, with its -thousand-year-old treasury of the most notable possessions of the -Mikados, and its glorious temples, and its sacred deer-park, and its -acres of scarlet azalea thickets. - -We visited all; we visited the two great cities of Osaka and Nagoya, -with their magnificent castles, and Kamakura, with its gigantic Buddha -and its ancient monasteries. We visited all the most famous cities and -points of scenery in Japan; and the pleasure of our visit was heightened -by our going away to China for six weeks in the middle of it, because -when we came back our eyes were far keener to observe and to appreciate, -while we had the knowledge acquired in our former visit to guide us. - -We were truly sorry to leave Japan. I should be quite content to be -living there still; but if we had remained there, Japan would not have -taken its part in my development as a writer, for though I should -doubtless have compiled a book or books about Japan, they would have -been sent home as the productions of an amateur, and very likely have -had such difficulty in finding a publisher that they would have been -brought out in some hole-and-corner way, instead of my selling _The Japs -at Home_ in the open market, and thereby laying the foundation of my -career as a travel-book writer. - -Japan supplied me with the material for several books, not counting the -handbook which I wrote for the Club Hotel—_A Japanese Marriage_, next in -point of sales to _The Japs at Home_; _Queer Things About Japan_, which -sold best of all my books in guinea form; _More Queer Things About -Japan_, which I wrote with Norma Lorimer; _When We Were Lovers in -Japan_, a novel which was originally published under the title of -_Playing the Game_; and _Pictures of Japan_; while I have written -countless articles and short stories about the country. - -I had almost forgotten that I had a book—my _Lester the -Loyalist_—published in Japan. Though it only contained about twenty -pages, it took two months to print. How the result gratified me, I wrote -in _The Japs at Home_. - -“I forgot all the delays when I saw the printed pages, they were so -beautiful, and really, considering that Mr. Mayeda was the only man in -the establishment who could read a word of English, the printing was -exceedingly correct. The blocks had turned out a complete success, -though, of course, the proofs of the covers did not look as well as they -would when mounted and crêped. - -“The Japanese have a process by which they can make paper crêpe -book-covers as stiff as buckram. - -“‘Well, Mr. Mayeda, how did your little boy like the stamp-book you -mended up for him so beautifully?’ I asked one day. - -“‘Ah! it is very sad; he has gone to hell. But the little boy, he has -loved the stamp-book so that he has taken it to hell with him. It is on -his _grave_, do you call it?’ - -“Mr. Mayeda was thinking of what the missionaries had told him when he -was learning English. - -“A few weeks more passed. Mr. Mayeda brought us the perfect book. He was -so flushed and tearful that I poured him a couple of bumpers of -vermouth, which he drank off with the excitement of an unemployed -workman in England when he makes a trifle by chance, and spends it right -off on his beloved gin. - -“‘Is anything the matter, Mr. Mayeda?’ I asked. - -“‘It is so sad. My other little boy has gone to hell, too. And I am so -poor, and I have to keep my wife’s uncle, and my father is very silly, -and so I get drunk every night.’ - -“The books he had brought were exquisite. The printing was really very -correct, and the effect of the long hexameter lines, in the handsome -small pica type, on the oblong Japanese double leaf of silky -ivory-tinted paper, every page flowered with maple-leaves in delicate -pearl-grey under the type, was as lovely as it was unique. - -“The block printings on every single leaf were done by hand—the leaf -being laid over the block, and rubbed into it by a queer palm-leaf-pad -burnisher. - -“The covers were marvels of beauty, made of steel-grey paper crêpe, -ornamented, the back one with three little sere and curled-up maple -leaves drifting before the wind, and the front one with a spray of maple -leaves in all their autumn glory and variety of tints, reproduced to the -life. - -“Across the right-hand end of the sprig was pasted a long white silk -label in the Japanese style. The good taste, the elegance, the colours -of this cover, fairly amazed me.” - -Our visit to China was taken at the instigation of friends in Japan, who -made an annual trip to the Hong Kong races. I cannot say that it -interested me as much as Japan; but we only had time to visit Hong Kong, -Shanghai, Canton and Macao, and of these, Canton alone was absolutely -Chinese. Canton is as typical a Chinese city as one could desire—supreme -in commerce, a hot-bed of Chinese aspirations. But it is very poorly off -for fine old buildings; it is more interesting for its huge water -population, living in long streets of boats, and for the wonderful -gardens of some of its merchants. - -Macao is chiefly interesting as a very ancient outpost of Europe in the -East, old enough for Camoens to have lived and written his immortal -Lusiad there in the sixteenth century. It has little to call for the -attention of the stranger, except nice old gardens with huge -banyan-trees, and gambling hells, where you learn to play _Fan-tan_. It -only flourishes as an Alsatia for rogues outside of British and Chinese -jurisdiction. - -Shanghai is a fine European town, with luxuries and conveniences, for -which Hong-Kongers sigh, and a most picturesque walled native town, -which contains one of the most beautiful tea-houses in the East. - -Hong Kong is a gay city, because it is so full of British naval and -military officers. It is also rather a beautiful place, having a -mountain right over the town, which is the sanatorium and summer-resort. -I met many old schoolfellows there, who took care that invitations -should be sent to us for all the Service festivities, which are so thick -at Race-time. And they also told me what to see in Hong Kong and Canton -and Macao. - -But, knowing that I was only to be in China for a month and a half, I -made no effort to ground myself in knowledge of everyday China, but gave -myself up to enjoying the gaieties and tropical luxuries. - -China thus had no effect on my literary development. Our stay there was -a mere holiday, at which I had a fresh and exhaustive round of military -and naval festivities. - -The island of Hong Kong is not a good place for studying the Chinaman, -except as an employé of the Englishman. - -On our return from China to Japan we were fascinated by the almost -tropical beauty of the Japanese summer. There was also a good deal of -British gaiety, for the Fleet had moved just before us from China to -Japan. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER V - - BACK TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES - - -THE Pacific as we crossed it on our return from Japan to America was -very different to the Pacific of our outward journey. Instead of being -on a small ship, so buffeted by the seas that we could not remain on -deck, with hardly another white passenger on board except missionaries, -we were on a large ship—the finest which crossed the Pacific in those -days—full of “Society” people returning from the East, and the sea was -like the traditional mill-pond. - -We landed at San Francisco and stayed a week at the Palace to see -something of life in the Californian capital. It struck me as very like -life in Australia, especially in the character of the buildings and the -appearance of the people. But the cold winds of the San Francisco summer -have no parallel in Australia. - -The chief effect of my visit to California in the development of my -writing was that, receiving a contract to write a number of articles for -the _San Francisco Chronicle_, my first prose writing had to be lively -enough to satisfy the lively Californian audience. This was a good -training. - -From San Francisco we went up the Pacific coast to Vancouver, with good -opportunities for learning the humours and vulgarities of Western -America. - -The tail-end of summer and the autumn we spent in working our way back -from Vancouver to Montreal, breaking our journey wherever we felt -inclined to try the joys of wild life in Canada—at the head waters of -the Fraser, the Sicamous lakes in the Kootenay country, various spots on -Lake Nepigon and the wild North shore of Lake Superior, Lake Nipissing, -the Lake of the Woods, Trout Lake, and so on, besides the chief towns -like Winnipeg, and the regular tourist stopping-places at Banff and the -Glacier House. At some places we had the opportunity of watching the -life of the Siwashes, or Coast Indians, of Esquimaux blood, who live -chiefly by catching and drying the salmon which we saw coming up the -Fraser like a river of fish in a river of water. At others we saw the -lordly Red Indian—Stony or Blood or Blackfoot—and on the Rainy Lake we -saw two thousand Ojibways on the war-path—all cartridge-belts and -feathers—camped on the outskirts of a Canadian town (without inflicting -the smallest scare on the inhabitants), while they were waiting to see -if they should have to go and support the Ojibways across the border in -their war upon a Baltimore Company, which had infringed their rights. - -The Indians, in their shrewd way, first tried their luck in the United -States Courts, who decided in their favour, so war was not declared. - -At Sicamous we saw eighty fresh skins of black bears, who had been -slaughtered while they were feeding on the salmon stranded in shallow -water, owing to the failure of the berry crop. In their anxiety to spawn -in shallow water, the salmon crush their way up into tiny brooks and -ponds where the bears can catch them easily, and the farmers sweep them -out of the water with branches. - -At the Glacier House, Jim the guide’s slaying of the great grizzly bear, -when we were there before, inflamed my imagination. I cultivated Jim. I -climbed the great Assulkan Glacier with him after the first fall of -autumn snow, and made a vow about glaciers which I have religiously -kept; and having a Winchester sporting rifle with me, I went out with -him to try and get a shot at a grizzly, whose track he had seen. But we -saw no more of that bear, which was, perhaps, fortunate for me, for -though I had won many prizes at rifle-shooting, I had not been brought -face to face with any dangerous game, and a grizzly decidedly falls into -that category. - -We had splendid fishing all the way across, and delightful camping out; -and altogether had an experience of outdoor life in Western Canada, -which is very unspoiled and wild—a snakeless Eden, that certainly told -in my development as a writer. - -At last the autumn came to an end. We felt the first breath of winter -standing by the river side, where Tom Moore wrote his famous _Canadian -Boat Song_—the woods were a glory of crimson and gold. - -We said good-bye to Canada and turned our footsteps to New York. There -we met a warm-hearted American welcome. Our numerous friends seemed to -find an almost personal gratification in the fact that we had been to -the Far North-West and to the Far East, to the Pacific Coast and to -Japan and China. - -I was now no longer exclusively the “Australian Poet,” I was a sort of -mild explorer, and people talked Japan to me whenever they were not -talking about themselves. There was a good deal of this to do, because I -had a commission from Griffith, Farran & Co. to compile a book on the -younger American Poets, and nearly every one I met seemed to be a poet. - -I was sitting next to H. M. Alden, the editor of _Harper’s Magazine_, -one night at dinner. Suddenly he pulled out his watch. “It is now nine -o’clock,” he said; “at this moment there are a hundred thousand people -in America writing poetry, and most of them will send it to me.” - -One of them was the English curate of the most fashionable church in New -York, and he was in a quandary. He wished to be in the book, but he had -heard that there was to be a biography of each poet, giving his date of -birth, parentage, career, etc. He did not wish his date of birth to be -known—he thought that it would interfere with his prospects as a -lady-killer. “Was it compulsory for him to say how old he was?” he -whined. - -“You need not tell the truth about it,” I suggested. - -In the compilation of that book I saw a great deal of human nature, -because I met the poets, whereas in _Australian Poets_, which I edited -simultaneously, I had to do my work entirely by correspondence. - -We spent a delightful winter and spring in New York, because we had Miss -Lorimer’s beautiful sister, Mrs. Hay-Chapman, one of the finest amateur -pianists I ever heard, staying with us all the time, so that we had a -feast of music, and as I was doing literary and dramatic criticisms for -the _Dominion Illustrated_, the leading weekly of Canada, we had plenty -of new books and theatre tickets. This, and the articles on Japan I was -writing for the American Press and McClure’s Syndicate, kept me quite -busy. - -My sojourn in America had a most important influence on my literary -career, because it taught me my trade as a journalist. Needing money, -and having no connections, I had to make my way as a journalistic free -lance in the open market, and I succeeded in making a fair income out of -it. - -But I never tried to get a publisher (though one came to me), for the -simple reason that I never contemplated entering the lists as a -prose-writer. A large and well-known firm bought editions in sheets of -my various volumes of verse, which surprised me very much, till they -went bankrupt shortly afterwards without paying for them. The purchase -was not of sufficient magnitude to be the cause of the bankruptcy, as -the ill-natured might suggest. - -I have often regretted that I did not form a close personal connection -with a single publishing house over there, instead of having each -individual book, as it was ready, sold to whichever publisher the agent -happens to do business with. - -Also I blame myself for not learning the art of pleasing the American -novel-reader. Their book market is a much more valuable one than ours, -and unfortunately the worst fault a novel can have in their eyes is its -being “too British.” A book like _The Tragedy of the Pyramids_ is -anathema to them. - -The only prose book I published during my sojourn in America was _The -Art of Travel_, for which the publisher, a Greek, forgot to pay me a -single penny of what he contracted. I afterwards turned into it an -advertisement for the North German Lloyd, and got something, about fifty -pounds, I think, out of them. - -I must not take leave of America without recording my impressions of the -other American cities which I visited besides New York and Boston. - -San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma and other western towns were spoiled for -me, because the working-classes in them were so “swollen-headed” and -rude that any educated or gently-born person felt like a victim of the -French Revolution as he was making his way to the scaffold, surrounded -by wild mobs thirsting for his blood. The lower classes in the cities of -the Pacific Coast insult you to show that they are your equals. And -except as manual labourers, they never could be anybody’s equals, -because God created them so common. It is these people and the -unscrupulous speculators who make money. The decent people get ground -between the upper and lower grindstone in a land where living costs out -of all proportion to the rewards of education. - -We spent some time also in Washington, which is their exact converse. -Washington has its vulgar rich, who go there to make a “season” of it, -and its venal and lobbying politicians who make the vast temple, which -acts as the American Capitol, a den of thieves, but they do not take the -first place in the public eye. The really fine elements in the American -nation are well represented at Washington, and form a natural Court, in -which the President may or may not be prominent. That depends on whether -he is fit to be their leader. It is they, and not the President, who -keep up the traditions of their country before the eyes of the various -Embassies. Such a man was Colonel John Hay. Their presence helps to make -Washington a delightful city. - -The American Government is extremely polite and hospitable to visiting -authors. I was such a small author in those days that I felt positively -embarrassed when, a few hours after our arrival in Washington, President -Cleveland’s private secretary, Colonel Dan Lamont, called with an -invitation for us to go to supper with the President and Mrs. Cleveland -and be present at the last reception they gave before they left the -White House. - -And when President Harrison came into office, Mr. Blaine, the new -Secretary of State, invited us to share his private box to witness the -inaugural procession. - -[Illustration: - - ISRAEL ZANGWILL - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -These were civilities beyond one’s dreams, and added to them were the -never-ceasing hospitalities at houses like John Hay’s, and the Judges’, -and the delightful receptions at which one met the great scientists -connected with the Smithsonian Institute, and the chief authors and -editors congregated at Washington. - -To witness a change of Administration at Washington and partake in its -hospitalities is extraordinarily stimulating and interesting. It was a -privilege far beyond my deserts to meet the great public men of America. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS - - -THE literary at-home is an American institution. It may not have been -invented there, but it has certainly flowered there. I did not visualise -the literary at-home at all until I attended the Sunday evenings of my -dear old friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, the author of _Swallow -Flights_, at Boston. Her house was the centre of literary society there. -She knew every one who was worth knowing in literary circles in England -and America, and she had a passion for collecting them on Sunday nights. - -There I learnt the essential simplicity and common-sensibleness of -American entertainments. No one went for the refreshments; there were -none except coffee and various kinds of cakes. It was, in fact, -afternoon tea, with coffee instead of the drink which cheers without -inebriating, held at 9 p.m. instead of 5. Her evenings were crowded. - -When I went to New York I found the New York literary people collected -every Sunday night in the hospitable home of Edmund Clarence Stedman, -the chief literary biographer of his day. Laurence Hutton, too, the -author of _Literary Landmarks in London_, and editor of certain pages of -_Harper’s Magazine_, had a few people on Sunday nights. There was always -the same simplicity about eating and drinking, and the same absence of -any entertainment, except being introduced to American celebrities, or -occasionally listening spellbound while one of them told a humorous -story in the inimitable American way. - -Charles de Kay, the chief art critic in New York of that day, was one of -the few people who gave big afternoon teas in the English style. De Kay -belonged to one of the oldest literary families in New York, for he was -the grandson of Joseph Rodman Drake. - -These were the private literary at-homes. They yielded in importance to -the story-tellers’ nights of the various clubs, generally Saturday -nights. Sometimes there was a large house dinner at the Club, sometimes -nothing happened until the reception began, about nine, but in any case, -the procedure was the same. First of all, the most brilliant men of the -day told anecdotes, and then the assemblage broke up into small groups, -when the introduction of strangers to each other was the feature of the -evening. It was in this way that I came to know nearly every important -American writer of that day. Sometimes two good anecdote-tellers would -be put up to banter each other, and the encounters would be very witty. -I remember one encounter in particular between a Bostonian and a -professor of the University of Chicago. The professor alluded most -feelingly to the departed glories of Boston—Boston which considered -itself the hub of the universe—and dilated upon the new era which was -dawning for Chicago. The Bostonian got up and agreed with every word he -said. - -“I am surprised at my friend’s agreeing with this,” said the professor. - -“Not at all,” said the Bostonian. “I speak as one of the owners of -Chicago.” - -The audience rocked with laughter, recalling the fact that this -Bostonian had turned a respectable fortune into millions by buying up a -large area in Chicago when it was ruined by the great fire. - -At another such evening Mark Twain said the circumstance which gave him -the greatest satisfaction in his life was the fact that Darwin, for a -year before his death, read nothing but his works. Darwin’s doctors, he -added, had warned him that he would get softening of the brain if he -read anything but absolute drivel. - -Sometimes there were discussions at these evenings, and one of them was -about the merits of a certain Society poetess, whose poems enjoyed an -unbounded sale without meeting with the approbation of the critics. “Do -you not admit,” asked one of the lady’s admirers of the editor of the -_Century Magazine_, “that Miss Van —— is the poetess of passion?” - -“Yes,” said the editor, “Miss Van —— is the poetess of passion—of -boarding-house passion.” - -I never came away from one of these evenings without feeling that I had -been partaking of intellectual champagne. - -When I was in America Eugene Field edited one of the great Chicago -dailies, and was the principal author of the West. My first meeting with -him was a characteristic one. I was at an at-home in New York, talking -to the editress of a fashion paper, who had also written books of -twaddly gush about travel. The hostess brought up Field, and introduced -him to the editress. - -“Very glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said. “I think I may say that I have -read all your books with the greatest interest.” - -“Are you a writer, Mr. Field?” she asked. “I am sorry to say that I have -never heard of you.” - -“Nor I you, ma’am; but you might have pretended, same as I did.” - -There used to be very large at-homes every Sunday night at the flat of a -wealthy old lady who owned an important newspaper. Her guests were -mostly authors and artists, and she hardly knew any of them by sight, -and never gave any of them commissions to work for her paper. Sometimes -she did not even put in an appearance at her at-homes, which went on -just the same, as if she had been there. Her guests came to meet each -other, not her. She was not at all literary; her only ambition was like -Queen Elizabeth’s—to be taken for a young and beautiful woman. She was -no longer either, but she dressed the part. Young America used openly to -make fun of her weakness on these occasions, and I well remember the -editor of _Puck_ (a New York comic paper), to whom she was showing a -beautiful copy of Canova’s nude statue of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline -Borghese, gravely pretending that he thought it was a statue of herself, -and complimenting her on the likeness which the sculptor had achieved. -His impudence carried him through; his delighted hostess believed that -he believed it, and explained, with genuine colour coming into her -rouged cheeks, that in spite of the likeness, it was not her, but -“Princess Pauline.” - -As the refreshments at this house were on a very liberal scale, it was a -good place to meet the section of the Press which is not satisfied with -a mere feast of reason and flow of soul. One also met fame-hunters, like -the sculptor whom I will call Vermont, who came to cultivate the Press. -I was introduced to him at this house, and I hoped that I should never -see him again, because he was such a colossal egotist. One day, a few -years afterwards, to my dismay, I met him in Fleet Street. I said, “How -do you do, Mr. Vermont?” - -He said at once, “Can you do something for me?” which was his invariable -habit. - -I said “yes” cheerfully, meaning to wriggle out of it, for I did not -want to do it. I was under no obligation to him, because I had been -careful not to give him the opportunity of offering me any hospitalities -while I was over there. He said, “I have never been in England before. -Can you tell me if I ought to use a letter-writer?” - -I said, “I think so; what is it—a new kind of typewriter?” - -He said, “No, it is a book which tells you the proper ways for writing -letters.” - -Remembering that the last letter I had received from him began, “Mr. -Douglas Sladen, Esq., Dear Sir,” I said I thought he ought, and as we -were in Fleet Street, recommended him to go to Hatchard’s in Piccadilly. -I was interested to know the kind of impression he would make on Arthur -Humphreys, to whom I sent him with my card. I carefully gave him a card -without an address in the hope that I should not see him any more. But -he got my address from Humphreys, and came to see me the next day. It -appeared that he had brought a large group of statuary with him, which -he wished to present to the City of London. Could I help him in this? he -wished to know. I said yes. I gave him an introduction to the Lord -Mayor, and to the editor of the _Illustrated London News_, to both of -whom I was a total stranger. He went away very pleased with himself. The -next time I met him was at the Lord Mayor’s Day banquet at the Mansion -House. I asked him how he had got on, and he said that he owed more to -me than any one he had ever met. The Lord Mayor had accepted the -sculpture, and given orders for it to be erected somewhere in the -Guildhall Library until its final position could be decided on, and the -editor of the _Illustrated London News_ was going to give the front page -of his next number to a reproduction of the immortal work. After this I -met him at every important function to which I received an invitation. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - WE START OUR LITERARY AT-HOMES IN LONDON - - -I WAS well known at authors’ clubs and authors’ receptions long before I -was known as an author. In fact, I doubt if many of those who swarmed to -our at-homes ever thought of me seriously as an author, or even realised -that I wrote. They knew of me as the friend of authors, artists, and -actors, and people who were merely charming, and well enough off to -entertain, and enjoyed meeting the celebrities of Bohemia. They credited -me with a certain capacity as a host, who always introduced the right -people to each other. - -I had graduated in a good school for entertaining at Boston and New -York, where the hostess takes care that each of her guests before they -leave shall have been introduced to the persons most worth meeting. If -Oliver Wendell Holmes was in the room at Boston or the American -Cambridge, every guest was presented to him. At a large literary at-home -in New York you were sure to have been introduced to a Mark Twain, or a -Howells, or a Stockton before you left. Americans make a point of having -a guest of honour at an at-home, and I tried to keep this up as a -feature of our at-homes at Addison Mansions. - -It was some time before we were able to start our Bohemian at-homes in -London, because when we arrived we had hardly a single acquaintance in -Bohemia, except Gleeson White, and _his_ author, artist and actor -friends, like ours, were all in America. Like ourselves, he had been -three years absent from England. - -The hundreds of English and American authors, artists and actors who -knew us at 32, Addison Mansions will recollect chiefly a very narrow -hall hung with autographed portraits of celebrities, a room whose -woodwork and draperies suggested one of the old Mameluke houses at -Cairo, a room whose walls were covered with Japanese curios, and two -other rooms, one of which was lined to the height of several feet from -the ground with ingeniously-fitted-in book-cases, and the other was a -bedroom in disguise. These and a ten by seven telephone room, likewise -lined with book-shelves, which only had enough chairs for a -_tête-à-tête_, formed the suite in which we held the weekly receptions -in the American style at which so many people, now famous, used to meet -every Friday night, regaled only with cigarettes, whiskeys-and-sodas, -claret cup, bottled ale and sandwiches. - -There must have been some attractions about them when actors like the -Grossmiths, and authors like Anthony Hope, and half-a-dozen R.A.s used -to find their way out to these wilds of West Kensington Friday after -Friday towards midnight. Perhaps it was that we never had any -entertainment when we could help it, and friends were able to make our -flat a rendezvous where they could be secure of having conversations -uninterrupted by music, and to which they could bring a stranger whom -they wished to introduce into Bohemia. - -Occasionally a stranger so introduced, who happened to be a famous -reciter, felt constrained, as a matter of returning hospitality, to -insist on reciting for us. But in the main, as a large number of our -guests were performers, they were glad that no performances were -allowed, for if they had had to listen to other people, they would have -felt bound, as a matter of professional etiquette, to perform -themselves. If there are performances and you are a performer, it is a -reproach not to be asked to perform. - -It was Kernahan who first took us to the Idler Teas. - -With Sir Walter Besant I had been in correspondence before I left -England, and on my return he wrote asking me to join the Authors’ Club, -with which my name was so intimately associated for many years. But I -did not meet so many Bohemians there as I did at the Idler Teas and the -dinners of the Vagabonds Club, of which I became a member because the -circle of brilliant young authors whom Jerome and Barr had enlisted for -the _Idler Magazine_ were many of them “Vagabonds.” - -At the Idlers and Vagabonds I met most of the rising authors, and when -the American rush to London commenced, I took many distinguished -Americans to the Idler Teas, and to the receptions of people whom we met -there. In this way we soon had a very large acquaintance in Bohemia, -eager to meet our American friends, when we commenced our at-homes on a -modest scale to give our literary acquaintances from the opposite sides -of the Atlantic the opportunity of meeting each other. - -I met many authors as well as actors at the Garrick and the Savage—in -addition to the authors I met at the Authors’ Club and the Savile, and -as I was at that time a member of the Arts, and the Hogarth, a very -lively place, I met a great many artists. Of black-and-white artists, at -any rate, who patronised the latter, I soon knew quite a number—Phil -May, Bernard Partridge, Dudley Hardy, Reginald Cleaver, Ralph Cleaver, -Hal Hurst, Melton Prior, Seppings Wright, Holland Tringham, Paxton, -James Greig, John Gülich, Louis Baumer, F. H. Townsend, Fred Pegram, -Chantrey Corbould, Frank Richards, Bernard Gribble, Will Rothenstein, -Aubrey Beardsley, Willson, Starr Wood and Linley Samborne. - -At the same time we saw a good deal of such well-known painters as David -Murray, R.A.; Solomon J. Solomon, R.A.; Arthur Hacker, R.A.; J. J. -Shannon, R.A.; Walter Crane; Llewellyn, the P.R.I.; Sir James Linton, -P.R.I.; G. A. Storey, A.R.A.; Sir Alfred East, R.A.; R. W. Allan; J. H. -Lorimer, R.S.A.; J. Lavery; Herbert Schmalz; Hugh de Trafford -Glazebrook; Yeend King; William Yeames, R.A., who married my cousin, -Annie Wynfield; and Alfred Parsons, A.R.A. - -Various ladies’ clubs, and clubs to which both sexes were admitted, -contributed not a little to the extraordinary amount of social -intercourse which then was a feature of Bohemia. The Pioneer Club, the -Writers’ Club, and the Women Journalists’ were, frankly, associations of -working women. And there were many members interested in literature in -the Albemarle and the Sesame, ladies’ clubs which admitted men as -guests. Once a week at the Writers’ Club, and very often at the Pioneer, -they had large gatherings at which literary “shop” filled the air. - -Thus in a short time we came to know hundreds of authors and artists -(male and female), actors and actresses, and kept open house for them -every Friday night. - -The Pioneer, the forerunner of the Lyceum, was a great institution in -those days. Rich women, interested in woman’s work, established it and -bore some of its expense for the benefit of women workers. It had a fair -sprinkling of well-known authoresses, and the prominent women in all -sorts of movements. Its afternoon and evening receptions—the latter -generally for lectures—were most interesting affairs. There was no -suffragist movement in those days to overshadow everything else. Women’s -Rights were a joke like “bloomers,” which are now suggestive of -something very different. - -The Writers’ Club was more frankly literary, more frankly “shop.” You -met non-writing workers too in those basement premises in Norfolk -Street, which have seen the birth of so many reputations. I remember -meeting there a suffragist whose name is known all over the world now, -but when I was introduced to her it was only known to her -fellow-workers. She asked me what I thought of the suffragists. Not -knowing who she was, and not having thought anything about them, I -replied, “Oh, I’ve nothing against them except their portraits in the -halfpenny papers!” It made her my friend, for she had suffered from -rapid newspaper reproduction that very morning. - -I always enjoyed those gatherings of women workers very much, though -many of them had ideas for the betterment of England which involved the -destruction of all I cherished most, and some were terrifying in their -earnestness like the she-Apostle of antivivisection, who had a -hydrophobic glitter in her eye, which reminded me of a blue-eyed collie -I once had, but had to give away because it bit. - -This lady was the cause of my gradually dropping away from those -pleasant receptions. It was no good going to them because no sooner had -I been introduced to anybody interesting, than she came up and wanted me -to start enlisting them for the cause, though I knew that I should never -employ an antivivisectionist doctor in the case of a serious illness any -more than I should employ a homœopathist. She afterwards became an -_advocatus diaboli_—an apologist for the outrages of the Militants, -which she said were necessary to draw attention to the wrongs of women. - -In after days, when I had written a novel which became very popular (_A -Japanese Marriage_), I was asked to lecture before the Pioneer Club on -some subject connected with the book. Noticing that their lectures were -generally rather of an abstract nature, and not having at all an -abstract mind myself, I chose for my subject, “The Immorality of -Self-Sacrifice.” The book was largely taken up with the unhappiness -inflicted on the hero and the heroine because she was a good -churchwoman, and his deceased wife’s sister, and would not marry him, -though she was desperately in love with him, until long afterwards she -was disgusted with the narrow-mindedness of a clergyman cousin. - -I gave that lecture in the innocence of my heart. I imagined that the -Club would be so anxious to pioneer for the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, -that I should carry the audience with me. I made the mistake of being -too abstract. If I had contented myself with being “agin’ the -Government” and delivered a technical diatribe in favour of the Bill, -ladies with a mission on this particular subject would have started up -on every side. - -As it was, speaker after speaker found my idea immoral. Self-sacrifice -was the order of the day; they preached self-sacrifice; they plumed -themselves upon self-sacrifice. They did not approve of me at all. But -what I objected to because it was self-sacrifice, they objected to -because they were rebels, so the evening went off very well. - -Bohemian Club evenings in those days differed from those of the present -day because most of them were confined to men. The Playgoers’ Club was -almost the only one which admitted ladies; and at that time it confined -them mostly to lectures. The ladies’ Clubs certainly welcomed men, but -the serious element was more conspicuous there. The idea of having a -literary club at which ladies and gentlemen constantly dined together -for pleasure had not been born. - -The actors and actresses and well-known speakers of our acquaintance we -met mostly at the old Playgoers’ Club, or at Phil May’s Sunday nights in -the stable which had become his studio. - -The old Playgoers’ was a most breezy place, where no one was allowed to -speak for more than a few minutes, unless he could bring down the house -with his wit. The ordinary person making a good sound speech was howled -down. The chairman sometimes interfered to save a more distinguished -orator. I remember the chairman of the club saying at one of the -Christmas dinners to the section in the audience who were far enough -away from the speaker to be talking quite as loud as he was, “Will those -bounders at the back of the room shut up?” - -The women writers very appropriately established themselves as a -Writers’ Club in the area flat underneath A. P. Watt’s literary agency. -There was no connection, but I suppose it resulted in an illustrious man -author occasionally coming on from Watt’s to have a cup of tea at the -Writers’ Club. They had an at-home every Friday afternoon, which was -always extremely well supported. - -I enjoyed going to these Writers’ Club teas very much, and went often, -and on one or other occasion met most of the leading women workers of -the day. - -The Writers’ Clubbists did not take women’s theories so seriously as the -Pioneers, perhaps because they were not subsidised, and had no fierce -patron to keep them at concert pitch, but they were more literary, and, -until the rise of the Women Journalists’, had almost the monopoly of -working women writers. The Sesame had some, and when it was founded -later on, the Lyceum became a regular haunt of them. - -It was only in our last days at Addison Mansions that we joined the -Dilettanti, a dining club of authors and artists, run by Paternoster and -his charming wife. It has only a few score members, who once a month eat -an Italian dinner together, washed down by old Chianti, at the Florence -Restaurant in Soho, and listen to a brilliant paper by one of their -members, which they afterwards discuss, with a great deal of wit and -freedom. Henry Baerlein, Mrs. George Cran, and Herbert Alexander, are -among its wittiest members, and Mrs. Adam, daughter of Mrs. C. E. -Humphry, the ever-popular “Madge,” is quite the best serious speaker. -The speaking is more really impromptu than at the Omar Khayyam, for the -papers generally have titles which do not convey the least inkling of -what they are to be about, and it is therefore impossible for people to -prepare their speeches beforehand. - -Literary at-homes were a great feature of that day. There was a large -set of Literary, Art and Theatrical people who used to meet constantly -at the houses of Phil May, A. L. Baldry, A. S. Boyd, Moncure D. Conway, -Gleeson White, Dr. Todhunter, William Sharp, Zangwill, Rudolph Lehmann, -E. J. Horniman, Joseph Hatton, Max O’Rell, John Strange Winter, George -and Weedon Grossmith, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, J. J. Shannon, Mrs. Jopling, -and Jerome K. Jerome. And the more eminent authors and artists, at any -rate, used to meet a great deal at Lady St. Helier’s, Lady Lindsay’s, -Lady Dorothy Nevill’s, the Tennants’ and the H. D. Traills’. - -Sometimes they met in the afternoon, and sometimes in the evening—more -often the latter, because the artists came in greater numbers, and the -actors, when the Theatres were closed. As I have said, there were very -seldom performances at any of them, because the people met to talk, and -be introduced to fresh celebrities, and whether the reception was in the -afternoon or the evening, the hospitalities were of the simple American -kind. They were _bona fide_ meetings of clever people who wished to make -each other’s acquaintance. Our friends came to us on Friday nights. At -first, like Phil May, we kept open house every week, but as the number -of our friends increased, we gradually tailed off to once a fortnight -and once a month, because we had almost to empty the house out of the -windows to make room for all who came. - -When we ceased to receive every week, we sent out notices to the friends -we wanted to see most that we were going to be at home on such an -evening, and from this we passed to giving each at-home in honour of -some special person, whom our friends were invited to meet. I cannot -remember half the special guests they were invited to meet, but among -them were Conan Doyle, Anthony Hope, Mark Twain, Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, -Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Maarten Maartens, Hall Caine, H. G. Wells, -W. W. Jacobs, Sir Frederick Lugard (then Captain Lugard) when he came -back from his great work in Uganda, F. C. Selous when he came back from -his mighty hunting in South Africa, Zangwill, J. J. Shannon, Frankfort -Moore, Savage Landor and Dr. George Ernest Morrison. - -In a very short time, Bohemian at-homes, at which author and artist and -actor met, became the rage in the Bohemian quarters of London—West -Kensington, Chelsea, Chiswick, and the North-west. There were many -people who were never so happy as when they went to an at-home every -afternoon and evening of the week. They were all workers, and most of -them too poor to use cabs much, so one wondered when they found time to -do their work. That they did it was obvious, for most of them were -producing a good deal of work, and many of them were laying the -foundations of not inconsiderable fame. - -At some of these receptions they had a little music, but at most of them -they had no entertainment. For the clever people who went to these -receptions did not go long distances to sit like mutes while some third- -or fourth- or fortieth-rate artist played or sang; they went to meet -other well-known Bohemians—well-known men and charming women. The most -successful hosts were those who asked celebrities and pretty people in -equal quantities: the celebrities liked meeting pretty people, and the -pretty people liked meeting the celebrities. - -Some celebrities were quite annoyed if there were only celebrities to -meet them; they wanted an audience. - -I remember Whistler the painter and Oscar Wilde being the first two -people to arrive at a reception at Mrs. Jopling’s house in Beaufort -Street, where I had been lunching. They were intensely annoyed at having -only the Joplings and myself as audience; it was no good showing off -before us, since we knew all about them. They were quite distant to each -other, and more distant to us. But as the time wore on, and nobody came, -Wilde had time to think of something effective to say—he never spoke, if -he could help it, unless he thought he could be effective. - -“I hear that you went over to the Salon by Dieppe, Jimmy,” he sneered, -“were you economising?” - -“Don’t be foolish,” said Whistler. “I went to paint.” - -“How many pictures did you paint?” asked the æsthete, with crushing -superiority. - -Whistler did not appear to hear his question. “How many hours did it -take?” he asked. - -“You went, not I,” said Oscar. “No gentleman ever goes by the Dieppe -route.” - -“I do, often,” said our charming hostess, who had this great house in -Chelsea, with an acre or two of garden: “it takes five hours.” - -“How many minutes are there in an hour, Oscar?” drawled Whistler. - -“I am not quite sure, but I think it’s about sixty. I am not a -mathematician.” - -“Then I must have painted three hundred,” said the unabashed Whistler. - -It was at this at-home later on that Whistler made his often-quoted -mot—not for the first time, I believe. A pretty woman said something -clever, and Wilde, who could be a courtier, gallantly remarked that he -wished he had said it. - -“Never mind, Oscar,” said Whistler, who owed him one for the gibe about -the Dieppe route; “you will have said it.” - -They were really very fine that afternoon, because they were so -thoroughly disgusted at not having more people to show off before; -showing off is a weakness of many authors and artists and actors, though -Bernard Shaw is the only one that I remember who has had the frankness -to admit it in _Who’s Who_. - -We used to begin receiving at nine for the sake of people who had trains -to catch to distant suburbs—as Jerome K. Jerome remarked, “other people -always live in such out-of-the-way places”—and kept the house open till -the last person condescended to go away, which was generally about -three. Any one who had been introduced to us was welcome to come, and to -bring any of his friends with him, and in this way we met some of the -most interesting people who came to the flat during our twenty years of -tenancy. For instance, Herbert Bunning, the composer, whose opera _La -Princesse Osra_, presented at Covent Garden, was drawn from Anthony -Hope’s novel by a permission which I obtained for him, brought with him -one night M. Feuillerat, who married Paul Bourget’s delightful sister, -and Madame Feuillerat. M. Feuillerat in his turn brought with him Emile -Verhaeren, one of the greatest living Belgian poets. M. Feuillerat -himself was at the time professor of English literature in the -university at Rennes, and both he and Madame Feuillerat spoke admirable -English. On another Friday they were going to bring Paul Bourget -himself, but he did not fulfil his intention of coming to England at the -time. - -Another distinguished foreigner who came about the same time was Maarten -Maartens, a Dutch country gentleman whose real name is Joost Marius -Maarten Willem van der Poorten-Schwartz. Hearing so much of his -beautiful chateau in Holland, I asked him how he could tear himself away -so much as he did. His reply was that for nine months in the year the -weather in Holland was awful, and for the other three generally awful. -This great writer had an epigrammatic way of expressing himself. He said -that an eminent critic, who constituted himself his patron when he was -in England, had warned him not to go to the Authors’ Club (of which I -was the Honorary Secretary), because most of the people who went there -were very small fry. He said that he had taken no notice of the warning -because he had observed that his informant wore a piece of pink sarcenet -ribbon for a tie, and that he, Maarten Maartens, knew enough of the -Englishman’s idea of dress to be aware that the critic could not be a -judge of ties, and wear pink sarcenet ribbon; and he argued that a man -so self-satisfied and so ignorant about ties might be equally -self-satisfied and ignorant about Authors’ clubs. I asked him if he had -written any books in Dutch. He said, “No, what is the good, when there -are so few people to write for? Only Dutchmen speak Dutch. It was a -choice of writing in English or German, if I was to have an audience, -and I chose English.” - -Georg Brandes, the great Danish critic, who had so much to do with the -recognition of Ibsen, told me when he came to our flat and I asked him a -similar question, that in his later books he had taken to writing in -other languages for the same reason. He was extremely interested, I -remember, in Sergius Stepniak, the exiled Russian revolutionary, as was -the then permanent head of the Foreign Office, whom I approached with -some diffidence on the subject when they were both dining at a Club -dinner of which I had the arrangements. Stepniak, whom I always found, -in my intercourse with him, a very amiable man, had all the stage -appearance of a villain, with his coal-black hair, his knotty, bulbous -forehead, his black Tartar eyes, black beard and sombre complexion. - -Of Zola, a studious-looking man with a brown beard, a rather tilted -nose, and pince-nez, I have spoken in another chapter. - -Anatole France I never met till quite recently, at a little party at -John Lane’s. He was as abounding in _simpatica_ as Zola was wanting in -it. He was rather short, and held his head sideways like the late Conte -de Paris, with his closely-cropped beard buried in his chest. But he had -unmistakably the air of a great man, and extraordinarily bright and -sympathetic eyes—a captivating personality. - -As I began with foreigners I will deal with them before passing on to -the many interesting Anglo-Saxons who assembled in those rooms during -those twenty years. - -August Strindberg, the Scandinavian novelist and dramatist, was to have -come to see us when he was in England in the ’nineties. He forwarded an -introduction, but did not follow it up owing to the distance of his -sojourning place. Before he left Scandinavia, he had asked a friend who -was supposed to know all about England for a nice healthy suburb of -London, far enough out for the air to be pure. The friend suggested -(without, I think, any idea of practical joking) that Gravesend should -be the place, and at Gravesend Strindberg remained during the whole of -his stay in London, doubtless composing novels or dramas upon London -society. - -Many well-known Frenchmen naturally came to see us, like Gabriel -Nicolet, the artist, and Eustache de Lorey, who had been an attaché of -the French Legation in Teheran, and who afterwards collaborated with me -in _Queer Things about Persia_ and _The Moon of the Fourteenth Night_. -Since his return from Persia he had become eminent as a composer. He -wrote the music of one of the most popular songs in _Les Merveilleuses_, -in addition to being the composer of the opera _Betty_, which was -produced in Brussels, with Mariette Sully in the leading part. Melba -herself contemplates appearing in the leading rôle in his second opera, -_Leila_. De Lorey had made some most adventurous expeditions, including -one with Pierre Loti in Caucasia, and he was such a brilliant raconteur -of his adventures that I asked him why he did not make a book of them. -He replied that the travel-book is not the institution in France which -it is in England, and that though he spoke English fluently, he could -not write a book in English. Finally we decided to collaborate as -related in a later chapter. - -We had many Asiatic visitors, but no Africans, I think, unless one -counts Englishmen who had won their spurs in the dark continent, like -Sir Frederick Lugard. Decidedly our most interesting Asiatic visitors -were Japanese like Yoshio Markino and Prof. Nakamura. Prof. Nakamura was -for three years a pupil of Lafcadio Hearn. He came over to England for -the Japanese Exhibition, and remained here a few years, studying -educational methods for the Japanese Government. - -He said that Lafcadio Hearn would see nothing of his pupils because he -was only interested in the Old Japan, and was afraid of introducing -modern ideas if he saw much of any Japanese who were not absorbed in the -same studies as himself. I remember Bret Harte pleading much the same -objection to revisiting California. - -Yoshio Markino has been one of our most intimate friends for years. I -cannot say in what exact year he first came to 32 Addison Mansions. I -know that I first met him through M. H. Spielmann, who wrote to me -telling me all about Markino’s powers as a black-and-white artist, and -asking me to get my editor friends to give him some work, of which he -stood in need. Not until he published _A Japanese Artist in London_ at -my suggestion, and with a preface written by me, a few years after, did -I know how badly he stood in need of that work; Japanese etiquette -prevented him from intruding his private affairs upon a stranger. I was -successful in getting him a little illustrating work, and I got him some -translating work, better paid, I suspect, than original contributions of -men like the late Andrew Lang to the great _Dailies_. It came about in -this wise: I was anxious to include in _More Queer Things about Japan_, -a translation of a Japanese life of Napoleon, which had come into my -hands. There were five volumes of it with extremely amusing -illustrations. Neither I nor the publishers knew what a small amount of -words can make a volume in Japanese. The publisher looked at the volumes -and thought that he was making a very shrewd bargain when he offered -five pounds a volume as the translator’s fee. Each volume proved to -contain about a thousand words, so Markino got five pounds a thousand, -when the publisher meant to offer him about five shillings. - -After this I lost touch of Markino for a long time, till Miss E. S. -Stevens, who had been my secretary, and was then doing work as a -literary agent, invited us to meet him at her Club. Very soon after that -I was at the annual soirée of the Japan Society with Miss Lorimer and -another girl, and my cousin, Sampson Sladen, who was then only third in -command of the London Fire Brigade, when we ran across Markino, who -remained with us all the evening. He invited myself and the members of -our household to the exhibition of the sketches which he had painted to -illustrate _The Colour of London_. From that time forward his visits -were very frequent till we left London, and on two separate occasions he -went to Italy with us for several months. - -It was on the first of these occasions, while we were all staying at 12 -Piazza Barberini in Rome, that he showed me a letter which he had -written to Messrs. Chatto & Windus about the second of the volumes he -illustrated, _The Colour of Paris_. The letter was as brilliant, as -interesting, as amusing, as one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s or Lafcadio -Hearn’s. I saw that he was a born writer, and from that time forward did -not rest until I had persuaded him to write his first book, _A Japanese -Artist in London_. I got him the contract from the publisher for this -book and wrote the preface. - -While we were in Paris he brought us an invitation to dinner from the -brilliant Parisian who was afterwards our dear friend, poor Yvonne, who -died the other day after months of suffering. When we arrived she had a -terrible headache, and we had to have our dinner without her, presided -over by her niece, a gay and pretty child of thirteen, who made as -self-possessed a hostess as any grown-up. We talked a great deal that -night over Italy, and a great deal more when Markino came to see us at -the little Cité de Retiro, near the Madeleine, and the result was that -he decided to do a book on Italy with Miss Olave Potter, he supplying -the pictures, and she the letterpress—the book that took form as _The -Colour of Rome_, which Messrs. Chatto & Windus promptly agreed to -commission, and of which I shall have more to say elsewhere. That winter -and the summer of another year we all spent together in Italy, and the -painting of the illustrations for _The Colour of Rome_ led indirectly to -Markino’s writing _A Japanese Artist in London_, and the beginning of -his brilliant literary career. - -Markino’s writings achieved such an instant popularity with English -readers that I feel sure that they will like to know his habits of work, -which I had the opportunity of observing during the two long visits he -paid with us to Italy. For a painter of architecture and landscape his -method is unique. Take, for instance, the story of the illustrations to -Miss Olave Potter’s book, _The Colour of Rome_. First of all, since he -was a stranger to Rome, and knew neither its beauty spots nor its most -interesting monuments, we took him walks to see all the most illustrable -places. He selected from them the number he had promised to paint. -Sometimes he took more than one walk to a place before he commenced the -study for his picture, but intuition is one of his gifts, and he was -seldom long at fault in discovering the best standpoint. - -Having chosen this, he took his drawing-pad to the spot and made a rough -sketch of it with notes written in Japanese of the colours to be used, -and any special things he had to remember. Sometimes, where there was a -great deal of detail, or of sculpture, he used paper with crossed lines -on it, so as to preserve his proportions. But Markino, beautifully as he -can paint detail, resents it, and prefers subjects unified by a haze of -heat or mist. - -He never took his paints out with him, and never did a finished drawing -in the open air. He took his notes home with him and ruminated over -them, till the idealised picture presented itself to his brain. Then he -set to work on it, taking little rest till it was finished—always -absolutely faithful to colour and effect, though the picture was painted -entirely indoors. - -That was his method of painting. He did no writing in Rome. But he came -constantly to our flat when he was writing _A Japanese Artist in -London_, _My Idealled John Bullesses_, and _When I was a Child_. -Sometimes he liked to talk over his chapters before he began to write -them, when they were slow at taking shape. But more generally he brought -the chapters written in the rough to his Egeria, and read them over to -her. They had blanks where he could not remember the English word which -he wanted to use. It was in his mind, and he would reject all words till -he found the word he was thinking of. - -As he read the chapters aloud, the wise Egeria made corrections where -they were necessary to elucidate his meaning—to clarify his style, but -never treated any Japanese use of English as a mistake, unless it made -the sense obscure. That is how the fascinating medium in which Markino -writes took shape. - -Take, for instance, Markino’s omission of the _articles_. The Japanese -language has no articles. Markino therefore seldom uses them, and his -English is written to be intelligible without them, just as a legal -document is written to be intelligible without punctuation. Again, if he -used a word in a palpably wrong sense—_i. e._ with a meaning which it -had never borne before, or was etymologically unfit to bear—she left it -if it helped to express in a forcible way what he intended. - -The result of this respectful editing was to produce a most fascinating -and characteristic type of English, which has won for Markino a public -of enthusiastic admirers. He has, as Osman Edwards said, _the heart of a -child_, when he is writing, and he combines with it a highly original -mode of thinking and expressing himself, but their effect would have -been half lost if he had not found in his Egeria an adviser with the eye -of genius for what should be corrected and what should be retained of -his departures from conventional English. - -When the chapters were corrected thus, Egeria typed them out, making any -corrections or additions which were necessary to the punctuation, and -generally preparing the manuscript for the press. - -I am encouraged to think that these details of the way in which the -books were edited will interest the public, because J. H. Taylor, the -golf champion, once cross-examined me on the subject, as we were walking -down the lane from the Mid-Surrey golf pavilion to his house. He had -been reading _A Japanese Artist in London_, and was so delighted with it -that he wanted to know exactly how this wonderful style of writing was -born. - -And there is no doubt that it is a wonderful style of writing. It is not -pigeon-English; the Japanese do not use pigeon-English, they abhor it. -It is the result of a deliberate intention to apply certain Japanese -methods of expression (like the omission of the article) to the writing -of English, in order to produce a more direct medium, and the result has -been a complete success. Markino’s English is wonderfully forcible. It -hits like a sledge-hammer. He has a genius for discovering exactly the -right expression, and he thinks on till he discovers it. As a reason why -his English is not broken English, but a medium using the capabilities -of both languages, I may mention that he has been living in America and -England for nearly twenty years. - -[Illustration: - - THE MOORISH ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS. - (_From the Painting by Yoshio Markino._) -] - -Besides Japanese, we had many Indian visitors. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - OUR AT-HOMES: THE YOUNG AUTHORS WHO ARE NOW GREAT AUTHORS - - -OF all the men who used to come to 32, Addison Mansions from our having -met them at the Idler teas, none were more identified with the success -of Jerome’s two periodicals _The Idler_ and _To-day_ than Arthur Conan -Doyle and Israel Zangwill. Doyle had been writing for ten years before -he achieved commanding success. Be that as it may, he was undoubtedly -the most successful of the younger authors who were familiar figures in -that Vagabond and Idler set. Doyle, who was the son of that exquisite -artist, Charles Doyle, and grandson of the famous caricaturist H. B., -and nephew of Dicky Doyle of _Punch_, ought to have been granted a -royaller road to success, for he had enjoyed a very early connection -with literature, having sat as a little child on the knee of the -immortal Thackeray. Thackeray’s old publishers, Smith, Elder & Co., have -been his, but he had travelled to the Arctic regions and to the tropics -and practised for eight years as a doctor at Southsea before he charmed -the world with his famous novels _The White Company_ in 1890, and _The -Refugees_ in 1891, and astonished it with the _Adventures of Sherlock -Holmes_ in the latter year. He was a doctor at Norwood when I first made -his acquaintance. He was a little over thirty then, and a keen -cricketer, being nearly county form (indeed, he did actually play once -for Hampshire, and might at one time have played regularly for Hampshire -as an Association back). It was not until late in life, however, that he -found time enough to get much practise at games. Then for some years he -played occasional first-class cricket, having an average of thirty-two -against Kent, Derbyshire and other good teams; in the last year he -played for the M.C.C. That was after the war, when he was over forty. He -played a hard Association match in his forty-fourth year. - -From an early stage in his literary career he enjoyed the admiration and -the deepest respect of all his fellows in the craft, and for years past -has undoubtedly been morally the head of the profession. Upon him has -fallen the mantle of Sir Walter Besant. In saying this, I am not -instituting any comparison between the merits of his various lines of -work, which in their own line are quite unexcelled, and those of the -other leading authors, but he is not only among the handful who may be -called the very best authors of the day, he is the man to whom the -profession would undoubtedly look for a lead in any crisis. - -Say, for instance, that the idea, so often debated recently, of authors -combining with publishers to fix the price of a novel at ten and -sixpence, and refusing to work for or sell their goods to any one who -would not abide by this decision, were put to a vote in the literary -profession, what Doyle thought would count most. The profession as an -army would range themselves under his banner. Suppose a question, like -the insurance question which has been threatening the livelihood of -thousands of doctors, were to arise for authors, they would look to -Doyle for a lead. If the decision which he made benefited authors as a -whole, but cost him half or three-quarters of his income, and a -syndicate approached him with a huge offer to abandon the camp, nobody -could suppose for one moment that Doyle would listen to them. His moral -courage, his loyalty, his generosity, his patriotism, added to his -wonderful literary gifts, have confered upon him a commanding position. -Of his gifts I shall speak lower down. It is as the patriot that one -must always consider him first. He is not naturally a party man, though -he happens to have contested Edinburgh as a Liberal Unionist, and the -Hawick boroughs as a Tariff Reformer. There have been moments when he -has been openly opposed to some measure of the Unionist Party. He really -belongs to the Public Service party. He made notable sacrifices for his -country at the time of the Boer War. First he gave up his literary work -to serve unpaid on the staff of the Langman Field Hospital and -afterwards to write the pamphlet on _The Cause and Conduct of the War_, -an attempt to place the true facts before the people of Europe, which -brought him nothing but great expense and the undying gratitude and -respect of his fellow-countrymen. That he cares nothing for popularity -where principles are concerned is shown by the attitude he took over the -famous horse-maiming case, or his acceptance of the Presidency of the -Divorce Law Reform Union. - -[Illustration: - - SIR A. CONAN DOYLE - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -His sturdy character is reflected in his physique, and there are few -people in London who do not know that unusually big and strong frame, -that round head, with prominent cheek-bones, and dauntless blue eyes, -the bluff, good-humoured face: for his sonorous voice is frequently -heard from the chair of public meetings where some protest for the -public good has to be raised, or at a dinner-table on the guest nights -of clubs. Sir Arthur, for he was knighted in 1902, is a most popular -speaker; hearty, engaging, amusing, in his lighter moods, most trenchant -and convincing in a crisis, of all the authors of the day he merits most -the title of a great man. - -The curious thing is that although every one knows how much he respects -Doyle as a great man, and every one is aware that he is one of the most -popular, if not the most popular, of the authors of the day, not every -one has analysed the soundness of his literary fame. In my opinion, of -all very popular authors, Doyle deserves his popularity as an author -most. No man living has written better historical novels, judged from -the standpoint of eloquence, accuracy or thrill. Doyle has carried the -accuracy of the man of science into all his studies, and his power to -thrill with eloquence and incident is beyond question. His detective -stories are equal to the best that have ever been written. His history -of the South African War is not only the best history of the war, but it -is a model of contemporary history, always the most difficult kind to -write, because only the eye of intuition can distinguish respective -values amid contemporary incidents. He has been highly successful as a -playwright too. His _House_ _of Temperley_ is the best Prize-Ring play -in the language, as his novel, _Rodney Stone_, which had no lady-love -heroine, was the best Prize-Ring novel, and his play on Waterloo, -produced by Sir Henry Irving, has become a classic. I have alluded -elsewhere to the dramatisation of his _Sherlock Holmes_ which has been -played thousands of times. Doyle not only was present at our at-homes at -32 Addison Mansions, but, living out of town, once stayed with us there, -as we stayed with him at Hindhead on another occasion. But owing to his -living out of town, he was a great deal less familiar figure at -receptions than most of the other younger authors of the first rank, -except Rudyard Kipling and J. M. Barrie, both of whom cordially hate -“functions” of any kind. Doyle, placed in the same circumstances as they -are, forces himself to go to many functions for which he has less time -than they have, for his literary output is infinitely greater, and he -has so many other duties to perform, and always performs them. - -When I asked Doyle what first turned him to writing, he said— - -“All the art that is in our family—my grandfather, three uncles, and -father were all artists—ran in my blood, and took a turn towards -letters. At six I was writing stories; I fancy my mother has them yet. -At school I was, though I say it, a famous story-teller; at both schools -I was at I edited a magazine, and practically wrote the whole of it -also. - -“When I started studying medicine, the family affairs were very -straitened. My father’s health was bad, and he earned little. I tried to -earn something, which I did by going out as medical assistant half the -year. Then I tried stories. In 1878, when I was nineteen years old, I -sent _The Mystery of the Sassasa Valley_ to Chambers. I got three -guineas. It was 1880 before I got another accepted. It was by _London -Society_. From then until 1888 I averaged about fifty pounds a year, -getting about three pounds a story. My first decent price was -twenty-eight pounds from the Cornhill for _Habakuk Jephson’s Statement_ -in 1886. Then at New Year, 1888, Ward, Lock & Co. brought out _A Study -in_ _Scarlet_, paying twenty-five pounds for all rights. I have never -had another penny from that book; I wonder how much they have had? Then -came _Micah Clarke_ at the end of 1888, which got me a more solid -public. It was not until 1902 that I was strong enough to be able to -entirely abandon medical practice. Of course, it was the Holmes stories -in the _Strand_ which gave me my popular vogue, but _The White Company_, -which has been through fifty editions, has sold far more as a book than -any of the Holmes books.” - -Kipling I regard as the genius of the junction of the nineteenth and -twentieth centuries, and England owes an incalculable debt to his -patriotism and eloquence. If Doyle is the voice of the literary -profession, Kipling is the voice of the country. He speaks for the -manhood of England in a crisis. All through the African War a letter or -a poem from Kipling was the trumpet voice of national feeling. No poet -who has written in English has ever inspired his countrymen like -Kipling. His poems, though they have not the poetical quality of those -of our great standard poets, have the prophetical quality, which is just -as important in poetry, in a higher degree than any of them. They are -Rembrandt poems, not Raphael poems, and they will remain without loss of -prestige, an armoury for every patriotic or manful writer and speaker to -quote from. I reviewed Kipling’s poems when they were first published in -America for the leading Canadian paper. I am thankful that I hailed them -as the work of genius, and it was a proud moment when I first shook -hands with him in the early ’nineties. Though his short stories are the -best in the language, I always think of him as a poet, because he is our -_vates_. - -It is best to mention Barrie, our other genius, here, though I have -little to say about him. On the rare occasions when he speaks in public, -he speaks admirably, and he enjoys universal respect. As far as -literature is concerned, no man’s lines have been laid in pleasanter -places. Unlike Doyle, Anthony Hope, Stanley Weyman and others, Barrie -did not have to wait for recognition. It is notorious that from the very -beginning he never had the proverbial manuscript in the drawer; in other -words, that he always found an immediate sale for whatever he wrote. He -began as a journalist. - -Anthony Hope I first met at an Idler tea. He was one of the brilliant -band of younger authors whom Jerome was among the first to recognise. In -those days he kept the distinction between “Anthony Hope” the writer, -and Anthony Hope Hawkins the barrister, most rigidly. Being the son of a -famous London clergyman, Mr. Hawkins, of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, a -cousin of Mr. Justice Hawkins, a scholar of Balliol, and an eloquent -speaker, his prospects at the Bar were very good. There was an idea that -they would suffer if it were known that he indulged in anything so -frivolous as writing love-stories. These were the days when he was -composing his immortal “Dolly Dialogues” for the _Westminster Gazette_, -and when he was just beginning the succession of witty and delicate -novels which made his fame. He had, I have always understood, been -writing for some years, before he could make any impression on the -public, and even then he had no hope of making a living by literature. I -made one of his early novels my book of the week in _The Queen_, in a -most enthusiastic review, and incidentally mentioned his real name. His -friends, perhaps they were officious, entreated me not to do it again, -lest it should injure his prospects. A year or two afterwards there was -no question off which profession he was to make a living, though as he -coquetted with politics, and contested a constituency or two, he -probably kept up the legal fiction of his being at the Bar for some time -longer. - -As he had enjoyed the distinction of being President of the Oxford -Union, he was a practised speaker before he came to London. He had -plenty of opportunities of exercising his skill without waiting for -briefs, for he became a frequent speaker at Club dinners. The charm of -his voice and his delivery, the polish and wit of his speeches were -recognised at once, and his popularity as a speaker has been undisputed -from that day to this. - -It was noticed that, though he was so brilliant and fluent, when making -a speech, he was rather a silent man at receptions, except where -politeness demanded that he should exert himself. But this is a common -trait in the more considerable authors. They are frequently not only -rather silent, but ill at ease. In those days one could count the -authors who were both brilliant socially and brilliant writers, on one’s -fingers. - -One legal habit Anthony Hope retained; he went to chambers to do his -writing as he had been accustomed, and lived in other chambers, and was -regarded as a confirmed bachelor till he married. He came to Addison -Mansions very frequently in the ’nineties. The incident I remember best -was his loss of presence of mind when I tried to save him from a -terrific American bore, a middle-aged lady. Somebody had brought her; I -had not met her before, and she was having a systematic lion-hunt. She -thought that A. H. H. was Anthony Hope, but she was not certain, and -said to me, “Is that _Anthony Hope_? I must know _Anthony Hope_.” - -Wishing to save him from the infliction, because he was always rather -distrait with bores, I said, “That is Mr. Hawkins.” I didn’t think she -knew enough about literature to be aware of the identity, nor did she, -but he had unfortunately caught the words “Anthony Hope,” and smiled, -and started forward, and was lost. As he had unconsciously convicted me -of falsehood, I left him to his fate. - -Generous to needy brother authors, punctilious in the performance of the -duties to the literary profession, which his eminence confers on him (in -such matters as the Authors’ Society and literary clubs), wonderfully -patient and courteous, an admirable literary craftsman, who never turns -out slipshod work, as well as a brilliant romancer and witty dialogist, -Anthony Hope Hawkins deserves every particle of his popularity and -success. - -I have not dilated on his plays, though he has achieved great success on -the stage, because dramatists tell me that he is not going to write for -it any more. - -The popularity of our at-homes was at its height before Frankfort Moore -had decided to come over to England, giving up the editorial post he -held in Ireland, to devote all his time to novel-writing. He and his -delightful wife, the sister of Mrs. Bram Stoker, took lodgings at Kew, -and were ready for many receptions, so that he might meet his -fellow-authors in London. As Bram Stoker had then for years been -Irving’s right hand, they had an excellent introduction ready-made, but -they brought letters of introduction to us, and, up to the time of his -leaving London, he was among our most intimate literary friends. - -Frankfort Moore’s success in London was instantaneous, as well it might -have been, since he was a brilliant and witty speaker, as well as a -writer of brilliant, witty and very charming books. Hutchinson eagerly -took up the publication of his works, and the literary clubs soon -learned to depend upon him as one of the best after-dinner speakers. In -about ten years he made a fortune, and retired to take things in a more -leisurely way at an old house in Sussex, where he was able to adequately -house his fine collection of old oak, old brass, old engravings and old -china, in which he was a noted connoisseur. - -His immediate success justified his giving up his lodgings at Kew, and -taking a nice, old-fashioned house in Pembroke Road, which he soon began -to transform with his panelling, and his collections. His retirement -from London left a great gap in many social circles. He was a universal -favourite—a man of real eminence, although he regarded his achievements -so modestly. - -One of the most valued of our visitors was the celebrated Father -Stanton, of St. Alban’s, Holborn, who introduced himself to me when he -was on his way to Syracuse with F. E. Sidney, with whom he went to -Seville on that expedition which resulted in the publication of the -latter’s _Anglican Innocents in Spain_, the book which aroused such -anger among Roman Catholics. We were the only two occupants of a -sleeping compartment on the Italian railways. He was not wearing -clerical dress, and I had no notion who he was until the conclusion of -our journey, when Sidney, who had joined us, informed me. We did a lot -of sight-seeing in Syracuse together, especially in the cathedral (built -into an entire Greek temple, ascribed to Pallas Athene). Both Stanton -and Sidney were experts in old gilt, in which Sicily is very rich—the -organ at Syracuse is an example. From that time until Stanton’s death we -constantly met at the house of Sidney, who has the best collection of -sixteenth-century stained glass in England, and built a house in Frognal -with the proper windows to receive it. Though Stanton and I did not -agree in Church matters, we were yet staunch friends, and I was an -immense admirer of one who did so much for the regeneration of the poor -in one of the worst districts of London. - -The greatest compliment we ever received at our at-homes was when Lord -Dundonald, who had known us for some years, and had just come back from -his famous relief of Ladysmith with his irregular cavalry, came and -spent the best part of the afternoon with us. He looked worn and very -sunburnt, but it was one of the events of our lifetimes to hear the -stirring details of England’s greatest military drama in this -generation, direct from the lips of the man who had given it its happy -termination. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - THE HUMORISTS AT OUR AT-HOMES - - -AMONG the crowd of humorists who honoured Addison Mansions with their -presence it is natural to mention first the famous author of _Three Men -in a Boat_. There is no author for whom I feel a greater affection, -though, as he once said, “You and I are sure to have a diametrically -opposite opinion upon almost any point which may turn up, because we -were born the poles apart.” I was at the time his chief and only book -critic on _To-day_. I believe I was called the literary editor, though -all the patronage of the position was exercised by himself. It is -patronage which constitutes an editor; the sub-editor can perform the -duties. I believe also that it was I who suggested the name _To-day_. At -any rate, it was I who helped him to formulate the paper, and for the -first year or so it was my duty to do all the book reviews in it, and my -duty to receive all the ladies who came to see Jerome about the paper. -Of course, they mostly came in search of work or fame: those who wished -to be written about were very numerous, and expected to succeed by -making what is called the “Glad Eye” at him. He was _terribly_ afraid of -the “Glad Eye”; it made him turn hot and cold in swift succession. He -was unable to say “no” to a siren, and equally unable to say “yes” when -he meant “no.” He was also an intensely domesticated man, entirely -devoted to his family, and without the smallest desire for a flirtation. -So it fell to my lot to pick up the “Glad Eye,” a very agreeable job, -when you have not the power to give yourself away. I had no patronage to -bestow upon them. The only thing I could do for them was to write about -them if they were sufficiently interesting, which frequently happened in -that age of personal journalism. And, if they were quite harmless -worshippers, without any ulterior designs, I occasionally induced Jerome -to be worshipped for a minute or two. I made many lady friends at this -period, especially from the Stage. - -Jerome hardly ever answered letters. He used to say, “If you keep a -letter for a month, it generally answers itself.” But he did not keep -them. He tore them up directly he had glanced at them. He knew at one -glance—probably at the signature—if he wanted to read a letter, and, if -he did not, he tore it up without reading it. He had a horror of -accumulating papers. He sometimes asked me to answer letters, as he had -faith in me as a soother. It was never part of my duties to write “yes,” -I had to gild “no.” He prefered to word his own acceptances, so as not -to say more than he meant. He did not even want me to read the -manuscripts. He prefered to read them himself. It did not take him long, -because if he did not come across something worth publishing by the -second page, he did not read any further. “You must grab your reader at -the beginning,” he used to say. - -He was a very pleasant man to write reviews for. He believed in generous -criticisms. “You can have a page or two pages for your book of the -week,” he said, “according to its importance”—he decided that when I -chose my book—“but you can only have a page for the rest of the books -that come in, so you can’t afford to waste your space on bad books. If -you can’t say anything good about them, you obviously can’t afford them -any space. You can praise things up as much as you like if you can be -convincing about it: don’t be afraid to let yourself go about the book -of the week: I am sick of the _Spectator_ and the _Athenæum_, you never -get a full-blooded review out of them, unless it’s to damn something. -The more knowledge you can show about the subject of the book you are -praising, the better. But above all things, recommend it in the paper -just as you would recommend it to a friend: use the same language as you -would to a friend: be natural. And, whatever you do, beware of the Club -Man. When I read an article or a story, I always ask myself what a Club -Man would think of it; and if I know that he would like it, I turn it -down: his opinions are dead opposite to the Public’s.” - -The likes and dislikes of the Club Man was one of the matters in which -my opinion was dead opposite to Jerome’s. The Club Man and the Man in -the Street between them fill the ranks of the average patriotic citizen. -It is they who pull the nation through in a crisis, and the City of -London leads them. At ordinary times their voice is drowned by the noise -of the Radical Party, and the giant Middle-class, to whom all appeals -for national safety have to be addressed—the blind Samson sitting -chained in the house of his enemies—cannot hear their warnings. - -In any case, it is so hard for a book to be popular at clubs, where -people go to be interested and amused, that if it is popular there, it -will be popular anywhere, except with the Nonconformist Conscience. - -Jerome had written _Three Men in a Boat_ and _The Idle Thoughts of an -Idle Fellow_ before I met him, and was consequently in enjoyment of -world-wide fame. He had established in the _Idler_ a monthly which had -no equal then as a magazine of fiction, and had a sale of a hundred -thousand copies a month, when he started _To-day_. He started it not -only to amuse, but to educate Public Opinion, when it had secured -attention by its brightness, for he had very strong views which he was -eager to preach. - -He was more of a Conservative than a Radical in those days; he had not -despaired of the Conservatives, then, though he was baggy about beastly -little nationalities. Suffragism had not then begun its March of -Unreason, and we were all in favour of giving woman a vote. But I am -bound to register the conviction that, if Suffragism had been a burning -question then, the paper would have been full of it, and enjoying a -circulation of a million, or whatever number the adult women suffragists -run to. I can picture Jerome, a man famous for his hospitalities, being -reduced to a hunger-strike by the ardour with which he would have -espoused the idea. He was always tilting against some abuse, always -asking for litigation. And he got it—or I suppose he would be editing a -newspaper now, instead of delighting both hemispheres with his plays. I -say advisedly “both hemispheres,” because he has a considerable public -as a dramatist in America. - -One of the first books on which I let myself go, and wrote an absolute -appreciation, was that magnificent historical novel of Stanley Weyman’s, -_A Gentleman of France_. Jerome was delighted with the way I handled it. - -Seeing Jerome so much in the office led to our being a good deal at each -other’s houses. He was living at that time in one of the nice old villas -in St. John’s Wood. The chief thing I remember about it was its -cattiness and its scrupulous tidiness. When you stay with him in the -country, you cannot leave your stick and hat in the hall, handy for -running out, as you might at Sandringham or Chatsworth. They are at once -arrested, and are very lucky if they get off with a warning from the -magistrate. - -One of my diametrical divergencies from Jerome is in the love of cats. I -cannot respect a cat. To me it is a beast of prey, a sort of -middle-class tiger, operating in a small way, but at heart a murderer of -the Asiatic jungle. Jerome loves them, and makes dogs of them: he used -to fill the _Idler_ with Louis Wain’s human deductions from cats. He has -a telephone to their brains. I agree with Lord Roberts, who knows by -instinct when there is a cat in the room, though it may be wholly -concealed, and cannot enjoy himself until it is removed. - -Like most real humorists whom I have known, and I have known many from -Mark Twain and Bill Nye downwards, Jerome is not a “funny man” in -ordinary life. He is, on the contrary, except when he is on his legs, -before an audience, or taking his pen in his hand, apt to be a very -serious man, though his conversation is always illuminated by flashes of -wit. He is much more apt to air strong opinions about serious questions. -The Jerome you see in _Paul Kelvin_ and _The Third Floor Back_ is the -real Jerome. He is the loyalest friend and most tender-hearted man -imaginable. His kindness and hospitality are unbounded. You cannot stay -with Jerome in his own house without being inspired by the deepest -respect and affection for him. He is an ideal husband and father, a -friend of the struggling, a just and generous master. Like Conan Doyle, -though he has never shone in first-class cricket or golf, Jerome is very -athletic in his tastes. In spite of his glasses, he is a fine -tennis-player and croquet-player; he is a fine skater also, and devoted -to the river and horses. It was partly a horse accident in which he and -Norma Lorimer were involved, and both showed extraordinary courage, -which made me feel for him as I do. - -He is essentially an open-air man, whose thoughts are all outside -directly he has got through his statutory amount of work with his -secretary. - -But though the serious man weighs down the humorist in Jerome, you would -not guess it from his personal appearance. When he rises to speak, his -bright eye, the smile playing round his mouth, his cool confident -bearing, the very way in which he arranges his hair, which has not yet a -particle of grey about it, is more suggestive of the humorist, the man -who is accustomed to making hundreds roar with laughter at his speeches, -and scores of thousands with the flashes of his pen. - -Jerome has no love for London, though he has a town residence and enjoys -Bohemian society, and is very popular in it. For many years he has lived -on the Upper Thames, and he is in the habit of going to Switzerland for -the skating. - -I asked Carl Hentschel, who was one of the three who went on the trip -immortalised in _Three Men in a Boat_, to tell me about it. He said— - -“It is rather interesting to look back to the days of _Three Men in a -Boat._ Jerome at that time was in a solicitor’s office in Cecil Street, -where the Hotel Cecil now stands, George Wingrave was a junior clerk in -a bank in the City, and I was working in a top studio in Windmill -Street, close to where the Lyric Theatre now stands, having to look -after a lot of Communists, who had had to leave Paris. Our one -recreation was week-ending on the river. It was roughing it in a manner -which would hardly appeal to us now. Jerome and Wingrave used to live in -Tavistock Place, now pulled down, and that was our starting-point to -Waterloo and thence to the river. It says much for our general harmony -that, during the years we spent together in such cramped confinement, we -never fell out, metaphorically or literally. It was Jerome’s unique -style which enabled him to bring out the many and various points in our -trip. It was a spell of bad weather that broke up our parties. A steady -downpour for three days would dampen even the hardiest river-enthusiast. -One incident, which, I believe, was never recorded, but would have made -invaluable copy in Jerome’s hands, happened on one of our last trips. We -were on our way up the river, and late in the afternoon, as the sky -looked threatening, we agreed to pull up and have our frugal meal, which -generally consisted of a leg of Welsh mutton, bought at the famous house -in the Strand, now pulled down, with salad. We started preparing our -meal on the bank, when the threatened storm burst. We hastily put up our -canvas over the boat, and bundled all the food into it anyhow. It got -pitch dark, and we were compelled to find the lamp and tried to light -it. After a while we found the lamp, but it would not light; luckily we -found two candle ends, and by their feeble light began our meal. We had -hardly begun our meal when I said after the first mouthful of salad, -‘What’s wrong with the salad?’ George also thought it was queer, but -Jerome thought there was nothing wrong. Jerome always did have a -peculiar taste. Anyhow, he was the only one who continued. It was not -till the next day that we discovered that owing to our carelessness of -using two medicine bottles of similar shape, one containing vinegar and -the other Colza oil, the lamp and the salad were both a bit off.” - -When I asked Jerome what first gave him the idea of writing he said— - -“I always wanted to be a writer. It seemed to me an easy and dignified -way of earning a living. I found it difficult; I found it exposes you to -a vast amount of abuse. Sometimes, after writing a book or play which -seemed to me quite harmless, I have been staggered at the fury of -indignation it seems to have excited among my critics. If I had been -Galileo, attacking the solar science of the sixteenth century, I could -not have been assaulted by the high priests of journalism with more -anger and contempt. But the work itself has always remained delightful -to me. I think it was Zangwill who said to me once, ‘A writer, to -succeed, has to be not only an artist, but a shopkeeper’—and of the two, -the shopkeeper is the more necessary. I am not sure who said that last -sentence; it may have been myself. - -“You write your book or play while talking to the morning stars. It -seems to you beautiful—wonderful. You thank whatever gods there be for -having made you a writer. The book or the play finished, the artist -takes his departure, to dream of fresh triumphs. The shopkeeper—possibly -a married shopkeeper with a family—comes into the study, finds the -manuscript upon the desk. Then follows the selling, bargaining, -advertising. It is a pretty hateful business, even with the help of -agents. The book or the play you thought so fine, you thought that every -one was bound to like it. Your publisher, your manager, is doubtful. You -have a feeling that they are accepting it out of sheer charity—possibly -they knew your father, or have heard of your early struggles—and yield -to an unbusinesslike sentiment of generosity. It appears, and anything -from a hundred to two hundred and fifty experienced and capable -journalists rush at it to tear it to pieces. It is marvellous—their -unerring instinct. There was one sentence where the grammar was -doubtful—you meant to reconsider it, but overlooked it; it appears -quoted in every notice; nothing else in the book appears to have -attracted the least attention. At nine-tenths of your play the audience -may have laughed; there was one scene which did not go well; it is the -only scene the critic has any use for. Their real feeling seems to be -that the writer is the enemy of the public; the duty of all concerned is -to kill him. If he escapes alive, that counts to him. - -“I remember the first night of a play by my friend, Henry Arthur Jones. -There had been some opposition; it was quite evident that the gallery -were only waiting for him to appear to ‘boo’ him, as if he had been a -criminal on the way to the scaffold. I was standing by the gallery exit, -and the people were coming out. Said one earnest student to another, as -they passed me, ‘Why didn’t the little——come out and take his punishment -like a man?’ ‘Cowardly, I call it,’ answered the other. They knew what -was in store for him in the next morning’s papers; they knew that a -year’s work, perhaps two, had been wasted. I suppose that it would be -asking too much to suggest that they might also have imagined the -heartache and the disappointment. The playwright who does not succeed in -keeping every one of a thousand individuals, of different tastes and -views and temperaments, interested and amused for every single minute of -two hours, must not be allowed any mercy. - -“Yet for a settled income of ten thousand a year, and no worry, no -abuse, and no insults, I do not think any of us would exchange our job. -I suppose we are all born gamblers—it is worth risking the half-dozen -failures for the one success. - -“And the work itself, as I said—one only wishes one’s readers enjoyed it -half as much; circulations would be fabulous. _Three Men in a Boat_ I -started as a guide to the Thames. It occurred to us—George, Charles and -myself—when we were pulling up and down, how interesting and improving -it would be to know something about the history of the famous places -through which we passed; a little botany might also be thrown in. I -thought that other men in boats might also like information on this -subject, and would willingly pay for it. So I read up Dugdale, and a -vast number of local guides, together with a little poetry and some -memoirs. I really knew quite a lot about the Thames by the time I had -done, and with a pile of notes in front of me, I started. I think I had -a vague idea of making it a modern ‘Sandford and Merton.’ I thought -George would ask questions, and Harry intersperse philosophical remarks. -But George and Harry would not; I could not see them sitting there and -doing it. So gradually they came to have their own way, and the book as -a guide to the Thames is, I suppose, the least satisfactory work on the -market. - -“I suppose, like Mrs. Gummidge, I felt it more. It must have been about -five years before I succeeded in getting anything of mine accepted. The -regularity with which the complimenting editor returned my manuscripts -grew monotonous, grew heart-breaking. But, after all, it was _The Times_ -newspaper which accepted my first contribution. Some correspondence on -the subject of the nude in Art made me angry, and I wrote a letter -intended to be ironic. It attracted quite a lot of comment, and, fired -by this success, I wrote to _The Times_ on other topics. The _Saturday -Review_ praised their irony and humour, and Frank Harris invited me a -little later to contribute. But we differed, I think, upon the subject -of women. - -“_The Passing of the Third Floor Back_ I wrote for David Warfield, the -American actor, and discussed the matter with David Belasco in the -train, when I was on a lecturing tour in America. I read him and -Warfield the play at the Belasco Theatre in New York. It was after the -performance was over, and we three had the great empty theatre to -ourselves. Then we went to Lamb’s Club, and Warfield, I think, had -macaroni, and Belasco and I had kidneys and lager beer, and discussed -arrangements. Firstly Anderson was to draw sketches of the characters, -and it was while he was doing this in his studio at Folkestone that -Forbes-Robertson dropped in for a chat. Percy Anderson talked to him -about the play, and Forbes-Robertson took up the manuscript and read it. -Belasco was a little nervous about the play. I did not like the idea of -forcing it upon him, and other small difficulties had arisen, so, having -heard from Percy Anderson that he had talked to Forbes-Robertson about -the play, I thought I would go and see him. He, too, was nervous about -it, but said that he felt that he must risk it. We produced it at -Harrogate, for quite a nice, respectable audience, and they took it -throughout as a farce. One or two critics came down from London, and -commiserated with Forbes-Robertson on his luck. - -“It was the miners of Blackpool who put heart into us; they understood -the thing, and were enthusiastic. Then we produced it at St. James’, -and, with one or two exceptions, it was besieged with a chorus of -condemnation—deplorable, contemptible, absurd, were a few of the -adjectives employed, and Forbes-Robertson hastened on the rehearsals for -another play. A few days later, King Edward VII, passing through London -on his way to Scotland, devoted his one night in London to seeing the -piece. He said it was not the sort of thing he expected from Jerome, but -he liked it. And about the same time strange people began to come, who -did not know what the St. James’ Theatre was, and did not quite know -what to do when they got there, and they liked it, too.” - -I first met Zangwill—Israel Zangwill—at one of the old pothouse dinners -of the Vagabond Club. He had not long given up editing _Ariel_, and was -already known for his biting wit as a speaker. When the lean, arrestive -figure of the Jewish ex-schoolmaster craned over an assemblage, there -was always an attentive silence. He had not yet immortalised himself by -those inimitable etchings of Jewish life, in which the graver and the -acid were employed so ruthlessly—the Tragedies and Comedies of the -Ghetto. But he was in sympathies already a novelist, for on that -particular occasion he was upbraiding Robert Buchanan for forsaking -literature for the drama. His own eyes have wandered to the stage since -then. The curly black hair—an orator’s hair—the sallow complexion of the -South, the pallor of the student, the eagle nose, the assertive smile, -the confident paradox—how well I can recall them! He was a young man in -those days. - -Jerome was always a thorough believer in Zangwill. And he showed his -judgment by making him his first serialist in _To-day_. He paid him five -hundred pounds for the serial rights of the first of those remarkable -novels of Jewish life, as much, I believe, as he paid for the serial -rights of _Ebb-Tide_, the book R. L. Stevenson wrote in collaboration -with his step-son, Lloyd Osbourne. - -Zangwill was a very constant and much-appreciated visitor at our -at-homes, as was that encyclopædia of knowledge, his brother Louis. And -their sisters sometimes came with them. They all lived together in those -days at Kilburn. I remember going to a party at their house to meet Sir -Frederick Cowen, the musician, which had a most comical finish. There -were six of us left, and only one hansom between us. Three got inside, -two sat on the splash-board, and Heinemann spread himself on the roof in -front of the man, and kept filling the skylight with his face, like a -Japanese Oni. Phil May sat in the middle inside. He was very excited, -and we were trying to keep him quiet, so as not to draw the attention of -the police to the fact that the hansom was carrying more than it was -licensed for. When we got to the Edgware Road, he began to yell for the -police, and a stalwart constable signalled to the cabby to heave to. He -advanced to the side of the cab. “What is the trouble, sir?” he asked, -preparing to rescue the artist from the literary men among whom he had -fallen. - -Phil gave one of his knowing smiles, and said, “I want to go to -Piccadilly Circus, and they are trying to take me home.” - -But to return to our Zangwills. Louis Zangwill had not yet shown his -strength as a writer, but any one who had tested it, marvelled at the -width of his knowledge. In those days Israel Zangwill favoured Slapton -Sands for his summer holidays. We met him there. He used to wander about -in a black coat and white duck trousers, gathering inspiration. The -sunshine and scenery inspired him to be a perfectly delightful -companion. We once met him yet further afield—at Venice. Norma Lorimer -and I came upon him and Bernard Sickert, the artist, in the Casa Remer, -an adorable old palace, with an open courtyard and a processional stair, -on the Grand Canal. It was quite unspoiled by repairs in those days. It -contained a curio-dealer by the water’s edge, and at the head of the -staircase was a large room in which a very beautiful young Jewish girl -sat sewing for some sweating tailor. We had landed and made an -archæological excursion up the staircase, when we discovered her. She -arose, and with proper presence of mind, and with a total absence of -_mauvaise haute_, conducted us to the curio shop kept by papa. There we -met Zangwill and Sickert. We were all of us tempted by some very -beautiful mediæval iron gates, which would have been a glory in any -nobleman’s park, but as we none of us had a park, and even the six -hundred francs he wanted for them, added to the cost of transport to -England, would have been a considerable sum for any of us, we denied -ourselves, and Zangwill gave a dinner in honour of the event, at a tiny -restaurant on a screwy little canal behind the Piazza of San Marco. The -food and the wine were excellent, and we sat on till the moon was high, -and Venice, on those small old canals, looked like a theatrical -representation of itself for _The Merchant of Venice_. Then we wandered -back to the Piazza to Florian’s, the café whose proud boast it is that -it has never closed its doors day or night for four hundred years. If -you are sleeping in Venice on a summer night—and, in spite of its noise -and its mosquitoes, is there anything more adorable than Venice on a -summer night?—you will find that the habit is not confined to Florian’s. - -At Florian’s we sat down to coffee. We could not get a seat outside; the -band was playing “La Bohême,” and the municipality was throwing red and -green limelight on San Marco in honour of a royal birthday. There was no -waiter either, inside, and Sickert amused himself with drawing an almost -life-sized head of Zangwill with a piece of charcoal which he had in his -pocket, on the marble table. It was a bit of a caricature, but far the -best likeness I ever saw of the great Jewish novelist. When the waiter -did come, without waiting to take our orders, he went to fetch a damp -cloth to clean the table. _Ars longa, vita brevis_—I would not let him -touch it, and told the proprietor what a prize he had as I went out. I -have often wondered what the fate of that table was. Zangwill, the -apostle of Zionism, has always been intensely proud of his nationality, -so he has never minded cutting jokes about it. He brought the house down -at a Vagabond Christmas dinner, where he was taking the chair, by -remarking in his opening sentence, “It’s a funny thing to ask a Jew to -do.” This was the dinner at which he introduced to English audiences the -story which had lately appeared in a German comic paper. A carpenter was -in a crowd waiting to see the Emperor pass. He had an excellent -position, but he was very uneasy because he had promised to meet a -conceited young brother-in-law, and the brother-in-law had not turned -up. - -“Will the Jackanapes never come!” cried the carpenter. A policeman -promptly arrested him. - -“I was speaking of my brother-in-law,” gasped the poor carpenter. - -“You said ‘Jackanapes’; you must have meant the Emperor,” said the -policeman. - -When I asked Zangwill what made him turn to book-writing, he said— - -“I never ‘turned’ to book-writing, because I never thought of doing -anything else, and I have said all I have to say on that subject in the -chapter of _My First Book_, published by Chatto & Windus, a book which -should be a sufficient mine to you for all your friends. I was told at -the Grosvenor Library that the middle-class Jews boycotted all my -books—in revenge for the Jewish ones—but the Jewish ‘intellectuals’ have -always rallied round me, for I remember that the Maccabeans gave me a -dinner to celebrate the birth of _Children of the Ghetto_—a dinner, by -the way, at which Tree announced, amid cheers, that he had commissioned -me to adapt _Uriel Acosta_. I never took the commission seriously, but I -gave him a one-act play, _Six Persons_, which had a long run at the -Haymarket (giving Irene Vanbrugh her first good part), and still -survives, twenty years after, having been played quite recently at the -Coliseum and the Palladium by Margaret Halstan as well as by Miss Helen -Mar somewhere else. - -“An anecdote I remember telling at this dinner was: A man said to me, -‘My son has had typhoid, but he enjoyed himself reading your book.’ - -“‘Where did he get it from?’ I asked, because it was the old -three-volume days, and I knew he could not have bought it. - -“Thinking of the typhoid, he replied, ‘From the drains.’ - -“This theory of the origin of my book is, I believe, favoured in high -ecclesiastical quarters.” - -I knew Mark Twain very well. He and Bret Harte were, I suppose, the two -most famous American authors who ever came to our at-homes at No. 32. -Bret Harte, though he was such a typically American writer, spent all -the latter part of his life in England. I first met him at Rudolph -Lehmann’s hospitable dinner-table. No one could fail to be struck with -Bret Harte. He was so alert, so handsome, and though his plumes—his hair -was thick and sleek to the day he died—were of an exquisite snow-white, -he had a healthy, fresh-coloured face, and a slender, youthful figure, -always dressed like a well-off young man. He used to come to our house -with the Vaudeveldes. Madame Vaudevelde, herself an authoress, and the -daughter of a famous ambassador, kept a suite of rooms in her great -house in Lancaster Gate for his use, whenever he was in London. - -“Don’t you ever go back to California nowadays?” I asked him once. - -“No. I dare say that if I saw the new California, with all its -go-aheadness and modernness, I should lose the old California that I -knew, whereas now it has never changed for me. I can picture everything -just as it was when I left it.” - -He retained his vogue to the end. Any magazine would pay him at the rate -of a couple of pounds for every hundred words. They used to say that the -Bank of England would accept his manuscripts as banknotes. He never -failed to charm, whether he was telling some story at a dinner-party, or -talking to some undistinguished woman, young and beautiful or old and -plain, who had asked to be introduced to him as a celebrity—and a -celebrity Francis Bret Harte certainly was, for he founded a whole -school in English literature. - -Mark Twain was also very kind, but when I was in New York he was living -at Hartford, the capital of the adjoining State of Connecticut. He -described himself to me as a “wooden nutmeg,” in allusion to a former -thriving industry of the State. I met him when he was engaged to -entertain a ladies’ school at New York. That did not cost nothing. The -idea seemed to me very American, that an author at the height of his -fame, as Mark Twain then was—for he was fifty-five years old, and it was -twenty-one years since he leapt into fame with _The Jumping Frog_, -should accept an engagement to “give a talk” in a private house. The -school received good value for its fee. He not only gave them an hour’s -entrancing address, but he stayed on till quite a late train, having -anybody and everybody introduced to him, and being cordial to them all. -Nor was his cordiality short-lived. I had done nothing then, except -publish a few books of verse. Yet we became and remained till the day of -his death, twenty years later, familiar friends. This was before I -received that memorable invitation from Oliver Wendell Holmes to be his -guest at the monthly meeting of the Saturday Club at Boston, where Mark -Twain proved that the English were mentioned in the Bible.[2] He told -story after story in that address, but I don’t remember any of them. -They were all good in tendency, that was one thing; there was no making -fun of anything that was good or noble or sincere with him. He was, like -our own humorist, Jerome, intensely serious in his soul, and he was -projecting a big book about the Bible—as a publisher, for he was already -in the publishing firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., who were producing -the huge _Library of American Literature_, of which E. C. Stedman was -joint editor. - -Footnote 2: - - When challenged to prove it, he read out the text, “For the meek shall - inherit the earth.” - -In order to make all great men authors, it had the idea to give the most -famous sayings of historical Americans, where they had not written -anything. In this way Abraham Lincoln became an author. I expect that it -was that encyclopædia which years afterwards brought the house of -Charles L. Webster & Co. down, though it was sold “on subscription,” -with thousands of copies ordered before the book was begun. Mark Twain -found himself responsible for debts of fifty thousand pounds. I met him -soon afterwards, and began condoling with him on his losses as a -publisher. He replied, “I am no publisher, nor ever was. I only put the -money up for them to play with.” - -To make up his losses to him, a leading American firm—I seem to -recollect that it was the Harpers, but I may be wrong—made him a -gigantic “syndicate” proposal for all rights, which brought in large -sums of money. - -When I met him then, he had just come off ship-board. I asked him how he -was. - -“Better’n I ever was in my life. I’ve gotten a new lease.” - -“How?” - -“Well, it’s a long story. You must know that when I am staying in a -hotel, or on board ship, I can’t go to bed while there is one person -left to talk to in the bar. This habit, I don’t know what ways exactly, -gave me a cough that I couldn’t get rid of, till an old Auntie from -Georgia told me to try drops of rum on sugar. It took away my cough, and -I liked it fine. I went on taking it after my cough had gone; it grew to -be a habit, and before I knew where I was my digestion had gone. I tried -all the doctors I could hear of, at home, and in England, and in -Germany, including Austria, to cure that. But it was not possible; all -they could do for me was to find out what I liked best to eat or drink, -and tell me to do without it. I was wasting to a shadow, so I sent for -my own doctor, and said to him, ‘Doctor, I can’t stand this any longer; -life isn’t worth living, what there is going to be of it, and that -doesn’t seem to be much. I am going to commit suicide.’ ‘Maybe it is the -best thing to do,’ he said. ‘Do you know what is the most painless form -of death?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I am going to eat and drink everything I like -best for a week, and according to all of you, it ought to take much less -time than that.’ - -“So I did, and I assure you, Mr. Sladen, before the week was up, I was -as well as ever I had been in my life.” - -He could reel off this sort of story by the hour, with that slow drawl -of his, which was so mightily effective. - -Frank Stockton, the kindliest and most delicate humorist of America, I -knew very well, and any one who knew him intimately could not help -regarding him with affection. He was a little man with a club foot, and -rather a timid expression, which he made use of when telling his -immortal after-dinner stories; he emphasised the timidity until the -point came, and his face was wreathed with smiles. Stockton was a great -gardener. His garden out at the Holt near the Convent station in New -Jersey was large and beautiful, and the product of his own imagination. -It seemed incredible that a garden like that should have no kind of a -hedge or fence, but he explained that in America to put a fence round -your garden is considered an insult to the democracy, who by no means -always deserve to be trusted in this matter. - -Stockton was so good-natured that his wife used to say he would never -have done any work at all if he had not had a dragon at his side to -guard him. She was not much like a dragon. But on one point she was -inexorable; when the time had really come for him to set about -fulfilling a contract, she insisted on his going into New York to a -hotel with as blank an outlook as possible, so that he should not waste -time over gardening; he could not trust himself within sight of a green -leaf. - -Stockton was a wood-engraver to start with, and was thirty-eight years -old before he abandoned it to do editorial work. A year later he became -assistant-editor of _St. Nicholas_, the American children’s magazine. It -was not until 1880 that he gave it up to devote himself entirely to -book-writing. Up till 1879, the year in which he published _Rudder -Grange_, he only wrote children’s books, and he did not publish his next -book for grown-ups, _The Lady or the Tiger_, for another five years. - -Another old member of the Vagabond Club, always a very intimate friend -of Jerome’s, who was often at our at-homes was Pett Ridge, the humorist -whose knowledge of the East End of London is sometimes compared to -Dickens’s; indeed, many consider him unequalled as a writer of Cockney -humour and an interpreter of Cockney humanity. Unlike Jerome, Pett -Ridge, who also has very earnest convictions and has done a world of -good, has the humorist in him always near the surface. He used to be a -constant speaker at literary clubs, and most popular for his -never-failing fund of humour, which was heightened by his demure -delivery. - -[Illustration: - - JEROME K. JEROME - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -With Pett Ridge, it is natural to mention W. W. Jacobs, our best sea -humorist. People used to be surprised that the small, slight, -youthful-looking man, who was known to them as a clerk in the General -Post Office, should be the delineator of those inimitable captains and -bo’suns and hands before the mast of little sailing-craft which ply -round our coasts. He was one of the men to whom the members of the -general public, who strayed to literary dinners, were most anxious to be -introduced. Their admiration made him shy, and it was a long time before -he grew accustomed to do himself justice in his public speeches, for he -is one of our most genuine humorists. He owed his unique knowledge of -coasting-craft and their navigators to the fact that his father owned a -wharf on the Thames, and that it was one of his chief pleasures as a boy -to go down to the wharf and make friends with the sea-dogs. After his -marriage he went to live in Essex, but, as a bachelor living in London, -he was a very familiar figure at our at-homes. To those who frequented -literary gatherings in the days of which I am speaking, it is natural to -think of H. G. Wells with Pett Ridge and Jacobs, but Wells was much less -seen at these gatherings, because he lived out of town at Worcester -Park. He was already married when I made his acquaintance, and had got -through the first marvellous part of his career, on which he draws for -so many of his books. - -He and his wife found a great difficulty in coming to our at-homes, -because they were such very late-at-night affairs. Once they stayed with -us, sleeping at the Temperance Hotel round the corner, called rather -inappropriately the “London and Scottish,” because all our bedrooms were -turned into sitting-rooms for the night. The pair of them looked -ridiculously young. Wells was very boyish in those days; he was slight -in figure and youthful in face, with thick, rebellious, fairish hair, -and a charmingly impulsive manner. It seems odd to think now that then -he suffered from such very bad health that he was not expected to live -long. Those were the days in which he used to write about flying men and -scientific millennia, most brilliant books which told the British public -that a genius had dropped from heaven, whose crumbs were picked up by -Mr. John Lane. Wells became a Vagabond at a very early date, but he -disliked making speeches, and, in point of fact, hardly ever did make -one in his early days, so his wonderful literary gift was not recognised -so quickly as it would have been if he had been constantly making -speeches before literary clubs and other large audiences. - -A feature of Wells’ writing is his marvellous versatility. He will make -a hit on entirely fresh lines, indulge the public with a few other books -on these lines, and then, before they have time to tire of them, break -out in another fresh vein. It is hard to believe that the same man wrote -_Select Conversations with an Uncle_ and _Marriage_, though it is true -that seventeen years elapsed between their publication, and there were -many changes of style between the two. In those days he was only a -brilliant novelist; now we recognise in him a profound thinker, a solver -of social problems, even if we ourselves are Conservatives. - -In the _New Machiavelli_ and _Marriage_ there is intuition in every page -and almost every line. You can read them with sheer delight for the -writing alone; they do not depend on the story, however excellent. - -Another humorist who was a constant visitor was Max O’Rell—the genial -and irascible Frenchman who, as Paul Blouet, the name to which he was -born, was principal French master at St. Paul’s School. Max O’Rell lived -in a house with a garden at St. John’s Wood. We were very fond of him -and his pretty wife, and much shocked when the two blows fell so quickly -upon one another. Max O’Rell fought for France against the Germans, and -he always looked a fighting man, with his strong figure and belligerent -moustache. He was a fine fencer, and had, I am sure, fought duels in his -time; with his temperament he could not have kept out of them; he was up -in arms in a moment. I remember how fiercely he turned upon Norma -Lorimer for using the expression, “The British Channel.” - -“Why British?” he asked. - -But he was quite floored by the repartee, “Because of the weather.” - -Max O’Rell was always quick at repartee himself—except in America. Of -America and Americans he always spoke in public with his tongue in his -cheek, but in private he was “screamingly funny” about them. He should -certainly have left a posthumous volume of unpalatable truths about -America. It would not have hurt him in the Great Beyond, and it would -have convulsed the English-speaking world. He must often have felt in -America as he felt at Napier, New Zealand, where the audience at the -Mechanics’ Institute, or some such place, would have none of him. - -“I am good enough for London and Paris,” he said, speaking to me about -it afterwards; “I am good enough for New York, Boston and Chicago; I am -good enough for Melbourne and Sydney. But I am not good enough for -Napier, New Zealand—Napier, with its five thousand inhabitants, etc., -etc.” - -He had the same staccato style in his lectures and after-dinner speeches -as he had in his _John Bull and His Island_ and his other famous books, -and he easily drifted into it in his conversations. - -Other humorists of the little circle—it is to be noted how many there -were—were Robert Barr, Barry Pain and W. L. Alden. Barr, as co-editor of -the _Idler_, was a pivot of literary society like Jerome. But his home -for a considerable portion of the period was a long way down in Surrey, -too far for his friends to pursue him to it. This was not without -design, for he was a man so fitted to shine in literary society, that -his one chance of writing his delicate and delightful novels was to bury -himself in the country. - -He made his reputation as “Luke Sharp,” the most brilliant humorist of -the _Detroit Free Press_, at that time the most-quoted paper in America, -and he was very American both in appearance and speech. His brusqueness -and pugnacity were at times terrifying, but underneath them lay a gentle -nature and a most affectionate heart. He was a man who inspired and -returned the warmest affection. His grim humour was famous: it suited -the handsome features, marred with smallpox, the close-trimmed naval -officer’s beard, the sturdy frame, the strong American accent, much -better than his dainty love-stories did. There was no more popular -speaker; his influence among his fellow-journalists was unbounded. He -and his pretty and charming wife, an excellent foil for his pugnacious -exterior, were frequent hosts at the Idler teas, and frequent guests at -our flat. Barr was very biting about England’s national foibles, but -they never moved him to such outbursts of righteous indignation as the -intermittent immoralities of the United States Government. - -He remained faithful to his birthplace till his premature death, for he -called two successive homes of his in the South, Hillhead, after the -district of Glasgow in which he was born. In his later days he was so -much the editor, so much the novelist, that one forgot the humorist, -except when he was convulsing a knot of friends, to whom he was talking -at a reception, or the audience he was addressing across a dinner-table. - -Barry Pain and W. L. Alden, on the other hand, were always humorists. -Alden, who had a most whimsical mind, had been the American -Consul-General at Rome, and had, in consequence, been made a Cavaliere -by the Italian Government. His title was part of his humorous equipment. -It seemed so droll that a typical, middle-class American like Alden, -should be a cavalier. Both he and his wife were kindly and agreeable -people, but most of his personality went into his writing. - -Barry Pain, on the other hand, had a forceful personality. Whenever you -meet this cheery cynic, with his bright dark eyes, you know that you are -in the presence of a man who was born to be editor of _Punch_. He was a -constant speaker at literary clubs, though I don’t think that he liked -speaking at first. His speeches were full of the same brilliant -paradoxes as his books. His cynicism was tempered by overflowing -good-nature. He was always such a hearty man. He was another of the -people who soon flew into the country to get away from parties, and have -time for his numerous contributions to weekly journals. But while he -lived in London he was very often at our house. I made his acquaintance -at the Lehmanns’—he married Stella Lehmann—soon after he had come down -from Cambridge. At Cambridge he had been R. C. Lehmann’s bright -particular star in Granta, and Lehmann, who had wealth, good looks, and -a brilliant athletic record to back up his very great abilities as a -writer, had at once become influential in London journalistic circles. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER X - - THE POETS AT OUR AT-HOMES - - -TO use the famous expression applied by Dr. Johnson to his College at -Oxford, we had quite a nest of singing-birds at 32 Addison Mansions, -for, to mention only three of them, William Watson, John Davidson and -Richard le Gallienne were at the same time habitués of our at-homes, and -Bliss Carman, the Canadian, was constantly with us when he was over -here. - -Sir Lewis Morris, who was considered likely to succeed Tennyson as -laureate at a time when those young poets were in the nursery, sometimes -walked down from the Reform Club to call on us, but he always came on -odd afternoons, a tall man, with a gaunt red face, who in those days was -inclined to put his poetical triumphs behind him, and be the Liberal -politician. Personally, I much preferred the poems of Lord de Tabley, a -delightfully dignified, gentle and affable personage. His poems have -never received full justice; for Graeco-Roman atmosphere he must be -classed with those who come just below Shelley, Keats and Matthew -Arnold—above Horne’s “Orion,” I think. - -Edmund Gosse, who introduced me to Lord de Tabley, introduced me also to -the late H. O. Houghton, at that time head of the eminent publishing -firm of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the John Murrays of America, and to the -late Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the _Century Magazine_, two men at -whose houses I met all the most famous authors of Boston and New York -respectively. Gosse, who had for his brother-in-law the late Sir Alma -Tadema, lived in those days at Delamere Terrace, and at his house on -Sunday afternoons you always met authors of real distinction, men like -Lord de Tabley, Maarten Maartens, Austin Dobson, or Wolcott Balestier, -Kipling’s brother-in-law, the type of genius in a frail body. Edmund -Gosse, besides being one of those poets, rare nowadays, who preserve the -traditional grace of form, the distillation of thought which -characterises the poetical masters of the “Golden Treasury,” was -instrumental in giving England Ibsen and the other Scandinavian giants -of the generation. - -Austin Dobson, a man who has the mild and magnificent eye of Browning’s -_Lost Leader_, the Horace of lighter English poetry, began life, like -Gosse, as a Civil Servant, and, like Gosse, is as felicitous in his -essays and his criticisms as in his poems. But, since he lived at Ealing -and had five sons and five daughters, he was very little to be seen at -literary gatherings in the days of which I speak. - -It is natural to mention Andrew Lang with them. They were the three best -lighter poets of their generation, but Lang had the advantage over the -others of being one of the most brilliant scholars of his time—no man -since the mighty Conington displayed such a mass of classical erudition, -combined with a genius for popularising it, especially in the direction -of translation. Lang’s prose translations can be compared with -Conington’s rhymed versions of Virgil and Horace. He had also a passion -for the occult, and was one of the best scholars in comparative -occultology and mythology. - -His tall, lean figure, mop of grey hair, and screwed-up scholar’s eyes, -were as familiar among golfers and anglers as at the Savile Club, and -other literary coteries, which he deigned to honour with his presence. -He reduced rudeness to a fine art, and never showed his heart to any one -old enough to understand it. But he was nearly a big man as well as a -big scholar. - -One cannot think of Lang without thinking also of Frederic W. H. Myers, -whom I met far earlier. As a child he was remarkable; at thirteen, on -entering Cheltenham College (where I was educated long afterwards), so -precocious was his scholarship that he was placed with boys of seventeen -and eighteen. I doubt if there ever has lived another English boy who -learned the whole of Virgil by heart for his own pure delight, before he -passed the school age. He won the senior classical scholarship in his -first year at thirteen; besides gaining the first prize for Latin -lyrics, he sent in two English poems in different metres, and both were -the best and came out top! - -At the university few men have won more honours. Myers was to Cambridge -as Lang was to Oxford—and more also. He was greater in pure scholarship, -and far greater as a poet, for he wrote “St. Paul,” almost the finest -quatrain poem in the English language. His later volume of poems, -entitled _The Renewal of Youth_, is perhaps less well known, but this -was the poem that he himself cared for most, and its compressed force -and intensity of feeling and wonderful beauty of expression have gained -it a steadily increasing public. - -In his later years he became more absorbed in psychical research. The -success of his famous work, _Human Personality, and its Survival of -Bodily Death_, is well known. The epilogue, pp. 341-352, has become -almost a classic, and the book has now been translated into nearly all -European languages. This would have surprised Frederic Myers enormously. -He wrote to a friend in 1900, “I am occupied in writing a big book which -I don’t expect any one to read, but I do it for the satisfaction of my -own conscience.” He laboured in this field up to his death, with the -same ardour and strenuousness that he threw into all his work. - -He was a wonderful personality—no one who ever saw his unforgettable -eyes, and beautiful majestic head, and heard his marvellously eloquent -voice, could ever forget him. Myers is buried just where he should be -buried—by the side of Shelley and John Addington Symonds in the new -Protestant cemetery at Rome, under the ancient cypresses which top the -city wall. Close by, this wall of Aurelian is pierced by the gate -through which St. Paul was led to his martyrdom. The people who stood on -the wall where the author of “St. Paul” lies buried, could have seen the -Saint pass out. - -Myers and H. M. Stanley married two sisters. I always though it so -appropriate that Stanley’s brother-in-law, one of the greatest scholars -Cambridge ever nursed, should have been so great an explorer in the -Universe. A mutual friend told me that when Myers was on his deathbed, -Henry Sidgwick, the philosopher, quoted to Mrs. Myers some lines in “The -Renewal of Youth,” the poem which Myers himself, and many of his -Cambridge friends, thought the best of all his work— - - “Ah, welcome then that hour which bids thee lie - In anguish of thy last infirmity! - Welcome the toss for ease, the gasp for air, - The visage drawn, and Hippocratic stare; - Welcome the darkening dream, the lost control, - The sleep, the swoon, the arousal of the soul!” - -Sidgwick thought these lines, and indeed, the whole poem, wonderful, far -finer than “St. Paul.” - -Of the younger generation of the poets, four of the most noted, William -Watson, W. B. Yeats, John Davidson and le Gallienne, were at one time -almost weekly at our flat. Watson, whose powerful clean-shaven face -always reminded me of Charles James Fox, before that inventor of -irresponsible Liberalism lost his looks by dissipation, I see still -sometimes. It was only last year that he and his beautiful young wife -asked me to visit them at their house in the country. - -The sturdy Yorkshire stock of which he came is reflected in his poems. -He is accustomed to think and write upon large national and -international movements, and he has a splendid gift of sonorous and -epigrammatic diction. I did not share the views he expressed, but that -did not prevent me from admiring the way in which he expressed them. In -my mind, there was no question but that the laureateship lay between him -and Kipling. But at Oxford Bridges already had a reputation as a poet -while I was an undergraduate. - -When Yeats first came to our house he was a shock-headed Irish boy of -twenty-six, without any regard for his personal appearance. He did not -care whether he had any studs in his shirt or not, and once he came in -evening dress without a tie. But we knew then that he was a genius, and -the world knows it now. He has a fairy-like muse, whose quill is dipped -in pathos. He had then only just given up the idea of being an artist, -like his father. He was an art student for three years. His poems and -plays will live. - -Yeats was very naïve. I remember his complaining to me in the early days -of the Irish Literary Society that it suffered under a grave -disadvantage; its authors were unable to write as “nationalistically” as -they would have desired, because the Irish never bought books, and the -brutal Saxon would not buy them if they went too far in denouncing him. -Those were not his exact words, but they give the substance of them. One -might fancy that these young men and young women, falling between the -devil and the deep sea, took refuge in playwriting, because the -Englishman will go and see a play which is sufficiently pathetic or -sufficiently funny, no matter how disloyal to himself its sentiments may -be; but his purse-strings are tighter with regard to displeasing books. -Yeats was always highly appreciated. When he published _John Sherman_ it -was thought that he had a career as a novelist before him, but he did -not follow this up. - -Another Irishman whom I may mention here is Dr. Todhunter, though he -already had some silver in his beard twenty years ago, and was the -_doyen_ of our poets, and at the beginning the most considerable in his -accomplishments. He had made his name with “The Black Cat” and the -“Sicilian Idyll,” and belonged to an older generation. - -English literature is much the poorer by John Davidson having taken his -own life, in despair at the scantiness of the rewards which his genius -could earn. Davidson was a man I liked very much. His robust personality -was reflected in his brilliant eyes and colouring. His heartiness and -sincerity were transparent and he was a very vital poet. He came often. -Davidson was inspired; there are lines of white fire in “The Ballad of -the Nun.” His cheery, courageous face and blithe smile did not in the -least suggest a man who would commit suicide; they were much more -suggestive of the bloods who lived in the piping times of King George -III. He was another Lane discovery, I think, and I suspect that Lane -brought him to our house, as he brought Beardsley and many another man -destined to be celebrated, W. J. Locke among them. - -Le Gallienne I knew better than any of them. He and his brother-in-law, -James Welch, were conspicuous features at our parties, Welch because he -was irresistibly funny, and in the habit of exercising his wonderful -gift of mimicry at odd moments—we all believed in his future eminence. - -Le Gallienne was even more conspicuous for his personal appearance and -frank posing. He had a face like Shelley, and the true hyacinthine -curls, if hyacinthine curls mean the rich, waving black hair which one -associates with the Greeks of mythology. He was really a rather vigorous -and athletic man, and he used to say in the most captivating way, “You -mustn’t mind me letting my hair grow, and living up to it—it is part of -my stock-in-trade. People wouldn’t come to hear me lecture without it.” - -Undoubtedly his picturesque appearance made him one of the most striking -figures in any literary assemblage, but he also had splendid gifts as a -poet. I have always thought that his version of Omar Khayyam is one of -the most beautiful, and has never received justice in comparison with -other versions. Like Fitzgerald, he was unable to translate from the -original, but that did not signify, because hardly any one in England, -in or out of the Omar Khayyam Club, can understand the original, and the -most popular version of the Rubaiyat is valued, not for what Omar put -into it, but for what Fitzgerald put into it. Huntly McCarthy, who was -only in our house once or twice, did, of course, actually make a -translation of the Rubaiyat, but he is a literary marvel who has not yet -come into his own, author of exquisite poems, and of some of the most -brilliant and delightful historical novels by any living writer. His -father, the genial leader of the Home Rule Party, who loved Ireland -without hating England, and wrote history blindfolded to prejudice, that -grand old man, Justin McCarthy, was a much more frequent visitor. I can -see him now, with his long beard, and eloquent Irish eyes behind very -conspicuous glasses, leaning on his daughter Charlotte, and I can hear -his rich brogue. It was a great honour to be admitted to the intimate -friendship of Justin McCarthy, and when he grew more infirm, and went to -die at Westgate, where he lived on for a surprising time, he never -failed to remember me with a line at Christmas. - -I ought to mention Oscar Wilde here, who had a wonderful gift of -poetical expression, and whom I met when we were both undergraduates at -Oxford, where he used to call himself O. O’F. Wills Wilde—Oscar -O’Flaherty Wills Wilde. He was always known as Wills Wilde. - -But our parties were too crowded for him; he prefered to come to see me -on a chance afternoon, like Lewis Morris. He hated having people -introduced to him, until he had expressed the desire that they should -have the honour, and in meetings so Bohemian he could not have escaped -it. He took a scholarship at Oxford, and won the University prize for -the English poem, and I rather think he got a First Class, but one did -not think of him _dans cette galère_. He had, even in those days, a -desire to be conspicuous, and in those days æstheticism pranced through -the land. Garments of funny-coloured green baize, with a Greek absence -of any pretence at dressmaking, were the badge of the æsthetic female, -who to take first prize was required to have red hair and green eyes, -and a mouth like a magenta foxglove. And the idea was that men should -wear black velvet knickerbocker suits, with silk stockings and black -velvet caps like pancakes. I never saw them doing it, except in an -æsthetic pottery shop in the Queen’s Road, Bayswater, where they sold -Aspinall’s enamels, and on the stage, where Gilbert and Sullivan’s -_Patience_ took the place now occupied by works of genius like Bernard -Shaw’s _Chocolate Soldier_. Wilde never wore the dress at Oxford, but he -was quite courageous in adjuncts. At one time he banished all the -decorations from his rooms, except a single blue vase of the true -æsthetic type which contained a “Patience” lily. He was discovered by -the other undergraduates of Magdalen prostrated with grief before it -because he never could live up to it. They did what they could to revive -him by putting him under the college pump. - -But they applauded his wit, at the coining of a famous example of which -I was privileged to be present. We were both in for a Divinity exam. at -the same time. There was no Honour school in Divinity; it was simply a -qualifying exam. to show that we had sufficient knowledge of the -rudiments of the religion of the Church of England to be graduates of a -religious university; we used to call the exam. “Rudiments” for short. - -I went to the exam., like a good young man, at the advertised hour, nine -o’clock; Wilde did not arrive till half-an-hour later, and when Spooner, -the Head of New College, who was one of our examiners, asked him what he -meant by being so late, he said, “You must excuse me; I have no -experience of these pass examinations.” - -It was the morning of the _viva voce_ examinations, and his being late -did not really signify because W is one of the last letters in the -alphabet. But the examiners were so annoyed at his impertinence that -they gave him a Bible, and told him to copy out the long twenty-seventh -chapter of the Acts. He copied it out so industriously in his exquisite -handwriting that their hearts relented, and they told him that he need -not write out any more. Half-an-hour afterwards they noticed that he was -copying it out as hard as ever, and they called him up to say, “Didn’t -you hear us tell you, Mr. Wilde, that you needn’t copy out any more?” - -“Oh yes,” he said, “I heard you, but I was so interested in what I was -copying, that I could not leave off. It was all about a man named Paul, -who went on a voyage, and was caught in a terrible storm, and I was -afraid that he would be drowned, but, do you know, Mr. Spooner, he was -saved, and when I found that he was saved, I thought of coming to tell -you.” - -As Mr. Spooner was nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the insult -was of a peculiarly aggravating nature, and he ploughed him then and -there. As my name also came low down in the alphabet, I was a witness of -the whole performance. - -Herbert Trench, the poet, who, when he became a theatrical manager, -discovered the “Blue Bird,” often came, a very handsome Irishman of the -blue-eyed and black-haired type. I met him when he and I were fellow -members of the House Committee which discussed the poorness of the -dinners at the old Authors’ Club. - -Frederick Langbridge, the charming poet, who was joint author of Martin -Harvey’s evergreen “Only Way,” only came once or twice, because, like -Dean Swift, he was exiled by an Irish preferment. He is Rector of -Limerick. - -Wilde once brought a friend with him, whose name was Barlass. He wrote -poetry which Wilde admired, though it had no market, and claimed to be a -descendant of the Katherine Douglas who barred the door with her arm -when the bolt had been stolen, to save King James III of Scotland from -his murderers, and was nicknamed Katherine Barlass. I have a volume of -his poems still, but the thing I remember best about him was an episode -which happened when we were both at Wilde’s house in Tite Street one -day. Upstairs in the drawing-room he had asked Wilde, “What do you think -of George Meredith’s novels?” - -Wilde, having nothing effective to say at the moment, appeared not to -hear him. But as he was going out of the front door, he said, “George -Meredith is a sort of prose Browning,” and when Barlass was halfway down -Tite Street, he called after him, “And Browning also is a sort of prose -Browning.” - -Bliss Carman wrote some of the most delightful poetry of them all. Born -in Canada, where they have eternal sunshine in summer, and brought up in -those parts of the Maritime provinces where little mountains and little -lakes and little rivers and little forests combine with a bold coastline -to make Acadia an Arcady, it was only natural that he should be able to -transfigure in his poems the Old World Arcady, with Pan, Faun, Syrinx -and Adonis, and all the lovely rabble of mountain, sea and woodland -nymphs. - -Carman could write from a typical Canadian inspiration also. He could -make you see Grandpré, and the lives of the men who won Canada from the -wilds and maintained a seignorial grace of life in the new France, which -was born in the days of the Roi Soleil, and lived under the white flag -till it went down in the glorious sunset on the heights of Abraham. -Carman’s poetry is rich in romance, and he was a romantic figure, for -with his great stature and fair hair, and blue eyes, he looked as if he -might have been one of the Norsemen led to the far north of the -continent by Leif, the son of Erik, a thousand years ago, whose -descendants were discovered roaming in the Arctic only the other day. As -a matter of fact, he was descended from one of the most famous men among -the United Empire loyalists, who left the United States when they could -no longer live there under the British flag, and gave Canada her -unconquerable backbone. - -I should have mentioned ere this two dear friends of ours who are both -dead—William Sharp and Gleeson White. White was one of my oldest -literary friends. We knew him when we were living at Richmond before we -went to America, and saw a lot of him during the three years we were -there. We came home, I think, just before him. William Sharp introduced -him to us. Sharp, who was the friend of nearly every well-known author -of his time, began life as poet and critic. As general editor of the -“Canterbury Poets,” his name is a household word. There was no -wider-minded critic, none who had a wider knowledge of the poetry and -other verses of his day. But his chief contribution to literature -consisted of the works of “Fiona Macleod,” which were never acknowledged -as his during his lifetime, though he never denied their authorship to -me. We saw him frequently, not only at Addison Mansions, but abroad, -for, like ourselves, he was an insatiable wanderer over Italy and -Sicily. - -Gleeson White did not write much verse himself, but he edited a volume -of society verses under the title of _Ballades and Rondeaux_, in the -“Canterbury Poets,” which had a really public effect. It collected the -best examples of the ballades and rondeaux, and verse in other old -French forms, written by Gosse and Dobson, and Lang, and other -well-known writers, in such a convenient form, and gave the rules for -writing them so clearly, that everybody who had any skill in versifying -set to work to write ballades and rondeaux, and bombard the magazines -and newspapers with them. There was a rage of ballade-writing which can -only be compared to the limerick competitions of _Pearson’s Weekly_. Of -Gleeson White’s accomplishments as an art critic I have spoken -elsewhere. - -Edgar Fawcett, the New Yorker who was so often at our parties on both -sides of the Atlantic, was one of the best American writers of ballades, -though thousands of American writers, according to the sardonic Miss -Gilder, turned them out by machinery. - -Sharp himself was more inclined to the sonnet, as was our mutual friend, -Theodore Watts (now Watts-Dunton), who lived with Swinburne at the -Pines, Putney, and will always be remembered as Swinburne’s greatest -friend. Watts’s sonnets in the _Athenæum_ became as well known to -literary people as Dr. Watts’s hymns. They were among the best sonnets -of the day. Watts was Swinburne’s companion on his famous swimming -excursions. Like the matchless poet who refused the laureateship, he was -a magnificent swimmer. - -Hall Caine was at that time the chief authority upon the sonnet, as he -was one of the chief literary critics of the _Athenæum_ and the -_Academy_. He gave me about that time his _Sonnets of Three Centuries_, -which I still keep. - -Two other followers of the Muse who came to our parties were Mackenzie -Bell and Norman Gale. - -Adrian Ross—Arthur Reed Ropes—who so long carried on a dual literary -life—a Fellow of King’s, an Examiner to the University, and writer of -text-books at Cambridge, while he wrote the songs for George Edwardes’s -musical comedies in London, was a friend of ours before he came to live -in Addison Mansions, partly, I believe, because we lived there. He is an -amazingly clever man; his general knowledge is extraordinary. He took -various ’varsity scholarships and prizes at Cambridge and was the ablest -of the clever journalists with whom Clement Shorter surrounded himself -for his great move. He may also fairly claim to be W. S. Gilbert’s -successor as a writer of really witty and scholarly songs (which have -also been amazingly popular) for the principal musical comedies from _A -Greek Slave_ till the present day. Adrian Ross, who is a Russian by -birth, looks like a Russian with his big, burly form, and fair beard and -glasses, when you see him taking the chair at some feast of reason like -the Omar Khayyam Club. He is one of the chief Omarians, and might, if he -devoted himself to it, write just such a poem as Fitzgerald’s “Rubaiyat” -himself, for he has the gift of form, the wit, and the width of -knowledge, to draw upon. In the same way, if he had been born early -enough, he would have written some of our best ballades and rondeaux. -There, in addition to his extraordinary facility, he had the advantage -of being one of the best-read men in England on French literature, and -one of the chief authorities upon it. He married Ethel Wood, an actress -as clever as she is pretty, who, if she acted more, would be one of our -most successful character-actresses. - -Rowland Thirlmere was another dual personality. When he came to see us -at Addison Mansions he was Rowland Thirlmere the poet, literary to his -finger-tips; when he was at home at Bury he was John Walker, a -Lancashire cotton-mill manager, an ardent Conservative politician, a -“Wake up, England!” man. Did he not write _The Clash of Empires_, a -classic on the German peril? - -Douglas Ainslie, the poet of the Stuarts, who has now established for -himself a solid reputation in Philosophy, was still a diplomat when he -first used to come to see us. - -We had not so many poetesses. The chief of them was Lady Lindsay, whose -_In a Venetian Gondola_ went through many editions, a poetess of the -same order and rank as the Hon. Mrs. Norton a generation before. Her -poetry was strengthened by sincere piety and morality. They gave it the -mysterious quality which attracts us in the old Sienese pictures. - -Among the younger poetesses who came to us, two stood out—Ethel -Clifford, Mrs. W. K. Clifford’s daughter, who married Fisher Dilke, and -Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall. - -The charm of Mrs. Dilke’s poetry is universally admitted, but Miss -Hall’s has not yet received anything like the recognition which it -deserves. - -She is a step-daughter of the famous musician, Albert Visetti, and much -younger than any of the others. To see her, even to speak with her, one -would think that she thought more of her hunting-box and her horses than -of abstractions like poetry. At the time when I first met her, her -winters were equally divided between travelling and hunting, and she -appears to have gathered inspiration from both of these sources. Her -outdoor life in one of our most beautiful counties has given her a deep -love and appreciation of the country pleasures only to be found in -England. There is no one I know who writes more from inspiration. I -reviewed her first book, _’Twixt Earth and Stars_, with real enthusiasm. -Since then she has published _A Sheaf of Verses_, _Poems of the Past and -Present_, and _Songs of Three Counties and Other Poems_. Of these three -volumes, _Poems of the Past and Present_ shows her at her best. - -Visetti was born a Dalmatian, but he has for thirty years been a British -subject—and a very patriotic British subject. He had the celebrated -composer, Arrigo Boito, for a fellow-student at the Conservatoire at -Milan. An even greater composer, Auber, introduced him to the splendid -court of the third Napoleon. Dumas père wrote a libretto for him. He was -Adelina Patti’s musical adviser for five years, and wrote “La Diva” for -her. He was admitted to the personal friendship of both the late King -Edward and the late Duke of Edinburgh. He was the first professor -appointed to the staff of the Royal College of Music. He has written -lives of Palestrina and Verdi. - -“Dolly Radford,” a writer of delicate and sympathetic verse, and her -husband, Ernest Radford, used to come to us in those days. So, very -occasionally, did two Irish poetesses, Mrs. Shorter and Katherine Tynan. -The former, wife of the editor of the _Sphere_, has won herself an -assured position by Celtic ballads of a highly imaginative order. She is -Yeats’s closest rival. - -I first met Mrs. Clement Shorter when she was staying with Miss -Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson) at Ealing, where Shorter first met her. -Mrs. Hinkson thus recalls Miss Dora Sigerson, as she was then, in her -_Reminiscences_— - -“I was the means of introducing Dora some years later to Mr. Clement -Shorter, whom she married. - -“We were all possessed with the common impulse towards literature. We -were all making our poems and stories. Dora Sigerson, who was then a -strikingly handsome girl, was painting as well, making statuettes and -busts, doing all sorts of things, and looking like a young Muse. Dr. -Sigerson was, as he is happily doing to-day, dispensing the most -delightful hospitality. His Sunday-night dinners were, and are, a -feature of literary life in Dublin, chiefly of the literary life which -has the colour of the green. At the time there was no Irish Literary -Society, as there is now, with Dr. Sigerson for its President. The best -of the young intellect of Dublin was to be found at Dr. Sigerson’s -board.” - -Mrs. Shorter has written several volumes of poetry, one with an -introduction by George Meredith, novels and short stories. She also -still paints in oils, and models; her country garden at Great Missenden -has many examples of her talent in this direction. - -Mrs. Shorter’s poetry has an ample range. Some of her ballads are -pitiful tragedies, told with a delicate sense of ballad simplicity, and -an exquisite ear for the broken music which is so essential to ballads; -and, at the other end of the gamut, she can also write songs in a -lighter vein that deserve a composer like Bishop to set them to -music—such songs as the poem called “The Spies” in her _Madge Linsey_ -volume. - -Katherine Tynan, who had married H. A. Hinkson before we ever met -personally, though years earlier she had given me introductions to -Louise Imogen Guiney, the American poetess, and other valued friends -among the writers in America, is the author of short lyrics, human and -graceful, which ought to find a permanent place in our anthologies, as -well as a popular novelist, and has lately written a charming volume of -her _Reminiscences_. - -I have left Sir Edwin Arnold, Thomas Hardy and W. E. Henley to the end -of this chapter. Arnold, whom I used to see daily when we were both -living in Tokyo, was too infirm to come to us much in Addison Mansions -in his last days. - -While he was in Japan, he lived in a native house in Azabu outside -Treaty limits, receiving permission to do so under the legal fiction -that he was tutor to the daughters of the wealthy Japanese who lent him -the house under a similar fiction. It was just outside the Azabu Temple, -a favourite resort for holiday-makers, and had delightful bamboo-brakes, -which rustled rhythm to Arnold in his garden. The house had its proper -paraphernalia of shifting wooden and paper shutters, thick padded mats -of primrose straw, flat cushions to kneel on, flat quilts to sleep on, -tobacco-stoves, finger-stoves and kakemonos. It was so native that you -always had to take off your boots when you went to see him. Here he -wrote the _Light of the World_, and he used to read it to me batch by -batch as he finished it. His manuscript was most edifying; he wrote a -beautiful scholarly hand, full of character, rather like the hand of -Lanfranc, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of William the -Conqueror. He did very little sight-seeing or bargaining. His time was -taken up with receiving Buddhist abbots and the sages who, by -extraordinary abstinence and striking concentrations of mind and will, -had acquired supernatural powers, just as Hall Caine used to see the -leading Mohammedan _ulema_ in Egypt. They had a profound respect for -him. I always fancy that Arnold had in his mind some _magnum opus_ on -those Eastern superhumans, which he never gave to the world. He wrote a -good deal of poetry in those days besides the _Light of the World_, -chiefly translations, adaptations and imitations of the Hokku and other -Japanese forms of verse, in which he excelled. He not only had the -natural charm, he could put his mind on an Eastern plane of thought. He -looked quite Oriental when he was in Japanese dress; his dark skin, his -Oriental type, the deep reserve which lay behind his affability, all -suggested the child of the East. - -Thomas Hardy (who honoured us with his presence very rarely) I must -mention in this context as a poet and not as a novelist, though he is -the head of the novelists’ craft to-day, undoubtedly. I am not certain -that he is not also our truest living poet, except Kipling. He has -certainly come nearer to finding a new poetical form than any modern -poet except Yone Noguchi, the marvellous Japanese, who has written some -of the finest contemporary poetry in our language, for Walt Whitman’s -psalm forms are not suited for any country but America, or for any -writer who is not one of the people working with his hands. His -crudities would not be tolerable in an educated man. But Hardy struck -out entirely fresh forms. Hardy shook off the ancient trammels of rhyme -and metre, while preserving a rich rhythm and a scholarly elegance, in -poems inspired with a broad humanity. - -Henley, who, like Gray, wrote a few gems, which will find their place in -every anthology, was never in our flat at Addison Mansions, though he -was a friend of mine; he could not have climbed so many stairs if he had -tried. - -I remember two sayings of his specially. In those days I wrote verses; -and he was good enough to read my books of verse and advise me on them. -He said there was some hope for me because I wrote short pieces, and, in -his opinion, the perfect poem should never contain more than three -stanzas. But I have long since abandoned verse writing. - -The other was a thing which he said to me when he was giving me some -introductions, on the eve of my departure for America. I thought it was -a joke then, but subsequent events threw a light on it. He was urging me -after I left America to go on and see Stevenson at Samoa. He said that -Stevenson would be my inspiration, and as he was handing me the -introduction he said to me, with what I considered unnecessary emphasis, -“And when you see him, tell the beggar that I hate him for being so -beastly successful.” - -Years afterwards Henley wrote of Stevenson with an acidity which his -friends regretted very much, and which proved to me that what he had -said to me as we were parting was one of those outbursts of candour for -which Henley was famous. - -It required a big man like Henley to confess that he was envious, and -perhaps there was good reason why he should be, for considering the way -their careers began, and Henley’s magnificent intellect and gift of -expression, one would not have prophesied in the beginning that Henley -would only be appreciated by the critical few, and Stevenson by all the -world, gentle and simple. - -I never did see Stevenson. We meant to have taken Samoa on our way back -from Japan to San Francisco, but the Japanese boat which should have -taken us there broke down, and we could not wait for the next. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - LADY AUTHORS AT ADDISON MANSIONS - - -THE great “Miss Braddon,” who is now one of the most valued of my -friends, and a not infrequent visitor, never came to 32 Addison -Mansions. She achieved fame before any living novelist. She had -published _Aurora Floyd_ and _Lady Audley’s Secret_ more than half a -century ago, in 1862, while Thomas Hardy did not write _Under the -Greenwood Tree_ and _A Pair of Blue Eyes_ till ten years after that. Her -powers are undiminished. Her _Green Curtain_, published fifty years -later, is one of the finest books she ever wrote. - -Nor did I ever meet Miss M. G. Tuttiett, who, since she wrote her great -_Silence of Dean Maitland_, has been known to all the world as “Maxwell -Gray,” until I became her neighbour at Richmond. These lost years have -deprived me of a great pleasure, because, apart from my admiration for -her novels, I share two of her hobbies—her enthusiasm for her garden and -her enthusiasm for Italy. - -I used to esteem it an honour and a privilege when dear old Mrs. -Alexander—Mrs. Hector was her real name—used to toil up the stairs to -our parties. Her books were delightful, and she was one of the earliest -of my literary friends, for I met her at Louise Chandler Moulton’s -before I went to America. - -Still more, on account of her infirmity, did I appreciate it when Mrs. -Lynn Linton came. My intimacy with her arose from two facts. When my -novel, _A Japanese Marriage_, came out, she wrote to me in the warmest -terms about it. She not only was enthusiastic about it as a novel, but -thought it an unanswerable piece of advocacy for the relief of the -Deceased Wife’s Sister (now happily accomplished). After that I was a -frequent visitor at her flat in Queen Anne’s Mansions, and later we met -as fellow-guests at Malfitano, the beautiful villa of Mr. and Mrs. J. J. -S. Whitaker at Palermo. She looked the grande dame, and she was a great -woman as well as a great writer, admired in both capacities by all the -great writers of her day, which was a long one—long enough to include -Walter Savage Landor. Her championing of _A Japanese Marriage_ came as a -very complete surprise to me, because she was noted for severity as a -moralist, and the marriage of the hero and the heroine by the American -Consul, after the clergy had refused to marry them, in the eye of the -Law was no marriage at all, since neither of them was an American -subject—it was a mere manifesto that they meant to live together as man -and wife. That letter of hers was the beginning of one of my most -delightful friendships. - -I don’t remember when I first met Mrs. Croker or Mrs. Perrin or Flora -Annie Steel, though they have all been valued friends for many years. As -they are all Anglo-Indians, I suppose that I must have met one of them -through some member of my family in the Indian Army or Indian Civil -Service, and the others through her. My family have been much connected -with India. To mention only two of them, my cousin, General John Sladen, -was a brother-in-law of Lord Roberts, and actually kept house with him -in India for a year, and his brother, Sir Edward Sladen, was the British -resident who played so great a part in Burmah, and whose statue has the -place of honour in the Burmese capital. - -Of one thing I am certain, that the marriage of Mrs. Croker’s beautiful -daughter—the belle of Dublin—to one of the Palermo Whitakers, was not -the introduction, for Mrs. Croker has never been to Palermo, and I -remember her asking me all about the Whitakers’ famous gardens in -Sicily. Captain Whitaker did not live there; he was with his regiment. - -It is natural to mention Mrs. Steel, Mrs. Perrin and Mrs. Croker -together, for they long divided the Indian Empire with Rudyard Kipling -as a realm of fiction. Each in her own department is supreme. - -In the days when we first knew her, and she was living in Ireland, it -used to be like a ray of sunshine when pretty Mrs. Croker, with her blue -eyes and her bright colour and her delightful Irish tongue, paid one of -her rare visits to London. As I write these words, I am about to pay a -visit to her in her Folkestone home. She is exactly the type you would -expect from her irresistible books. - -When I asked Mrs. Croker what first gave her the idea of writing, she -said— - -“My very first attempt at writing was in the hot weather at -Secunderabad. When my husband was away tiger-shooting, and I was more or -less a prisoner all day owing to the heat, I began a story, solely for -my own amusement. It grew day by day, and absorbed all my time and -interest. This was _Proper Pride_. With reluctance and trepidation I -read it to a friend, and then to all the other ladies in the -regiment—under seal of secrecy. Emboldened by this success, I wrote -_Pretty Miss Neville_, and when I returned home with the Royal Scots -Fusiliers, I had two manuscripts among my luggage. These went the usual -round, but at the end of a year I received a small offer for _Proper -Pride_. It came out in August 1892, without my name, and was immediately -successful—principally owing to long and appreciative notices in _The -Times_ and _Saturday Review_, both on the same day. Three editions went -off in a month, and I must confess that no one was as much surprised by -this success as I was. Subsequently I sold the copyright of _Pretty Miss -Neville_ for one hundred pounds, and though now a lady of thirty, she -still sells, in cheap editions. I attribute my good fortune to the fact -that my novels struck a new note—India and army society—and that I -received very powerful help from unknown reviewers. I like writing, -otherwise I could not work. I believe I inherit the taste from my -father’s family, who were said to be ‘born with a pen in their hands’!” -Mrs. Croker tells me that it was I who first introduced her to London -literary society. I consider this one of the most charming successes of -my literary career. - -Mrs. Perrin, on the other hand, since she came back from India, has -played a continuously prominent part in London literary life. She has -been a leading figure at literary clubs and receptions, and has been a -pillar of “the Women Journalists.” As story-teller and psychologist -combined, she has no superior. Those of her wide public who know her in -private life know a brilliant and charming woman of the world, with a -proved capacity for managing literary affairs. - -When I asked Mrs. Perrin what started her in a literary career, she -said— - -“I think I took to writing from sheer need of occupation. When I married -my husband in India, as a girl of eighteen, we were sent to a place in -the jungle where he had charge of an enormous aqueduct which was under -construction. He had several Coopers Hill assistants under him, not one -of whom was married, and I was the only English woman in the locality. -There was no station—or permanent settlement; our houses were temporary -erections of mud, and we were miles from the railway. The landscape -consisted of a sea of yellow grass about the height of a man, and there -was only one road, which lay behind our bungalow—the grand trunk road -that is the backbone of India. I began to write here, just to amuse -myself, and then when we went to less isolated spots, I gained -confidence and used to send little articles and turn-overs to the -_Pioneer_—the principal Indian daily paper. These were nearly always -accepted, and so I took courage and wrote a novel called _Into -Temptation_, which ran through that prehistoric magazine _London -Society_, long ago defunct. The book came out in two volumes and had -very fair notices. Then I wrote another called _Late in Life_, which ran -serially in an Indian weekly, off-shoot of the _Pioneer_, and in England -through the _Belgravia_, and then came out in two volumes. So you may -imagine—or rather, realise—how long ago I began! Both these novels are -now to appear revised and corrected in Messrs. Methuen’s 7_d._ series. - -“However, I did not receive the financial encouragement I had hoped for -from these first efforts, and I lost heart. For nearly ten years I wrote -nothing but a few Indian short stories. Then when my husband was offered -an appointment at home, and we retired before we had ‘done’ our full -time in India, I collected these stories, and they came out under the -title of _East of Suez_. The book was a success and since then I have -written and have been published steadily. - -“I am deeply interested in India, in the people and their religions, and -histories and social systems, and as I was sixteen years in the country -I had an opportunity of receiving lasting impressions, and of gaining -invaluable experience. I come of a family which has been officially -connected with India for five generations. My great grandfather was with -Lord Cornwallis, on his staff, at the taking of Seringapatam, and the -surrender to Lord Cornwallis of Tippoo Sahib’s two little sons as -hostages. He was afterwards Chairman of the old East India Company—known -in those days as John Company. - -“I cannot think of anything more anecdotal in my experience as a -novelist—I can only remember the disappointments and the difficulties of -what success I have made, at which, perhaps, I may now bring myself to -smile, but I do not think they would be interesting if related!” - -A few years ago Mrs. Steel was also one of the most prominent figures in -London literary society. She had written _On the Face of the Waters_, -one of the finest historical novels in the language; she was a hard and -earnest worker in all sorts of movements, and as a fighting speaker -there were few to match her. She could make a good set speech, but her -set speeches were nothing to the oratory of which she was capable if, -when she was totally unprepared, indignation stung her into springing to -her feet to denounce the offender. Then her words came as blows come -from a man who hits another man because he is incensed beyond endurance. -A face full of life and expression added force to her words. - -Since Mrs. Steel settled down on an estate in Wales, she has been little -in London. But in those days she had a sort of country house on the -Notting Hill slope of Campden Hill. She is a keen politician, and not -long ago sold the opening page of _On the Face of the Waters_ as her -subscription to the Women’s Cause. - -Another author lost to London is Sarah Grand. She used to be our -neighbour; she shared a flat in the Abingdon Road with her step-son, -Haldane McFall, the art critic, and author of that remarkable novel, -_The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer_. I met her soon after the success of -_The Heavenly Twins_—a young woman with indignant blue eyes, very -reserved, but with a rare charm of manner behind her reserve. I was -introduced to her, I think, by Heinemann, who was often at our at-homes. -He had, as I understood, purchased _The Heavenly Twins_ from her ready -printed, copyright and all for a hundred pounds, but when the success -came had torn up the agreement, and substituted a royalty agreement, -paying the royalties from the beginning. She had already, I gathered, -received twelve times the original sum in royalties. - -Alfred Walford often came to see us—his wife, Mrs. L. B. Walford, more -occasionally, since she was the mother of a large family as well as many -books, and they lived in Essex. Alfred Walford used to chaff himself -about his connection with literature being to produce the paper on which -it was printed. He was a paper-maker; and she, at that time, was the -favourite novelist of the Colonies. She was the daughter of that -Colquhoun of Luss who wrote that famous book _The Moor and the Loch_. - -The gentle-faced “Miss Thackeray,” the great novelist’s daughter, now -the widow of Sir Richmond Ritchie, I did not know in those days, but I -used to meet her afterwards at Lady Lindsay’s. There was a time when her -_Old Kensington_ was my favourite novel. - -And here I must say something about my old and dear friend, Lady -Lindsay, who has so recently passed away, and whose lameness prevented -her from toiling up the stairs to our at-homes very often. For many -years I was constantly at her house, both at her famous dinner-parties -and running in to have a talk about books when I was sure of finding her -alone, for she was good enough to be much interested in my work. - -[Illustration: - - “MISS BRADDON” - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -The daughter of a Cabinet Minister, the Right Hon. Henry Fitzroy (son of -the first Lord Southampton), a descendant of Nathan Meyer de Rothschild, -who founded the fortunes of his House, and sister-in-law of the Loyd -Lindsay, V.C., who became Lord Wantage, she knew nearly every noted -person of her time, and those whom she did not know, she generally could -have known but for some prejudice against them. At her dinner-parties -you met men like Tennyson and Gladstone and Layard of Nineveh—great -politicians, great nobles, great authors, great painters, but hardly any -one from the theatrical world. I was nearly always the least important -person present. Eight was her favourite number, though sometimes there -were a dozen at her famous round table. The conversation used to be -brilliant; the company was arranged with a view to that—naturally the -chief guest often got possession of the table, and we sat and chronicled -the historic scene in our hearts. - -Afterwards, when one went up into the drawing-room, our eyes rested on -pictures by Sandro Botticelli and Titian, sixteenth-century Italian -wedding-chests, and other inheritances of the great. She wrote more than -one volume of poems which went into several editions. - -It is natural to mention beside her another great lady who was in touch -with all the notabilities of her time, Walpole’s descendant, Lady -Dorothy Nevill, who married a descendant of Warwick the Kingmaker’s -elder brother, the Baron of Abergavenny. Her husband was at one time the -heir-presumptive of the Marquis of Abergavenny. She happily gave her -reminiscences to the world, as Lady Lindsay always meant to do, so -readers know her connections, though she was too modest to show how -Disraeli leaned upon her advice. Among the most interesting things which -I remember in her house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, were the -unique mementoes of her ancestor, the tremendous Sir Robert Walpole, the -Asquith of the eighteenth century. It was she who told me that Nelson -was called Horatio because Horace Walpole presented his father to the -living of Burnham Thorpe, which is still in the gift of the Earls of -Orford. - -Lady St. Helier, another great London hostess, at whose house I have met -some of the most celebrated people of the day—Lady St. Helier and her -daughter, Mrs. Allhusen, never came to see us till we had left Addison -Mansions for the Avenue House, Richmond. No woman has been more -integrally a part of the life of her time than Lady St. Helier, who -wrote an admirable volume of reminiscences. Mrs. Allhusen has the -inspiration of owning a house where one of the masterpieces of -literature was written—Gray’s _Elegy_. For the house in which Gray wrote -it after the inspiration, which came to him as he was leaning over the -gate of Stoke Poges Churchyard, has been enlarged into Stoke Court, and -the room in which Gray wrote out the _Elegy_ forms part of Mrs. -Allhusen’s writing-room. - -Marie Corelli, like Hall Caine, has a dislike of literary receptions. I -cannot remember if she ever came to Addison Mansions, though we have -been friends for many years, and I remember going to brilliant -dinner-parties at her house in Longridge Road. Her stepfather, Charles -Mackay, who adopted her, was one of my earliest literary friends. - -Her stepbrother, Eric Mackay, author of the famous _Love-letters of a -Violinist_, lived with her, and he came to our at-homes so frequently -that I think she must have come with him sometimes. They were a very -musical family. It is always said that Marie Corelli, had she so chosen, -could have won as much fame in music as she has in literature. Her books -illustrate Hall Caine’s axiom that the greatest novels are those which -deal with the elemental facts of human nature. Her grasp of human nature -has won her countless readers in both hemispheres. - -It is not universally known that Marie Corelli is an admirable -speaker—so lucid, so convincing, able by perfect elocution to reach the -furthest corner of the large hall of the Hotel Cecil without raising her -voice. Though she lives at Stratford-on-Avon, and is identified with all -its functions, she is frequently to be seen in London at places like -Ranelagh or dancing at the great balls at the Albert Hall. - -Almost alone of the chief lady novelists of that time, Mrs. Humphry Ward -was never at Addison Mansions. The most interesting thing I remember in -conversation with her was her confession to me one day when we were at -Mrs. W. K. Clifford’s that she enjoys handling the character of a person -who is a failure better than the character of a person who achieves -success. Heroes apparently do not appeal to her. - -Mrs. W. K. Clifford was often at Addison Mansions. She is a very old -friend of mine, and a great personality. Mrs. Clifford is an admirable -example of the modern woman, breezy, wholesome, warm-hearted, -clear-visioned, lucid in expression, interested in all questions of the -day, and withal one of our best novelists. Early in life she suffered a -loss which would have overwhelmed most women, for she lost her husband, -Prof. W. K. Clifford, F.R.S., who was already reckoned the third -mathematician in Europe, at the same age as Wolfe fell at Quebec, -thirty-three, when they had only been married four years, and she was -still a girl. He was the most brilliant Fellow of Trinity (Cambridge) of -his day, and the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society. There is nothing -he could not have done and would not have done if he had lived, for -there was no side of life which did not appeal to him. People of every -rank and of every shade of thought came to see him, and no matter how -little they agreed with him, they were always hypnotised for the hour. - -He had wonderful dark-lashed blue eyes, like his daughter, and a -wonderful soul seemed to be looking out of them. - -But she did not allow her loss to prostrate her, and she has lived to -see her house one of the Meccas of literature in London, and her -daughter, Mrs. Fisher Dilke, a recognised poetess. - -Talking of Mrs. Clifford reminds me of the chequered career of _The -Love-letters of a Worldly Woman_. It was published just twenty years -ago, and though the first edition sold out immediately, no second -edition was published in England, but in America, where it was -non-copyright, it sold enormously. There were a dozen pirate editions of -it, including a marked edition, which means one with the most popular -passages indicated. Such a height of popularity did it reach that it was -actually sold at street-corners in New York! But I have heard that Mrs. -Clifford only got fifteen pounds royalties off the whole dozen editions. - -The first batch of love-letters in this volume appeared anonymously in -the _Fortnightly_, and were generally attributed to Oscar Wilde. As a -piece of poetical justice when Housman’s _An English-woman’s -Love-letters_ were published seven years later, they were attributed to -Mrs. Clifford. _The Love-letters of a Worldly Woman_ was a remarkable -book, and fully deserved its American popularity. - -Mrs. Clifford is, above all things, an idealist and a lover of good -work. She has said, in one of her books, “in good love and good work lie -the chance of immortality for everything that is worth having or being; -and yet, though I’ve aimed at the sun, and longed to put into the -beautiful world something worthy of it, I have never hit higher than a -gooseberry bush, or achieved anything that gave me satisfaction. And -I’ve been so full of enthusiasms and dreams ... perhaps one of the -dreams will come true some day—who knows? For if I live to be ninety, I -shall still feel, as I do now, that the soul of me is as young and fresh -as ever; and it is a sense of the beauty of things, of the kindness that -underlies human nature, even when it’s choked with weeds at the top, -that gives one courage, and helps one to do.” - -Beside Mrs. Clifford I should mention Margaret Woods, whom I first met -when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, and her husband, the present -Master of the Temple, was my tutor, engaged to her while I was his -pupil. I remember his asking me and other undergraduates to meet her in -his rooms. I do not think he told us why, but we knew. She was one of -the few charming women that the monastic Oxford of that day contained. -Her father, afterwards the famous Dean of Westminster, was master of -University College; I used to go to his Socrates lectures. He was -dissatisfied with the progress we were making, and boldly—it was very -bold at Oxford—charged us with paying too much attention to athletics, -and it was then that he made his famous mot, that he had never taken any -exercise in his life, except by occasionally standing up when he was -reading. I have heard that it is equally true of Mr. Chamberlain, but it -was Dean Bradley who said it. The Bradleys were an excessively clever -family. The Dean had a brother or a half-brother a great philosopher, a -don at Merton, and another, Andrew Bradley, a Fellow at Balliol, who -became Professor of Literature at another University. I forget what his -sister, Emma Bradley, did, but she was famous. Three of his daughters, -Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Birchenough, Mrs. Murray Smith, are authoresses, Mrs. -Woods being one of the best novelists of the day, and in my opinion the -best of all poetesses in the English language. When Tennyson died there -was a movement in favour of her being made the laureate, and no woman -has ever had such claims for the post. She made her mark very young with -_A Village Tragedy_ and _Esther Vanhomrigh_, and has written notable -books ever since. Beautiful workmanship, singularly broad humanity, and -truth to life are the characteristics of her prose. In poetry she has -the gifts of both Brownings. She lives in an ideal home, the panelled -Master’s House at the Temple, which has, however, one drawback, that the -only way out of it to a cab on a wet night is to be carried in a sedan -chair; a sedan chair of the eighteenth century is kept in the hall for -the purpose, and passes from one Master of the Temple to another. - -Charles Kingsley’s daughter, Mrs. St. Leger Harrison—the “Lucas Malet” -of fame—used to come to us sometimes before she went back to live at -Eversley, immortalised by her father; and once her cousin, the famous -African explorer, the other Mary Kingsley, came. Lucas Malet is all that -one might expect of Charles Kingsley’s daughter and the writer of _Sir -Richard Calmady_. - -It seems natural to mention the author of _Concerning Isabel Carnaby_ -beside the author of _Sir Richard Calmady_. The two books made a stir -about the same time, and the public mixed their titles with great -impartiality. The author of the former, Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, now -the Hon. Mrs. Felkin, with her sister, Edith Fowler, was a good many -times at Addison Mansions. I have told the story of her becoming an -authoress in my chapter on the Idlers and Vagabonds. - -I should have mentioned Beatrice Harraden before. When you see this -small, slight, delicate-looking woman, with her bright eyes, you are -forcibly reminded of the invalid heroine of _Ships that Pass in the -Night_. But Beatrice Harraden is a public school woman; she was at -Cheltenham College—the ladies’ College—and has taken the liveliest -interest in all the interests of women since. She was cured, I fancy, of -some pulmonary disease by going to California. She now has one of the -most unique flats in Hampstead. I do not remember how I met her, but it -was a long time ago, and I was very elated, because I always thought -_Ships that Pass in the Night_ one of the best-written short novels in -the language. - -Helen Mathers has for many years been a dear friend of ours. She was -another of the authors whose acquaintance it elated me to make. Although -she is much about the same age as myself, she made her two successes -with _Comin’ Through the Rye_ and _Cherry Ripe_ when I was a boy at -school. Her husband, Henry Reeves, the eminent orthopædist, was one of -the very first doctors to make practical use of the X-rays. She had a -son in the army who promised to be her worthy successor in literature -had he lived, as the writing which he achieved proved. Her real name was -Mathews. She was a cousin of the Estella Mathews who married my near -neighbour, George Cave, K.C., M.P., who was in my team, as was Mr. -Justice Montague Shearman, when I was Captain of the Public Schools -Football Club at Oxford, and who now occasionally plays golf with me -when he can get a day off from the Courts, and from the case against -Home Rule. - -Frances Hodgson Burnett I first met in Washington, where she was the -wife of a well-known doctor, and the mother of two beautiful boys in -velvet Patience suits, locally called Fauntleroy suits, in honour of her -book _Little Lord Fauntleroy_. But she was not an American; she was an -Englishwoman born in Manchester, who had made her fame with a book about -the north of England, called _That Lass o’ Lowrie’s_. Eventually she -came back to live in her native England, first of all in a house in -Portland Place and afterwards in a manor house in Kent. Her gigantic -success with books and plays did not turn her head; she was always the -same gracious human woman she had been when she was making her way. - -John Oliver Hobbes, on the other hand, though she lived so much in -England, and wrote all her books over here, was an American-born, the -daughter of John Morgan Richards, who was at one time Chairman of the -American Society in London, and had as much to do with _entente -cordiale_ between England and the United States as any American -Ambassador at the Court of St. James’. He was, as it were, a sort of -social ambassador. The great house in Lancaster Gate in which he lived -till he retired from business was a focus of entertainment for both -branches of the Anglo-Saxon race. - -Mrs. Craigie was a friend of our present Queen. She was extraordinarily -clever and extraordinarily charming. She always gave every one to whom -she was talking the knowledge that for the time being nobody else -existed for her. In intellect she was the equal of any contemporary -woman writer; added to this, she was very pretty, very engaging, very -well dressed, and certainly proved the truth of the proverb “Whom the -gods love, die young.” She had the gift of bringing out the wit as well -as the best qualities of others. - -Another American authoress who has spent most of her life and done all -her writing in England is Irene Osgood, who came here as a very -beautiful young bride of fabulous wealth, and rented a house which was -one of the shrines of English literature—Knebworth, the home of Bulwer -Lytton. She did not write _Servitude_, the book by which she will be -remembered, there, but at Guilsborough, in Northamptonshire, another -seat which she took for the hunting. - -Yet another American authoress, who was also young and beautiful when -she came to England, was Amelie Rives, who was at that time wife of J. -A. Chanler, a great-grandson of the original Astor, but is now Princess -Troubetzkoi. The daughter of a Virginian country gentleman, she simply -leapt into fame with a book called _Virginia of Virginia_, which took -the Americans by storm. She was irresistibly clever, and very -striking-looking, with her pale gold hair, clear dusky complexion, and -big blue eyes. - -Gertrude Franklin Atherton, a remarkable-looking Californian with the -same pale gold hair and rather the same complexion as Amelie Rives, -whose mother was a great-grandniece of Benjamin Franklin, was at one -time a very frequent visitor of ours. She was a long time getting her -recognition, and then suddenly leapt into her full fame. But those who -used to meet her socially knew from the first that she was a woman of -commanding intellect. She had an odd trick of wearing a quill thrust -through her hair. - -Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson are among my oldest literary friends. I -made Williamson’s acquaintance when he was sub-editor of the _Graphic_, -and asked me to write an illustrated article on Adam Lindsay Gordon. -Alice Livingston was an American girl, who came over to England to spend -a year with some friends, and has never been back in her own country for -more than three months at a time since. She had a letter of introduction -to C. N. Williamson, who introduced her to a number of London editors, -and thus gave her a chance of success in story-writing. After their -marriage she wrote many serial stories, some of which appeared in book -form; but the first great “Williamson success” was _The Lightning -Conductor_, suggested by their earliest motoring adventures in France -and Italy. C. N. Williamson having expert knowledge as a mechanical -engineer (he intended to be one, before he determined to become a -writer), it was easy to mingle amusing mechanical details of motoring -with the story, a feature which appealed to lovers of automobiles in the -days, ten or eleven years ago, when the sport was an uncertain -adventure. - -They both love story-telling—Mrs. Williamson used to “print” stories -when she was six years old, before she could write—and have written a -good many popular travel novels since _The Lightning Conductor_. They -love also to see the far corners of the world, though they contrive to -spend two or three months each winter in their Riviera house, and a -month or two in summer among their friends in London. - -Next to travelling, they love to build houses, and make them beautiful. -If they see some land on a hillside with a splendid view, they can -hardly resist buying it, and planning exactly the sort of house which -ought to exist there. This means that they sell their last house, and -begin another, with a different sort of garden, but there must always be -a bull-dog in it, rejoicing in the name of Tiberius, or “Tibe.” - -Madame Albanesi, one of the most successful novelists of the day, and -wife of the well-known musician, is an old friend of ours. She had long -been one of the most successful writers of serial fiction in popular -journals, but it was not until after her marriage with Signor Albanesi -that she turned her attention to novels—one of the earliest of these -books receiving remarkable reviews. She conceived the idea of -advertising these reviews herself, with the result that she was -approached by a number of leading publishers for her next book, and -happily followed with the book which established her name—_Susannah and -One Other_, a book which has been running for over ten years, and is -still selling. The book-reading public only required to have its -attention adequately drawn to her novels, to see what admirable stories -they were—faithful to life, pulsing with human nature. - -I asked Madame Albanesi what first made her write. She said that she -could not remember when she had not tried to write in some form or -other, and that happily for her, when she was quite a girl circumstances -threw her into a circle where her gift of imaginative writing was warmly -encouraged, and opportunities were found for turning this gift to the -most satisfactory results. I remember Madame Albanesi telling me that an -interesting fact in connection with her earlier writing was that her -imagination was so fertile that she used—before she was twenty years -old—to keep three or four serials running at the same time. She never -had less than two going at once, and wrote them in instalments from week -to week, and never took a note. Everything was published anonymously, -and a new serial would begin before the old one was finished. Madame -Albanesi regards her serial work as being the very best training for -telling a good story. - -I ought to have mentioned earlier, since she belonged to that -generation, John Strange Winter, a shining light in Bohemia at the epoch -of which I am writing. She made her first success when I was at Oxford, -with _Bootles’ Baby_, and _Hoop-la_, but she had lost her vogue before -we went to live at Addison Mansions, though her name remained a -household word, and she continued to publish a number of popular books. -She was then living in an old house at Merton near Wimbledon, but -shortly afterwards came to live at West Kensington, because she found -Merton too far out. - -She was a woman of inexhaustible energy, and had a very kind heart. She -was exceedingly good to young authors and journalists; she made their -cause her own; she welcomed them to her house, and visited theirs. She -was a sister-in-law of George Augustus Sala. She was unfortunate in -losing her public; she would have it again if she were alive now. But at -that time a wave of preciousness and morbidness, which left her -stranded, was passing over the country. - -“George Egerton” and “Roy Devereux,” very pretty and clever women, were -at the top of that wave among women, the former with books like -_Keynotes_, the latter, and George Egerton’s beautiful sister, Miss -Dunne, with brilliant and virile journalism in the _Saturday Review_, -the _Pall Mall_ and elsewhere. Lane was their publisher, Beardsley was -their illustrator, H. G. Wells headed the list of their male rivals, -followed by Arthur Machen, H. D. Lowry and others. I have all their -books—such slim books for novels. Fisher Unwin had another school of -them, headed by John Oliver Hobbes, as daring from the sex point of -view, but lighter in touch, which he published in long slim books with -yellow paper covers at eighteenpence each. _Some Emotions and a Moral_ -came out in this series, which I heard some one ask for at Smith’s -Library quite seriously as _Some Morals and a Reputation_. These were -Wells’s _Time Machine_, _Stolen Bacillus_, and _Wonderful Visit_ days. - -I asked George Egerton, who was in camp at Tauranga during the Maori war -as an infant, and as a child was in her uncle Admiral Bynon’s fleet -while he was bombarding Valparaiso, and who I knew was intended for an -artist, what had made her turn writer. She told me— - -“Why I wrote? Because I had to. Why I wrote as I did? Because I felt -woman could only hope to do one thing in literature—put _herself_ into -it. Write not in breeches, but in corsets. That I took the name of -George Egerton was partly because I did not think any publisher would -take stories of that kind written by a woman, partly to see if my sex -would make itself felt. _Keynotes_ went into seven languages in two -years. I am not dead abroad. At the Goethe Centenary in Weimar the Dr. -Professor who gave the lecture on literature of the century, spoke of -Rudyard Kipling and George Egerton as the two who had introduced a new -note, a new method, into English literature ‘in our time.’ - -“I gave up writing books when I found that authors are ‘unsecured -creditors’—not worth the candle unless one can reel off popular stuff. I -can’t. I go to America with plays. I make any money I make there. I -shall arrive here too. I am doing a big book now, and I am starting a -book of recollections. If one attaches credence to the fortune-tellers, -I am to live to be an old woman. It might be amusing, if only to -demolish the men and women of straw one has seen lauded to the skies, in -one’s memory.” - -Marie Belloc, who had not then married Lowndes of _The Times_, was a -constant visitor. She belonged very much to the Idler and Vagabond set -of which we saw so much, and was already longing to write novels, though -many years were to go by before she was able to fulfil her wish. She is -a sister of Hilaire Belloc, the free-lance M.P. of the last Parliament, -one of the wittiest writers of the day, who has the further distinction -of having been a driver in a French artillery regiment and a Scholar of -Balliol afterwards. It should be added that he was twenty-three when he -went up to Oxford. - -Marie Stuart Boyd, of the same set, the wife of the well-known _Punch_ -and _Graphic_ artist, did not begin to publish her delightful books till -nearly ten years later, though she was a regular contributor to -important Reviews. - -Mrs. Frankau (“Frank Danby”), who came with her sister, Mrs. Aria, had -at that time dropped writing for engraving, and did not resume it till -some years later. _Pigs in Clover_, and her other successes in fiction, -belong to a much later date. - -One of the most daring and witty of women writers, Violet Hunt, was -constantly at our at-homes. With a father who was a well-known artist, a -Fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and a friend of Gladstone’s, and a -mother who wrote novels of repute; and brought up in the brilliant set -which gathered round Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, it was no wonder -that she should be extraordinarily clever, and no one was surprised when -she produced scintillating books like _The Maiden’s Progress_ and _A -Hard Woman_. South Lodge, their house on Campden Hill, was a Mecca for -distinguished literary people. It was there that I first met Andrew -Lang, Robert Hichens, Somerset Maugham, Katherine Cecil Thurston in a -crowd of writers of high calibre. It was one of the few houses where -Lang was natural without being rude. - -I now come to a group of able women writers whom I met at clubs like the -Pioneers and the Writers’, though they mostly came often to our at-homes -afterwards. First among them I may place that brilliant and delightful -writer, Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, who published her early novels under the -pseudonym of “Mrs. Andrew Dean.” Her husband, Mr. Alfred Sidgwick, is -the author of well-known works on logic, and one of the earliest of the -modern school of philosophers, known as the Pragmatists. He is a cousin -of Mr. Henry Sidgwick (d. 1900), the distinguished Professor of Moral -Philosophy at Cambridge, who married Mr. A. J. Balfour’s sister, the -guardian spirit of Newnham. - -Mrs. Sidgwick’s novels have always been full of verve. She has steeped -herself in the literature of three countries, and until she married knew -the world better from the Continental point of view than from the -English. But her marriage took her amongst English people, so that she -has had unusual opportunities of understanding two nationalities -intimately. In those days we saw a good deal of her because she lived at -Surbiton, but for many years past she has lived in Cornwall. - -At the same club I met Miss Montrésor, whose delicate health has -prevented her seeing much of London literary society, though she lives -in South Kensington. With her _Into the Highways and Hedges_ she leapt -into fame at a single bound. Miss Montrésor is a genius. Her intuition -enables her to describe with fidelity phases of life with which she -cannot have had any acquaintance. When she wrote _Into the Highways and -Hedges_, my friend Sheldon, who was the London manager of D. Appleton & -Co., gave me five pounds to write a careful opinion of it, to see -whether his firm, to whom it had been offered, should publish it or not. -I gave them a long opinion, in which I told them that they could not -possibly refuse such a book. But they did refuse it, because almost any -American publisher will refuse any novel which is not by a novelist who -has already made a great name. Some other New York firm took it, and it -was the book of the year in America. - -At a club, too, I met Annie Swan (whose husband, Dr. Burnett Smith, was -last year Mayor of Hertford), twenty years and more ago, a woman -completely unspoiled by success, which came to her early and without -stint, and remained. She stands at the very head of the writers of the -wholesome school of fiction. In those days she lived at Hampstead, in a -house called “Aldersyde,” after the novel which gave her her fame. She -is one of those people whose obvious sincerity charms you the moment you -meet them. I don’t know whether she is interested in spiritualism, but I -did on one occasion meet Florence Marryat and Dora Russell together at -her table. - -Of Florence Marryat (Mrs. Francis Lean), the daughter of the immortal -Captain Marryat, I saw a good deal at one time. She was a very regular -attendant at a dining club called the Argonauts, which Frankfort Moore -and I got up because the Vagabonds would not then admit ladies to their -banquets. Spiritualism played an immense part in her life. She was also -a very voluminous writer. I remember her telling me that she had written -more than seventy novels. She was a tall, striking-looking woman, whose -eyes suggested intimacy with the occult. - -The Leightons, who are among my most valued friends, I certainly met at -some club—Marie Leighton is the best newspaper serial writer of the -day—a story-teller born, and, like her husband, a great authority on -dogs. One at any rate of her thrilling stories has been dramatised and -others are sure to follow, as the managers of the melodrama theatres -recognise how immensely dramatic her stories are. - -“Lucas Cleeve,” another frequent visitor at our house, wife of Colonel -Kingscote, and daughter of Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, M.P., who made with -Mr. Balfour, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Sir John Gorst the celebrated -Fourth Party, had an extraordinary facility for writing novels of a -certain merit, and, like her father, was a great linguist and traveller. -Sir John Gorst introduced me to her. I met him at Castle Combe, which -now belongs to him, and then belonged to his brother, the late Edward -Chadwick Lowndes. I was staying with my brother-in-law, Robert Watkins, -the agent of the estate, which is one of historical interest, for its -archives prove it to have been irretrievably wasted by Sir John -Fastolfe, Knt., Shakespeare’s Falstaff, who had married the widow of the -last of its Scroop owners, and managed the estate for her. He built the -chancel arches in the church, fine and early Perpendicular. The Scroop -and Falstaff house has long since disappeared, while the Cromlech of a -British Chief, and a Roman Camp, continue almost perfect. I was often -the guest of Sir John’s eldest son, Sir Eldon, when I was in Egypt, and -his younger son, Harold, and his charming wife, have been our intimate -friends for many years. Mrs. Harold Gorst, who was a Miss Kennedy of the -famous Shrewsbury School family of scholars, has an extraordinary -knowledge of the life of the poor in London, and her novels reflect it -with a fidelity which should have won them ten times their circulation. - -Quite a prominent place among the authoresses who used to assemble on -those evenings at Addison Mansions is occupied by novelists who began as -my secretaries, and whom I trained to write. - -I have been singularly fortunate in my choice of them. Not only have -they given me so much satisfaction as secretaries that I have only had -to send one away for inefficiency, and none for any other reason, but -they have made such good use of the opportunities they had for observing -the ways of book-writing, that in the twenty-seven years since the first -came to me, they have between them had more than twenty-seven books -published and paid for by leading firms like Hutchinson, Heinemann, -Methuen, Hurst & Blackett, Constable & Co., Chatto & Windus, Eveleigh -Nash, Mills & Boon and Stanley Paul. - -My first secretary was Norma Lorimer, who came to us in her teens, -before our memorable journey to America, Canada and the Far East. She -has accompanied us on every important journey we ever made in Europe, -Asia, Africa and America since I returned from Australia. When -typewriting came in, she ceased to be my secretary, because she was -never a typist, but she continued to live with us, and act as hostess, -since my wife’s health has never permitted her to undertake the strain -of managing the large literary, artistic and theatrical receptions which -we held weekly for a good many years. - -During that period Miss Lorimer made an immense circle of friends, which -included practically every one in our acquaintance. Men like Fisher of -the _Literary World_, and Robert Barr urged her to write a book for -years before she could persuade herself to put pen to paper, though -seeing so many of my books put together, and transcribing when they were -finished, had familiarised her with the process of book-making, and -though she had assisted me at every stage, in sight-seeing with an -armful of guide-books, in making copious notes, in studying all the -available authorities on the subject, and in digesting and arranging the -information if it was a travel-book, or in giving her advice about the -story if it was a novel. She must have been with us quite ten years -before she published her first book, _A Sweet Disorder_. Since then, -besides the two books in which she collaborated with me, _Queer Things -about Sicily_ and _More Queer Things about Japan_, she has brought out -_Josiah’s Wife_, _Mirry-Ann_, _By the Waters of Sicily_, _Catherine -Sterling_, _On Etna_, _By the Waters of Carthage_, _The Pagan Woman_, -_By the Waters of Egypt_, _By the Waters of Italy_, _The Second Woman_, -_A Wife out of Egypt_, and _By the Waters of Germany_. - -It gives me great satisfaction to think that she was my pupil in -writing, for most of these books will stand reading again and again for -the admirable sayings and analyses of life with which they are strewn, -as well as for their stories, and the knowledge displayed in them. They -are redolent with the atmosphere of the Isle of Man, Japan, Italy, -Sicily, Tunis and Egypt, and one of them, _Josiah’s Wife_, contains a -brilliant picture of America, where she lived with us for nearly three -years. - -Miss Lorimer comes of a very clever family. Her uncle, James Lorimer, -was Professor of International Law in the Edinburgh University, and -wrote some of the standard books upon the subject. He was a man of -international reputation. His hobby was the restoration of Kellie Castle -in Fifeshire, which he acquired from Lord Kellie and Mar, and, as the -Latin inscription sets forth, “rescued it from the bats and the owls.” -Living at Kellie was the inspiration of three of his clever children. -His youngest son, now Sir Robert Lorimer, has become the most famous -living Scottish architect. He had the high honour of building the Chapel -of the Knights of the Thistle in St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh. His -second son, J. H. Lorimer, the Scottish Academician, is recognised as -one of the soundest painters of the day. One daughter, Lady im Thurn, -caught the trick of the beautiful moulded plaster ceilings at Kellie, -done by a wandering band of Italian artists in the seventeenth century, -and was entrusted with the execution of the moulded plaster ceilings -which Lord Bute had made for his House of Falkland. Another daughter is -an author, and the other married Sir David Chalmers, the only man who -ever earned two pensions as Chief Justice of two tropical colonies. - -My next secretary was Miss Maude (Mary) Chester Craven, who had -quarrelled with her stepfather, and was seeking to make her own way in -the world. - -She was a singularly clever girl, very much interested in literature, -with a great sense of humour, and a great idea of “copy.” Had she come -to me later, when I was writing the various volumes of _Queer Things_ -series, I should have been able to make better use of her help. She was -most generous and self-sacrificing, and when she had thrown herself into -the subject, you could hardly get her away from the papers. And she was -very well read on certain subjects. - -A few years after she left me she wrote an excellent book called _Famous -Beauties of Two Reigns_. Since then she has found a niche all to herself -in book-producing—teaching people who have led interesting lives, and -have good stories to tell, but have had no literary experience, how to -put their biographies together and editing them herself. The books -produced in this way have proved some of the greatest sensations of our -times. Lady Cardigan led off, followed by the adventurous ex-Crown -Princess of Saxony, and Lord Rossmore’s racy recollections came as an -_entr’acte_ to the drama of Meyerling as narrated by Countess Larisch. - -Editing these books has made Miss Craven—she is now Mrs. Charles -ffoulkes, wife of the Master of the Armour of the Tower of London—an -admirable raconteur, and she told me that the late M. Charles Sauerwein, -directeur of _Le Matin_, had offered her a large sum to write her -reminiscences of her “sitters,” but conscientious scruples prevented her -from accepting the tempting offer, as to disclose all she knew would -have caused trouble in London and elsewhere. - -The ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, for instance, was a most ingenuous -person, who would have written a chapter, had Miss Craven permitted her, -on “why the royal honeymoon bored her to tears,” and much more that -would have caused endless scandal and heartburnings to the Saxon court. - -“Our Louise,” as she was termed by her subjects, had a positive mania -for cleanliness, and she told Miss Craven that once when she was -travelling with her mother the water supply gave out and she was in -despair how to wash her hands. But necessity originated a brilliant -idea, and at the next stop Louise rushed to the buffet, and returned -with a waiter staggering under many bottles of mineral water, with which -she performed her ablutions. “Surely,” remarked the Grand Duchess of -Tuscany, “there is no accounting for your vagaries, Louise!” - -Miss Craven asked the Princess what she most desired to do when the -dullness of palace life obsessed her. “To post a letter in a pillar-box -like any one else,” was the reply. Once, coming from the Continent, she -overheard some fellow-passengers discussing her rather freely, and -entering into the spirit of the adventure, Louise joined in the -conversation, and for once saw herself as others saw her. “Well,” said -she, as the train slowed into Charing Cross, “you’ve had an opportunity -of meeting that terrible woman—I am the ex-Crown Princess,” and when the -horror-stricken occupants of the compartment saw her name upon her small -luggage, they realised that the pretty, vivacious, fair woman was none -other than the former wife of the King of Saxony. - -Lady Cardigan (whose recollections “Labby” described as a classic) -disliked the blue pencil, for she saw no reason why you should not say -what you like in a book. She was a most brilliant anecdotist, and Miss -Craven said she could tell good stories for a fortnight without -repeating herself. One, which related to a well-known Bacchanalian -member of the aristocracy, is worth recalling. The gentleman in question -once kissed a pretty housemaid, who made a decidedly original protest. -“I wonder, my Lord,” said the girl, “that a nobleman like you don’t -drink champagne. Brandy do colour your breath.” - -Lady Cardigan held the opinion that sauce for the goose was sauce for -the gander. “Men fall in love with ballet-girls, barmaids and servants,” -she once remarked, “so why shouldn’t women fall in love with men of -inferior station if it amuses them?” - -Maude Craven could tell of flutterings in the dove-cotes of Mayfair, and -of many skeletons in ancestral cupboards whose bones must have rattled -in dread of what Lady Cardigan’s marvellous memory could have recalled -about them. - -The lady who followed Miss Craven had only been with us for a short time -when the doctors told her that she could not live in England. She went -to California and got married. Miss Marie Ivory, who followed her, -married a famous artist. - -Miss Ethel Phipps, the next, was with us for several years, and -accompanied us to Italy and Sicily, and inaugurated the system of -tissue-paper scrap-books, which I have found so useful in collecting the -materials for my books of travel. And she was an excellent typist, the -first excellent typist we had had, though I took up the use of the -typewriter quite early. The first I ever had was a Remington which I -bought in 1883 in Sydney from a man named Cunningham who reported law -cases for the _Sydney Morning Herald_. He sold it to me for half the -price he had given for it (I paid him about fifteen pounds, I think), -because the judges would not look at his notes when they were in -typewriting. He had bought the instrument under the idea that the extra -legibility would be received with acclaim. The judges thought that the -machine might not write down what the reporter meant it to—they credited -it with the powers of a planchette, which was then very fashionable. - -Miss Phipps wrote a very amusing little book called _Belinda and -Others_, which Warne bought from her and published both in England and -America. - -When she left us because she was needed at home, her place was taken by -a very clever and interesting girl fresh from school, who has made a -great name for herself in fiction—Miss Ethel May Stevens, whose pen-name -is Ethel Stefana Stevens. We took her to Sicily almost directly she came -to us, and Italianised her surname into the nickname Stefana, by which -even her own relations grew to call her. - -The moment I saw her I was struck by her brilliance and intelligence, -and I did not require to learn that she had carried everything before -her at Miss Douglas’s famous school in Queen’s Gate, to know that she -was much the ablest of the ladies who answered my advertisement when -Miss Phipps had to leave us. - -At various times she travelled all over Italy and Sicily with us, and -visited Tunis and Carthage. She was with us for several years, and a -great worker. On her fell the almost incredible labour of typing out and -keeping sorted the immense mass of materials accumulated chiefly from -Italian sources, for the Encyclopædia called _Things Sicilian_, which -forms the bulk of my _Sicily, the New Winter Resort_. - -She had studied a great deal before she came to us, and besides a good -knowledge of French and German and music (she played the violin -charmingly), had a strange accomplishment—she spoke Romany, the Gipsy -language, so fluently that when she made up a little, even gipsies took -her for a gipsy. She had learnt it in the New Forest, which was near her -home. She began before she had been very long with us the gipsy novel, -which now, after many years, she has taken up again. It was a story with -a strong love interest in it, but it gave no promise of the admirable -gift of writing which she has shown in her published works like _The -Veil_ and _The Mountain of God_. In the large amount of reviewing which -she did for me—against time, it was true—she had a habit of introducing -stock phrases and introductory periphrases, such as “the worst of the -whole matter was that,” “that redoubtable,” “the venerable form of.” Her -criticisms of books were in judgment very good, but in expression they -were verbose and lacking in distinction. She was always studying in the -fine library which I had collected as a reviewer. Besides gipsy-lore and -music she was especially interested in everything connected with -occultism and amulets, and the Black Art generally, and everything -connected with the Orient. It was in the three excellent chapters which -she wrote for my _Carthage and Tunis_, where they are signed with her -own initials, E. M. S., instead of the E. S. S. she uses now, that Miss -Stevens first showed what she could do when she tried. The chapters are -Chapter VI, Volume I, “The Lavigerie Museum at Cairo”; Chapter XVIII, -Volume II, “Superstition in Tunis”; Chapter XX, Volume II, “A Tunisian -Harem, and the Tombs of the Beys.” - -It was when she was visiting Tunis with us that she first heard the -“East a-callin’.” She found it absolutely irresistible. In the short -time that we were there she began to learn Arabic, and acquired quite a -good knowledge of Arab amulets, and the Egyptian amulets in the museum -at Carthage. She afterwards paid another visit to Tunis before she wrote -her memorable book, _The Veil_, one of the most successful novels of its -year. - -In search of a fresh Oriental subject, she next went to Haifa, the -Syrian seaport, where she was lucky enough to live in the little colony -which surrounded the present head of the Bahai movement, and to see a -great deal of the inner working of that movement, which is said to count -half the Shia Mohammedans (chiefly Persians) among its secret adherents. -So high an opinion did Abbas Effendi form of her abilities, that he -invited her to stay in his house and gave her a special course of -instruction, which lasted over many months, in the philosophy of the -sect. - -Her stay at Haifa also supplied her with the materials for her second -novel, _The Mountain of God_. Since then she has published several able -and successful books, just as _The Earthen Drum_, _The Long Engagement_, -_The Lure_ and _Sarah Eden_, for the material of which she paid two -visits to Jerusalem. - -My next secretary, who was with me for seven years, has also had three -books published by leading firms. - -It is not by any means an uncommon thing for authors’ secretaries to -become authors. One of the most conspicuous examples is Mary E. Wilkins, -now Mrs. Freeman-Wilkins, who was for a long time secretary to Oliver -Wendell Holmes. I well remember the day when he stopped me in the street -in Boston (U.S.A.), to say, “I have a hated rival. My secretary, Mary -Wilkins, has just published a novel—a much better one than I ever -wrote.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - LITERARY CLUBS: MY CONNECTION WITH THE AUTHORS’ CLUB - - -WHEN we came back from the United States in 1891, besides our wide -American circle, most of whom were in the habit of frequently visiting -England in the season, we soon found ourselves in the heart of a -Bohemian society, which met almost daily at one or other club or -reception. Receptions had become the order of the day among London -literary people, artists and actors. The epidemic came over from America -at the same time as the habit of personal journalising. Certain popular -newspapers devoted columns and columns every week to giving every -species of good-natured gossip about the biographies and home-lives of -well-known people. It was this movement which culminated in the -production of _Who’s Who_. Interviewing was a feature of the day. From -living like hermit-crabs, English authors suddenly began to realise the -value of publicity in the sale of their wares. - -They had always in a decorous Victorian way met at the Athenæum Club, -but that did not open its doors at all. The pleasant Garrick and the -Savile had an almost equal dread of literary burglars. The National Club -had only a select few authors who liked its fleshpots. But their younger -rivals saw in receptions a fresh element of interest to attract and -benefit members. The Arts Club, the newly founded Authors’ Club, the -Hogarth, the Savage, the Vagabonds, and the Playgoers, to all of which I -had been elected, were free and fearless in their hospitalities, and -here, and through friends I met in these clubs, I acquired the -friendship of many of the world’s workers. - -The Arts Club in those days was a jolly place; charming and -distinguished men could be found dining there almost every night, and -after dinner you played pool with the Royal Academicians, or talked -scandal about the way that artists were elected, and pictures selected, -to the Royal Academy. These were most enjoyable evenings. - -At the Hogarth, not far off, the artists who were not in the Academy or -in the Academy set, used to assemble. It is the artist’s habit to work -till daylight is gone, and then to waste his time in conversation or the -billiard-room. The talk, when it was not shop, was all what they call in -theatrical circles “gag.” Some of their shop was quite interesting, -because it ran upon new men and new methods. I liked the latter best. -Artists, unlike authors, are generally more ready to detract than to -praise. They wish to mount over the bodies of the slain; they do not -hold out a hand to those who are lower down the hill. But they were very -kind to each other with money, though they were so unkind to each -other’s work, and none of them seemed to stay at home to read after they -had done their work. - -The Authors’ Club had been established recently enough for me to come in -as an original member. The Vagabonds Club, which had been in existence -for a good many years, had not yet expanded into the New Vagabonds Club, -nor had the White Friars organised banquets. The old Playgoers had a -good many literary members, chiefly dramatists or would-be’s. The Arts, -the happy hunting-ground of famous artists, had a few; the Hogarth, the -favourite meeting-place for less favourite artists, had a few more; the -Savage, in spite of its traditions, and the Garrick not many more; and -the editors of the _Idler_ were in the habit of giving teas, which -practically constituted a tea club without a subscription. I never was -at the Yorick. - -The Authors’ Club at that time took the lead in receptions. Sir Walter -Besant, who founded it, made it his mission in life to bring authors -together, both for the enjoyment of each other’s company, and for the -defence of their common interests. For these purposes he originated both -the Authors’ Club and the Authors’ Society, which had, in 1891, the same -secretary, and himself for chairman of both, but which were technically -unconnected. - -The Authors’ Club owed its success, and especially the success of its -meetings, to Oswald Crawfurd, not less than to Besant himself. Crawfurd -had written a book or two, but he had no eminence in literature, beyond -having put enough money into Chapman & Hall to become chairman of the -company and editor of its review, the _Fortnightly_. But Crawfurd was -rich, and at Eton, and as a Consul-General, he had won the friendship of -half the well-known people in London. He used his influence, his energy -and his money, prodigally, in making the new Club go. He entertained -possible members both at the Club, and in his own home and at favourite -restaurants; he wrote an enormous number of persuasive letters; he kept -the thing going generally. The Club was his protégé as much as Besant’s. - -Besant, with whom I had been in correspondence before I went to America, -at the moment that he recruited me for the Club, was interested in -introducing American methods at its meetings, and as I had just returned -from America, the directors made me honorary secretary for this purpose. - -I spent three years in America, and during that time enjoyed the -hospitality of all the leading literary and Bohemian Clubs in New York, -Boston and Washington. Washington, as far as I remember, had only one of -any importance, but Boston and New York were rich in them, and I brought -over ideas from them. - -I explained to Besant what seemed to me the best features of American -literary gatherings, and he evolved from them a programme for our weekly -dinners at the Authors’ Club; but he thought that reading a paper, -followed by a discussion, or entertaining a great author, whose health -was proposed and who had to make a reply, was more suited to an English -audience than telling anecdotes. I think he was right; telling anecdotes -is not an English art. The American expects boundless patience from his -audience while he elaborates the gist of the story; the longer he -prolongs the agony, the better his audience likes it. He has made a fine -art of story-telling, and does it well enough to take the place of a -curtain-raiser at a theatre. The Englishman only does it in -private—generally to the distress of his family—or introduces it -incidentally into one of his speeches. Except barristers, and -politicians, and clergymen, most Englishmen are afraid of the sound of -their own voices in public, though Englishwomen often do not suffer from -this disability. There is really some justification for the story of the -man who was asked to give a definition of _woman_. He began, “Woman is, -generally speaking....” “Stop there!” said his friend. “If you went on -for a thousand years you would never get so near it again.” - -Englishwomen as a class are much better speakers than Englishmen. - -We got along comfortably at the Authors’ Club with entertaining eminent -persons, and expecting them to speak in recognition of the compliment, -until Sir Augustus Harris was asked to propose the health of Isidore di -Lara, whose opera he had just presented at Drury Lane. Harris made a -long speech, in which he told us all that he had done for grand opera, -how much money he had spent, what singers, male and female he had -discovered and the rest of it, and was very pleased with himself, and -after about half-an-hour sat down without making the slightest allusion -to di Lara. Oswald Crawfurd, I think it was, who noticed the omission, -and, springing to his feet, proposed the toast. - -After this it was felt that we ought to do something to strengthen the -programme, and Besant proposed a form of entertainment which had come up -in the United States since I had lived there. A man with the eminent -name of Luther had hit upon an idea for giving authors a fourth profit -on their works, and making them all contributors to his own profit. He -called it “Uncut Leaves.” Under this name he offered all the most -eminent authors in America a generous price if they would read their -productions in a lecture hall before they were published serially, so -that they received money for recitation as well as for serial rights, -book rights and dramatic rights. I believe it went very well in America -for a while, but in London it was impossible to persuade a Meredith or a -Hardy to listen to such a proposal. To start with, only a funny man had -a chance of getting an English audience to listen to him reading his own -productions. - -Later on we did try the anecdotes with some success at informal dinners. - -In any case the Authors’ Club dinners and entertainments became a great -success. It was the most popular literary institution of the day, both -at its temporary first home in Park Place, and afterwards at its proper -house in Whitehall Court. Some of the most eminent men were its guests. -Among them, besides great authors, were great prelates, great generals, -great admirals, great politicians, who enjoyed being entertained by the -Authors’ Club better than at public banquets, because they only had to -speak to fifty or a hundred men instead of addressing huge assemblies, -and the formal part of the proceedings lasted such a short time that -they might chat afterwards in the smoking-room or the billiard-room with -their hosts, who always had among them men whose books they had been -admiring for years. While Besant lived he was a great inspiration, and -when he died his place was taken by others who had sprung to the -forefront of literature in the interval. - -The Authors’ Club differed from the original Vagabonds Club because only -the Speaker or Speakers of the evening spoke, and the dinner was a more -luxurious one. Most of the literary Vagabonds went to the Authors’ Club -too, but at the Authors’ you met a fair sprinkling of the older authors -like Sir Walter Besant, and, occasionally, Thomas Hardy. The gatherings -were much larger. The Club contained many more members, and the bringing -of guests was much more usual. Besant and Oswald Crawfurd brought a -great many, generally distinguished men. - -If the names of everyone present at some of those dinners were published -now, people would be astonished to see what a high percentage of them -have become household words. - -[Illustration: - - CHARLES GARVICE - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -Among them were John Hay, the greatest man the United States ever sent -us as an Ambassador; the old Lord Chancellor; the old Lord Chief -Justice; Lord Avebury, who invented the “bank-holidays” known as “St. -Lubbock’s-days”; Lord Strathcona, the father of the Canadian Pacific -Railway, and the synonym for patriotic munificence in these latter days; -Lord Wolseley, then Commander-in-Chief; Sir Ian Hamilton, who won the -important battles of Wagon Hill and the Diamond Hills in the South -African war; Sir Edward Seymour, the great Admiral, who won as much -reputation by daring to be a failure on his march from Tientsin to -Peking as he did by all his successes; Admiral Sir William Kennedy, the -wittiest speaker in the navy; Admiral Sir Hedworth Lambton, now Sir -Hedworth Meux; and Admiral Sir Percy Scott, who saved the situation in -the South African war by converting his 4·7 ship guns into field guns to -meet the Boers’ “long Toms”; Bishop Creighton, and Bishop Ingram, of -London; Bishop Gore, then of Worcester; Sir Robert Ball, the astronomer; -Sir Leslie Stephen, the father of _The Dictionary of National -Biography_; Sir Alma Tadema; Sir George Otto Trevelyan, Macaulay’s -nephew, who wrote two of the greatest biographies in the language, _The -Life of Macaulay_ and _The Life of Fox_, and has sons who rival him; Sir -William Ramsey, F.R.S.; two famous brothers, the late Rt. Hon. Alfred -Lyttleton, the greatest of all the giants of sport on record except C. -B. Fry (who made the same impression on Parliament as he had made on his -Eton schoolfellows by his loftiness of character), and his brother -Edward, almost equally great in cricket, the head master of Eton; with -authors like Rudyard Kipling, Ian Maclaren, Doyle, Barrie, Anthony Hope, -Augustine Birrell, and Henry Arthur Jones. There are others equally -eminent, if I could only remember them. - -The greatest favourite we ever had among our guests at the Authors’ Club -was “Ballahooley”—Robert Jasper Martin of Cromartin, better known as Bob -Martin—a magnificent-looking Irish squire of the Charles Lever type, who -bubbled over with natural wit. - -Bob Martin was a brother of Violet Martin of Ross, and cousin of Edith -Œnone Somerville the lady M.F.H., who collaborated in _Some -Reminiscences of an Irish R.M_. and other famous books of Irish life and -character, and though he did not write much, he had the same limitless -fund of humour. - -The first time that ever I took him to the Authors’ Club the late Lord -Wolseley was the guest of the evening, and an admirable guest of the -evening he was—illustrious, interesting, urbane, a brilliant talker. He -and Martin were old friends, and after Lord Wolseley’s health had been -proposed and he had responded in a speech which told us all about his -literary work—like Moltke, he was an author by instinct—Martin got up to -tell us some of his inimitable Irish stories. The first was one about -Lord Wolseley himself. In the days when he was only a colonel, a -sergeant-major came to him for a day’s leave to help his wife in doing -the Company’s washing. - -“I’ve been speaking to your wife, Pat,” said Colonel Wolseley, “and she -begged me, whenever you came to me for leave on her washing-day, to -refuse you because you get in her way so.” - -The man saluted, and turned to leave the room, but when he got to the -door he turned round and saluted again, and asked, “Have I your leave to -say something, Colonel?” - -“Yes, Pat.” - -“Well, what I wish to say, sir, is that one of us two must be handling -the truth rather carelessly, because I haven’t got a wife.” - -True or untrue, Lord Wolseley did not deny the impeachment. - -That same night “Ballahooley” told us of his first experience of the -Castle at Dublin. He was asked to stay there the first time he ever came -to town, and he was not used to town ways. When his jaunting-car pulled -up at the door of the Castle, he told the footman to give the coachman a -drink, which was the custom of the country at Cromartin. The footman -stared at him. - -“Didn’t you hear what I said?” he asked. - -“Yes, sir, I heard,” said the footman slowly, and disappeared to fetch -the drink because Martin swore at him so. When he came back, he brought -a liqueur-glass of Benedictine on an immense silver tray. The coachman -took the glass and smelt it—doubtfully. - -“It’s all right, Pat, it was made by the Holy Fathers.” - -Thus encouraged, Pat drank it off. He made a wry face. - -“Don’t you like it, Pat? It’s very good.” - -“Oh, it’s good enough,” said the Jehu, “but what I’m thinking is that -the man who blew that glass was mighty short of breath.” - -That same evening he told us of the first election to a District Council -which was ever held on his estates. The place was a hotbed of -Nationalism, and Bob Martin was very anxious to have a friend of his, -who was a Conservative, elected on to the Council. So he assembled all -his tenants, and said to them, “I wish you’d elect this man. I’ve never -asked you to do anything for me before, and I’ve made more money out of -one rotten song (‘Ballahooley’) than out of the whole blessed lot of you -ever since I came in for this place.” - -Their Irish minds were so struck by this piece of special pleading that -they returned his candidate unopposed. - -Bishop Creighton was a very entertaining guest. Just because he was so -great and so potent as an administrator, he could be perfectly natural -when he was dining with a couple of score of authors. One could not -imagine the present Bishop—whom I remember in the days when he was at -Keble—he was a very plucky player at football, which he had learned at -Marlborough—blurting out like his predecessor that the first thing he -asked about a parson who was recommended for a living in his gift was -“Is he a hustler?” Nor can one imagine him fencing with the late Father -Stanton of St. Alban’s, Holborn, over the use of incense. - -I wish I had not forgotten the name of that club to which he and Balfour -and I forget what others of the greatest in the land, a dozen or twenty -in all, mostly great politicians or prelates, belonged, who dined -together at the Grand Hotel once or twice a month, and quietly enjoyed -themselves like the _Dilettanti_. I suppose that it exists still. - -Bishop Gore was delightfully human the night that we entertained him at -the Authors’ Club. He said that he felt quite shy of replying to the -toast of his health—that generally, when he was speaking, he was -addressing an audience upon subjects on which he was entitled to speak -with authority, and upon which his audience were very anxious to hear -what he had to say, but that on this occasion he was going to talk about -a subject which interested no one, meaning himself, and he was quite at -a loss what to say. - -Sir Evelyn Wood, one of the few men who have ever won the V.C. both as a -sailor and a soldier—he was a midshipman before he was a soldier, and -made a famous ride with dispatches—and he has been called to the Bar -since—supplemented his speech in reply to the toast with a selection of -rattling anecdotes. - -Sir Ian Hamilton, the General who saved Ladysmith by his victory at -Wagon Hill, described the touch and go of his battle, which saved -Ladysmith, in the slang of ordinary conversation, which made it -extraordinarily impressive. It was very appropriate, too, for slang was -the language of the brief council of war which Sir Ian held with the -Colonel of the Devons before they launched the charge which saved the -day. - -One of the most interesting dinners we ever had was the dinner we gave -to Zola in the Whitehall Rooms. We had other guests, varying from -Stepniak, the Nihilist, to Frank Stockton and Bill Nye, the American -humorists. Stockton told one of his characteristic American after-dinner -stories of the “lady or the tiger” sort. Nye was really wonderful. He -said that he himself belonged to an old French family—that the Nye -family used always to spell their name Ney, but they changed it because -one of the family was unfortunate. This allusion to the bravest of the -brave brought the house down, but it took about a quarter of an hour to -explain it to Zola. - -Henry Arthur Jones was extraordinarily interesting—Jones, if you catch -him in the right mood, can make a really fine speech, full of -imagination. - -One man whom I first met at the Authors’ Club, and whom I afterwards got -to know better, though I have not seen him for many years—Lucien Wolf, -had an extremely original way of working. Besides his ordinary press -work, once a month he contributed a presentation of the foreign politics -of the world to one of the principal Reviews. As foreign editor of a -daily paper, he had the subject at his fingers’ ends, but it troubled -him in a subject so full of tangled threads to break off his work for -meals and to go to bed. Writing that article took about forty-eight -hours, and during that time he hardly left his study; he did not go to -bed at all; like the Admiral who gave them their name, he had sandwiches -brought to him where he sat. He apparently felt no ill-effects from this -tremendous effort of will-power and industry, though, of course, he -looked very tired. His articles on foreign affairs in the monthly -Reviews took the premier place. - -Poulteney Bigelow was a character at the Authors’ Club in those days. -The son of an American Ambassador—minister, as they were then called—he -was, for some reason or another, an intimate personal friend of the -German Emperor, with whom he constantly stayed, and of whom he treasured -many anecdotes. He once nearly persuaded the Emperor to dine at the -Authors’ Club. He disappeared for a while, and went out West in the -United States again, from which he came back very full of the shooting -exploits of Theodore Roosevelt, another of his friends. - -Bigelow always maintained that the Spanish-American war was the best -thing which ever happened for the relations between Great Britain and -the United States. He said that the garrison, who died like flies in the -Philippines, were mostly drawn from the South-Western States, where the -hatred of England had been liveliest, and their colonial experiences -made them understand how considerate the English were to subject -peoples, and how very inconsiderate subject peoples were apt to be to -their rulers. - -We had quite a bevy of leading editors among our members, some of whom -put in an appearance pretty constantly, but it never was a very active -editor’s club; I think they were too afraid of would-be contributors. - -William Sinclair, the Archdeacon of London, who was the principal figure -at London functions for nearly a generation, was a pillar of the Club. -He was a constant attendant at its house dinners, and apart from his -influence and position, was a brilliant raconteur. Sometimes, like a -true Scotsman, he told a story against himself, as when he told us why -he was such a popular preacher at the Guards’ chapel—because the men -said that he was the only person who ever preached to them with a voice -like a sergeant-major. - -Sinclair had met everybody of any importance in his time. He had one -beautiful story of a Scotsman who suddenly became a Cabinet Minister on -four or five thousand a year, and sported a butler. Sinclair, who was -staying with him, in all innocence asked what the man’s name was, and -his hostess said, “I don’t know; we always call him waiter.” - -After Besant’s death, the two men who were most prominent at the -Authors’ Club were certainly Conan Doyle and Anthony Hope—Doyle -especially, because he was for a long time chairman of the Club, and a -frequent attendant at the dinners. I wish I could remember only a tithe -of the interesting and amusing things he said at that dinner-table, for -Doyle always says something memorable in his speeches. But once I was so -interested that I kept a note of what he said written down on my menu -card. It was about his famous pamphlet—_The War; its Causes and its -Conduct_. He told his audience that it came to him in an instant, like -all great things in life, which hit on the head like a bullet. He was -reading some peculiarly diabolical misrepresentations by the German -editors. “Yet these men,” he told himself, “were, in the ordinary -affairs of life, honest men. Many books have been written from our -standpoint; but, in the first place, a German editor cannot buy a book -which costs six shillings or more, and in the second place, he has not -got time to read through it. The only thing is to give him free of cost -something which he can read in an hour. My materials were all to hand. I -know how humane Tommy Atkins was to his enemies, and I had been flooded -with letters on the subject in reply to an advertisement I had inserted -in the newspapers. Half-a-dozen things which have occurred to me in my -life must have been foreordained. - -“At a small dinner that night I sat next to ——. I explained my project -to him. ‘How will you get the money?’ he asked. ‘From the public.’ -‘Well, I’ll get a thousand pounds for you.’ - -“Chance had thrown me against the man who knew everything I wanted to -know. He could even tell me the names of the people who could translate -it into the various languages. Five months later I had the book on my -table in twenty languages. Rich men gave their fifty pounds to the -scheme, poor people scraped together their half-crowns to do their -widow’s-mites’ worth for England. I sent that pamphlet to every man in -Europe whose opinion counted. Leyds gave me the cue. It is astonishing -how few people govern the public opinion of the world. In two countries -an honest second edition was called for—Hungary and Portugal. In the -latter, our old ally, there was a most kindly feeling for us, a genuine -anxiety to learn the true facts of the case. In Germany the whole twenty -thousand copies were distributed; twelve thousand of them gratis, and -eight sold. The Swiss actually printed an edition for themselves.” - -He told us this on the night that we entertained him and Gilbert Parker -in honour of their knighthood, and he told us how that morning a letter -of congratulation from his gunsmith had arrived, addressed to “Sir -Sherlock Holmes.” The best thing he ever told us about _Sherlock Holmes_ -was its fate when he made a play of it, and sold it to a famous actor. -The actor stipulated that he should be allowed to alter it as much as he -liked, and when Doyle went to the rehearsals, he found that there was -practically nothing of his play left except the title. That was all the -actor really wanted to buy; he had made his own play out of the Sherlock -Holmes stories before he went to Doyle. - -It was at an Authors’ Club dinner that Hall Caine made his awful -disclosure about Londoners’ insides. He said that no family could live -in London for more than three generations unless its members went away -for a change of air, and that the smoke-charged state of the atmosphere -turned their insides from a healthy red to a slaty black. It was that -same night that he recited his poem “Ellan Vannin” to us. - -I remember, in the early days of the Authors’ Club, J. M. Barrie telling -the Club a story in the American story-teller’s fashion. I don’t suppose -for an instant that it had actually happened. I expect it was just a -_ben trovato_, but it was none the less amusing. He apologised for being -late. He had been to the wrong club. He had never been to the Authors’ -Club before, he said (though he was a member of the committee), so he -asked a policeman the way. From the way in which he pronounced the word, -the policeman thought he meant Arthur’s, which was quite near the -Authors’ Club when it was in its temporary premises in Park Place. When -he got there he found it a very grand place, he said. The club porter -looked him up and down, and said “The servants’ entrance is round the -corner.” - -It took the moral courage of a Scotsman to tell that story—true or -untrue. It was inimitably funny, told in the broad Doric of _The Little -Minister_. - -Jerome actually had an experience of this sort in New York. But it was -not due to the obtuseness of the club porter. He received a straight-out -invitation from the servants of one of the great New York clubs to spend -the evening with them. I suppose they have their story-tellers’ nights -like the members. He said that he never enjoyed himself more in his -life.[3] - -Footnote 3: - - The Authors’ Club, before it was reconstructed, contained a number of - very representative members. Among them were Sir Walter Besant, Conan - Doyle, Frankfort Moore, Hall Caine, Lindsay Bashford, R. D. - Blumenfeld, F. T. Bullen, W. L. Courtney, S. R. Crockett, Sir Michael - Foster, secretary of the Royal Society, J. Foster Fraser, Sydney - Grundy, Charles Garvice, F. H. Gribble, H. A. Gwynne, the editor of - the _Morning Post_, Major Arthur Griffiths, Rider Haggard, Cutcliffe - Hyne, Anthony Hope, Clive Holland, Joseph Hocking, E. W. Hornung, Sir - Henry Irving, J. K. Jerome, Henry Arthur Jones, Edward Jenks, who - wrote that famous book _Ginx’s Baby_, and was once M.P. for Hull, - Rudyard Kipling, Otto Kyllman, Archdeacon Sinclair, Norman McColl, - editor of the _Athenæum_, Prof. Meiklejohn, father of the V.C. who was - killed in putting a horse that could not jump at some railings in the - Park to avoid running over a child; A. W. Marchmont, Bertram Mitford, - J. Eveleigh Nash, Gilbert Parker, Barry Pain, J. M. Barrie, Max - Pemberton, Sir J. Rennell Rodd, British Ambassador at Rome, Morley - Roberts, Algernon Rose, who reconstituted the club, Bram Stoker, M. H. - Spielmann, Prof. Skeat, the great etymologist, H. R. Tedder, the - librarian of the _Athenæum_, Herbert Trench, Horace Annesley Vachell, - W. H. Wilkins, Percy White, Lacon Watson, Horace Wyndham, and others. - -But the Club could never rise much above three hundred members. Many a -time have G. Herbert Thring, the secretary, and I discussed with our -board, consisting from time to time of Besant, Oswald Crawfurd, Lord -Monkswell, Tedder, the literary executor of Herbert Spencer, Conan -Doyle, Anthony Hope, Hall Caine, Frankfort Moore, Morley Roberts, and -Percy White, projects for bringing in more members. The change from the -temporary premises in Park Place behind St. James’ Street, to the -pleasant rooms overlooking the river, did something for us. But we were -faced by a dilemma, which was that we had to widen the basis of our -membership to get enough members to pay the huge rent of the premises, -which we had taken for a term of years. If, instead of having these -premises, we had hired a reading-room, and a smoking-room, and a -dining-room in a hotel, we could have got the accommodation for a -hundred a year, and as only a tithe of the Club ever used it, except on -the nights when they were brought together by notice for the Club -dinners, any premises would have been large enough; the hotel would -always have lent us a room of any size which we could fill for a dinner. -The Whitefriars principle would have suited us admirably, and the Hotel -Cecil would have made a good venue. But we had these premises on our -hands, and we wanted a larger membership, not to fill them, but to make -financial arrangements easier. I myself in my time enlisted no fewer -than a hundred members for the Club. But that did not fill up the -wastage. - -Thring saw the need of widening our basis as clearly as I did, but we -never could carry our board with us to make an enlargement of the -franchise sufficiently drastic, because they wished to be guided by the -feeling of the men who used the Club most, and their feeling was -decidedly against it—mainly, I believe, because they thought that the -extra members we wanted to relieve the finances would make the Club too -full to be restful. So in one way and another the old Club was drifting -on to the rocks when Algernon Rose (with Charles Garvice as his -chairman, and Cato Worsfold as honorary solicitor) took the matter in -hand as honorary secretary. I did not see the throes. I was out of -England on one of my wander-years. - -Rose, with a clear-sighted policy, boundless energy and self-sacrifice, -and inexhaustible tact, not only pulled the Club out of the fire, but -has made it one of the most flourishing organisations in London, with -two hundred town members, three hundred suburban members, five hundred -country members, and six hundred oversea members. He could easily have a -thousand town members if he wanted them, but the town membership is -strictly limited to two hundred, and the suburban to three hundred, -because that is the limit of habitués which the premises can -accommodate. Unfortunately you can’t have five-day members at an -Authors’ Club like you do at a Golf Club. - -And nowadays members use the Club in a way they never did when I was the -honorary secretary and we exhausted our ingenuity in efforts to make the -club more inhabited through the week. The increase of attendance at the -Monday night dinners is one of the most wonderful things of all. Week -after week they have enormous dinners, and Rose provides a brilliant -succession of famous guests of the evening. The other Tuesday I read a -report of an Authors’ Club dinner in the _Daily Telegraph_ which filled -three columns.[4] - -Footnote 4: - - Among the guests of the evening at the Authors’ Club since Rose took - it over have been musicians like Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir - Walter Parratt, Sir Frederick Cowen, Mr. William H. Cummings, Sir - Hubert Parry; supreme scientists like Sir George Darwin, F.R.S., Sir - Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., Sir William Ramsay, F.R.S., Sir William Crookes, - F.R.S., Prof. Schäfer, F.R.S.; great lawyers, like Lord Chancellor - Halsbury, the late Lord Chief Justice, and Lord Justice Fletcher - Moulton; men who have been great outside the Empire like Sir Robert - Hart, and Dr. G. E. Morrison of Peking, and Mr. F. C. Selous, the - mighty hunter; great politicians, like Lord Milner, and Lord Wemyss; - great explorers, like Sir Ernest Shackleton; great artists, like the - late Sir Hubert von Herkomer; distinguished foreigners, like the - American Ambassadors, Whitelaw-Reid and Page; well-known literary men, - like Harold Cox, secretary of the Cobden Society, Maarten Maartens, - Sir Owen Seaman, Sir Sidney Lee, W. B. Maxwell; and great actors, like - Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree. - -The Club retains practically all its old outstanding names, including -that of Thring. Thring for many years was the Authors’ Club personified. -He not only conducted its business; he peopled the club. Men went to -lunch there because they knew they would meet Thring. They dropped in -after business hours because they knew that Thring, at any rate, would -be there. He kept the social life of the Club, as typified in the Club -pools, and so on, going, and he was the friend of all the members, -except those who desired to remain unsociable. And, in consequence, he -always had his finger on the pulse of the Club. - -The questions of club discipline which came up before the board in its -early days were some of them of the most extraordinary nature. One man -hated hearing clocks tick, and whenever he was left alone in a room -always stopped the clock. Somebody else wished to have him turned out of -the Club, but the Chairman said he did not see how it could be regarded -as ungentlemanly behaviour, and proposed that no action should be taken, -but that we should take it in turns never to leave the honourable member -alone! - -The Rev. John Watson, who, under the pen-name of “Ian Maclaren,” -suddenly burst into fame with _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_ when he was -forty-four years old, was a Liverpool clergyman, the minister of the -Sefton Park Presbyterian Church. He had long enjoyed a reputation in his -circle in Liverpool for story-telling and as a public speaker. His -speeches were as good as his stories, and admirably delivered. His -personal charm was as great as the respect in which he was held. He was -very humorous. He told us one night, when he was our guest at the -Authors’ Club, that his boy at Rugby had said to him, “Father, I suppose -that your books are all right to some people, or you would not be able -to do so much for us. But couldn’t you write something which would be -good enough for me to show the other chaps?” - -One wonders if this was the boy who is now the head of Nisbet’s great -publishing house. If it was, how pleased he would be to have the -publication of some of the books that were not good enough “to show the -other chaps!” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - LITERARY CLUBS: THE IDLERS AND THE VAGABONDS - - -AT the beginning the Authors’ Club had no exact rivals, but there were -two institutions, very much intertwined, which came near it in a way—the -Vagabonds Club and the Idler teas. The Vagabonds Club, in its -conception, had been a little coterie of authors who met in the rooms of -their friend, the blind poet, Philip Bourke Marston; but before I came -back from America Marston was dead, and the coterie had been turned into -a small dining club, which used to take eighteen-penny dinners at cheap -restaurants, and in theory drank beer and smoked clay pipes. The -committee included Jerome, C. N. Williamson and F. W. Robinson, and the -Club had among its members, besides those just mentioned, Conan Doyle, -Israel Zangwill, Anthony Hope, Bernard Partridge, Dudley Hardy, Phil -May, Hal Hurst, Rudolph Blind, Pett Ridge, Joe Hatton, Robert Barr, -Coulson Kernahan, W. L. Alden, Hall Caine, Sir Alfred East, E. W. -Hornung, Sir Gilbert Parker, J. M. Barrie, Barry Pain, Arthur Morrison, -Solomon J. Solomon, and, of course, George Burgin, the original and -indefatigable secretary. - -Of these people Jerome and Barr were editors of the _Idler_, Burgin was -sub-editor, Doyle, Zangwill, Pett Ridge and Anthony Hope were its -favourite contributors. The _Idler_, in those days published by Chatto & -Windus, was edited in a flat in Arundel Street, Strand, and there every -week, on Wednesday afternoons, as far as I remember, the editors gave a -tea at which they welcomed their contributors, and any friends whom -contributors chose to bring with them, and the friends of these friends -thereafter. It was like the snow-ball system of selling umbrellas in the -United States. - -The teas were of the simplest. I do not think we had anything except -bread and butter and tea, but nobody wanted more; it was sufficient that -here was the common meeting-ground for men and women, where you might, -and often did, meet the ablest young authors of the day. I should say -that the Idler teas were the first literary gatherings in London -attended by Weyman and Crockett, and they certainly were the first -attended by Anthony Hope, W. W. Jacobs and Frankfort Moore. - -We received the warmest welcome at the Idlers, because there were many -literary Americans in London just then, and both Jerome and Barr were -insistent that I should bring as many as possible of them to their teas. - -At those teas the principal occupation was introducing every freshcomer -to as many people as possible, as the hosts do at American at-homes; and -Jerome made a good many of his arrangements for articles and -illustrations with the people who came to the teas. It was -characteristic of the Idler and Vagabond gatherings to talk shop and do -business without any pretence of concealment. - -Hal Hurst and Dudley Hardy were two of Jerome’s favourite illustrators. -Other artists who were there a great deal were Robert Sauber, John -Gülich, Lewis Baumer, Fred Pegram, James Greig, Paxton, A. S. Hartrick, -Louis Wain, who almost always drew cats with human expressions, a little -man named Martin Anderson, who called himself “Cynicus,” and had an -allegorical vein of humour. He won himself undying popularity here by -bringing to one of those teas a charmingly pretty young American, who -was soon to feel her footing as a writer. She had not yet written _The -Barn-stormers_. This was Alice Livingston, who is now known to all the -world as Mrs. C. N. Williamson. Townsend, the present art-editor of -_Punch_; Chris and Gertrude Hammond, who were among the most charming -book-illustrators of that day; Seppings Wright, the naval war -correspondent; Holland Tringham, Melton Prior, Fred Villiers and many -other artists came constantly. - -The great advantage of those Idler teas was that women as well as men -could be present, and in those days women were not considered worthy to -be admitted to authors’ banquets, except at the annual function of the -Authors’ Society. Of course, you had the chance of meeting women authors -at the at-homes of the Pioneer, Writers’, and Grosvenor Crescent Clubs, -because they were all ladies’ institutions. But at their entertainments -you met only a very few men of any importance, and not particularly many -women of literary importance, other than journalistic. They were more -interested in women’s movements—the Pioneer might almost be called the -ancestor of the Suffragettes.[5] - -Footnote 5: - - Among the eminent women whom I remember seeing at the Idlers were - Marie Corelli, Mona Caird, Mrs. Sidgwick (Mrs. Andrew Dean), Mrs. - Campbell Praed, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mrs. Alexander, - Mrs. Meynell, Miss Montrésor, Lucas Malet and Ellen Thorneycroft - Fowler. - -The conversations at the Idler teas were very shoppy. I remember being -introduced to Ellen Fowler as the woman whose witty sayings had long -been the delight of the exalted circles in which she moved, and who had -been induced by the various leading authors whom she knew to write a -book. This is the sort of laudation which we professional authors often -hear and usually distrust. But the book happened to be _Concerning -Isabel Carnaby_, and when I learned that the circle which she had -dazzled was the circle in which the Liberal leaders moved, since she was -the daughter of Sir Henry Fowler, M.P., afterwards Lord Wolverhampton, I -understood that she certainly would have received an encouragement to -write books from the authors and critics who were admitted to Front -Bench Liberal dinners. - -Mona Caird, whom we met often at the Women’s Clubs afterwards, did much -for the emancipation of women in those days, for she was not only -clear-sighted and convincing in what she said and wrote, but she had a -winning personality which commanded the sympathies of those who were not -predisposed to share her views. - -It was at an Idler tea that I first met George Bennett Burgin, with whom -I was to be so intimately connected for so many years as joint Hon. -Secretary of the New Vagabonds Club. He was the sub-editor of the famous -_Idler Magazine_, and his tact and geniality were constantly in -requisition, for the pugnacity of his chiefs was proverbial, and some of -the best contributors were equally pugnacious. - -I forget if it was a recognised part of the proceedings at the Old -Vagabond dinners to have a set subject for discussion. Some one always -did get up and make a short speech, and in a club which had men like -Jerome and Zangwill and Barry Pain to draw on, the speaking was always -witty, unless the subject forbade it. The chief difference was that -people did not discuss the speech by getting on their legs to fire -witticisms at the speaker. They discussed it where they sat, sometimes -talking to each other about it (or anything else), sometimes raising -their voices to question the man who had been speaking, or to argue with -him. - -There was much less discussion of the subject than there was talking of -shop. The point of the gatherings was that a number of brilliant young -authors and artists dined together fraternally once a month. - -It was a great boon to me suddenly to be received into the intimacy of -some of the busiest and best-known authors and editors and -black-and-white artists of the day, to hear and take part in their -“shop.”[6] - -Footnote 6: - - This Idler and Vagabond set included, besides those mentioned above, - Anthony Hope, Frankfort Moore, Israel Zangwill, Eden Phillpotts, C. N. - Williamson, F. W. Robinson, Joseph Hatton, Coulson Kernahan, George - Manville Fenn, G. A. Henty, W. Pett Ridge, H. G. Wells, Frederic - Villiers, Henry Arthur Jones, Francis Gribble, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur - A. Beckett, William Watson, John Davidson, H. Breakstad the Norwegian, - and Carl Hentschel, the founder of the old Playgoers Club. - -Burgin, the hon. secretary of the Old Vagabonds Club, who was once -private secretary to Sir Samuel Baker in Constantinople and Asia Minor, -and has been a great traveller in recent years, was sub-editor of the -_Idler Magazine_ until 1899. Since then he has given himself up to -novel-writing, gardening and the control of literary clubs. One of his -novels, _Shutters of Silence_, has been through thirty editions. His -books are distinguished alike by uncommon vivacity and by exceptional -skill in using local colour. They are very good indeed, and if they had -their rights would be among the most popular books of the day. - -I have made several attempts to discover when the original Vagabonds -Club was actually started, and the best account I have had of it was -from Kernahan, one of the oldest members. I certainly did not join it -till about five years later. - -He writes— - -“Marston died February 14, 1887, Valentine’s Day. Yes, I was one of -those who visited his rooms, 191 Euston Road. When he founded the Club I -do not exactly know. I fancy it had only just been started when, at his -invitation, I joined in 1886. We dined at Pagani’s and then adjourned to -his rooms, keeping it up very late. After he died the Club practically -ceased, as it was he who ran it. Then I think Herbert Clark proposed -that we should continue meeting and call ourselves the Marston Club—not -a good name, as I always held, for it gave the idea that it was like the -Browning club or society, for the study of his poems, whereas it was -merely a gathering of Marston’s old friends. All the same, lots of -interesting men came to it. His father, Dr. Westland Marston, for one. -So things went on for a long time, and the thing was dropping to pieces -for want of some one to work it, until you came along, put us in the -shop window, and, lo and behold, the old Club became a new force.” - -It was not so very long after I joined the Club that it fell on evil -days, not, I hope, because I joined it, but because it contained -Socialists, who are apt to wreck things. The course they took was most -revolutionary. There were two of them on the committee, and they -insisted on having committee meetings, which insisted on having a voice -in the management of the Club. - -The Club would not stand it; it transformed itself into a New Vagabonds -Club without the offending members. I took a leading part in the -transformation. I became associated with Burgin in the honorary -secretaryship because I persuaded a hundred well-known men, like -Crockett and Weyman and Reginald Cleaver, to join the Club, and we -retained the old committee, minus the impossibles, and strengthened by -the inclusion of Frankfort Moore and Joe Hatton. And this was a -well-behaved committee, because I do not think it met once during its -whole existence of not far short of twenty years. Burgin and I were the -honorary secretaries and managers, and we used to decide everything, -without even thinking of the committee, who, as reformed, had only one -idea in their heads, which was that they were not to be bothered unless -there was some real necessity for it. - -Our most successful dinner, at which about six hundred people were -present, was held in honour of Field-Marshal Lord Roberts—the idol of -the nation. Lord Roberts has a wonderful memory, not only for faces, but -for the records which go with the faces. When I met him the other night -at the Authors’ Society dinner, of which likewise he was the guest, he -took me by the arm, and whispered, “Isn’t _Who’s Who_ getting very fat?” -which was his way of showing that he remembered that I was the author of -_Who’s Who_ in its present form—or, rather, in the form which it bore -from 1897 to 1899, when its figure was not so middle-aged. - -That Vagabond dinner to Lord Roberts was in honour of the publication of -his celebrated _Forty-One Years in India_, and the Authors’ Society -dinner to him was also in its honour, though so many years later. - -Jerome took the chair to Lord Roberts at the Vagabonds. He was very -interested in _Forty-One Years in India_. He had commissioned me to -write the long review of it in the _Idler_, and I am sure that he and -the Field-Marshal, V.C., though looking at everything from an exactly -opposite standpoint, got on like a house on fire. - -The dinner to Lord Roberts was the very largest we ever had, though the -lunches to Sarah Bernhardt and to Sir Henry Irving were about as -numerously attended. Irving made himself perfectly charming, but when he -came to reply to the toast to his health, the audience were confronted -by the curious phenomenon that the first actor in Europe was totally -unable to make himself heard even half-way across the hall, and if they -could have heard what he said, they would have been confronted by the -equally curious fact that he was no speaker. That, however, is -nothing—very few actors can speak, always excepting my friend, Tree, -who, if he is in the mood, brings the house down time after time with -his naïveté. - -There were few eighteen-carat dramatic celebrities whom we did not -entertain at the Vagabonds—Irving and Sarah Bernhardt, Wyndham and Mary -Moore, the Trees and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the Bourchiers and the -Maudes, the young Irvings, and Lena Ashwell, occur to me first. - -Sarah Bernhardt’s appearance was a very memorable one. Mr. Balfour was -in the chair. He was Prime Minister at the time, and had important -business at the House of Commons that afternoon. Sarah was -three-quarters of an hour late. I, who had charge of the guests, while -Burgin was making sure that all his orders for a banquet of five hundred -people had been carried out, felt more nervous than I had ever felt in -my life at the slight which was being offered to so great a man. I -racked my brain for adequate apologies, but Mr. Balfour said, with his -perfect manners, “Please don’t worry yourself about that, Mr. Sladen. -Tell me about Japan.” - -If Sarah was as great as he was in other respects, she certainly was not -as great in this respect, for a day or two afterwards, T. P. O’Connor -asked Sarah and Mortimer Menpes, and Norma Lorimer and myself, to have -tea with some M.P.s on the terrace of the House of Commons. We duly -arrived—even Sarah was fairly punctual—and were herded in the lobby of -the House, like people waiting to see the editor in a newspaper office, -while a search was made for T. P. O’Connor. He could not be found -anywhere, and a long time passed. I do not know how long it was, but it -seemed years, because Sarah was so angry. She had expected to be met at -the door with due ceremony—perhaps the leaders of both parties, the Lord -Chancellor, and the Speaker—but nobody met her at all, and none of us -could speak French well enough to understand the unmeasured language she -was using about O’Connor. Finally, she lost her temper altogether, and -though she had told me on several occasions that she could not speak -English, she was quite equal to telling us in our own language what she -thought of T. P. Finally, some wholly unsuitable member of the Irish -party—Dillon, or somebody just as gloomy—came, waving a telegram. -O’Connor, it appeared, had been caught in a railway accident coming back -from the Henley Regatta, miles from a telegraph office. As soon as he -got to a place where he could telegraph from, he did telegraph, but -Sarah was not appeased, even though Menpes offered to go to her island -off the coast of Brittany and arrange a Japanese room for her. - -I remember a similar contretemps, almost equally amusing, when George -Cawston, one of the directors of the Chartered Company, gave a great -supper at Willis’s rooms in honour of a South African millionaire. He -invited a number of eminent people to meet him—politicians, soldiers, -authors, actors, artists and public people generally, most of whom knew -each other. The millionaire, who was very “swollen-headed,” was -shamelessly late. So, finally, Cawston decided to begin without him. The -people made up parties, and sat down at the various little tables, and -enjoyed the munificent supper, and finally went away not knowing or -caring whether the millionaire had been there or not. They had most of -them never heard of him. - -Sarah came to us a year later to a huge afternoon reception, which we -got up in her honour, and she honoured us by giving us a long and -magnificent recitation from _L’Aiglon_ (which she had just produced), in -which she was supported by her leading man. - -We entertained other famous soldiers besides Lord Roberts, such as Lord -Dundonald, when he came back from the great exploit of his life, the -relief of Ladysmith, and Sir Ian Hamilton. Cecil Raleigh, I remember, -took the chair to Sir Ian Hamilton, and showed his versatility by making -a really admirable speech. I do not remember who it was who took the -chair to Lord Dundonald, but he told a characteristic story of Lord -Dundonald in his earlier service in Egypt. - -When the news of the fall of Khartum reached the army which might have -relieved Khartum, if Sir Charles Wilson had pushed on, taking the risks -as Lord Roberts would have taken them, after the victory of Abu Klea, -the General asked for an officer to volunteer to carry the dispatches to -Sir Redvers Buller at the base. It was necessary to have some one with a -knowledge of astronomy, because he had to find his way across the -desert, to avoid the great loop of the Nile above the Second Cataract. -There were many men who would have risked the dangers of meeting -wandering parties of dervishes, but there was only one of the force who -was not only prepared to take the risk, but possessed the requisite -astronomical knowledge, and that was Lord Cochrane, a subaltern in the -2nd Life Guards, the future Lord Dundonald. He carried out his mission, -and in an incredibly small number of hours presented the dispatches to -Sir Redvers, whom he found sleeping under a palm tree. As soon as he had -delivered them, he collapsed with exhaustion. - -He is a grandson, of course, of the immortal frigate Commander, the -fighting Lord Cochrane, the Almirante Cochrane who was the liberator of -South America, and is a distinguished inventor. He invented the pocket -heating apparatus for soldiers to carry when doing sentry work in cold -climates, the extra light carriages used for machine-guns in the Boer -War, and the apparatus for enabling cavalry soldiers to turn out ready -for duty as quickly as firemen. - -From time to time we entertained distinguished ecclesiastics such as the -late and the present Bishops of London and the ex-Bishop of Ripon. -Creighton was much the best guest of the three, for he had a most saving -gift of humour. - -For some reason or other, on the night that he was with us, at the -conclusion of his speech returning thanks for the way in which his -health has been proposed, he had to propose the toast of journalism, -coupled with the name of the editor of _The Times_. He said, “I do not -know much about newspapers; I read so few of them. I have only one test -for them, and that is their suitability for wrapping up shooting boots. -And, judged by this standard, _The Times_ is the best newspaper.” - -It was not easy to get the better of Creighton, with his humour to back -up his wisdom and firmness. But my dear old friend, the late Father -Stanton, who was a frequent visitor to Vagabond entertainments with F. -E. Sidney, once got the better of him, and he was very amusing in -telling the story of it. - -Creighton, it appears, went to a service of Stanton’s, because he wished -to wean him from certain ritualistic practices. After the service was -over, they had a talk in the vestry, which was quite cordial, because -Creighton knew the essential greatness and goodness of Stanton’s -character. Stanton, who was very astute and tactful about getting his -own way, and yet avoiding trouble with his Bishop, adroitly kept the -conversation away from dangerous points, and finally the Bishop gave up, -and called for his carriage. Stanton escorted him to the carriage door, -and as he was driving off, Creighton got out what he had come to say. - -“I don’t like that incense of yours, Stanton.” - -“Nor do I, my lord, it’s wretched stuff—only three and sixpence a pound, -but I can’t afford any better.” - -“Do without it, Stanton, do without it altogether,” said the Bishop. - -Lord Charles Beresford was another of our guests, and so was Admiral -Lambton. Both of them made a violent attack on _Bridge_, which they said -was sapping the energy of the nation by the awful waste of time to which -it led. - -Beresford was very amusing. He said, “The Navy is the finest thing in -the world for a man. If I hadn’t been in the Navy, I should have been in -prison.” - -I only once saw Beresford seriously put out, and that was when he had to -speak after that great man, Seddon, the Premier of New Zealand, whose -patriotic attitude about the Boer War counted for so much in making the -democratic colonies support the mother country so splendidly against the -Boers. Seddon, like other New Zealanders I have known, could make a -great speech, but did not know when he had used up all he had to say. In -the first part of that speech for the Vagabonds, he began with great -éclat, and then maundered on and on about “Womman,” as he pronounced her -generic name, while Beresford grew so impatient that when his turn came -to speak he excused himself with a few witty sentences about their -having heard so much good speaking. - -Seddon brought two charming daughters with him, and one of them made a -felicitous retort to a maladroit person who condoled with her on her -father’s not having been knighted like the leader of the Conservative -Opposition in New Zealand, Sir William Russell, whose name had appeared -in the Gazette of the day before. - -“I don’t mind,” she said; “Billy’s a darling.” - -Norman Angell, the apostle of peace, in books like his famous _The Great -Illusion_, and also the _Daily Mail_ correspondent of Paris, was our -guest on one occasion. - -The most unexpected turns happened at times. One night we had an -athletic dinner, with C. B. Fry and Eustace Miles for our chief guests, -and Pett Ridge in the chair. There was hardly a word talked about -athletics the whole evening, for Pett Ridge is most interested in work -among the poor, and so are Fry and Miles, and the speeches related -almost entirely to the serious side of the humorist and the athletes. -The world at large did not know how earnest Fry is about good works -until he refused to go to Australia in the all-England Eleven because he -could not leave his work on naval training for boys until a certain sum -was raised for the training-ship. In those days it regarded him merely -as one of the greatest batsmen ever seen, and the only man who had ever -had five blues at the university, and been captain or president of the -university in three different kinds of games. Some of them remembered -too, that he was a Scholar of his College, and got a First. None of -them, I am quite sure, knew that he would have been unable to go to -Oxford at all, because he had no money to go on, except his scholarship -at Wadham, if he had not borrowed the money, and repaid it out of his -own earnings after he left the university. Could anything be more -magnificent than that the man who holds the record of all Englishmen, -and for that matter, that of all recorded men, for achievements in -games, should have paid for himself at the university? Yet there were -some people in the Club that night who expressed their disapproval to me -at the Club’s entertaining a mere athlete! - -But there were many more who expressed their disapproval of our -entertaining Christabel Pankhurst as our guest of the evening—most of -them ardent Radicals, who disliked the practical jokes of the -suffragettes upon Cabinet ministers. We Conservatives felt no more -sympathy for people who do idiotic damage, but were more tolerant. I did -not propose the toast, although I was in the chair, and have always -desired to give the vote to women with the proper qualifications. I -called upon an old friend, a very successful barrister, whom I suspect -of being an ardent Liberal, though he is an ardent suffragist—Fordham -Spence—to propose it. He made the kind of points which could not fail to -enlist the sympathies of a popular audience—asking which of the men who -were present would have the pluck to go to prison and starve themselves -for a principle, as these women did. He pointed dramatically to our -guest, a pretty, slim girl, who hardly looked out of her teens, and told -us what she had done. He was the clever advocate all through; he begged -the question almost as flagrantly as Miss Pankhurst herself, when she -got up to reply to the toast. - -I prefer to hear the arguments of the suffragists stated in the -dispassionate way in which Mrs. Fawcett states them, pure appeals to -reason and justice, stated without any attempts to draw red herrings -across the trail—in fact, stated by a judge, instead of pleaded by an -advocate. I think they would be difficult to resist. The weak point of -the militant suffragettes is that they not only do things of which -moderate people cannot approve, to attract the public attention, but -they have no consideration for our commonsense; they talk to us like -Socialists talk to a mob in Trafalgar Square, not as a great Scientist, -like Lord Kelvin, would address the British Association. That is the -convincing way. - -I do not know if Miss Pankhurst made many converts to the cause that -night; she certainly made many personal friends. An hour or two later I -met her at a supper given by Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Mappin at the Savoy, -and had the good fortune to sit next to her once more. She was off duty -then, and saying that she really must begin to play games again to keep -her “fit” for her work. - -Two of the most successful dinners we ever had were to Captain Scott, -the Antarctic explorer, and Ernest Thompson Seton. At the Scott dinner -the great hall of the Hotel Cecil was packed to its utmost limits, -though it was not due to any premonition that he might not come back. -Before Scott perished the world had got into the idea that Arctic and -Antarctic exploration was not really so dangerous as going out with a -friend who was learning to drive a car. But Scott had such an -irresistible personality; he looked the very type of man whose courage -and resourcefulness and indomitable endurance would get him and those -who depended on him out of the tightest place. And he would have got his -party through if the supplies in the hut had been left at their proper -strength. Scott was one of those blue-eyed men who can meet any danger -with a smile, and are absolutely devoid of fear. I never knew a man for -whom I had a more instinctive liking, or to whom I should so naturally -turn for support when facing death. Few men are such an asset to their -race as he was. - -Ernest Thompson Seton held his audience as no other Vagabond guest has -ever done. The born naturalist and the natural orator are combined in -him. He made a lecture, which had probably done duty several times as a -lecture, do duty for his personal reply to the proposal of his health; -it did not betray its origin, and yet it was a moving plea for the whole -brute creation; he invested the lower animals, probably unjustly, with -all sorts of human traits and human feelings, and made the audience feel -for them as they feel for the hero or heroine in a tragedy. It was -really wonderful; I never heard such a mixture of ingenuity and -eloquence, or a speech more thrillingly delivered. He is the apostle of -animated Nature. - -I was abroad when the Club entertained Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill -and Lord Leighton, but I was present when Lord Willoughby de Broke made -such a popular guest. The position was rather a difficult one; not -having noticed the views which Jerome had been expressing on the House -of Lords to the local yokels, I asked him to take the chair, because he -was the most successful playwright in the club—he had just produced _The -Third Floor Back_—and our guest was one of the best amateur actors. -Jerome’s speech was not marked by his usual verve; like Balaam, he had -come to curse, and he was so won over by the splendid manliness of the -guest that he was unable to do anything but bless. Lord Willoughby de -Broke would doubtless have given us a much more entertaining evening if -Jerome had spoken of him to us as he spoke of his fellow-peers to the -yokels, for no one is so ready with a retort. Who does not remember his -retort at the meeting which he was addressing in favour of Mr. Balfour. -He was saying something in praise of him, when a voice at the back -called out “Rats!” He smiled sweetly—“I was speaking of Mr. Balfour,” he -said, “not of the first Lord of the Admiralty.” - -[Illustration: - - G. B. BURGIN - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -Later on, at that same meeting, a heckler asked him where he got his -title, and was told “just where you got your d——d ugly face—from my -father.” - -He gave us some pretty flashes of wit that night, but not of the -scathing order which makes him one of the protagonists who fight against -Home Rule. With his physical strength and activity, his dauntless -courage, and his power of swaying great assemblages with his speeches, -he is a born leader. - -There were few well-known literary men and women in the London of the -time who were not guests of the Vagabonds Club. The best speech we ever -had from a woman author was, I think, from Flora Annie Steel, who, -contrary to the habit of most speakers, explained to start with that she -was likely to make a very good speech because we had taken her -unexpectedly, and she was very angry with the last speaker—whom she -proceeded to mince. - -But charming Mrs. Craigie, “John Oliver Hobbes,” made us a very -fascinating one when she was our guest of the evening. That was the -night on which she complained that people persisted in identifying her -with her heroines, especially with the kind of heroine whom a woman does -not wish to be suspected of drawing from herself, like her “Anne” (I -think in _The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham_). - -Anthony Hope, who was the next speaker, complained that he had never had -such luck, that he had been hoping ever since he wrote _The Prisoner of -Zenda_ that somebody would confuse him with Rupert of Hentzau, but that -no critic had ever obliged him. - -Once, at any rate, he was the guest of the Club, and he occupied the -chair, I should say, nearly every year during its existence. I wish I -had kept a record of the _bons mots_ which never failed to adorn his -speeches. One of them comes to my mind as I write these words; he said -that the reason why England and the United States were not better -friends arose from their inability to understand each other’s humour. - -He and Conan Doyle were the mainstays of our chair at the New Vagabonds. -Doyle may have taken it even oftener than he did. He was the chairman we -instinctively chose for a great occasion, like that on which we had Lord -Roberts for our guest, though he did not actually take the chair that -night, for we could rely upon him to say the generous and dignified -words which would express the feelings of the Club, as he did in -proposing the health of Lord Roberts at the Authors’ Society dinner, -when he said that Lord Roberts was the one guest who, short of royalty, -must always take the first place in any gathering of his countrymen, the -first, not only in rank and distinction, but in the grateful love and -veneration of Englishmen. - -Doyle was in the chair at the farewell dinner which the Club gave in -honour of Burgin and myself at the Connaught Rooms, and said just -exactly the right things to make us feel very proud, and to voice the -regret of the Club at meeting for the last time. The Club did not -exactly die, because it was amalgamated with the O.P. Club. - -Carl Hentschel was a very prominent member of both clubs, and when -Burgin and I were unable to carry on the Vagabonds any longer, he very -kindly came forward, and was willing either to take over the honorary -secretaryship of the Vagabonds, or to amalgamate the two clubs. Finally, -seeing that Bohemians had more dining clubs than they had the leisure to -attend, we decided in favour of amalgamation, and there is some talk now -of the Playgoers combining with them both. - -George Grossmith was one of our best members. We had him as a guest, and -he often gave us an entertainment. One of his most felicitous efforts -was when he proposed his own health, and was very sarcastic about -himself. But that was a favourite vein of humour with him. Those who -were at the great party which he and Weedon gave at the Grafton -Galleries will remember the story of the clergyman’s wife who was -getting up a bazaar, and suggested that they should ask George Grossmith -to give them a performance, because he was such a fool—“You can always -get him to do things for nothing,” she explained, and added, “The best -of him is that he can be humorous without being funny.” - -She was right about his being generous; that was always characteristic -of George Grossmith. - -Bill Nye distinguished himself in an equally original manner when he was -the guest of the evening. It was Independence Day, and he had enjoyed -such a reception from the American colony that he was sleepy, to say the -least of it, before he reached the New Vagabonds. Not one word could the -chairman get out of him during the dinner, but no sooner had the -chairman said, “Gentlemen, you may smoke,” than Nye got up and returned -thanks for all the handsome things which had been said about him. He -spoke at great length, and with the greatest fluency, and it was only -with considerable difficulty that he could be stopped. He is the only -man I ever remember to have come to one of the dinners so tired, though -I have seen others unbend as the evening grew old; and it was entirely -due to the accident of his arriving in London on Independence Day. And, -as poor Phil May said, of course, your tongue does sometimes run away -with you, when you are on your legs. - -Arthur Diósy (the son of that Martin Diósy who was secretary of the -Hungarian Revolution), who was chairman of the Japan Society for years, -had talked so learnedly about Japan, and had mouthed the Japanese names -so lovingly, that every one imagined that he had been in Japan for at -least half his lifetime. Most people went further, and, not knowing that -the Hungarians were Mongols who conquered parts of Europe a thousand -years ago, imagined, from the Mongolian type in his features, of which, -as a Hungarian, he was so proud, that he was a Japanese. Even the name -did pretty well if you spelt it wrong. When he did go to Japan for the -first time, and received an enormous welcome from the Japanese -authorities as the founder of the Japan Society, and the practical -originator of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, we, his fellow-members of the -Vagabond Club, gave him a dinner in honour of the event. - -I am an original member of the Japan Society, and had the honour of -giving them their opening address in the season of 1912. - -We had a very interesting guest in Sir George Scott Robertson, the -doctor who was knighted for his successful defence of Chitral when the -combatant officers were all _hors de combat_. Robertson not only wrote -his name on the golden roll of the besieged who have endured to the end -and who have prevailed, but he gave us one of the best speeches we had -ever heard at the Club. He told us marvels of his other claim on his -country—his exploration of Kafiristan, a country which had kept its -population pure from other strains, and had preserved unique monuments -until, in our own generation, the Afghans began to absorb it, and he -proved himself a great orator, with a well of biblical English flowing -into his impromptu speech. - -Sir Edward Ward we entertained for his share in another and yet more -memorable defence, for it was to him, more than anybody else, that -England owes the preservation of Ladysmith. He foresaw what was coming, -and before it was too late got on the track of everything edible and -potable in Ladysmith; he made the horses, which were not going to be of -any use, into chevril, a horsey form of Bovril, and if the siege had -gone on much longer, he would have found a way of making _suprêmes_ out -of old boot-soles. He made the provisions last by his foresight and -administrative capacity, and he was almost as invaluable with his -indomitable pluck and cheeriness. He was for years Permanent Secretary -of War, and it is a mighty pity that he is not Secretary of State for -War, for which his unparalleled knowledge of Army administration and his -robust commonsense would make him the ideal appointment. No detail is -too small for Ward to attend to it; no person is too small for him to -listen to courteously and patiently. He made a great impression on the -Vagabonds, for he has an Irishman’s wit in speaking, and is most -soldierly looking, a man of Herculean build. - -Sir George Reid, the High Commissioner of Australia, is one of the best -speakers we had at the Club; he is very witty when he is witty, and from -time to time turns serious with marked effect. I had known him many -years before he came to the Vagabond dinner; I made his acquaintance in -the early ’eighties, when I held the Chair of History in the University -at Sydney, and he was the only Free-trader of any influence in -Australia. Since then he has been the Premier of Federated Australia, -and now most worthily represents the Commonwealth, for he has impressed -on the Government that he is a force to be reckoned with, even where the -colonies are only vaguely affected. - -In decided contrast to him was the Princess Bariatinsky—Lydia Yavorska, -the Russian actress who married a cousin of the Czar. We entertained her -as a recognition of her splendid acting in Ibsen’s _Doll’s-House_, where -her foreign accent was no drawback, and her tragic power had scope. - -There are other Vagabond dinners which, I remember, went off with much -éclat, though I cannot recall their incidents—dinners to great sailors -like Lord Charles Beresford and Lambton, now Meux, and Shackleton of -Antarctic fame, dinners to great soldiers like Sir Evelyn Wood; dinners -to great artists like Lord Leighton and Sir Alma Tadema and Linley -Sambourne, all, unfortunately, now dead, and J. J. Shannon, still with -us and still young; dinners to great actors like Ellen Terry and Tree, -Wyndham and Mary Moore and the younger Irvings and the Bourchiers and -the Asches and Forbes-Robertson and Lena Ashwell; and dinners to great -authors like Doyle, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Hall Caine, H. G. Wells, Mrs. -Burnett, Jerome, W. L. Courtney and Robert Barr. They were all great -occasions, with two, three or four hundred present, but readers will -wish to be spared the details of dinners to perfectly well-known people -unless they brought out some fresh trait, or some priceless anecdote. - -It is to be hoped that the Vagabond dinners will come to life again, not -on the huge and expensive scale which is going out of vogue, but little -meetings of really eminent people gathered at some restaurant in Soho, -to eat a dinner which reminds them of joyous Bohemian days in Paris or -Italy, and to enjoy the pleasures of a general conversation upon the -topics of Bohemia, such as we used to have in the days when we met as -men only (which we will never do again), before we were reformed -Vagabonds. - -The Argonauts, a little dining club which Frankfort Moore and I founded, -before the Vagabonds allowed ladies at their dinners, to dine every -Sunday or every other Sunday at Mrs. Robertson’s tea and luncheon rooms -in Bond Street, where we had our club-room, would give a good example to -follow. We seldom had a guest or speeches. A number of well-known people -used to dine together for the pleasure of each other’s company. We left -our places as soon as we had finished dinner, and broke up into little -knots to converse. There you really could see your friends, and -introduce interesting people to each other.[7] - -Footnote 7: - - The members of this club, as far as I can remember, were: Conan Doyle, - E. W. Hornung, Justin McCarthy, M.P., J. K. Jerome, S. R. Crockett, - Anthony Hope, Gilbert Parker, Oswald Crawfurd, W. H. Wilkins, J. - Bloundelle-Burton, Frankfort Moore, Moncure D. Conway, Rudolf Lehmann, - Edward Heron Allen, Barry Pain, Arthur Playfair, Arthur Diósy, - Reginald Cleaver, G. A. Redford, Lewis Hind, Herbert Bailey, Walter - Blackman, G. W. Sheldon, Edward Elkins, Edgar Fawcett, Louis F. - Austin, Bernard Partridge, John Charlton, Sir James Linton, Mortimer - Menpes, Basil Gotto, Emerson Bainbridge, M.P., Sir J. Henniker-Heaton, - M.P., Penderel Brodhurst, C. N. Williamson, Arthur A’Beckett, H. B. - Vogel, Horace Cox, Grant Richards, Joe Hatton, Percy White, Clarence - Rook, Henry Arthur Jones, Adrian Ross, Herbert Bunning, Judge Biron, - Grimwood Mears, Rudolph Birnbaum, Ben Webster, Mrs. C. N. Williamson, - Flora Annie Steel, John Oliver Hobbes, Florence Marryat, “Iota,” Mrs. - Campbell Praed, Annie Swan, Arabella Kenealy, George Paston, Norma - Lorimer, “Rita,” Mrs. Stepney Rawson, Violet Hunt, May Whitty, Rosalie - Neish, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Mrs. C. E. Humphry, and Mrs. Oscar Beringer. - To these I must add one of the two famous Greenes who were singers; I - cannot find the initial. It will be observed that there was hardly a - person in the club whose name was not well known. - -At these Vagabond dinners, the ordinary procedure was for two or three -or four hundred members, male and female, to assemble to do honour to a -famous guest. As soon as dinner was over, the chairman proposed the -health of the King, and made the stereotyped joke about any lady, who -wished, being permitted to smoke. He had this excuse at the Vagabonds, -that many of the men smoked before they had received permission. Then he -proposed the health of the guest, and the guest replied. All guests made -the same jokes about the name “Vagabonds.” I rather think that they must -have been supplied to them by the toast-master at the Hotel Cecil, who -always “prayed silence” with special gusto for “Mr. Hanthony ’Ope,” -because no other name gave him the same chances. - -When the guest had finished his speech, which was usually a very good -one, because we chose them for their speaking, unless they were very -eminent, we retired into the adjoining hall for an entertainment of -singing, story-telling and conjuring, which I always thought spoilt the -evening, much as I appreciated the performances of men like Churcher and -Harrison Hill and Bertram, or Willie Nichol, or Reggie Groome, for when -you had a number of eminent people collected together, far the best form -of entertainment was to introduce them to each other. I remember the -positive pain I felt at Lady Palmer’s, when, a few minutes after she had -introduced me to George Meredith for the first time, Johannes Wolff, the -violinist, played a thing of Beethoven’s which was as long as a sermon. -I wanted to hear George Meredith so much more than him, having regarded -him as one of the greatest masters of literature all my life, and -wishing to surrender to the extraordinary charm of his way of speaking. -I sympathise with a famous tenor, who told me that the first time he -heard Handel’s _Messiah_, when they came to the _Hallelujah Chorus_, he -said, “Let’s get ‘oot,’ there’s going to be a row.” - -Personally, I used to try and induce the most interesting people -present, except the guest of the evening, to stay outside, and have -whiskies and sodas. They generally hadn’t the good taste to prefer -singing to whiskies and sodas; I hadn’t, either, though I don’t drink -whisky. - -But the Hotel Cecil, where we held the Vagabond dinners, was not as bad -as the Savage Club. In the old days there, if you did not wish to spend -your evening glued to one chair, listening to singing, you had to stand -in a tiny bar, the size of a scullery, and hear the same jokes from the -same steady drinkers, just as you would have heard the same songs every -Saturday evening if you had stayed in the room all the time. The Savage -is a much more literary club now, and the accommodation is better -arranged. I do not want to say anything against the old Savage. Those -performances were good enough for anybody to listen to once, even King -Edward VII, who, when he was Prince of Wales, dined there, and said that -he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life. What I objected to was -the constant repetition of the same performance Saturday after Saturday, -without having any place for members to sit and talk if they did not -want to hear the music. But I have been to many Bohemian dinners in my -time, and I have not met many men, except Walter Besant, who confessed -that performances made him feel, as they make me, that he would have a -nervous breakdown if he listened to them for half-an-hour longer. I have -noticed that most men, when they go to a club of this kind, where there -are a number of really eminent people in the room, have no objection to -listening to one vapid song after another, instead of being introduced -to, we will say, Lord Kelvin, or Tennyson, or Sir Henry Irving, and this -though they could have an equally good performance any night of their -lives by paying for a seat in the promenade of a music-hall. When will -people understand that the two sorts of entertainments ought to be kept -separate—that the great object of a literary dinner is for one to meet -men who write, or the people whom all the newspapers are writing about? -You can go to a concert by paying for it; you cannot meet these people -by any other means except introduction, and the hour or two after you -have done eating at a public dinner is all too short a period for the -chance of introduction to the world’s workers. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - LITERARY CLUBS: THE SAVAGE CLUB - - -I WAS for a number of years a member of the Savage Club, and I was an -honorary member there for a long time at an earlier period, when I first -came home from Australia and the waiting list was full. - -I sometimes hinted to the then secretary that I had out-lived my month -of honorary membership several times over. His answer was invariably the -same: “Rules are intended to be enforced against disagreeable people.” I -remained an honorary member till I went away to America in 1888. Some -years afterwards, when I returned from America, I became an ordinary -member. - -At first I loved the Savage. There were not many author-members, it was -true, who ever put in an appearance, except Christie Murray and Patchett -Martin—Barrie was a member, but he was never there. The Club did not run -to authors. What celebrities there were were chiefly actors and artists. -But it was a club that consisted more of the admirers of the arts than -their professors, men who packed the dinner-table every Saturday night, -and made an enthusiastic audience for the actors and musicians and -reciters, who did “turns” to amuse the company and get their names known -to the public, if they were not already popular favourites, like W. H. -Denny, Fred Kay, Odell, Willie Nichol and Reggie Groome. - -I have known the Savage Club long enough to remember Brandon Thomas and -Seymour Hicks being regarded as brilliant amateurs, who never would be -anything more. But both were very favourite performers at giving -sketches accompanied by the piano. Penley was often there, but never -would perform. One of the favourite _jeunes premiers_ of musical -comedy—I forget which—used to sing “I’ll sing thee Songs of Araby” every -Saturday night. - -Before I went to America, while I knew hardly any one in Bohemia, and it -was all new to me, I loved those Saturday nights. We had a bad -half-crown dinner, in which I generally sat between quite uninteresting -people—well-off furniture dealers and that kind of thing, who were most -of them, however, keen and intelligent patrons of music and the drama, -and belonged to the Savage for that reason. Most of them, too, were old -members, with a large number of friends at whom they fired good-humoured -banter across the tables. I found them willing to take one into their -good-fellowship in the readiest manner, and occasionally one was -rewarded by finding oneself near an affable celebrity. - -But the conversation was seldom in the least bit intellectual. Books -were treated as non-existent in the Savage of that day. There were -hardly any, even in the library, except poems given by the poets -themselves. I was always heartily glad when the dinner was over, and the -fusillade of ordering drinks was over, and the performance began. - -The club-house was situated then, as now, in Adelphi Terrace, a fine row -of Georgian houses standing on a sort of marine parade above the bank of -the Thames. If you looked over the railings on the opposite side of the -road, you would expect to find a beach like Brighton’s. I have never yet -looked over these railings, so I don’t know what there is below, but -there must be vaults, which are used for something, under the road, in -such a valuable locality. - -The room where we held the dinners and these brilliant club concerts was -only separated by a wall from David Garrick’s dining-room. He made the -mistake of living in the wrong house. - -The theory why we dined at 6.30, was that popular actors and singers -could dine with us, and give us a turn before they went to their -theatre. In practice, they very seldom came, unless they were having a -holiday, voluntary or otherwise. But there were always enough of them -“resting” to give us a brilliant evening. - -For some little time after dinner the Club did not settle down -sufficiently to make its favourite performers willing to give their -turns. It made too much noise over diluting whisky with soda, and -manœuvring to get the waiter’s attention. This gave the new aspirant his -chance. If he was timid and low-voiced, he did not always get the -attention of the room, but it was not difficult to get the chairman to -call on him. I know by experience how difficult it was to get any old -“hand” to sing first. I called upon the bores first, when I was in the -chair. There were several of them, whom the Club had grown into the -habit of tolerating every Saturday night, so they had earned a right to -be called on. They all said that they had colds, and afterwards, when -the performance was at its height, sent round notes that they felt -better, and would try to give a turn if I called upon them now. But I -ignored the notes so long as I had any one else to call on. They were -mostly reciters; almost any kind of song will go in a club which takes -up a chorus. - -Some of the humorous reciters were very good. The club was never tired -of hearing Robert Ganthony give a scene in a Metropolitan Police -Magistrate’s Court; or that youthful octogenarian, Fitzgerald, the -artist, mimicking a rehearsal at Astley’s in the old days; or Odell, the -idol of the Savage, going through his wonderful repertoire. Early in the -evening, Walter Hedgcock, the Crystal Palace organist, would give us the -song he never could publish, because he was blocked by an earlier -setting—Kipling’s “Mandalay.” It was delightful music, and was -eventually published as the “Mousmee,” with words which I wrote for him -in the metre of “Mandalay.” Hedgcock did not mind coming on early, -because he could always pick up the audience with the first bars of -“Mandalay.” - -Townley, who was Registrar of Births and Deaths at St. Pancras, I -think—except on Saturday nights and Sundays—was our funniest singer; he -was a natural comedian. The Club always insisted on its favourites -singing the same songs. He had to sing a song called “Hoop-la,” or -something of the kind. Willie Nichol had to sing “Loch Lomond”; -Cheesewright had to sing “The Three Jolly Sailor-Boys”; Denny, who was -afterwards our honorary secretary, did generally give us something -recent from the music-halls. But the old “hands” eyed him half -resentfully while he did it. - -I soon came to regard Odell as an oasis, because, though the Club made -him sing and recite the same things Saturday after Saturday, he had a -blessed gift of gag. In the midst of his ballad about the Fleet, the one -Warham St. Leger wrote for _Punch_, he stopped one night to tell us how -he lost his last engagement. It was in a piece based on the wreck of the -_Princess Alice_, the Thames steamer in which so many lives were lost. -Odell played the part of captain of the steamer, and all went well till -one night, as he expressed it, just at the fatal moment, when the people -in the stalls were taking off their coats because they were so -perspiring with excitement, he could stand the tension no longer, so he -took out his watch and said, “It’s just five o’clock. I wish I had gone -back by the penny ’bus.” The audience rose in their places, and stoned -him with whatever came handy, and he pretended that after that he never -could get an engagement. - -As I don’t drink after dinner, and don’t smoke at all, I began to find -these concerts very tiring as soon as I knew all the performances by -heart. But there was no other place of meeting except the bar. We badly -needed a smoking-room, adjoining the dining-room and the bar, where -those who had brought interesting people with them could introduce them -to interesting Savages, without losing touch with the evening, as they -did if they went up to that melancholy library, which has probably been -given over to some legitimate purpose, like _Bridge_, long ago. - -I frequently agitated for this smoking-room, and I believe that they got -it eventually. The bar did too good a business; you did not see people -getting intoxicated; its habitués carried their liquor too well. But I -have seen one man drink as many as thirty-three whiskys-and-sodas in a -single evening, and I saw him the other day—twenty years -afterwards—looking as fit as possible. - -Gradually I came to the conclusion that as there were so many other -interesting things happening on Saturdays, it was not wise to give my -Saturday evenings up to the Savage, and there was “nothing else to” the -club in those days. It had not then become the favourite lunching-place -of the great editors, an important venue for authors. - -So I retired from the Savage, as I retired from the Devonshire a few -years afterwards. When one of the committee of the Devonshire asked me -why I retired from it, I said that I only used it for funerals, and that -I was retiring because they had made that an extra. This was a fact. The -windows of the Devonshire Club are one of the best places for seeing a -royal funeral—or, of course, any other royal procession. The committee -discovered this, and put on a charge of ten pounds a seat, to pay for -the decorations of the Club. So many people wanted these seats that they -had to be balloted for. The action of the committee was justified. But, -as I had not used the Club since the funeral of Queen Victoria, when I -found that I could not see the funeral of King Edward from its windows -without balloting for the privilege of paying ten pounds for it, I sent -in my resignation, and paid a guinea for a seat from which I could see -the funeral for the whole length of Oxford and Cambridge Terrace. I went -with Norma Lorimer and Markino, who painted a wonderful picture of it. -The people on whose roof we hired the seats from the contractor, asked -us to lunch, and became quite intimate friends. They proved to be Mr. -Sanderson Stuart and his daughter—the youthful genius of sculpture. - -We used to get most notable guests at the Savage—was not the list headed -by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. I was in the chair the night that -Nansen was the guest of the evening. It was on the eve of his departure -for the North Pole, and I hammered the table and asked the Club if they -would allow me to invite our guest to write his name on the wall behind -his seat, to remain there till he came back again. They assented with -rapturous applause, and the name is there still, glazed over. I have -told in another chapter what he said to the “Savage” who wished to -accompany him to the Arctic Circle. - -The Savage Club is, undoubtedly, one of the institutions of London, and -every literary visitor to these shores should see one of its Saturday -nights. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - MY CONNECTION WITH JOURNALISM - - -I MUST allude briefly to my long connection with journalism. - -When I settled in London in 1891, I had already done a good deal of -journalism in New York and San Francisco. In the latter my writing had -chiefly lain in travel-articles on Japan, to which San Francisco, as the -Pacific Capital of the United States, naturally looks. In New York I had -written on travel—much of my _Japs at Home_ appeared in travel-articles -for the McClure Syndicate. But I also wrote a number of literary and -personal articles for the _New York Independent_, the _Sun_, the -_World_, and so on, such as my _Reminiscences of Cardinal Newman_ told -in the first person. In doing this I found that what America demanded -was the personal reminiscence. - -When I came to England, I naturally sought work on the same lines, and -had no difficulty in finding editors who saw the opening for this -comparatively fresh line in British journalism. - -I turned first to Fisher, of the _Literary World_, whom I had met at the -Idler teas, and who had invited me to do some reviewing for him. He had -_Table-Talk Notes_ as a feature, and here my first journalism appeared. - -When I was helping Jerome to formulate _To-day_ in 1893, I suggested to -him that we should have a book of the week, in which we told as much -about the author as we knew, and that biographical gossip about authors -and artists and actors should be one of our chief features. He was -completely in favour of it, and I wrote a good deal for him, especially -about authors. - -About the same time, Lewis Hind became editor of the now defunct _Pall -Mall Budget_, and I carried out the same idea for him in a regular -_causerie_, to which we gave the name of the _Diner-Out_, and which I -signed “St. Barbe”—the family name of my maternal grandmother. - -Between these three papers I was pretty fully occupied. But my mind was -turning towards a more congenial form of journalism—the travel-article. -Percy Cox, a son of the Horace Cox whose name appeared on the _Queen_ as -its publisher for so many years, was anxious to develop its travel side, -and while the late Sievers Drewett was organising the wonderful travel -department, which now has its annual _Queen Book of Travel_, he employed -me to write a series of articles on my travels in Greece and Turkey, and -a regular travel-serial on the trans-continental journey across Canada, -which I amplified and brought out as _On the Cars and Off_. - -While I was doing these, Clement Shorter, who had been a sort of -literary editor to the _Queen_—all the important books being sent to -him, and he writing a sort of _causerie_ about them—became too busy with -his offspring, the _Sketch_, to do any more work for the _Queen_, and I -was offered his place. My suggestion that we should have a signed “book -of the week” for the most important book—unsigned minor reviews to be -worked in anywhere about the paper—and that I should do my _Diner-Out_ -column for the _Queen_, instead of the _Pall Mall Budget_, was accepted, -and I began my literary connection with the _Queen_, which lasted for so -many years. I kept the _Diner-Out_ for biographical gossip about authors -chiefly, and for announcements of forthcoming books, which could be made -interesting by personal gossip. Actual reviewing I kept as far as -possible out of that column. In those days, though the _Queen_ was and -always had been the chief ladies’ paper, it had not nearly so many -departments of feminine interest as it has now, so there was plenty of -space for book-reviewing, which became a very important feature of the -paper. I was only responsible for the _Book of the Week_ and the -_Diner-Out_, though I did perhaps a page of unsigned minor reviews, -which were never attributed to me. - -I had one faithful reader in her late Majesty, Queen Victoria. I learned -this quite incidentally. I had taken a _manoir_ in Brittany for the -summer, and at the house of Mrs. Burrowes, a niece of the late Lord -Perth, met the lady who filled the post of reader to Her Majesty; Queen -Victoria prefered having books and newspapers read aloud to her. This -lady informed me that Her Majesty had my _Diner-Out_ column in the -_Queen_ read to her every week, and was most amused by it. - -As the woman’s side of the paper developed, the space for reviewing -became more and more restricted, and the _Diner-Out_ became simply a -column of small reviews, without any of its own features, and finally, I -think, the name itself very often dropped out. - -While I was doing the reviewing for the _Queen_, we were travelling a -great deal in France, Italy, Sicily and Egypt. The books which I -published on these countries were, as far as the travel portion of them -was concerned, largely drawn from these articles in the -_Queen_—beginning with _Brittany for Britons_. Some of them, such as the -Normandy articles, I never did re-publish, and I contributed to the -_Queen_ enough articles on Italy to form another volume, besides those -which have already appeared in my books on Italy and Sicily. - -I still do some reviewing for the _Queen_, but I do little other -journalism now, except when I am approached by some newspaper to do an -article on a subject upon which I have special knowledge. - -The fact is, that in recent years I have employed my journalistic -faculties on the preparation of books like _Who’s Who_, _Sladen’s London -and Its Leaders_ and _The Green Book of London Society_, which need much -the same kind of gifts as personal journalism does. - -[Illustration: - - SIDNEY LOW - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -_The Green Book_ was a sort of one-line _Who’s Who_, which only -mentioned the leading people in each walk of London life, except the -bearing of a title. The selection of the chief personages and experts in -each line—say, for instance, shooting or fishing or golf or writing -books—was not made by any correspondence with the people themselves, but -was entrusted to the chief expert in each line. Golf was by a runner-up -for the Amateur Championship, fishing by the fishing editor of the -_Field_, exploration by the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, -and so on. - -_Who’s Who_ itself must form the subject of a separate chapter. - -I have no older friend in journalism than Sidney Low. We went to Oxford, -I think, on the same day—he was a Scholar of Balliol and I was a Scholar -of Trinity—and we certainly knew each other very well there, and have -been intimate friends ever since. His ability received early -recognition. Before he had left Oxford ten years, he was editor-in-chief -of a great London daily, and he has written books which have become -standard works, like the _Dictionary of English History_, which has been -through half-a-dozen editions. Since he gave up editing he has -represented the leading papers on the most important special missions. -He has been an alderman of the London County Council, and he has been -one of the chief forces in literary society. If I were asked who had -introduced me to the largest number of eminent persons, I should say -Sidney Low—without hesitation. No man passes saner or more moderate -judgments on the great questions of the hour. Indeed, I should say that -Low stands in journalism for what a man who was at Oxford with both of -us—George Cave, K.C., M.P.—stands in politics—for moderation in -statement, combined with great firmness of principle and judgment. - -With Low’s name I must couple that of the late Samuel Henry Jeyes, who -was his colleague both on the _St. James’s Gazette_ and the _Standard_. -He was a beloved friend of us both, but my intimacy with him began much -earlier. He was my greatest friend at Trinity, Oxford, and one of the -Oxford men of whom I saw most in after life. We were elected Scholars of -Trinity on the same day; we had rooms on the same staircase; we went to -all the same lectures till we passed mods., and I taught him to play -billiards. It was the only game of manual skill which he ever did play. -He lashed the adulation for sport which prevails at Oxford with the -gibes of which he was such a master. When we had only been up at Oxford -for a few days, A. J. Webbe, who was the special idol of Trinity because -he was captain of the ’Varsity Eleven, asked all of us Trinity freshmen -to meet some of the lions of the Oxford Eleven. All of us except Jeyes -were vastly elated. We all, except Jeyes, talked our best cricket shop -to make a good impression on the demigods. At last he could stand it no -longer, and, waiting till there was a dead pause in the conversation, he -said, “This b——y cricket!” I can remember the tableau still. - -His reputation as a wit came up with him from Uppingham. All Uppingham -men could remember how, when he was caught cribbing with a Bible on his -knee at a Greek Testament lesson, and his class-master had said to him -triumphantly, “What have you there, Jeyes?” he said, “A book, sir, of -which no man need be ashamed,” and how when Thring, the greatest head -master of his time, had asked him how he came to be ploughed in -arithmetic for his Oxford and Cambridge certificate, he replied from -Shakespeare, “I cannot reckon, it befits the spirit of a tapster”—a -readiness which Thring would have been the first to appreciate. - -Among the best things I remember him saying at Oxford are his definition -of the Turks in a great debate over the Bulgarian atrocities, as a -people “whose morals are as loose as their trousers, and whose vices are -as many as their wives.” And it was he who said, “I don’t want to go to -Heaven, because Gore (now Bishop of Oxford) is the only Trinity man who -will be there, and I’d rather be with the rest.” - -Jeyes never spoke at the Union—he despised it—or he would have been as -great a success as the miraculous Baumann or Freeman, now Rector of -Burton-on-Trent. I never remember hearing Cave speaking at the Union, -though perhaps he did. - -One of Jeyes’ wittiest retorts was to “Bobby” Raper, at that time Dean -of Trinity, who was “hauling” him for some meretricious disregard of -College discipline. The glib excuse was not wanting, but Raper was -stern. “No no, Mr. Jeyes, that won’t do. You told me the exact opposite -of that last term.” “I know I did, Mr. Dean, but that was a lie.” - -He owed the Dean one, for the first thing he did when he went up to -Trinity had been to go and call on the Dean and tell him that he had -conscientious scruples against going to chapel. - -“Morning chapel, you know, Mr. Jeyes,” said the Dean, “is a matter of -discipline and not of religion, but if you really have conscientious -objections, I’ll put on a roll-call for you at 7 a.m.”—Chapel was at 8 -a.m., so Jeyes swallowed his nausea. - -But Jeyes’ wit was tireless. He was a fine scholar—he made his pupils -write wonderful Latin prose when he became a don at University—I presume -during the undergraduacy of Lord Hugh and Lord Robert Cecil. But he tore -himself away to be a journalist, and became in time an assistant-editor -of the _St. James’s Gazette_, and later of the _Standard_. - -As a journalist he was distinguished by incorruptibility of no common -sternness. Though he had always spoken as a Liberal at Oxford (very -likely out of malice, because all his friends were Conservatives), he -was one of the pillars of Conservative journalism. He knew all the -chiefs of the Conservative party, and enjoyed great influence with them. -He was so rugged and unbending. I never knew a harder editor to “work.” -He wrote a Spartan life of Chamberlain, for whom he had a great -admiration, except in the matter of Tariff Reform. - -He married an old friend of ours, the beautiful Viva Sherman, an -American nearly related to the Senator-Vice-President and the General. -Both before and after his marriage he was a frequent visitor at our -house, and we often met at Ranelagh and elsewhere. He enjoyed a -discussion with Norma Lorimer. Her wit provoked his, and their -conversations were most brilliant to listen to. - -At last poor Jeyes was struck down with cancer—aggravated, I believe, by -cigar-smoking, in which he was a noted connoisseur. He bore it with -magnificent fortitude, and for a long time kept it a secret. Even I did -not know that he had been mortally ill till he was dead. But I was one -of the three old Oxford friends who stood by his grave—his oldest -friend, except H. B. Freeman, who read the service. Sidney Low was the -other. Charles Boyd was there too, but he belonged to a much younger -generation. - -If Jeyes had known that his life would be so short, he would perhaps -have devoted more time to book-writing. It is a pity—except for his -country and the Conservative party—that he gave up so much of his life -to necessarily ephemeral journalism. I always heard that but for a flaw -in a will he would have been owner of one of the greatest provincial -journals in England. - -Peace be to his ashes. He was a merry soul, and if the theosophists are -right about our astral bodies meeting the spirits of the departed, there -is no one with whom I should so much enjoy an astral conversation as -Jeyes. He would be such a volatile spirit. I can imagine the naïveté -with which he would describe his experiences. - -The Rev. Herbert Bentley Freeman—the Rector of Burton-on-Trent—a cousin -of the historian, and a descendant, I believe, of the mighty Bentley of -Phalaris renown, came up to Trinity from Uppingham in the same term as -Jeyes. Freeman and A. A. Baumann, who was afterwards Conservative M.P. -for Peckham, were the two most brilliant speakers at the Union in my -day. The undergraduates said that both wrote their speeches beforehand, -and learned them by heart and practised their delivery. - -Years afterwards I met Baumann when he had given up his safe seat at -Peckham and unsuccessfully contested a seat in the North, I think at -Manchester. - -“What made you give up Peckham?” I asked. “They would have gone on -electing you there as long as you lived.” - -“My dear chap, life isn’t worth living when you are member for Peckham. -I live in South Kensington, and while I was member for Peckham I used to -find my hall full of constituents by the time I came down for breakfast, -and by lunch-time you’d have thought that I was having an auction of my -furniture.” - -But of all the men who were at Oxford with me, no one has been so -prominent, then and now taken together, in intellectual circles as W. L. -Courtney. Courtney was then a rather young New College don, who had the -distinction of being married to an extremely smart-looking wife. That -would have been a distinction by itself in the Oxford of that day, for -few were married in a way suitable to impress undergraduates. Added to -that, he cut the most eminent figure in athletics of any don in Oxford. -He was the treasurer of the University Boat Club, while the dons -respected him as the ablest man in Oxford at philosophy. I was not there -when he gave it all up to come to London and be literary editor of the -_Daily Telegraph_ and editor of the _Fortnightly Review_, but I can -imagine the consternation which fell upon that ancient seat of learning -when their bright particular star, the admiration alike of don and -undergraduate, “chucked it,” as they say, for journalism. Of course he -did wisely, for in an incredibly short space of time he had as -distinguished a position in London as he had had at Oxford. His -influence on literature has been immense. He has stood for the -combination of scholarliness and up-to-dateness. His own books range -from essays on the verge of fiction to some of the most important works -on philosophy published in his generation. Incidentally, the creator of -_Egeria_ is our best dramatic critic, and a writer of plays. - -Both the late and the present editors of the _Field_, William Senior and -Theodore Andrea Cook, came to our Addison Mansions receptions. That -delightful man, William Senior, the “Red Spinner” of fishing journalism, -and his wife came very often to us. Theodore Andrea Cook is the ideal -editor for a great sporting paper like the _Field_, for he had not only -been editor of a great daily, but he had rowed in the Oxford boat, and -been a Scholar of his College, and he had captained the all-England team -in the international fencing matches at the Olympic games which were -held at Athens. He has also written very sound books on an unusual -variety of subjects (one of which, his book on _The Spiral in Nature and -Art_, was most widely discussed); and is one of the most delightful -writers we have of travel-books on France. Of course, everything which -he has written upon sport is _ex cathedra_. - -Walter Jerrold, who lives a little higher up the river than I do, in an -old house with a great garden, a very old friend, and a much older -Vagabond than I, often came with his wife to us at Addison Mansions. -Jerrold is a grandson of the famous wit, Douglas Jerrold. He was for -more than a dozen years sub-editor of the _Observer_. But fortunately he -found time for editing of another nature as well, which will help his -own books to give him a permanent place in our literature. He is one of -our best editors of nineteenth-century classics; his biographical and -bibliographical introductions are the most useful of their kind—just -what you would expect from the grandson of a man who was a star in the -firmament of which he writes. - -Clement Shorter, who married the Irish poetess, and was editor of the -_Illustrated London News_ when we met at Rudolph Lehmann’s in the -“nineties,” is another editor of books as well as papers. The Brontës -are his special protégés. He is the acknowledged Brontë expert, and -every one has read his new book on George Borrow. He has been great at -founding—he not only founded the _Sketch_, the _Sphere_ and the -_Tatler_, but he was one of the founders of the _Omar Khayyam Club_, -beloved of Radical litterateurs, though it deals not with English -politics, but English Persics. Here you are always sure of good -speaking—Mr. Balfour and Mr. Asquith, and all the important Cabinet -Ministers and ex-Cabinet Ministers have spoken there on occasion. I have -never heard Shorter speak himself, but I understand that he is a very -good political speaker, and I can picture him telling a Lincolnshire -audience how wrong it is to have an income not half as great as his own, -for Shorter has been deservedly prosperous. He is a great journalist—one -of the pioneers of modern journalism. He was a Civil Service clerk when -in 1890 he became editor of the _Illustrated London News_, and only a -couple of years had passed before he started the _Sketch_, the model of -a new class of paper, for the same office, and continued to edit both -papers till 1900. Then he thought that he would like to have a paper of -his own, and raised a hundred thousand pounds to found the _Sphere_ and -the _Tatler_, with which he has been associated ever since, as editor of -the former and director of both. They are rightly among the most popular -illustrated papers of the day, for they have reduced the handling of the -personal element to a science, and Shorter always was a brilliant -editor. His success has been largely due to his colossal energy and -industry. He has taken a minute interest in every detail of the -production of both papers. - -In the midst of all his journalistic labours, Shorter has found time to -write some admirable books, and has made himself with two books a -specialist on Napoleon in his period of exile at St. Helena. - -Herbert White, the present editor of the _Standard_, is one of the -best informed of all the English newspaper editors about Continental -politics, because he went through such an arduous schooling in -Austria and Germany, and knows German as well as he knows English. -He married the niece of an Austrian political leader, and after -war-correspondenting in the Græco-Turkish war of 1897, represented -leading English, American and French newspapers at Vienna from 1897 -to 1902, and Berlin from 1903 to 1911. Besides this he has taken -twenty special journalistic missions in every country of the -Continent except France and Russia. - -I should be accused of sycophancy if I said all I should like to say of -Robertson Nicoll, of whom I saw a good deal before we were both such -busy men. But there are some things about Nicoll to which nobody can be -blind, besides the position of respect which he enjoys in the literary -community. He makes a _bona fide_ attempt to educate his party in -politics, and his public in a spirit of commonsense and toleration -instead of appealing to their prejudices, and no man has done more in -the way of securing the publication of the books of unknown authors of -merit, who have justified his expectations and given the world great -books. Nicoll has been the sincere and enthusiastic friend of merit. I -can say this without prejudice, because his firm have published nothing -of mine. - -Similarity of name, and their common friendship with the A. S. Boyds, -makes me mention here James Nicol Dunn, whose editorship of the _Morning -Post_ was marked by such an advance in the political weight of that -paper. Dunn was managing editor of the _National Observer_ in its prime. -For solid efficiency as a journalist, he had no superior in the country. -It would have been a bad day for England when he left it to edit the -_Johannesburg Star_, if it had not been so important that the chief -organ of the Transvaal should be in such brave, moderate and judicious -hands, at such a critical period in the history of South Africa. - -T. P. O’Connor is a very old friend of mine. I met him first when we -were both in America in 1888-1889, and we have been on terms of -Christian names ever since. Though we differ strongly in politics, it -has never affected our friendship, for T. P. is very fair to his -enemies, except when he happens to have a special hatred for them. He -has founded four papers—the _Star_, the _Sun_, _T. P.’s Weekly_ and _M. -A. P._—but I am not sure as to how far he is still interested in any of -them. - -T. P. is to me a fascinating personality. He is so generous and genial. -The swift recognition, the ready smile, the warm affectionate manner, -have endeared him to hosts of friends, and every one recognises that he -has a golden pen which invests everything he touches with interest, and -an acute intelligence—acute enough to sift even the Humbert mystery and -present a clear analysis of it, as witness his _Phantom Millions_. - -He is a golfer too, and once upon a time used to play with W. G. Grace, -who, it seems, in spite of his being the best cricketer that ever lived, -always hits his shot along the ground except from the tee, though he -drives and puts pretty well. I got this egregious piece of journalism -from him when we were sitting next to each other at the dinner given by -M. Escoffier, at that time, and probably still, cook at the Carlton -Hotel, who gave a gourmet’s feast on the occasion of the publication of -his book on cookery, published by Heinemann. Heinemann invited me. The -chief thing I remember about the feast is that the wine Escoffier -selected was _Pommery Naturel_, and that the _tour de force_ was lamb -stuffed with sage and onions to replace the usual mint sauce. - -John Malcolm Bulloch, the editor of the _Graphic_, who gave me such -immense assistance when I was writing _Adam_ _Lindsay Gordon and His -Friends in England and Australia_, is an author whose father and -grandfather were authors before him. His specialities are the ancient -University of Aberdeen, of which he is an M.A., and the great house of -Gordon. He edited the _House of Gordon_ for the New Spalding Club, and -has written many pamphlets on Gordon genealogy besides his book on _The -Gay Gordons_. - -I happen to enjoy the friendship of the editors of both the _Bookseller_ -and the _Publishers’ Circular_. George H. Whitaker, who is a doctor by -profession, saw a good deal of the world as a ship’s doctor when he was -a young man. Now the world sees a good deal of him as head of the firm -which publishes _Whitaker’s Almanack_, as well as editor of the -_Bookseller_—famed, as a trade-organ ought to be, for the justice of its -reviews. - -R. B. Marston, who edits the _Publishers’ Circular_, edits the _Fishing -Gazette_ also. He founded the Fly Fishers’ Club. The Marstons are famous -fishermen—his father, Edward Marston, who has just died at a Nestor’s -age, had been one of Izaak Walton’s chief followers both with pen and -rod. R. B. is, besides writing books on fishing and photography, one of -the chief writers on our food supplies in war, an energetic and -patriotic public man. - -My oldest acquaintance in journalism, except Sidney Low, is Penderel -Brodhurst, the editor of the _Guardian_. We used to meet at Henley’s in -the days before I went to America, which was in 1888. He was in those -days the walking encyclopædia of the _St. James’s Gazette_, and -afterwards edited the long-defunct _St. James’s Budget_. He was, as he -is, a man wrapped up in his work: he could, if he had chosen, have been -a personage in literary society on his very historical name, for he is a -descendant of the Penderel who saved King Charles II in the oak at -Boscobel, and enjoys a pension therefor, probably one of the oldest -pensions still running in England, and he is, though he does not use his -title, an Italian marquis (Penderel de Boscobel, created 1782). - -Lindsay Bashford, being literary editor of the _Daily Mail_, has only -had time to write one book—_Everybody’s Boy_—but that was a very good -one. But he has a sufficient literary record apart from that, for he was -lecturer on English literature at a French university. - -J. A. Spender, the editor of the _Westminster_, is another -author-editor. I have known him for many years. He comes of a brilliant -family, for he is a son of Mrs. J. K. Spender, and brother of Harold -Spender. He was an Exhibitioner of Balliol, and Harold was an -Exhibitioner of University College, Oxford. Both of them are authors of -half-a-dozen books, and both of them are wonderfully clever and -well-informed men, real powers in journalism. - -Sir Owen Seaman, of _Punch_, who was Captain of Shrewsbury School, and -took a First in the Classical Tripos, and the Porson Prize at Cambridge, -can best be described as the modern Calverley, for no one since -Calverley has written such brilliant satirical lyrics. He was the “O. -S.” of the _National Observer_, and who does not remember “The Battle of -the Bays,” “In Cap and Bells” and “Borrowed Plumes”? - -H. W. Massingham, of the _Nation_, the most conspicuous political -journalist on the Liberal side, one of the few Liberals who dare to try -and lead their party against its will, has only written a couple of -books, both rather technical, _The London Daily Press_ and _Labour and -Protection_. - -Sidney Paternoster, the assistant-editor of _Truth_, is well known as a -novelist, as is Adcock, of the _Bookman_, but, taken as a whole, editors -of great newspapers are not writers of books. - -Ernest Parke, director of the _Daily News_ and _Leader_ and the _Star_, -was at one time a regular attendant at the Vagabond banquets, as was his -sub., Hugh Maclaughlan. Parke and I saw the Coronation together from a -seat in the triforium of Westminster Abbey right over the little square -of Oriental carpet on which His Majesty King George V was crowned, so we -had a splendid view of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Garter -King-at-Arms, addressing the North, South, East and West as witnesses, -and of the Dukes of Beaufort and Somerset, towering above Lord Kitchener -as he walked between them, an object lesson which I suppose was not -unintended. Parke is a great journalist, and made the _Star_ a force in -literature. Leonard Rees, of the _Sunday Times_, who shines as a -literary critic as well as a musical critic, with whom I have had much -correspondence, I have never met personally. But Vivian Carter, who was -on the staff of the Institution of Civil Engineers till only a dozen -years ago, and has in the last five years edited the _Bystander_ with -such conspicuous success, is a mutual friend of the C. N. Williamsons -and myself. We meet there. - -J. S. Wood, the founder and managing director of the _Gentlewoman_, and -one of the real founders of the Primrose League, was often from the -beginning at our at-homes, with his pretty Italian wife, and his -daughters as they grew up. We used to meet them in the season at -Ranelagh, too. Wood has been much more than a founder and editor of -newspapers, for he has been connected with the management of several of -our most important charities, and has himself been instrumental in -raising a quarter of a million for them. - -All the Kenealys (Arabella and Annesley, both authors, Edward and Noel, -both editors) were frequent visitors at our flat, except Alexander -Kenealy, the editor of the _Daily Mirror_, who was in America for twenty -years before he became news editor of the _Daily Express_, and, later, -editor of the _Mirror_. More than any of the others, Alexander Kenealy -inherits the splendid abilities of his father, the famous Dr. Kenealy, -Q.C., M.P., one of the greatest lawyers of his time, who took up the -case of the Tichborne claimant when others had abandoned it as hopeless, -and almost pulled him through. - -Another of our editor friends was Edwin Oliver, at that time editor of -_Atalanta_ and subsequently of the _Idler_, and, since 1910, of the -widely influential _Outlook_. - -I cannot conclude my chapter on journalism without reference to Sir Hugh -Gilzean-Reid, whose pet plaything was the Institute of Journalists. He -used often to come to our house with his charming daughters. Sir Hugh, -who had made a considerable fortune out of journalism, large enough to -let him live in Dollis Hill, the house near Willesden which Lord -Aberdeen lent to Mr. Gladstone, never forgot the working journalist, and -it was he who engineered the agitation which defeated the intention of -two of the great London dailies to issue Sunday editions like the -American _Sunday World_ and _Sunday Sun_. As Herbert Cornish was the -creator, he was chief founder and first President of the Institute of -Journalists also. He used to give large garden-parties at Dollis Hill, -chiefly to people who appreciated its having been consecrated by the -residence of Mr. Gladstone, though there were others, like ourselves, -who went because we liked his family so much. He was a philanthropic -man, and did an immense amount of good. - -The first paid journalism I ever did was writing articles on public -school life for the _Educational Reporter_ when I was a boy at -Cheltenham. About the same time I wrote a story for _Bow Bells_ called -“Douglas Thirlstaine’s Wooing,” which was not paid for, and soon after -that I supplied unpaid notes about Cheltenham College to a Cheltenham -paper, which had never been able to get them, as a favour to the late -Frederick Stroud, who had got me out of the libel action brought by the -editors of the _Shotover Papers_. I wish I could find that libel now. It -was a small pamphlet of a few pages, published under the title of -_Overshot_ by a printer in Turl Street, Oxford. I saw about the printing -of it when I was up in Oxford competing for a scholarship at Trinity or -Balliol, lodging with Ray, who was afterwards to be my scout, in one of -the sixteenth-century cottages which now form part of Trinity. - -In Australia the only money I made in journalism was five pounds which I -received from the _Queenslander_ for the serial rights of a novel which -I have never re-published, and a guinea which I received from the -_Illustrated Australian News_ as a prize for the best poem on -Federation. - -When I got back to England, the first paid journalism I did was for the -_Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News_, edited by A. E. T. Watson, who -now edits the _Badminton Magazine_, and who projected and edits the -_Badminton Library_, and is a member of the National Hunt Committee—one -of the chief sportsmen in journalism. The subjects on which I wrote were -Australian cricket and Australian poetry, like Gordon’s, and on both -subjects I was the chief authority until I went to America, odd as it -may seem now. I also wrote on Gordon for the _Graphic_, and had a long -historical article in the _Cornhill_, and a serial novel—_Trincolox_—in -_Temple Bar_. - -When I went to America, I wrote a good deal for papers and magazines, -but almost entirely in verse, except a series of articles which I had to -telegraph from Montreal about the Carnival to a great American daily. I -remember thinking that the telegraphing was such a useless expense for -such unimportant stuff. - -In Japan I wrote a good deal for the _Japan Gazette_, but my -contributions were gratis, because there the editor, Nuttall, now one of -the editors of the _Daily Telegraph_, was expected to write the whole -paper himself. I used to help him, and he exerted himself to get various -permissions for me. He was a very capable man, who kept his paper -interesting though he had to make his bricks without straw. - -However, when I got back to America from Japan I commenced journalism in -real earnest. I wrote a good many articles at four pounds a column for -the _San Francisco Chronicle_, and, as I have said, wrote for many -papers in New York, and when I returned to England I introduced the -American biographical journalism to many papers, and at one time was -fully occupied with it, until I diverted the capabilities I used for it -to the founding of _Who’s Who_. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS: PART I - - -MY active literary career dates from my return from America. Hitherto, -with the exception of the _Handbook to Japan_ and the potboiler for the -North German Lloyd, and a shilling shocker, published anonymously, and -the two series of articles on Japan executed for the _San Francisco -Chronicle_ and McClure’s Syndicate respectively, my literary aspirations -had all been poetical. I had published volumes of my own verse entitled: -_Frithjof and Ingebjorg_, _Australian Lyrics_, _A Poetry of Exiles_, _A -Summer Christmas_, _In Cornwall and Across the Sea_, _Edward the Black -Prince_, _The Spanish Armada_, _Lester the Loyalist_, and four -anthologies, _Australian Ballads and Rhymes_, _A Century of Australian -Song_, _Australian Poets and Younger American Poets_, one of which, -_Australian Ballads_, had a very large sale, though I only had ten -pounds for doing it. - -[Illustration: - - THE DINING-ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS. - (_From the Painting by Yoshio Markino._) -] - -But in America I had been under the necessity of making money, because -my private income was unequal to the increased expense of living in -America. The articles for McClure and the _San Francisco Chronicle_ were -the outcome of this necessity, and having found that I could add -materially to my income by writing about travel when in America, I -conceived the idea of making my articles on Japan, a country then but -little known in England, into a book. I went to Mr. A. P. Watt, then not -many years established, and he procured me a commission from Hutchinson -& Co.—the first of a series of commissions which has gone on from that -day to this. That book was _The Japs at Home_, the most successful, in -point of sales, of all my books, for not less than a hundred and fifty -thousand copies of it have been sold by various publishers. Hutchinson & -Co. brought out editions of it at eighteen shillings (two), six -shillings, and three-and-six, and then, having got through four editions -of it, and believing the sale at an end, gave the book up to me. Another -publisher sold fifteen thousand copies of it at half-a-crown, and then -exchanged the book rights with me for the serial rights, and since then -there has been a shilling edition, an enormous sixpenny edition, and a -threepenny-halfpenny edition; the shilling and the threepenny-halfpenny -editions are selling still. - -Following _The Japs at Home_ came _On the Cars and Off_, the success of -which was ruined by having illustrations which took six weeks to -produce. It was a guinea book, and a first edition of a thousand copies -was sold directly. But the second edition was not ready till nearly two -months later, and by that time the interest in the book was dead. - -My next book of travel was _Brittany for Britons_, published as one of -the familiar little half-crown guides of A. and C. Black, of which a -great number of copies were sold. I cannot say how many, because I -parted with the copyright. - -After this my energies were diverted from travel-books for a while, -because I wanted to try my hand at novel-writing. The result was _A -Japanese Marriage_, which, after _The Japs at Home_, has been my most -successful book in sales. About ten thousand copies of it were sold in -octavo form, and as a sixpenny various publishers have sold a hundred -and twenty thousand. - -For two years after our return from America we confined ourselves to -short excursions to the milder parts of England—Hampshire, chiefly round -Norman Christchurch; Devonshire, in the nook of Dartmoor round -Drewsteignton, and on the gloriously wild coast round Salcombe; and the -woods of the Isle of Wight. During this period I finished _The Japs at -Home_, and wrote _On the Cars and Off_, which was not published till -1895, about our double journey across America from Halifax to -Vancouver’s Island. - -Then a new interest came into my life—we were persuaded in 1895 to spend -a summer and autumn at St. Andrews, and there I acquired the inevitable -taste for golf, which has kept me interested and amused and healthful -and unaging. Certainly this was one of the most fortunate inspirations -we ever had for a holiday, since, after being devoted to games at school -and College and in Australia, I had left off football and cricket and -tennis, and even shooting, as soon as I settled in London. - -Poor old Tom Morris never had a worse pupil, for I play everything -wrong, and owe the prizes and medals I have won at golf to the -straightness of eye which helped me to win every shooting challenge cup -at Cheltenham and every shooting challenge cup at Oxford. At St. Andrews -I not only had a glorious spell of golf, but fell deeply in love with -romantic and historical Fifeshire. There are few places which combine so -many attractions as St. Andrews. It is the capital of golf; its cliffs -capped with old houses, and its ancient port, are beautiful enough for -Sicily, and its great ruined castle and its immemorial cathedral make it -architecturally the most interesting place in Scotland after Edinburgh -and Stirling. Nor does it yield to many in historical interest. I should -live there if it had a climate like Naples. - -It gave us such a hunger for old architecture and romantic scenery that -in the following summer we went to the old Breton towns on the Gulf of -St. Malo. We stayed at St. Servan in a seventeenth-century _manoir_ -called La Gentillerie, which we had from the chaplain, my school-friend, -William Vassall, who stayed with us as our guest in his own house. - -From a point close by we could look across the harbour to St. Malo, with -its mediæval walls and crane’s-bill steeple, and on the other side were -no further from Dinan. From St. Servan we went on for a month in -Normandy, which I much prefer to Brittany. Towns like Rouen and Caen, -Coutances and Bayeux, Evreux, Lisieux and Falaise, are citadels of -mediævalism. - -During this holiday I wrote my third travel-book, published in England, -_Brittany for Britons_, issued a year later, and put the final touches -on my first acknowledged novel, _A Japanese Marriage_. - -It was my two books on Japan, _The Japs at Home_ and _A Japanese -Marriage_, which helped me to gain a literary position; both went into -several editions in their first year. Between them they have sold more -than a quarter of a million copies. - -But I was on the verge of a book-success of another kind, which could -hardly be called a literary success, though more people connect my name -with this than with any of my books. Messrs. A. & C. Black, who had -published _A Japanese Marriage_ and _Brittany for Britons_, approached -me to know if I would expand _Who’s Who_, of which they had just -purchased the copyright. - -They showed it to me, and asked me if I could turn it into a book of -reference—a sort of cross between the old _Who’s Who_ and _Men of the -Time_ was the idea which shaped itself from our discussion. - -The two visits which we paid to Salcombe in Devon, the second of them -with Reginald Cleaver, have not yet furnished me with any subject for -writing. - -The year 1896, in which I compiled the new _Who’s Who_, was also a -notable year for me from the travel point of view. At last I faced the -exertion of taking my family to Sicily, which had been my ambition for -exactly ten years. It was not such a stereotyped journey as it is now. I -began to make inquiries about it when we reached Naples, and could not -find an Englishman in the place—even the Consul-General—who had ever -been to Sicily. But the Consul-General made inquiries, and said that he -did not think travelling in Sicily was very difficult or dangerous. He, -however, asked me if I had a revolver, and recommended me not to take -out a licence for it at the Consulate, because in Sicily a licence is -not available for the whole island, but only for one province, and there -are seven provinces. He also told me that he was quite sure that no -Sicilian ever took out a licence, though they all carried firearms. As -for malaria, he did not know; he never troubled about it; he always -spent the summer in or near Naples, and never felt any the worse for it. -This Consul was my great friend, Eustace Neville-Rolfe, who had lately -sold his ancestral estate of Heacham in Norfolk. Nelson students will -remember allusions in the great Admiral’s letters to his uncle Rolfe at -Heacham. But my friend hated the climate of Norfolk, and hated its -politics, and settled at Naples, where a good many years afterwards they -made him Consul-General for the unconstitutional reason that he knew -more about Naples than any living Englishman. He had the unique -distinction of joining the Consular Service as a Consul-General. - -When we got to Sicily we found it perfectly easy and safe. The Whitakers -of Palermo, to whom he gave us an introduction, at once became our -friends, and told us all we ought to see and all we ought to do in the -island. On that trip we paid fairly exhaustive visits to Palermo, -Taormina, Syracuse, Girgenti, Marsala, Trapani, Selinunte, and Segesta, -and flying visits to Catania and Messina. - -Sicily is an adorable country. Grass, flowers and fruit-trees grow right -down to the edge of the sea, where there is any soil, for half the -island is rock. There are no brigands on the sea-coasts, and nearly -every monument worth visiting is in sight of the sea. There is not a -place in the island from which you cannot see a mountain. It is the land -of the orange and the lemon; and possesses the rare charm of ancient -Greek and mediæval Arab architecture. - -Sicily inspired me to write the largest of all my books, _In Sicily_, -and inspired a publisher to produce it in an _édition de luxe_, whose -two volumes weighed fourteen pounds, and contained four hundred -illustrations. I called it _In Sicily_ because it was not until several -years afterwards that I considered that I knew enough about the island -to write a book with the more pretentious title of _Sicily_. A great -French author paid me the compliment of appropriating my title, and a -good deal of my information, a few years afterwards. I began to write -_In Sicily_ in 1896, but it was not published till 1901. - -We spent the spring of 1896 in Sicily, and the summer at Lulworth, on a -little round cove in South Dorset. We went there partly because it was -said to be the mildest place in England, partly because Thomas Hardy -told me that he had laid the scene of one of the chief episodes in _Tess -of the D’Urbervilles_ in an old farmhouse near the station which served -Lulworth; it had a hopelessly unromantic name—Wool. - -In the following summer we went to Ostend for the season, because I -wanted to see the gambling and the fashions. The morals of the Ostend of -that day may be gathered from this. A friend of mine who was staying at -the principal hotel with her husband, was asked by the proprietor if -they were properly married. She was most indignant, and said that of -course they were. - -“Very well,” he said coolly, “then I think you ought to go to some other -hotel, because you are the only people in mine who have been married.” - -That same hotel manager considered that things were no longer what they -were, for an Indian Maharajah had that morning complained at being -charged two pounds for a chicken—that the English and Americans were no -longer fools, and, in fact, that the only fools left were the Austrians. - -The late King of the Belgians was in residence at the chateau, and had -not one, but three, notorious French actresses staying with him. - -Apart from its _plage_ and its gaming-tables, I should have found Ostend -a dull place if it had not been for Henry Arthur Jones, who was there, -off and on, writing a new play, and ready to discuss it. He had had a -play at the St. James’s which had not gone too well, and he asked me if -I could account for it. I suggested that allowing a hospital nurse to -frustrate an elopement was more calculated to gratify the gallery than -the stalls, and that the St. James’s was a stalls theatre. - -Jones had one curious habit—whenever he felt at a standstill in writing -his play he used to say he must have a change of air, and then fly away -to Homburg or some other place which took many hours to reach. He was -much interested in gambling, though he did not gamble seriously. I -imagine that he found the gaming-tables full of “copy.” - -In the winter we went to Sicily again, and in the summer to Salcombe -again. - -In the following winter my connection with _Who’s Who_ ceased. My -agreement with the publishers was only for three years in case the book -was a failure, and the publishers pronounced it a failure. - -Almost immediately afterwards I had an attack of jaundice, brought on, -or not brought on, by the incident, and after a short stay at Brighton, -went to recruit my health at Nice, from which I paid many visits to -Monte Carlo, though I did not gamble much. - -On our way back from Nice we did what not one Englishman in a hundred, -among the thousands who winter in the Riviera, does, got off at -Tarascon, and wandered about the cities of Troubadour-land, such as -Tarascon, Arles, Nîmes, Avignon and Les Baux, the deserted capital of a -dead principality, where the houses, instead of being built, are hewn -out of the face of the rock. Provence is full of ancient Roman -buildings, and of Romanesque buildings, hardly to be distinguished from -them; and, in our day, in spite of the law against it, they used the -Roman amphitheatres for the modern equivalent of gladiatorial -games—bull-fights. Bull-fighting always began on Easter Sunday. - -I registered a resolve, which I have never kept, to write a book about -Provence. - -That summer we spent at Cookham on the Thames. Since we were unable to -go abroad, we went on the river, as being the most frankly “Continental” -place in England. We had perfect weather, and Ostend itself did not give -us more pleasure than the reach of the river between Cookham and -Maidenhead. I found lying in a punt outside the lock at the Cliveden end -conducive for finding incidents for fiction. - -And I had not done sufficient creative work since I began _Who’s Who_. -Indeed, _The Admiral_, my novel of the love of Nelson and Lady Hamilton, -which I finished at Ostend, had been nearly my whole output, for -_Trincolox_ had been written ten years before, and published in _Temple -Bar_. I was, of course, working at the materials for _In Sicily_ all the -time, and in the spring of 1900 we paid another three months’ visit to -Sicily to see that all my facts were up to date. - -We were at Syracuse during the darkest days of the Boer War. About half -the people in the house were Germans, who were openly pleased at the -succession of disasters which had befallen the British arms before they -could get proper forces out to South Africa, to fight an enemy who was -prepared in every single detail before he forced on the war. It seemed -as if the disasters never would stop, and these amiable people told us -so every day. But one fine day a British battleship, one of the largest -then afloat, steamed into the great harbour of Syracuse, and anchored in -the waters where the Athenians were annihilated in their last sea-fight -against the Syracusans. We were down on the quay, and so was nearly -every other foreigner in Syracuse, when a launch put off from H.M.S., -and made towards us. The Captain, a typical sea-dog—it was Callaghan, -now one of our chief Admirals—was in the stern. As he stepped ashore he -said: “We have just had a wireless from Malta—Kimberley is relieved.” It -was most dramatic to have the news brought to us by the biggest -battleship in the Mediterranean, how French had introduced a new feature -into warfare by raising a siege with a dash of five thousand cavalry -riding all day as hard as they could. I shall never forget it. - -We returned to Rome in time for the Papal Jubilee, the sixth centenary -of the original Jubilee established by Boniface VIII in 1300. Some of -the ceremonies were extraordinarily interesting, and the procession of -Leo XIII in St. Peter’s was one of the most impressive things I ever -saw. I think it was that which inspired me to write _The Secrets of the -Vatican_, though I did not complete it for publication till nearly seven -years afterwards. - -That summer again we went to Cookham, which had serious results, for my -son was thrown into contact with some charming boys who had just passed -into the Army, and were spending their vacation from Woolwich at Bourne -End, a mile up the river from Cookham. Nothing would do for him after -this but to go into the Army. I did not oppose it, because he was an -absolutely idle boy at school, and it seemed such a good thing that he -should want to pass any exam., and further, I was almost as much under -the glamour of those dear boys—poor St. John Spackman, who was -afterwards killed in the polo-field, was one of them—as he was. - -That inspired me to write _My Son Richard_, which is a story of river -life and boys who want to serve their country. I took him to Captain -James, the leading Army crammer, and said that he wanted to get into the -Army. In a few home questions, James discovered that he had never done -any work at school, and said he had better go into the Artillery—he -could not get into the Line. I looked incredulous, and he explained that -in the Artillery exams. there are papers in more subjects which boys do -not learn at school, so that a boy who has not done any work has not -lost time over this—such things, for instance, as “fortification” and -“military topography.” - -My son amply fulfilled his prognostications by securing ninety per cent. -of the marks in the military subjects, and only sixteen marks out of two -thousand in Latin. Still, he passed, but, to his great disappointment, -was not allowed to go out to the war which had just begun, because he -was too young. - -In this year, 1901, in which both my big book _In Sicily_ and my novel -_My Son Richard_, first saw the light, I had plenty to do, for I was -finishing and attending to the publication of _Queer Things about -Japan_, which was the best received of all my books of travel. It owed -its success largely to the timely moment at which I wrote it. Knowing -Japan well, I was convinced that there was going to be a Russo-Japanese -war, and Sidney Dark, the brilliant literary editor of the _Daily -Express_, as alive a journalist and critic as there is in London, was at -that time manager of the firm of publishers to whom I offered the book, -because they had recently taken over the publication of the sixpenny -edition of _A Japanese Marriage_. It was not hard to convince him that -there was war in the air for Japan, and he commissioned the book with -the happiest results. Much of it appeared serially in the papers -connected with the Tillotson Syndicate, which at that time had Philip -Gibbs for its editor. He accepted my offer to write him eight long -instalments about Japan for the Syndicate. Just as I had finished and -dispatched them, he wrote to tell me that he did not think that Japan -was a sufficiently live subject, and asked me not to write the articles. - -No sooner had he written the letter than he received the articles. He -read them and thought them so good that he sent me a telegram cancelling -his letter, and used them. They form the backbone of the book. He had -asked me to be as humorous as possible. Other editors thought them very -amusing, and when the approach of war made Japan the topic of the day, -showered commissions on me. - -Norma Lorimer, who was all through Japan with us, was of great -assistance to me in recalling our life there, and I got her a good many -commissions for articles, which were afterwards collected with some of -the articles that I wrote during the war into _More Queer Things about -Japan_. - -In this same year, 1901, Hutchinson & Co. published _My Son Richard_, -which, as I have said above, was a novel about boys who had just passed -into the Army, and girls of the same age, spending the summer on the -river at Cookham. As an instance of rapid printing, I may mention that -Hutchinson got me all the proofs of this book in seven days, but he -recently, in 1913, eclipsed this by making the printer give me all the -proofs of _Weeds_ in six days. - -_My Son Richard_ was very popular. A Duchess wrote to a newspaper which -was collecting statistics about the popularity of books, that this was -the nicest book she had ever read, and when it came out as a sixpenny, -the village grocer at Cookham ordered hundreds and told me that every -maidservant for miles round was buying it. I wish they would buy all my -other sixpennies. To reach the servant class is a most difficult -achievement. - -As Miss Lorimer had broken her leg that year and still could not move -about much, we went for August to Baveno on Lago Maggiore, to an hotel -with a garden on the lake, where she had a room looking right over the -exquisite Borromean Islands, Isola Bella and Isola dei Pescatori. Italy -has always been her favourite subject for writing. She corrected the -proofs of her _By the Waters of Sicily_ here, which is as popular as -ever, though it has been out for twelve years. - -Baveno had the happiest effect on her. The air is lovely, and her window -looked right over the finest sweep of Lago Maggiore, with the islands in -front and the snow-tipped Alps behind. Heavy square-prowed barges with -junk sails used to glide slowly across the eye-line, and light -high-prowed fishing-boats with hoods like Japanese sampans darted about -near the shore, which had long pergolas overhanging the lake and -Passion-vines sweeping over every shed. - -A month’s rest at Baveno made her leg quite well, and then we were able -to spend a fascinating September in the mountain city of Bergamo; -Brescia, with its history and monuments of a thousand years; and Venice, -which is always most adorable in summer. The Feast of the Redentore in -July is the crown of the year at Venice. We had learnt, and we have -often made use of our knowledge since, that Italy is at her best in -summer. - -I do not seem to have published any books in 1902 or 1903, though I was -writing steadily all the time, and had a couple of serials running in a -magazine, but I was collecting materials hard for the biggest piece of -work I have ever accomplished. Those who take up _Sicily, the New Winter -Resort_, a small octavo, and _In Sicily_, two immense quartos, will be -surprised to hear that the smaller book contains a far greater amount of -reading matter than the larger—half as much again, I should say—though -the one costs five shillings net and the other three guineas. The -Directors of the Rete Sicula, for whom I compiled the smaller book, -stipulated that it was to be cheap in price and handy in form. This book -is an encyclopædia of Sicily. It itemises every monument of any -importance, every custom, every piece of scenery noted for its beauty, -every railway station, and gives information about every name which -comes prominently into the history or the mythology of the island. It -also gives directions how every monument and beautiful piece of scenery -is to be reached. - -Nineteen hundred and two was the last summer which we spent at Cookham. -My son was then at Woolwich, and we stayed at Cookham so that he could -have his week-ends on the river. That winter and spring we again spent -in Sicily and Italy. But that summer we spent at Tenby for the first -time, because my son had now been gazetted to a Company of Artillery -which was stationed at Pembroke Dock. Tenby I consider one of the most -beautiful coast-places in the United Kingdom. It stands on a rock over -the sea, and still retains a considerable portion of walls and towers -built in the reign of the third Edward, and restored during the Spanish -Armada scare in 1588. It has also a magnificent Gothic church, and one -Gothic house. Its position is hard to beat, for its rock stands between -two splendid stretches of sand, and when the wind blows on one side you -are out of the wind on the other. On the north sands is a green bluff. -If you walk inland it is easy to find deep woods, and if you walk across -the golf-links (there is very good natural golf) you come on to noble -downs with gorgeous precipices sheering down to the sea, and rich in the -ruins of historic and prehistoric men—literally historic, for there is -Geoffry of Monmouth’s castle of Manorbier, and far beyond, my ancestor -Aylmer de Valence’s castle of Pembroke, which, like the castle of the -Carews, rises out of the windings of the great haven of the West. - -Such is Tenby, round which, under the name of Flanders, I built a -romance in my novel, _The Unholy Estate_. - -The golf-links served both Tenby and the naval and military officers at -Pembroke Dock. Nearly every day I used to meet the Gunner and Infantry -subalterns and captains disporting themselves on the links, and I was -often over at Pembroke in the barracks. It was there that I picked up my -knowledge of young soldiers, which I put into use in _The Unholy -Estate_, _The Tragedy of the Pyramids_ and _The Curse of the Nile_. - -The winter we generally spent in Italy, except the winter and spring of -1906, when we were once more in Sicily, and went across from Sicily to -visit Tunis and Carthage. - -In 1904 I was busy putting the finishing touches on two books about -Japan, _More Queer Things about Japan_, the book in which I collaborated -with Norma Lorimer, and _Playing the Game_, which in the cheap editions -has had its name changed to _When We Were Lovers in Japan_. This book -has been running serially in _Cassell’s Magazine_. It never had half the -popularity or circulation of _A Japanese Marriage_, though it had much -more value as a study of Japan and the Japanese, for it deals with the -transition of Japan from a weak Oriental nation to one of the great -powers of the world, and gives an acid picture of the futility of the -diplomats to whom Great Britain entrusts her interests. - -In this same year, 1904, Methuen brought out _Sicily, the New Winter -Resort_. In 1905 I turned my attention to Sicily once more, working up -the serial which had appeared in _Cassell’s Magazine_ into the volume -which the publishers insisted on christening _A Sicilian Marriage_, to -try and lend it some of the popularity of _A Japanese Marriage_, which -it never acquired, and the world never discovered that it was an -excellent popular guide-book to Palermo, Girgenti, Syracuse and -Taormina. - -In the same year I brought out _Queer Things about Sicily_, a companion -volume to _Queer Things about Japan_, with Norma Lorimer. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS: PART II - - -IN 1906 I was busy writing two books into which a good deal of history -came, _Carthage and Tunis, the Old and New Gates of the Orient_, and -_The Secrets of the Vatican_, the former of which I published at the end -of that year, and the latter at the beginning of the following year. - -We were hovering between Italy in the winter, and Tenby in the summer, -and taking uncommonly little out of our rent at 32 Addison Mansions. - -I had always been mightily interested in Carthage. I hated Carthage -being beaten by Rome, partly, perhaps, because history has invested the -career of Hannibal and the fall of Carthage with such undying romance. -When we were in Sicily in 1906 we suddenly made up our minds to go to -Tunis, of which Carthage is practically a suburb, just as when we were -at Vancouver we suddenly made up our minds to take a trip to Japan. - -Carthage is disappointing to those who wish to see Punic remains. Of the -mighty walls described by Polybius, there remains hardly one stone upon -another. Its impregnable naval harbour and arsenal have dried up into -mere ponds—in fact, there is nothing Punic about it, except subterranean -tombs, which you can only reach by being lowered in a basket, and the -gorgeous coffins and ornaments which came out of them, and are preserved -in the museum of the White Fathers. - -But of Roman Carthage there are plenty of remains—an amphitheatre, and a -theatre, and mighty underground cisterns, and the foundations of immense -churches. In that amphitheatre a most interesting lot of saints were -martyred, St. Perpetua herself among them. - -No ruins have been discovered connected with the career of St. -Augustine, the Carthaginian to whom the White Fathers attach so much -more importance than to Hannibal or Hamilcar; and all memories of Dido -have hopelessly disappeared. Any remains that there might have been of -the citadel so desperately defended against Scipio, have been -obliterated by the erection of a cathedral on the site, the consummation -of the life-work of Cardinal Lavigerie. That there is not one human -being for a congregation, except the White Fathers in the monastery, -does not appear to signify at all. The cathedral is there, just on the -spot where you want to forget it most, and think of the tremendous human -tragedy to which that hill is sacred. - -I loved wandering about the site of Carthage, ruminating upon history; I -found the study of the saints of Carthage fascinating, and gave a good -deal of my book to them when I came to write about Carthage, in which I -also gave translations of the very extensive passages which Virgil -devotes to it, without apparently having possessed any antiquarian -knowledge at all upon the subject. - -History is very ironical here. You sometimes meet wandering, or encamped -about the site of Carthage, Berbers, lineal descendants of the -aborigines dispossessed by Dido and her Phœnicians when they founded -Carthage, who lasted as a race to see Phœnician Carthage perish, and the -Christian and Roman Carthage, which rose upon its ashes, perish likewise -before the invading Arabs, and the Arabs, after temporary subjugation by -this or the other invader, finally conquered by the French. Their -language, too, has survived, though it was in danger of extinction till -French scholars made its preservation and study a hobby. - -It must not be forgotten that when Carthage came to life again she had -her revenge on Rome, for the Vandal King of Carthage captured Rome, and -carries its empress in chains to Carthage, with the Table of the -Shewbread, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Seven-branched Candlestick -captured by Titus—trophies to which the Romans had ever since attached -superstitious importance. - -In the last half of 1906 and the spring of 1907 I was unusually busy. We -spent the summer for the fourth year in succession at Tenby. Eustache de -Lorey was there with me collaborating in _Queer Things about Persia_. I -planned the outline of the book; I suggested subjects for the chapters; -I extracted some of them by cross-examination; I wrote down others when -he was in an anecdotal vein. And some he wrote in French, and we -translated them together. Had he been able to accumulate a book in -English unaided, there was no reason why he should not have written it -all himself. His careful, slightly foreign English was very effective. -But I may take this credit to myself, that the book would never have -been conceived without me, and even had it been conceived, it would -neither have been begun, nor, having been begun, would it have been -finished, without my professional industry. I enjoyed writing it very -much indeed. De Lorey was such a delightful companion, and I learnt so -much about Persia by writing a book on it. This sounds like a paradox, -but it is a universal truth. - -Simultaneously I was engaged on finishing my own book on Carthage and -Tunis. In this book I had to rely almost entirely on French materials, -because the two main sources of information are the official -publications of the French authorities, and commercial firms interested -in the exploitation of Tunis, and the publications of the White Fathers -out at Carthage, about its site and its remains. - -I was also finishing a book upon which I had been at work for some -years—_The Secrets of the Vatican_, in which I enjoyed the assistance of -his Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, in the chapter -which dealt with the Church crisis in France. - -When I went to ask him to help me, he asked me what I was going to call -my book. I replied, _The Secrets of the Vatican_. He said, “Doesn’t it -sound rather——”—instead of giving me the word, he gave a sniff. I shall -never forget that sniff—it expressed the whole situation. I hastened to -explain that the Secrets were all archæological secrets, and he handed -me the materials for my chapter. - -Some time before this, he had asked our mutual friend, Cortesi, Reuter’s -agent at Rome, to tell me a story of the Pope, in connection with my -_Sicily, the New Winter Resort_. Cardinal Bourne had taken a tour in -Sicily, using my _Sicily_ as his guide. When he got back to Rome, he -showed an anecdote in the book to the Pope. The anecdote was about -Cardinal Newman, who had told me an extraordinary experience he had had -in Sicily. It was at Castrogiovanni, where he lay for some weeks between -life and death, suffering from a fever, which was the result of his -being totally robbed of sleep by fleas when he was making a tour round -Etna. The greatest affliction with which he had to contend was the -incessant ringing of church bells—Castrogiovanni, the Enna of Ceres and -Proserpine, has more churches for its size than any city in Sicily. Poor -Newman’s only chance of sleep, which meant life to him, was to keep his -head under the bedclothes in that semi-tropical climate. The inhabitants -went about aghast, saying that he had a devil. The Pope thought the idea -of the future Prince of the Church (Protestant though he was then) -having a devil, was ludicrously funny, and laughed till his sides ached, -like an ordinary man. When Newman did recover from the fever, and was on -his way from Sicily to Sardinia in a fruit boat, he wrote his famous -hymn, “Lead, kindly light.” - -_The Secrets of the Vatican_ formed one half of a book which I began as -a commission from Eveleigh Nash some years before. The numerous changes -in non-papal Rome, and the important excavations of its pagan monuments, -which were announced, but postponed and postponed, made me despair of -ever getting the book finished, and finally I decided to publish the -part which related to the Vatican in a volume by itself. This, after -going through three editions, has been, for further publication, divided -into two parts. The personal matter about the present Pope, and the -information about the ceremonies which relate to the election, -coronation, death and burial of a Pope, and about the composition of his -court, are still published by Hurst & Blackett, with certain additional -information on the subject, under the title of _The Pope at Home_, while -the part which relates to the history, architecture and collections of -the Vatican, is now published by Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., under the -title of _How to See the Vatican_. - -_The Secrets of the Vatican_ was published in 1907, a few months before -we began our memorable expedition to Egypt, which has played such an -important part in my writings ever since. - -Having to study economy in our travels, we determined to break the -journey to Egypt in Italy, and with that idea went to Lake Como in the -last days of July 1907. - -Anything more beautiful than Lago di Como in August it is difficult to -conceive. All the way up its west side the lake is fringed with crimson -oleanders in full blossom. Though the days are cloudless, and the nights -encrusted with stars, by perfect summer weather, there are no -mosquitoes. It is a land of peaches, and of old villas with gardens, -which look as if they had come down from the ancient Romans, with their -vases and pavilions and terraces and broad flights of steps leading down -into the clear water of the lake—this is the lake from Arconati to -Cadenabbia. - -Here we spent a month under the acacia and tulip trees, revelling in -fruit and flowers, before we went south to Como City; and east to -Sermione, in the reedy shallows of Lago di Garda, dominated by the -castle of the Scaligers, which loses not one ray of sunshine from -sunrise to sunset; to storied Mantua in its marches; to Verona, half -ancient Roman, half Gothic, and wholly romantic, and to Venice the -matchless. - -Venice is a stone city conjured up from the sea. In the city proper -there is no more earth than you might have in roof-gardens. There are no -horses, no motors. You seem to be living on the roof of the sea. The -palaces, which rise from the water in such unending succession, were -mostly built in the Middle Ages, when Venice had the sea-trade of the -world. The finest of them line the Grand Canal from side to side for a -mile from its mouth, and at its mouth are the most beautiful buildings -in Europe, which have been standing there three and four and five -hundred years at the head of the stately flight of steps where the world -once came to the feet of Venice—St. Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, and the -Library, surrounding that Piazetta of smooth white flagstones. You feel -that they are too beautiful to be true, that they must be the airy -fabric of a vision, which will presently pass away, and leave not a -wrack behind. - -I never go to Venice without wondering why I can live away from it. Yet -I have never published my tribute to it, except in periodicals, and in -the pages about it which come into my _How to See Italy_. - -I have to say the same of Florence, to which we moved from Venice on our -progress through Italy to Egypt. Like Venice, I have visited it many -times, and I find Florence one of the most inspiring cities in the -world. The Venetian, unless he be a guide or a gondolier, is silent to -foreigners; he takes no account of them; there are few foreigners living -in Venice. But in Florence there are five thousand foreigners, who talk -about the glories of Florence every day, and all the inhabitants seem to -be children of the Medici Florence, who think that every foreigner’s -mind should be in the Florence of the Middle Ages. You talk pictures or -history all day long. - -From Florence we went on to Rome and Naples, where we were to take ship -for Egypt. Of Rome I have written much in _How to See Italy_, as well as -in _The Secrets of the Vatican_, which contained the fruit of years of -study. I have also published in periodicals enough to fill another book -about the parts which belong to the kingdom of Italy, as the Vatican -belongs to the Papacy. To Rome I go back regularly. About Rome I intend -to publish a book like _How to See Italy_, and _Sicily, the New Winter -Resort_, combined, to make use of my street by street study of the -Eternal City. I know Rome far better than London. Rome has always -appealed to my historical enthusiasm, in the one point where Florence -leaves me cold, for Florence was, as it were, at the back of the door -while kingdoms were being carved out of the unformed mass of Europe -during the Middle Ages, while Rome gave the world laws, language and -civilisation, collated from the wisdom of the ancient world. - -Naples itself is not an inviting town, but it slopes up from one of the -most beautiful bays in the world, and it is rich in outstanding -objects—Capri in front, Vesuvius on the left, the hill of Posilippo on -the right, and the three great castles, St. Elmo, del Ovo and Nuovo, -which make the points of a vast triangle from the sea to the -mountain-top, while in the centre is the rock of Parthenope, now called -the Falcon’s Peak, the site of Palæpolis, the old city, which came -before Neapolis, the new city. - -The outskirts of Naples are of the highest interest, for on the south -side the disinterred ruins of Pompeii and Herculanæum lie under their -destroyer, Vesuvius, the most interesting volcano in the world; and on -the other are Cumæ, the first settlement of the Greeks in the virgin -lands of Italy, which was their America; and all the volcanic phenomena, -which furnished Roman mythology with the details of its Hades. - -Pompeii is of undying interest to me, especially since the new custom -has come in of leaving any fresh treasures which are discovered, _in -situ_. There is no place where, if you study it in conjunction with the -collections in the museum of Naples, you can so easily picture the life -of the Greeks and Romans as at Pompeii. I have many times thought of -writing upon Pompeii. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS: PART III - - -IT was Benton Fletcher, one of the “identities” of Egypt, equally well -known as an artist who does valuable work in connection with excavations -and does delightful landscapes, which are the fashion with “winterers” -in Egypt, who first put into my head the idea of visiting that matchless -country. Egypt is literally matchless; there is no country in the world -which has such a winter climate, and no country in the world which has -monuments so ancient and so perfect, so close together and so -accessible. Every monument which is not in an oasis is on the Nile, and -the Nile in Egypt is like a railway in other countries. - -Fletcher not only worked up my enthusiasm to the point of going there, -but met us on our arrival in Cairo, and initiated me in the secret -beauties of the Arab city. But for him _Oriental Cairo_ would never have -been written. - -I was also much influenced by the photographs published by Leo Weinthal -in _The African World_ and _Fascinating Egypt_. - -We sailed from Naples to Alexandria in the November of 1907. We did not -delay an hour there, but took the next train to Cairo. - -At Alexandria Egypt is Roman, and the monuments which have yet been -excavated are not, with the exception of one marvellous late tomb, very -interesting. But Alexandria is an unexcavated Pompeii, and when some -Schliemann among its leading merchants decides to devote his energies -and his fortune to excavating the vast mounds which still bury Roman -Alexandria, we may expect finds of astonishing interest. In the desert, -about thirty miles from Alexandria, is the city of St. Menas, an early -Christian Pompeii, where there has already been excavated a wonderful -Basilica founded by the Emperor Arcadius. - -Except for a few articles in the _Queen_, I did little writing in Egypt -beyond taking copious notes. But these I did more completely than I ever -had done before, and as my secretary was with us, they were typed out -every evening, and are now bound together into a sort of diary-journal -of our entire visit. To make them more complete as journals, I took -eight hundred photographs, and certainly bought as many more, and as -complete a collection of postcards as I could form. Therefore I was in a -very sound position for writing my various books upon Egypt after I had -returned home. The first book I wrote upon our visit was _Egypt and the -English_, consisting partly of what we saw while we were staying in -Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Assuan, the Fayyum, the Great Oasis, and while -we were journeying up the Nile to the second cataract, and down the Nile -to its Rosetta and Damietta mouths, and over the Desert Railway into the -Sudan; and partly of the result of my inquiries about the political -condition of Egypt. When the book came out, many reviewers took up the -attitude that what I said was too alarmist, but when Mr. Roosevelt -repeated it to the letter, the Government took the warnings seriously, -and appointed the best possible man, Lord Kitchener, to take the place -of Sir Eldon Gorst, whose policy of scuttle and kowtow may have been -dictated by the Government which appointed him. - -I knew that my facts were sound, because I had not only sucked as much -information as I could out of British officials and editors, and the -Leader of the Egyptian Bar, but also from the leading Syrians and -Armenians, who see much more behind the scenes than the English, because -Arabic is their business language, and the Arabs associate with them -freely in private life. Among Syrians especially I had repeated -conversations with Dr. Sarrûf and Dr. Nimr, the proprietor and editor of -_El Mokattan_, the most important Arab paper in Egypt, to whose opinions -Lord Cromer had always attached the greatest importance, and they had -told me how to meet such of the Nationalist leaders as spoke English. -These were actual Egyptians, so _Egypt and the English_ did give native -opinion both directly from the mouths of Egyptians, and indirectly -through Syrians and Armenians. - -[Illustration: - - HALL CAINE - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -I wrote _Egypt and the English_ for a commission to write _Queer Things -about Egypt_. The then chairman of Hurst & Blackett, when he saw the -political chapters in the book, considered them so interesting and -important that he asked me to hold over the humorous chapters for -another book. Which I did. But in the interval he sold the business of -Hurst & Blackett to my old friends Hutchinson & Co., who published my -real first success, _The Japs at Home_. They were quite ready to take -another book on Egypt from me, and we decided to make these chapters the -nucleus of that book to be published under the original title of _Queer -Things about Egypt_. This book gives the humours of the native city in -Cairo, and the humours of travel on the Nile. The parts of the book -which attracted most attention were those which dealt with Arab life in -Cairo in the native quarters round the Citadel, and with Arab -architecture and art, so Hutchinson asked me to do another large volume -on Egypt, devoted entirely to _Oriental Cairo—the City of the Arabian -Nights_. For that part of Cairo is almost as much an Arab City of the -Middle Ages as was Granada in the days of the Moors, and the stories of -the Arabian Nights were made into a book by a Cairene in the sixteenth -century. - -_Egypt and the English_ was published in 1908, _Queer Things about -Egypt_ in 1910, and _Oriental Cairo_ in 1910. - -In 1908 I also wrote, and Hurst & Blackett published, _The Tragedy of -the Pyramids_, which has been one of the most successful of my novels. -It was written as a counterblast to Hall Caine’s _White Prophet_, which -at that time was running as a serial in the _Strand Magazine_. I -considered that Caine was giving an entirely incorrect impression of our -army in Egypt. The book is now in its ninth edition, and was an -imaginary picture of the revolution which would have overtaken Egypt, if -Sir Eldon Gorst’s scuttle and kowtow policy had been persisted in. I had -a great deal to say about the Senussi in this book—the battle of the -Pyramids was fought against a great host of invading Senussi. The -British public had then heard little of the Senussi. But in the -Turko-Italian war the Senussi have proved a far more dangerous enemy to -Italy than the Turks, as they are very hardy and move with great -rapidity. They are said to own many zawia, or convents, in Egypt, and to -have established a network of wells at twenty-four hours’ distance from -each other all over the great desert of the Sahara—also to have -twenty-five thousand swift camels accumulated against any invasion of -their country, which is almost conterminous with the great desert. Boyd -Alexander, the famous explorer, is considered to have fallen a victim to -his intrusion upon their territory, which they openly forbid to -Christians, on pain of being assassinated. But their Prophet refused to -join forces in any way with the Mahdi when he had possessed himself of -the Egyptian Sudan. - -_The Tragedy of the Pyramids_ was published in 1909, _Queer Things about -Egypt_, and _Oriental Cairo_, in 1910, the same year which saw the -publication of _The Moon of the Fourteenth Night_, the romance which I -wrote in collaboration once more with Eustache de Lorey. As it had so -much of the travel-book about it, it was not brought out in the form of -a novel. It was, in fact, the biography of a dashing young French -attaché, who is still alive, pretty faithfully told. He had no objection -to our using it if we killed him off in the book, to throw the girl’s -relations off the track, in case they should try to kill him in real -life. The public never realised that it was actually reading a romance -of real life, that there had been such a person as Bibi Mâh, that the -escapades of Edward Valmont were not imaginary, but episodes in a career -of gallantry. The book comes very near to being a journal of life in the -Persian capital at the beginning of the revolution. - -In the autumn of 1908 we went back to Italy to spend the six cold months -in Rome, hoping that we should have one of those winters which you -sometimes get in Rome, as full of sunshine as spring—only cold when you -are in the wind and out of the sun. Yoshio Markino spent that winter -with us at 12 Piazza Barberini. I got my friend Percy Spalding, one of -the directors of Chatto & Windus, to give him a commission to do the -illustrations for _The Colour of Rome_, and as I knew Rome so well, I -conducted him to nearly all the beauty-spots which furnished the -subjects of his illustrations. I showed him many others which did not -appeal to him, for Markino will not begin a picture until some _motif_ -in the locality has appealed to his artistic temperament. He is an -artist to the finger-tips. His fidelity is all the more extraordinary -when you take into consideration his method of painting a landscape. - -In those days he had written nothing but a short chapter in _The Colour -of London_, and _The Colour of Paris_, but he used to show me the -letters he wrote to Spalding and Ward, of Chatto’s, about the book,—most -brilliant some of them were, and I saw that he was a born writer. I -suggested to him as early as this that he should write his life in -Japan—I had not then grasped what a story he had to tell of his life in -England. - -He felt the cold in Rome very severely. He used to consume quantities of -the childish substitutes for fuel provided in Roman hotels. - -In that first visit which he paid to Italy, he was not much interested -in the architecture or the art, just as he never visited the Louvre -while he was in Paris painting _The Colour of Paris_. And the scenes of -historical events interested him little more, though often they played -an important part in the history of the world. He was absorbed in the -novel lines of buildings; the gay colours of Italy; the strangeness to -him of the atmospheric effects of Rome; the subtle and ceaseless humours -in the life of the Italian poor. And their clothes delighted him, with -their gay, faded colours, their rags, and the fine abandon with which -they were worn. - -We were in Rome collecting materials for my book on _How to See Italy_, -and I was writing the _Tragedy of the Pyramids_ mostly in bed, before I -got up in the morning. Between five and eight a.m. is a favourite time -for writing with me. I seldom begin later than 5.45; I have a cup of tea -brought to me at 6 a.m. I also wrote a good deal in periodicals about -the great earthquake at Messina. The Italian papers were naturally full -of details, which had not been telegraphed to England, and we used to -get wonderful cinema films, which made one quite an eye-witness of the -events. In Italy you can go to the cinema for twopence. - -I was about to make a tour of the earthquake scenes in South Italy and -Sicily, and to go on to Malta, where my son was then quartered, when I -was suddenly called home by the alarming illness of my father, who was -given up by the doctors, though he recovered and lived for nearly two -years afterwards. - -We re-visited a few favourite spots, such as Pisa and Lucca, on our way -up, as we did not hope to see Italy again for some time. - -As it chanced, it was little more than a year before we were back in -Italy again, on the most interesting tour which we have ever spent in -that country. I had a commission from Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. to write -for them _How to See Italy_, which was destined to be so popular, and -there were forty-five cities in Italy which I wished to visit or -re-visit before writing this book. I wrote it for the Italian -Government, as Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. were aware, and they had offered -me many facilities. They had the blocks made for the illustrations. I -went over their entire collection of photographs in making my choice, -and where no photograph existed, they sent their special photographer to -take one. Also they allowed me to travel about on their lines wherever -my wish took me free of charge, so I was able to wander about Italy in a -way in which the expenses would ordinarily have been too great for any -book. - -Markino went with us again on this journey, which lasted from July to -November. This time I had got him a commission from Constable & Co. to -illustrate a book by Miss Potter, which was published under the title of -_A Little Pilgrimage in Italy_. - -We visited all our cities, starting from Genoa, and proceeding to -Florence, Arezzo, Cortona, Perugia, Deruta, Todi, Siena, St. Gimignano, -Passignano, Monte Oliveto, Asciano, Chiusi, Città della Pieve, Assisi, -Foligno, Spoleto, Spello, Bevagna, Montefalco, Trevi, Clitunno, Gualdo -Tadino, Gubbio, Urbino, Rimini, Ravenna, San Marino, Ancona, Loreto, -Terni, Narni, Orvieto, Viterbo, Ferento, Bagnaja, Monte Fiascone, Rome, -Tivoli, Milan. - -As soon as we had left the mountain heights of Arezzo and Cortona, the -Etruscan eyries from which the Romans marched down to their red fate on -the shores of the lake Trasimene, we learned how hot mid-Italy can be in -midsummer. Even on the rock of Perugia, fifteen hundred feet above the -sea, you could not walk on the sunny side of the street without an -umbrella on account of the risk of sunstroke, and the heat was almost -unendurable as we drove across the hills the thirty or forty miles to -Todi, a little city which the Gods of the Middle Ages have kept to -themselves. - -Perugia was always defiant, from Etruscan times. With a man like Duke -Frederick of Urbino to rule and lead its fierce citizens, Perugia would -have been more potent than Urbino, or Rimini, or Mantua, or Ferrara, -perhaps a city of the first rank, like Milan or Florence. Its rock made -the whole city a citadel, and it sits astride the road from Rome to the -Alps, with the fertile Vale of Umbria to provision it. - -The Vale of Umbria below Assisi is only rivalled by the shores of Lake -Trasimene in the beauty of its women—we know them from the pictures of -Raphael, Perugino, and Pinturricchio. I wish I could put its magic into -words—the nobility of its farm-houses, the soft grace of its orchards -and olive-gardens, its antique hermitages. - -Summer in the Vale of Umbria was perfect, and certain of its beauties -were such as could only be seen in summer, like the translucent sources -of the Clitumnus, which, with their lawny banks, remind you of the -Twenty-third Psalm. I would rather go and see them, below the tall -poplars which are a landmark across the plain, than the graceful little -Roman temple above them, which is a landmark for travellers. - -Foligno is only a walk from exquisite Spello, a city which is a hill -covered with Gothic houses. Foligno and the cities on the hills round it -are rich in great pictures by small masters; but Spoleto is, after -Perugia, the prize city of Umbria. It is rich in monuments of all ages; -in its walls it has prehistoric masonry of three ages; it defied the -assaults of Hannibal; you can still see the house of Vespasian’s mother, -and other Roman monuments of the classic age; it is rich in the -handiwork of the forgotten centuries which followed; it has a church -built like a pagan temple in the fourth century after Christ; it has the -most stupendous aqueduct in Italy, carried across a valley from the hill -of Groves, on arches two hundred and fifty feet high; and a unique -cathedral, planted in the valley, like its other great church; it was -the capital of the only King of Italy who bore the title before Victor -Emmanuel. Standing on the hillside, embosomed in groves, looking over -the plain, in an amphitheatre of mountains, Spoleto is a place which -never leaves the memory. - -We went straight from it to most famous cities—Gubbio was not its equal, -except when the sunset fired the façade of its city hall, six hundred -years old and three hundred feet high; and Urbino, on its dizzy height, -crowned with the fantastic palace of Duke Frederick, is a prosaic place -beside it; Ravenna, for all its mosaiced churches, built by Justinian -and his successors, when the first millennium was half spent, has no -glory of site, nor has Rimini; Ancona has only its site and its glorious -Byzantine cathedral, on a green hill between two seas. - -We wandered from town to town such as these; we drove all day from -Rimini to San Marino, the castled eagle’s nest, which is still an -independent Republic; we went to Loreto on the Virgin’s day, and saw -peasants, who had come in ox-carts from the recesses of the Apennines. -We stood below and above the stupendous waterfalls of Terni, the most -stupendous in Europe. But we saw no naturally nobler city than Spoleto. - -All that summer we wandered about the byways of Tuscany, Umbria, Latium, -and the March of Ancona. We hardly ever saw an English face. We stayed -for the most part in humble native inns. It was a hot summer, even for -Italy, but we were not frightened by the heat from going where we meant -to go, nor by the fetish of malaria, for we stayed a week at Ravenna in -September. We never enjoyed ourselves more in our lives. We tested an -Italian summer fairly on the hot plains and sun-baked hills. I needed -the experience to write _How to See Italy_. - -It was a guide-book on a new principle. While I was writing of the -cities and scenery of Italy, generally I grouped them in provinces, but -I devoted other chapters to the hobbies of travellers. I told the lover -of paintings where all the best paintings in Italy are to be found, and -which places have the richest galleries. I did the same for the lovers -of architecture, sculpture, mosaics, and scenery. I told the traveller -how to see all the principal sights of Italy by rail, without going the -same railway journey twice, and I tried to convert English travellers to -the delightful native inns of Italy, and I gave them the prices of inns -all over Italy. - -The idea of the book was, briefly, to enable any one to see at a glance -which parts of Italy he ought to visit in pursuit of his special -studies. And I had three special chapters on the changes in Rome, which -have made all the old books on Rome out of date. - -When we reached London in the late autumn, I found a sad change in my -father, who had reached the great age of eighty-six. He had lost much of -his memory, and very often did not care to speak. He gradually failed, -until one night between Christmas and the New Year he passed away quite -peacefully, holding my hand. - -I sold the house on Campden Hill—Phillimore Lodge—in which he had lived -for nearly fifty years, to Sir Walter Phillimore. The estate was so -burdened with legacies, made while he was a much richer man, that I -should have lost by accepting my inheritance if I had not sold all the -real estate. - -I had no wish to live there. For years it had been my intention to leave -London when I no longer had my father to consider. I wanted to go to -some rural spot just outside London, where I could have pleasure in -being at home in the summer months, because I like going abroad in the -winter, and you must make use of your house some time during the year. -At Addison Mansions we were only at home for a month or two in some -years. - -I set about looking for a new house almost immediately, and after nearly -taking an old Queen Anne mansion in the Sheen Road, finally settled on -the Avenue House, Richmond, which stands in the north-west corner of the -old Green, with its front windows looking down the Avenue, and across -the Green to the Old Palace, and its back windows looking over the old -Deer Park and the Mid-Surrey Golf Club to the trees of Kew Gardens. In -the winter we can see a mile or two of grass and trees from those -windows, and the river when the tide is high. The house suited me -perfectly; it had a charming old-fashioned garden, with ancient trees, a -cedar of Lebanon, a mulberry, and an arbutus, which covers itself with -flowers and fruit, among them, besides two great wistarias and many -flowering laburnums, lilacs and hawthorns. I added rockeries in the -Sicilian style, and various features of a Japanese garden. - -The house had the further advantage of being only a few minutes’ walk -from the railway stations, from golf at Mid-Surrey, and from one of the -most beautiful reaches of the Thames. - -Here I have written the present book, _The Unholy Estate_, _The Curse of -the Nile_, and my parts of _Adam Lindsay Gordon and His Friends in -England and Australia_, and _Weeds_; and I was here when _How to see -Italy_ was published. - -I was sorry in a way to say good-bye to Addison Mansions, which had been -my home during the most interesting years of my life. I liked the rooms; -I should have liked to transport them to Richmond. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - HOW I WROTE “WHO’S WHO” - - -OF all the books I have written, none have attracted more attention than -_Who’s Who_. - -Various biographical dictionaries of living persons were in existence -before the new _Who’s Who_ appeared in 1897—_Men of the Time_, _People -of the Period_, and so on. But none of them were annual, and none of -them were published at a popular price. I myself had attempted to get a -cheap annual biographical dictionary published, before A. & C. Black -came to me with their proposal about _Who’s Who_. I put the idea into -the hands of a literary agent for sale. It was very much on the lines of -_Who’s Who_, but not on so ambitious a scale, and I thought that Sell, -who has a Press directory, might be likely to buy it. No one did buy it, -and when I told an interviewer, who came to get “copy” out of me about -_Who’s Who_, about it, that agent was wrong-headed enough to think that -I was trying to libel him, instead of trying to claim originality for my -idea. - -However that may be, Adam Black, one day, when I was talking to him -about my novel, _A Japanese Marriage_, which A. & C. Black had -published, produced a copy of the old _Who’s Who_, an insignificant -pocket-peerage, of which he had just purchased the rights, and asked if -I could make anything of it for the firm. Having made a synopsis of my -own idea for that literary agent to sell, I had it cut and dry, and it -was settled that I should do the book as soon as the agreement could be -drawn up. As events proved, it was drawn up too hurriedly, for I signed -it without insisting on the clause which has gone into all my other -agreements of the same kind—that, in case the publishers wished to be -released from the agreement because the book was not as successful as -they hoped, the book should become my property. I do not say that the -Blacks would have consented to the insertion of this clause, but it is -certain that I ought never to have signed it without, because I put into -it ideas, whose originality and value has abundantly been proved since. -It was agreed that I should edit it for three years certain, but that if -the book was not successful by then the agreement should terminate. At -the end of the three years, they determined that the book was not a -success, and terminated the agreement. At the time that I wrote this -book there was no one in London with the same knowledge as I had as to -who should be included in the book, because my three years’ work in New -York papers had made me take up biographical journalism—a profession -which did not exist in London till I brought it over from America, and -which never took permanent root in England. In fact, it very soon -withered out of existence. - -It is an odd fact that this book in its dried pippin form, which went on -for about half a century before it was expanded, never struck the world -as having a specially good title, till Adam Black recognised its value, -though now its title is regarded as a stroke of genius. - -“But how are you going to get the information?” he asked, when I had -detailed my formula for the biographies, much the same as that which is -used for _Who’s Who_ now, with the exception of the details about -telephones and motors, which were not part of English everyday life in -1897, and a few other points which I ought to have thought of. - -“I shall make the people themselves give it.” - -“But will they ever do it?” - -“I think so, if we give them proper forms to fill up, and get a -well-known peer and a well-known commoner to fill up their forms as -specimens before we send the others out.” - -“You’ll have to tell them that you’re going to use their biographies as -specimens. I wish nothing to be done of which anybody could complain.” - -In the matter of the special stationery provided for the purpose, the -firm were extraordinarily liberal. They only studied attractiveness, -just as they had special type cast for setting up the book because none -of the small types offered to us were sufficiently beautiful. The -selection of the long blue envelopes, opening at the side, has an almost -public interest. Adam Black requested that we should leave the matter of -envelopes over until the following week, when he was to meet Lord -Rosebery on the yacht of his brother-in-law, George Coates. When Lord -Rosebery was asked what kind of envelope he should treat with most -respect in opening his correspondence, Lord Rosebery pronounced in -favour of this particular form of long blue envelope, because it was -used by the Cabinet for their communications. So we adopted it, and the -first persons in official circles who received it may have experienced a -strange flutter of expectation, because we did not in those days, I -think, have the envelopes stamped _Who’s Who_, lest they should defeat -their object of being taken for Cabinet communications. - -Then came the question of whom we should invite to write their -biographies to be models for the biographies of other people. I selected -the Duke of Rutland for the peers, and Mr. Balfour for the commoners. -The Duke, both as Lord John Manners and as Duke, had occupied one of the -first places in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. He had filled his -place in the Cabinet with distinction; he had been the typical -aristocrat; his exquisite politeness had helped the democracy to forgive -him for writing “Let Wealth and Commerce ... die. But give us still our -old nobility.” - -I wrote to ask him to fill the biographical form, which I had drawn up, -to be the model for other members of the peerage, and with his usual -consideration, he acceded. Then I wrote to Mr. Balfour to ask him to -write his biography, to be a model for the untitled. The only title he -bore was so proud that we usually, as I did then, forget to reckon it -among titles—the “Right Honourable.” Mr. Balfour, too, acceded, and he -was particularly suitable, because, in addition to being the first man -in the House of Commons, recreation had a real meaning in his case, -since he was known to be an inveterate golfer. - -The idea of adding “recreations” to the more serious items which had -been included in previous biographical dictionaries was adopted at one -of the councils of war which we used to hold in the partners’ room of A. -& C. Black, at 4 Soho Square. And for selling purposes it proved far and -away the best idea in the whole book, when it was published. The -newspapers were never tired of quoting the recreations of eminent -people, thus giving the book a succession of advertisements of its -readability, and shop-keepers who catered for their various sports -bought the book to get the addresses of the eminent people, who were, -many of them, very indignant at the Niagara of circulars which resulted. - -I wonder if many people remember the old _Who’s Who?_—a little red 32mo, -which looked something like the Infantry Manual with its clasp knocked -off. It was a sort of badly kept index to the Peerage, as futile as an -1840 Beauty Book. We turned it into a dictionary of biography for living -people, and we made it eternally interesting by persuading the people -whom we included in it to give us their favourite recreations. I chose -(from an un-annual biographical dictionary edited by Humphry Ward) the -type, which had to be specially cast for it; I chose the people who -deserved to be included in it; I drafted the letters and the forms to be -filled up, which were sent to each person; and I persuaded those two -very eminent men to be the bell-wethers for persuading other people to -fill up their forms, an idea which was crowned with success. The late -Duke of Rutland’s and Mr. Balfour’s fillings up of the forms were -printed at the heads of the forms sent out to other people, and few -people objected to following where they had led the way. But among these -few recalcitrants were Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, and most -naval officers. Army officers, on the other hand, were generally very -obliging. Architects and literary men filled up their forms best, -artists and actresses worst, though actors were almost as bad. You would -have thought that the actual formation of the letters in framing a reply -was a torture to artists, actors and naval officers. The actresses, if -you had compiled the biographies by interview, would have asked for two -columns each. - -Many people thought it necessary to write me rude letters, demanding -what right I had to intrude upon their privacy, and ordering me not to -include their names. To one of them, the head of an Oxford College, I -wrote, “Dear Sir, If you had not been head of —— College, no one would -have dreamt of including you, but since you are, you will have to go in -whether you like it or not.” - -The late Duke of Devonshire said that his recreation had formerly been -hunting. One man said that he did not see how the ownership of four -hundred and fifty thousand acres made him a public person. A prominent -authoress first of all refused to fill up her form at all. I wrote to -tell her that in that case I should have to fill it up for her. She -showed no concern about this until I sent her a proof of the biography, -in which I made her out ten years older than she really was, and said -that I meant to insert the biography in that form unless there was -anything she wished to correct. She then corrected it, and added so much -that it would have taken the whole column if I had inserted all she -sent. - -W. S. Gilbert wrote the rudest letter of anybody. He said he was always -being pestered by unimportant people for information about himself. So I -put him down in the book as “Writer of Verses and the libretti to Sir -Arthur Sullivan’s comic operas.” He then wrote me a letter of about a -thousand words, in which he asked me if that was the way to treat a man -who had written seventy original dramas. Next year he filled up his form -as readily as a peer’s widow who has married a commoner. - -Bernard Shaw said in 1897 that his favourite recreations were cycling -and showing off, and informed the world that he was of middle-class -family, was not educated at all “academically,” and coming to London -when he was twenty, for many years could obtain no literary recognition, -even to the extent of employment as a journalist. - -But the most humorous experience I had in connection with _Who’s Who_ -was when I succeeded in bringing a certain actor-manager to book. He had -repeatedly promised to fill in his form, and failed to do so, when I -found myself next to him at a public dinner to which we had both been -invited. “Why did you not send me that biography?” I asked him, and he -said, “Well, the real reason is that I thought I should have to say how -damned badly I have behaved to my wife.” - -The book was a complete literary success; the newspapers gave it column -reviews, chiefly consisting of the unsuitable recreations of prominent -people. - -When I edited it, _Who’s Who_ contained a great deal of information -besides the biographies, such as lists of peculiarly pronounced proper -names, keys to the pseudonyms of prominent people, names of the editors -of the principal papers. Some of the real names were so unreasonable -that people wrote to know why they were not included in the lists of -pseudonyms; one of these was Sir Louis Forget. - -Ascertaining the correct pronunciation of peculiar names was very -diverting; there was such a divergence of opinion among people of -Scottish birth about words like “Brechin.” I was bewailing their egotism -to the late Lord Southesk, when he said, “I have been collecting -peculiarly pronounced Scottish names and their proper pronunciation for -years. You can have my list.” - -I thanked him and gladly inserted them all. A very good friend of mine, -the late Hugh Maclaughlan, who was sub-editor of the _Star and Leader_, -in reviewing the book over his own name, found great fault with my -Cockney pronunciation of the Scottish names. I do not know to this day -whether he was serious, or, as schoolboys say, “pulling my leg,” and in -any case, I did not mind, but Lord Southesk was furious. - -“Tell Mr. Maclaughlan,” he said, “that I am the man whom he called a -Cockney, and that my ancestor commanded the Highlanders at the battle of -Harlaw.” Harlaw was the last great battle between the Highlanders and -the Lowlanders, and was fought in the year 1411. - -One of the funniest entries in the book was made by a famous authoress, -who wrote in her biography “she is at present unmarried.” - -One of the most amusing experiences I had when I was editor of _Who’s -Who_ was my receiving a message from a Mrs. Williams or Williamson, -asking me to call on her upon a matter of great importance. I imagined -that at the very least Queen Victoria (Mrs. Williams was supposed to -have influence in such matters) had deputed her to offer me a -knighthood. At any rate, from the tone of her letter, it ought to have -been a considerable advantage of some sort which was to be bestowed upon -me. I was not much flustered because the lady had not the reputation of -giving anything for nothing. But I own I was rather taken aback when I -was shown into her den, and she said, “I sent for you because Mrs. -Dotheboy Tompkins”—or some such name—nobody of the slightest -importance—“wishes you to put her into _Who’s Who_.” - -I said, “The only answer I can give you is that I do not consider Mrs. -Tompkins of sufficient importance. I don’t know how you will break this -to her. Good-afternoon.” - -It was such colossal impertinence, her sending for me instead of writing -to me, though that would have been bad enough, that I was determined not -to spare her. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - AUSTRALIANS IN LITERATURE - - -AS I lived four or five years in Australia, and have written various -books upon Australian poets, and as both my wife and my son are -Victorians by birth, it is natural for me to devote a chapter to -Australians in literature whom I have known, counting both people from -the Old Country who became Australians by residence, and those who were -born or educated in Australia, though their writing career has been in -England. - -I never met either Gordon or Kendall—Adam Lindsay Gordon and Henry -Clarence Kendall, the twin stars of Australian poetry, naturally come -first to one’s mind in writing of Australian literature, because poetry -in Australia, as usual, preceded prose as an art. - -Gordon, whose nephew, Henry Ratti, living in London, had just placed -himself in communication with me in a couple of long letters, and -invited me to lunch when he died so prematurely, had been dead for -nearly ten years before I landed in Australia. But Kendall did not die -till I had been in Australia for nearly three years. I was in Victoria -when he died; I think I had actually been appointed to the Chair of -Modern History in the University of Sydney before it happened, so I -missed him by a very narrow margin. So little stir did his death cause -in Victoria that I never even heard of it, and imagined that he had been -dead for years, though he wrote lyrics only excelled in music by -Shelley’s, Swinburne’s and Poe’s in the whole of English literature. Yet -he had visited Melbourne, and was, in fact, there and in the company of -Gordon the very day before his rival died. Kendall, unlike Gordon, was -Australian born. - -Far the greatest author born on Australian soil is, of course, Mrs. -Humphry Ward, a Tasmanian by birth, though Australia had long passed out -of her life before she wrote. “Tasma” was also a Tasmanian by birth, and -“George Egerton,” whose father, Captain Dunne, fought in the New Zealand -war, was born in Melbourne. - -Mrs. Campbell Praed, on the other hand, was not only born in Queensland, -the daughter of a prominent Queensland politician, Thomas Lodge Murray -Prior, but has gone to her native land for the scene of her brilliant -novels. Ill-health kept her from coming often to Addison Mansions, where -she had a double claim to literary homage, for, apart from her own -eminence as a novelist, she has a matrimonial connection with William -Mackworth Praed, the brilliant novelist and father of Society Poetry. - -Rolf Boldrewood, though born in London, has been so long in Australia -that he almost counts as a Colonial (Australian born) rather than a -Colonist (settler). He went to the old Sydney College in New South Wales -more than seventy years ago, and though he spent the greater part of his -life as a Police Magistrate and Warden of the gold-fields in New South -Wales, began life as one of the pioneer squatters of Victoria. His -experiences gave him a rich equipment for writing tales of wild life in -the old Colonial days, like _Robbery Under Arms_, with which he made -such a huge reputation in 1888. I remember him as a writer ten years -before that, when he used to send a weekly _causerie_ to the -_Australasian_, admirably written under his famous pseudonym. I believe -that he used to call it “Under the Greenwood Tree.” He had already -written and published the novel which he afterwards called _The -Squatter’s Dream_. It was a thin paper volume, a sort of cross between -our sixpennies and the French three francs fifty coverless novels, and -it was called in those days _Ups and Downs_. It was a true story; it -dealt with the ups and downs of the famous Mossgiel Station, which made -John Simson’s great fortune, and the ruin by drought of the De Salis -brothers who had the station before him. It was published anonymously. -Rolf Boldrewood’s real name is Thomas Alexander Browne. His mother was a -Miss Alexander. Both the Brownes and the Alexanders were huge men; -Rolf’s brother, Sylvester Browne, was the tallest man in Australia, a -couple of inches taller than my uncle, Sir Charles (who was just under -six foot six, and I think may have owed some of his influence in the -early days to his great stature). The Brownes were not only very tall, -but very strongly-built men. Their adventurousness took them to West -Australia, where they made large fortunes during the mining boom. - -Guy Boothby and Louis Becke, on the other hand, both much younger men, -were real Colonials, Becke having been born at Port Macquarie, New South -Wales, and Boothby at Adelaide, where his father was a member of -Parliament and his grandfather a Judge. That did not prevent him from -leading the wildest life. At one time he was an explorer and crossed -Australia from north to south. At another time he was stoker on a tramp -steamer trading between Singapore and Borneo. He “struck oil” with the -detective stories of Dr. Nikola, which the _Windsor Magazine_ ran in -opposition to Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in the _Strand Magazine_, -and at one time was making nine thousand a year out of his writing. I -remember his chartering an eight hundred ton steam yacht, and he had -some wonderful prize dogs at the Manor House, close to the Kempton Park -racecourse, in which he lived. - -Becke was never so fortunate in his earnings, though he was a far -superior writer. He acquired his wonderful knowledge of the Australian -coast and the South Sea Islands as supercargo of one of the schooners -which trade between the islands and Sydney. He was one of Fisher Unwin’s -discoveries, and came very near achieving a _Kidnapped_ and _Treasure -Island_ success, for which, as far as first-hand knowledge was -concerned, he was infinitely better equipped than Stevenson. - -Frank Bullen, Becke’s rival in South Sea knowledge, was not an -Australian, but born in Paddington. Like Becke, he was in the Merchant -Service. I have more to say about him in another chapter. - -Ada Cambridge, who was for a long time the best-known novel-writer in -Australia, was born in Norfolk, and spent all her time in East Anglia -till she married the Rev. J. F. Cross, and sailed with him to Australia -in 1870, the year of Adam Lindsay Gordon’s death. She published her -first novel about seven years later. Cambridge was her maiden name. - -Ethel Turner, Mrs. H. R. Curlewis, is another of the few Australian -authors living in Australia who have had large publics in England. As a -reviewer, I hailed with delight her first books, _Seven Little -Australians_ and _The Family at Mis-Rule_, and prophesied the wide and -continuous success which she has attained with her stories of child life -in Australia. Mrs. Curlewis was born in Yorkshire, but she has lived in -Sydney ever since I can remember. - -Frances Campbell (Mrs. Howard Douglas Campbell), the author of _Love the -Atonement_, _The Two Queenslanders_, and other novels, married a cousin -of the late Duke of Argyll, who was out in Queensland, and commenced -writing at his Grace’s suggestion. In point of fact, she came to us with -a letter of introduction from him. Since then she has been an active and -successful journalist, doing several special journeys abroad as -correspondent for the great London dailies. She is not to be confused -with Mrs. Vere Douglas Campbell, the mother of Marjorie Bowen, who is -also a novelist. I made the mistake myself once. - -Mrs. Mannington Caffyn, who under the pseudonym of “Iota” wrote the -famous _A Yellow Aster_, was a beautiful and spirited Irish girl, the -daughter of a country gentleman, who took to hospital nursing as a -profession, and married a doctor, whose ill-health drove him to -Australia. Her life there was full of hard experiences, but she did not -make a mark in literature till her return to England. Andrew Lang was -struck with the extraordinary ability of _A Yellow Aster_, and urged -with all his influence one of the old classical publishing houses to -bring it out, but in vain. Hutchinson saw his opportunity, accepted the -book, advertised it with genius, and made a colossal success of it. -Other successes followed, so real that she was able to send her growing -boys to a crack public school. Another novelist not born in Australia, -but resident there for some years, was “Rita,” who was educated in -Sydney. - -The Countess von Arnim, author of a delightful series of books from -_Elizabeth and Her German Garden_ to _Fraulein Schmidt_ and _Mr. -Anstruther_, was an Australian born, the daughter of Mr. Herron -Beauchamp. - -Haddon Chambers, one of my earliest literary friends in London, though I -have seen little of him for many years, I met because we came from -Australia at about the same time. He was born near Sydney, of Irish -parents, and was for a while in the New South Wales Civil Service, like -his father before him. Feeling, as I did, that Australia was no place -for a literary career, he visited England when he was twenty, and -returned to England for good when he was twenty-two, a handsome, alert, -indomitable Australian boy. He looked very boyish in those days. -Beginning life in England as a journalist and story-writer, he suddenly -took London by storm with his play, _Captain Swift_. Captain Swift was -one of the greatest parts which Beerbohm-Tree has created, and from that -time forward Chambers became one of the dramatists who count. - -To my mind, the best author living in Australia at the present moment is -the Rev. William Henry Fitchett, President of the General Conference of -the Methodist Church of Australia, editor of a magazine and a weekly -newspaper, and Principal of a ladies’ college in Melbourne. He made his -name with a series of remarkable books about the exploits of the British -army—writing at first under the pseudonym of “Vedette.” Few men have -ever written so brilliantly or so sympathetically on the subject as the -author of _Fights for the Flag_ and _Deeds that Won the Empire_. - -A. B. Paterson, the poet who wrote “The Man from Snowy River,” is an -Australian by birth and residence. He is another of the few Australian -authors who have a vogue in England without ever having lived there. He -is recognised not only as one of the chief poets of Australia, but as a -publicist. He is a solicitor by profession. - -W. H. Ogilvy, the best living Australian poet, was not born in -Australia, nor does he live there now, but he spent many years in the -Australian bush, and caught its spirit better than any poet except Adam -Lindsay Gordon. - -The Countess of Darnley, who wrote some fiction a few years ago, was the -beauty of Melbourne when I was there in the ’eighties. Lord Darnley met -her when he came out to Australia with one of the English cricket -elevens. He was then the Hon. Ivo Bligh, a name which will never be -forgotten in the history of sport. - -The charming and elegant Eleanor Mordaunt, author of _Lu of the Ranges_, -the best novel ever written about hardships in Australia, is English by -birth. - -“_Lu of the Ranges_,” says a _nil admirari_ Australian newspaper, whose -editor could not have known that she was born in England, “is a notable -contribution to Australian literature.... It is solidly constructed, -finely written, frank to the verge of brutality, and inherently -Australian. Lu, pictured on the cover by the fool illustrator as a -charming English maiden, is a drab and very human girl of the backwoods, -who, to the end of her life, could not speak grammatically. Her language -is the sort that looks neater printed with a dash; and she has a temper -of her own. A hard, glittering, valiant personality, whom life teaches -to take care of herself ‘on her own.’ - -“A veritable child of the bush, she was inured alike to heat and cold, -to hard work and a spare diet, to an almost incredible isolation.... For -the children of the bush are, above all things, old, like the primitive -forms of vegetation, the wistful-eyed, prehistoric animals which are -with their fellows. When they grow up and find their way to the cities, -they blossom into a splendid youth, which never again quite leaves them; -or else, scared and bewildered, they creep back again to the wild places -whence they came. But to the irresponsible gaiety of childhood they are -for ever strangers.” - -It was the outcome of the seven years of struggles, more than once -coming perilously near starvation, which she had in the colony of -Victoria. Some of her short stories are good enough for Rudyard Kipling. -That she has not assumed her place in the front rank of novelists is due -only to the immense barriers to recognition which have to be surmounted -owing to the mountains of fiction which are cast up every year, and -stand between the new writer and fame. - -When I asked Eleanor Mordaunt about her life in Australia she said— - -“In Australia I edited a woman’s paper, and made gardens, and blouses -for tea-room girls, and worked in an engineer’s shop at metal work, and -was four times carried into public hospitals for dying. I never had a -penny in the bank—and more than once not in the world. Once I lay in bed -for three days because I had nothing to eat. Then came thirty pounds for -a manuscript of essays from _Lothian_ of Melbourne (published 1909 under -the title of _Rosemary_), and seven pounds a woman owed me for painting -her a set of silk curtains, and two pounds for _The Garden of -Contentment_, and I got up and went out and bought a pound of chops, and -cooked and ate them all. I did all my housework at night, and all the -washing. - -“In Leek this time I lived on fifteen shillings a week with the weavers, -and knew no one else except the two daughters of the Trade Union -secretary, and never had so much love and kindness in my life. The book -comes out next autumn, and is called _Bellamy_.” - -Mary Gaunt, the novelist and traveller, was born and brought up in -Victoria. Her father was a well-known judge in the Colony. She had met -with considerable success in journalism before she left the Melbourne -University. - -Dr. George Ernest Morrison, who made himself so famous as correspondent -of _The Times_ in Peking, was, as I have said elsewhere, a -fellow-student and friend of mine at the Melbourne University, and has -been a great friend ever since. It was I who persuaded Horace Cox to -publish his _An Australian in China_, the only book he has ever -published, though I myself conveyed to him an offer of a thousand pounds -on account for a book about China before the Allied Powers invaded it. -He was unwilling to enter into a contract, and the matter dropped. He -has since then resigned his position on _The Times_, and become English -adviser to the Government of China. His book on China, whenever it does -come, will be read all over the world, because no European has ever -understood Chinese politics as well as he has. - -His knowledge of the country Chinese, the two hundred million toiling -agricultural poor, is just as extraordinary. His gigantic journeys -across China have given him a chance of seeing them as no other -Anglo-Saxon, and probably no other white man, ever has seen them. His -first journey was from Shanghai to Rangoon by land in 1894, which he -accomplished at a cost of eighteen pounds, and on which he went unarmed, -as usual. That is the journey described in _An Australian in China_. His -second was from Bangkok in Siam to Yunnan city in China and round -Tonquin in 1896; his third across Manchuria from Stretensk in Siberia to -Vladivostok; his fourth from Peking to the border of Tonquin; his fifth -from Honan city in Central China across Asia to Andijan in Russian -Turkestan, nearly four thousand miles. - -Morrison, whenever he came back to England from the East, used to come -straight to Addison Mansions. One night he turned up about 10 p.m. - -“How long have you been in London?” I asked. - -“About two hours.” - -The hero of so many striking adventures (in which most people would feel -inclined to include the siege of Peking, for he was badly wounded in it, -and without his leadership the city would have fallen) is, though his -bushy hair has turned snow-white, singularly youthful-looking. His -rounded clean-shaven face has not a line or a wrinkle from its long -sojourn under Eastern suns. His blue eye has a merry twinkle in it which -gives his face a humorous expression when it is not hardened for action. -Those who have seen him in a crisis, know how stern and resolute and -uncompromising it can be. He has a slim, active figure. - -Just before he was appointed _Times_ correspondent in China, I -approached Sir Henry Norman, who was at that time one of the editors of -the _Daily Chronicle_, and whom I knew, to try and get the proprietors -of that paper to give him a similar appointment in China, or in some -country where Spanish is spoken, for Morrison speaks Spanish fluently. I -enumerated all the qualifications which immediately afterwards led _The -Times_ to make the best appointment they made since De Blowitz. At the -end of it Norman just said with a cold smile, “Oh, all your geese are -swans,” and changed the subject. I wondered if he ever let the -proprietors of the _Chronicle_ know what a goose they had lost, and whom -they could have secured for quite a moderate salary. To his honour be it -known, that Moberly Bell, of _The Times_, recognised Morrison’s value -the moment the young doctor approached him. - -Morrison’s middle fame was of a quite unusual sort. His walk across -Australia without money and without arms had been a nine days’ wonder. -His gallant explorations in New Guinea, culminating in his being brought -home with a barbed wooden spear-head inside him, and being sent on to -Edinburgh because no one in Australia could extract it, made him a -celebrity in Scotland as well as Melbourne. But when Prof. Chiene -extracted the spear-head successfully, Morrison’s exploits, for the time -being, were lost sight of in those of the great surgeon, and he became -known as “Chiene’s case.” - -G. W. Rusden, the only important historian of New Zealand and Australia -till Henry Gyles Turner’s book appeared, I knew very well. We lived -together, until I was married, at Cotmandene, Punt Road, South Yarra, a -suburb of Melbourne. In fact, I was married from there. He had for many -years been clerk of the Parliaments in Melbourne, and was actually -engaged in writing his histories when we were living together. He was a -strange mixture in his sentiments—a violent Tory in everything except -where natives were concerned. But he was even more violent as an -advocate for coloured people. At that time the Maories were giving a -good deal of trouble in New Zealand, and Bryce, the Minister for Native -Affairs, showed great resolution and capacity in dealing with them. This -infuriated Rusden, who, partly from the yellow journals in New Zealand, -and partly from Sir George Grey, who had been Governor and afterwards -Premier of the Colony, gleaned a farrago of libels, accusing Bryce of -murdering native women and children. He showed these reports to me -triumphantly. At the risk of losing his friendship, for he was very -touchy, I begged him not to make any use of these materials, which -appeared to me patently false. But he persisted in inserting portions of -them. Years afterwards, when both he and I were living in England, Bryce -brought an action for libel against him in the London Courts on these -very grounds. Rusden went to my uncle’s firm, Sladen and Wing, as his -solicitors, on account of his friendship with my other uncle, Sir -Charles. My cousin told me about it. “Well,” I said, “make him pay -anything to keep it out of court. I was living with him when he wrote -that part of his history, and saw the materials, and he hasn’t a leg to -stand on.” - -But Rusden was a great deal too stubborn to compromise—and the verdict -against him was five thousand pounds damages. - -Turner also is an old friend of mine. He was long manager of the -Commercial Bank in Melbourne, and was one of the founders and editors of -the _Melbourne Review_. He and the late Alexander Sutherland, who was a -schoolmaster, wrote the excellent book on Australian literature which -has been the foundation of all subsequent works on the subject, -especially in the matter of our knowledge of Adam Lindsay Gordon. - -And here I must mention my two closest Australian literary -friends—Arthur Patchett Martin and Margaret Thomas. Margaret Thomas, who -was brought up in Australia, though she was actually born in England, -began life as a sculptor. She won the silver medal of the Royal Academy, -and executed, among other public works, the memorial to Richard -Jefferies in Salisbury Cathedral, and the memorials to various Somerset -celebrities in the Somerset Valhalla, founded by the Kinglakes at -Taunton. She was so successful also as a portrait painter that she was -able to retire with a competency, and devote the rest of her life to -travel and book-writing. She has written travel-books on Syria, Spain -and Morocco, and hand-books on painting and sculpture. Probably no one -living has such a wide knowledge of the picture-galleries of the -Continent. - -Patchett Martin was born at Woolwich, but went to Australia at an early -age, and was educated at the Melbourne Grammar School and University. He -helped to found, and edited the _Melbourne Review_, and was intimately -associated with the theatre, because his sister married Garner, the -principal theatrical impresario of Australia. He settled in London in -1882, and practically introduced Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poems to their -popularity in England, where they had been neglected except for the -reviews and articles which appeared in _Baily’s Magazine_, about the -time of Gordon’s death a dozen years before. While editor of the -_Melbourne Review_, Martin was among the very first to “boom” Robert -Louis Stevenson, who was his model in his own delightful poems and -essays. His big, burly form and hot, good-humoured face were very -familiar in the Savage Club in the ’eighties. - -Australian authors in London centre round the Royal Colonial Institute, -and the _British Australasian_, the editor of which, Mr. Chomley, is the -secretary of the literary circle at the Royal Colonial Institute, which -meets on Thursday nights, and has most interesting papers and -discussions. - -Both the former librarian (my old friend, J. R. Boosè, who is now the -secretary) and the present, P. Evans Lewin, who was for a brief period -the chief librarian of South Australia, have kept the track of nearly -every book which has been published about Australia or by an Australian, -and Australian authors and journalists make a regular club of the -Institute when they are in London. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - - MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART I - - -BY far the greater number of my literary friends have been novelists. I -have counted no less than two hundred and seventy male novelists who -have visited us at Addison Mansions, and I have no doubt that I have -forgotten enough to bring the number up to three hundred. - -Of Walter Besant, a short sturdy man, with a bushy brown beard and blue -eyes behind spectacles, which could be very merry or very indignant, I -have spoken elsewhere. Besant, who pronounced his name with the accent -on the second syllable (it is said because people always pronounced the -famous theosophist’s name with the accent on the first syllable, though -the recollection of its Byzantine etymology may also have guided him), -was very outspoken. He could not abide the famous Annie Besant; he -considered that she was a millstone about his brother’s neck, and made -no bones over saying so. That brother was a master at Cheltenham College -when I first went there. But I do not remember if I ever saw Mrs. Besant -there, though we saw the masters’ wives as a body in the College Chapel -every Sunday morning. Another matter on which he was outspoken was his -repulsion for George Eliot—not her works, but her personality. He once -said to me that her head reminded him of a horse’s, and on another -occasion said that no woman’s face had ever struck him as more sensual. - -His own personality was splendid. He was so genial, though such a -fighter; he was so splendidly full of energy, so quick to catch on to -ideas, so masterful and wide-grasping in carrying them out; so -absolutely friendly; such a good enemy, and so astonishingly -warm-hearted. I never had a greater personal feeling of respect and -affection for any great man than for Besant. - -All the world knows how much he effected for authors, and how much he -sacrificed for them. He made as large an income as any great novelist of -his time, but he might have made much more and lived another twenty -years, if he had not slaved for his brother authors. - -George Meredith, who succeeded him as head of the literary craft, was -never at Addison Mansions, though his daughter came twice with Lady -Palmer. I only had the privilege of knowing him towards the end of his -life, when his time and his health were far too precious to be spent on -going to at-homes, though he was very kind about having younger authors -introduced to him at the parties which Lady Palmer gave in his honour -when he was staying with her. Once seen, George Meredith could never be -forgotten. You were delighted to find that a man who had created a -literature within a literature, the writer who by common acclaim is the -greatest of all English novelists, was so rare and impressive in his -appearance and speech. His face was singularly beautiful in its old age, -surmounted by a fleece of snow-white hair, and illuminated by bright -blue eyes, absolutely clear. He was, of course, an excellent talker, and -both his voice and his way of using it were strikingly emphatic. There -are few old men whom I have met to whom I should so unhesitatingly apply -the word majestic. The whole face, with its well-trimmed beard and -unexaggerated features, reminded me of the bearded Zeus in the group of -the three gods on the frieze of the Parthenon. - -He was very gracious also to young authors, though it must have been a -severe tax on him to have so many worshippers introduced to him. For -George Meredith was not a man like Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lady whom I -introduced to him began, “It must bore you terribly, Dr. Holmes, to have -everybody who is introduced to you telling you how they admire your -books.” - -“On the contrary, madame,” he said gallantly, “I can never get enough of -it. I am the vainest man alive.” - -On the same occasion Holmes told me that he had been unable to do any -writing (except his short _Hundred Days in Europe_) for years, because -his entire time was taken up with answering complimentary letters. - -Hardy did come to 32 Addison Mansions, Hardy who has received the Order -of Merit, and is proposed for next year’s Nobel prize for literature, as -the head of the literary craft, one of the great masters of English -fiction. I am very proud to have known Thomas Hardy; he is not only so -great, but so silent and reserved, that it is not easy to know him. I -have met him often, but seldom seen him talking, except very quietly to -an intimate friend. He has generally been on the edge of a crowd, -observing—we have the fruits of that profound observation in his novels. -That slight figure, that melancholy face, with the watchful eyes, was -always a cynosure, for Hardy has been the object of unbounded admiration -for many years. I remember his being the bright particular star about -whom the late Lady Portsmouth was always talking at her house-parties at -Eggesford, where I stayed, as far back as 1885. - -I have a letter from him which is one of my most treasured literary -possessions. He wrote it to me to explain his point in introducing the -passage about the slaughtered pig after I had reviewed _Jude, the -Obscure_, at considerable length and with minute criticism in the -_Queen_. I have alluded to his almost equal eminence as a poet in -another chapter. - -It is natural to couple Hall Caine with Thomas Hardy, for both of them -were brought up as architects, though they turned to literature, and -reached the topmost rung. - -Hall Caine has been an intimate friend of mine for many years. Our -friendship began before he was a novelist, in the days when he was a -critic of the _Athenæum_ and the _Academy_, and an editor of poetry. His -sending me _The Sonnets of Three Centuries_ in the year in which he lost -his housemate, the poet and artist, Dante Rossetti, was the beginning of -our friendship. He began publishing novels in 1885, and two years later -leapt into the front rank of novelists with his magnificent _Deemster_. - -After my return from America I began to see more and more of him. He -became a director of the Authors’ Club, of which I was Honorary -Secretary, and one of the chief speakers at the New Vagabonds Club. - -In 1894 he reached, with _The Manxman_, the height of fame, at which he -has since continued. I prophesied its enormous success in a long review -of it, which I wrote for the _Queen_, which came out simultaneously with -the publication of the book. We were in Rome together at the time that -he was writing the _Eternal City_, and in Egypt together while he was -writing _The White Prophet_. - -No one could be in the presence of Hall Caine for five minutes without -knowing that he was in the presence of a remarkable man. His resemblance -to Shakespeare is extraordinary, not only in the dome-like expanse of -his forehead and the Elizabethan slope of his beard, but in the burning -eyes and the shape of the eyecups. He looks the genius that he is. - -Hall Caine has always had the merit of being highly approachable and -affectionate, and if his conversation is apt to centre round the work he -is doing, it is always most interesting and pregnant. - -At Rome, for instance, where I very often had lunch with him in his flat -at Trinità del Monte, overlooking the city, and went for walks with him, -he was very full of the Vatican, where he constantly went to see certain -cardinals, who were most indiscreet in their confidences. - -He was intimate with the Italian Government, too. I met various members -of the Cabinet at his table, and one of them, Ferraris, then -Postmaster-General, as well as editor of the _Antologia Nuova_, has done -me many acts of friendship since. - -Jerome’s neighbour in those days, Joseph Hatton (than whom there could -have been no more striking contrast to him), was one of his and my -dearest friends. There were few men so dear to their friends as Joe -Hatton. He had an enormous circle of them in literature, and on the -stage, and so won their hearts with his geniality and loyalty that they -forgot how eminent he was, and treated him as a brother. But Joe Hatton, -in addition to the vast amount of work he did as editor and critic, -wrote some of the best novels of his day. I can see him now as he so -often came to our house, a rather small man with a brown beard, a lift -of the chin, a ready smile, and such very bright sympathetic brown eyes. -He used to bring his pretty little daughter with him before she was -grown up. How proud he was of her first successes on the stage, and the -fairy-book she wrote! He had a house with a very nice garden in St. -John’s Wood, where he gave parties at which one met all the leading -actors and actresses of the day. They could always spare time for a -reception at Hatton’s, as actors always stopped for a word with him at -the Garrick Club on Saturday nights. - -Of Doyle, Kipling and Barrie, Anthony Hope and Frankfort Moore, I have -spoken in another chapter. - -Stanley Weyman was such a rare visitor to London that he was not often -at our house. But I have corresponded with him a good deal. I knew when -I made _A Gentleman of France_ my book of the week in _To-day_, and -hailed the author as an historical novelist of the first rank, on what a -solid basis his work rested, for we were at Oxford at the same time, and -he took his First in History almost in the same term as I took mine. He -is a very fair man, with an eyeglass, much more like a soldier than an -author. - -Poor Crockett, a big tall man, with a fair beard, the type of the Saxons -who fought against the Conqueror at Hastings, was not very often in -London, but when he was there, he was a conspicuous figure at our -at-homes. We had many tastes in common, including Italy. Crockett asked -my advice when the question arose of his giving up the ministry. He was -at that time Free Church minister of Penicuik, a little place in -Midlothian, with a salary, as far as I remember, of a hundred or two a -year, but as an author was making a thousand or two a year, and able to -earn a good deal more if he could save the time which he had to devote -to his clerical work. His congregation were aghast at the idea of losing -their beloved minister just as he had sprung into Anglo-Saxon fame, and, -with Scottish casuistry, represented to him that it would be wrong for -him to neglect the work of the Lord for any worldly object. Crockett -thought, and I agreed with him, and decided him, that he would be more -certain of doing good if he allowed some man to whom the minister’s -stipend was necessary to be minister of Penicuik, while he did his -teaching and his preaching with his pen. - -F. W. Robinson’s short, thick-set figure, and heavy moustache, were as -conspicuous. It is strange how soon poor Robinson has been forgotten. -His work was popular with readers, and treated with respect by critics, -and he was one of the bigwigs at literary clubs and receptions, but with -his death all memory of him seemed to pass away, except among his old -friends. - -G. A. Henty, on the other hand, though he has been dead for years now, -seems to stand before us still, with his great beard, his great pipe, -his great body, and his breezy personality. Henty loved clubs and -literary gatherings. The Savage was his particular stronghold, when he -had said good-bye to war-correspondenting in distant lands. He was the -typical chairman there, with his Father Christmas beard, and his volumes -of smoke, and his bluff personality. He had been as popular among his -fellow-correspondents. Was it not Henty who lost his only pair of boots, -when the British army marched into some capital (I think it was King -Theodore’s in Abyssinia), and took his place in the triumph in carpet -slippers, riding on a pony? - -Henty’s work as a war-correspondent gave him the copy for those -wonderful books which made him the boys’ Dumas. He was a great -personality, and, as I saw, on the only two occasions when I ran across -him in a crisis, a born ruler of men. - -He often came across from his house on Clapham Common to our at-homes, -and looked like a strayed Viking, or a master-mariner, among the other -authors and authoresses. Sailing was his hobby. - -Speaking of Abyssinia, it is natural to me to mention Prince -Alamayu—Ali, as we used to call him. He was sent to Cheltenham College, -so that he might live in the house of Jex-Blake, then Principal of -Cheltenham, and afterwards head master of Rugby and Dean of Wells. Of -all the head masters of his time, Jex-Blake had the most considerable -reputation as a courtier and a man of the world. Alamayu was brought to -England after the capture of Magdala, and came to Cheltenham in 1872, -when he was eleven years old. He was just a royal savage when he came to -Cheltenham; if he was hot, he took his coat off and threw it on the -ground, and left it. He had no tutor to go about with him; he just mixed -with the boys in the ordinary way. And at first he had the cruelties of -his bringing-up; he once, for instance, pushed a small boy into the -water to see the splash he would make. But he soon got cured of this, -for Jex-Blake wisely left him to fight his own battles, and though a -sense of chivalry made the boys very indulgent to the poor little -orphaned black, they soon let him know that bullying was not to be one -of his privileges, though almost anything else was treated as a joke. - -When Jex-Blake went to Rugby, Alamayu went with him, and thence, when he -was eighteen, he went to Sandhurst to qualify for the British Army. That -was fatal. He was his own master there, with no one to make him take -care of his health, or restrain himself in taking spirits. He soon -contracted some deadly disease—pneumonia, I think—and died. Queen -Victoria showed her regret by having him buried in St. George’s Chapel -at Windsor. - -I knew him very well, because I was in the head form when he came to the -school, and was often at Jex-Blake’s house, and was asked by “Jex” to -keep an eye on him. He was a nice little boy, with a very affectionate -disposition, and not at all stupid. It was his misfortune to lose at a -critical moment of his life the firm and tactful hand which had -disciplined and protected him for seven years. - -Green Chartreuse is almost as deadly as aeroplanes. I knew a man, a very -well-known man, who went mad because he drank thirty-six green -Chartreuses in one day. - -It is natural to mention George Manville Fenn in the same breath as -Henty. He was another old friend of mine, and of all the men I have -known, retained his youth the longest. Fenn’s hair remained golden and -undiminished in its vigour, and his figure remained slim and upright -till he was nearly seventy. He lived at the beautiful old red-brick -house on the river at Isleworth, which stands at the gates of the Duke -of Northumberland’s park, and is known as Syon Lodge. There he turned -out those wonderful boys’ romances of his in a steady stream. Like -Henty, I met him constantly at the Savage and Vagabond Clubs, and at my -own flat. He was very fond of meeting his fellow-craftsmen. His son, -Fred Fenn, used to come too. At that time he was sub-editor of the -_Graphic_, and I think he afterwards became first editor of the _Golden -Penny_. In any case, he freed himself from the fetters of journalism by -writing _Amasis_, that admirable Egyptian comic opera, in which Ruth -Vincent won all hearts. He not only had the cleverness to write it, but -formed the company which put it on, and stood an action at law about it -triumphantly—a rare instance of grit. - -Richard Jefferies never came to see me at Addison Mansions; he was dead, -I think, before we went there. But I have a long and pathetic letter -which he wrote to me some time before he died, setting forth the -cross-fire of diseases from which he was suffering, and asking me if I -thought the climate of the exquisite Blue Mountains of New South Wales -would afford him any relief. One can picture how the genius of Jefferies -would have blossomed forth amid that matchless gorge scenery (where you -hear the bell-birds calling) and amid the natural history curiosities of -a new land. - -Grant Allen, who lived in a charming house in the Haslemere district, -was a constant visitor to our flat. We had visited his people in Canada -before we met him. His father was the principal inhabitant at Kingston, -Ontario, the dear old-fashioned town which contains Canada’s Military -Academy. The old Allen had a fine house with a delightful garden, right -on Lake Ontario. Grant Allen was a remarkable-looking man, with his long -red beard, and keen, hawk-like face. He always reminded me of the gaunt, -red-bearded faces one sees on knights and lovers in the great French -tapestries of the fifteenth century. And he had the same spare figure as -they have, and the same habit of arching his back. He was a remarkable -man, who, famous as he was, never got his due as a writer. He was never -an F.R.S., though half the Fellows of the Royal Society were his -inferiors in scientific attainments, and he never reached eminence as a -novelist, though he wrote some amazingly clever and powerful books. He -had a great contempt for actresses on account of their want of -conversation. He said they could not talk about anything but the stage. -I once came away with him from a party at H. D. Traill’s, where he had -taken down to supper a woman who was beyond dispute the greatest actress -of her time. He was complaining loudly about it; he said that he thought -she was the most stupid woman he had ever met. - -But he was happy in his friendships. His brother-in-law, Franklin -Richards, father of the publisher, Grant Richards, was recognised as one -of the soundest philosophers of his day at Oxford—I say this though his -lectures were entirely thrown away on me. I had to attend them because -he was a don of my College, but Philosophy was Chinese to me. - -One of Grant Allen’s greatest friends in the last part of his life was -Richard le Gallienne, who went to live in that house in the wood beyond -Haslemere to be near him. Le Gallienne had a sort of summer-house in the -wood, a long way from the house, in which he wrote those charming poems, -secure from interruption. I often went to see him in the days when he -lived in the King’s Farm at Brentford, which was not a very farm-like -house. But I only once went to see him at Haslemere, and on that -occasion I found him at the summer-house, dressed as carefully as if he -had been in town, but with an eye on country effects. He had on a black -velvet coat and waistcoat, and a rich black evening tie, but immaculate -white flannel trousers; and I must admit that even in this costume he -managed to look appropriate. - -When we were living at Cherwell Lodge, Oxford, that delightful marine -villa across the Cherwell from the Gothic part of Magdalen, Grant Allen -brought his best friend to see us, Edward Clodd, the secretary of the -London Joint Stock Bank, who, in the intervals of a business career, had -written a number of great books, beginning with _The Childhood of the -World_. - -W. D. Howells only came once to see us at Addison Mansions, but I saw -more of him when I was living in New York, when he used to come in at -tea-time to that little hall-room we had for a sitting-room in that -boarding-house in West Forty-second Street. It gave me pleasure to see -him under my own roof, because I remembered how eagerly I bought and -read his novels when I was at Oxford, and David Douglas was bringing out -_A Chance Acquaintance_, _Their Wedding Journey_, and so on, in the -dainty little shilling paper volumes which were the fortunate precursors -of the modern sevenpenny. Howells was rather a stout, bull-necked man, -very capable-looking, and in those days had a thick mop of grey hair. In -after years we knew his Italian books, written while he was a Consul in -Italy, almost by heart. They are photographic in their fidelity. - -George W. Cable was another American who came to the flat but once. Like -Howells, he seldom honoured England with a visit. His books, and John -Burroughs’, too, I first knew in the little David Douglas Library, and I -well remember reading his _Old Creole Days_ all night, because I was so -fascinated with it. - -I was staying at the house of my sister’s father-in-law, the Court Lodge -at Yalding, at the time, and the month was June—I had just come down -from Oxford. At some impossibly early hour—midnight seemed only just to -have slipped past—the dawn streamed in, and made me blow my candle out, -and the birds began their comment on the peach garden. Five-and-thirty -or forty years have passed since then, but the delight of Cable’s -poetical touch remains still in my memory. Cable always rather reminded -me of Hardy, though being a Southerner from New Orleans he is darker -skinned. When he wrote _Old Creole Days_, he was the idol of the South, -but later, when he took up the colour question on the other side, he -would have been torn to pieces by the mob of New Orleans if they had got -hold of him, so he took up his residence in Massachusetts. - -I always slept in the haunted room in that house, a very old house, with -a kitchen and vaulted cellars going back to the time of Edward III. It -contained a very large cupboard, between the old-fashioned chimney-piece -and the window, in which somebody is supposed to have been bludgeoned to -death, the corpse afterwards being dragged across the floor, and when -the window had been thrown up with a bang, flung on the flags below. At -one particular season of the year, the noises which indicate this -procedure plainly have been heard by various people. I have forgotten -when it happened, but it must have been a very long time ago, for -everything to have been done so openly. - -I have slept in that room repeatedly, alone, and never heard the noises -or thought about it being haunted, but I should not like to sleep in the -kitchen, for it was only separated by a moth-eaten sort of door from the -wickedest-looking cellars I ever remember, which, unless something has -been done to them since then, lose themselves in pitch-dark spaces. - -Another author, whose delightful essays on nature used to be brought out -in those dear little volumes of David Douglas’s, and whom I read with -even more enthusiasm in those days, was John Burroughs, whom I visited -in his home at West Park, on a broad reach of the Hudson. He told me -that he wrote most of those essays when he was a clerk in the Treasury -at Washington, where his duties were to sit opposite the safes, and see -that no improper person had access to them. I have forgotten what safes, -but I suppose they were those which contained the United States gold -reserve. He used to project the scenes in _Wake Robin_ and _Pepacton_ on -the blank doors of the safes in his mind, as the cinema projects -dissolving views on the lecturer’s sheet. The sedentariness of this -pursuit gave him acute indigestion, and he was advised that nothing but -manual labour and a vegetable diet would cure it. When I was with him, I -think he lived entirely on asparagus, lentils and onions. He could eat -about three pounds of asparagus at a sitting, as I suppose other people -could if they weren’t going to have any meat or pudding. He told me one -thing which filled my soul with joy. As manual labour was part of the -cure, he started a vineyard, in a position chosen with great care, on a -steep sloping bank of the Hudson facing due south. His grapes ripened -here three or four weeks before any one else’s, with the result that he -got a hundred pounds a ton for them instead of four pounds. Bravo, -literature! - -Henry James, in virtue of his long sojourn among us, belongs to England -almost as much as he does to America. He still lives in London in the -winter, but in the warm part of the year he retires to a delightful -Georgian house on the crest of the hill at Rye, one of the most -old-world places in England. Henry James’s house and garden are exactly -what you would choose for him—the most refined and dignified and subtle -novelist in the language. The house is called “Lamb’s House,” but it has -nothing to do with Charles Lamb, though it is exactly the house which he -would have chosen, when fortune came to him. All the garden is adorable, -but especially the Dutch court behind the house, and the kitchen-garden, -surrounded by the most ancient cottages in Rye, with roofs red and -chimneys bewitched. Between the garden and the kitchen-garden is a -red-brick Georgian pavilion, facing the top of the street, as the -Tempietto faces the long sloping lane which leads up to the Sculpture -Gallery of the Vatican, and it is not less beautiful than the Tempietto. - -Everything is appropriate; the novelist even bought the cottages at the -back of the kitchen-garden, to prevent them being rebuilt, and thus -ensured the permanence of a perfect setting. He has a singularly noble -head and face, the type one would like to imagine for a Cicero. - -Richard Whiteing, who leapt into fame at a comparatively late age, with -_No. 5, John Street_, after having been one of the most important -newspaper writers in England for many years, is another man whom you -would pick out in any crowd for his splendid head. - -Sir Gilbert Parker, who was a regular habitué of our at-homes before he -went into Parliament and became such an overworked man, was in those -days a slim, black-bearded Colonial, with noticeable blue eyes. He was -born in Canada, the son of a British officer stationed out there, and -knew Australia as well as Canada—in fact, I met him because we had both -been in Australia. He was at that time a busy journalist and in the -first flush of his success as a novelist, and no one could have deserved -it better, for his novels had the historical fidelity and felicity of -Francis Parkman, in addition to their graceful and romantic style. In -spite of the solid work he has done in politics, he will be remembered -as an author more than as a politician, though now we clap him on the -back for the splendid spade-work he does for the Conservative Party. As -a writer he fires the imagination, like the bugles in his famous story. - -Henniker-Heaton, on the other hand, will be remembered not for his -biographical dictionary of Australians, which was the precursor of -_Who’s Who_, but for his achievement in politics—a postal reform as far -reaching as that of Rowland Hill, the father of the post-office. I -prophesied his success in print nearly thirty years ago. He is a shining -example of what a man who has a great ideal can do by singleness of -vision; nothing could shake him from his ideal of a universal penny -post; ridicule was poured on it; the big battalions were brought up -against it; but he pursued it doggedly. He showed infinite patience, -infinite good-nature, infinite tact. He brought his personal influence -to bear on politicians of both sides. He went to conferences all over -the world; he entertained delegates from all parts of the world; he -collected and classified every species of statistic; he accumulated -irresistible facts until he had a penny postage, not universal, because -it does not bridge the twenty miles between Kent and France,[8] but -universal for the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon nations, for the United -States came into the agreement as well as the Empire. Nor did his -activities stop at the post-office; for he has achieved reforms of -almost equal magnitude in telegraphic charges. Now he is taking a -well-deserved rest, and I cannot help thinking that he would take it -very usefully if he had a flat in Berlin, and saw the Kaiser every day. -A monarch of the force and intelligence of the Kaiser could not help -seeing the irresistibleness of the argument that a letter ought to be -taken from London to Hamburg and Berlin for the same price as it is -taken to the heart of British Borneo, and if he once happened to notice -it, he would brush away the cobwebs which impede it. - -Footnote 8: - - Now happily soon to be accomplished. - -To Alfred Austin I was never attracted, except by his enthusiasm for -gardens and Italy. He was made Laureate because he was a leader writer, -not because he was a poet, and possessed neither the ability nor the -affability for the post. Had he gone on writing about blackthorn and -blackbirds, he would have left a greater name as a poet, and would not -have been made the victim of the famous story which is told of a -Scottish law lord, who, meeting him at a country house, said, “Well, Mr. -Austin, are you still writing ‘pomes’?” - -“One must do something to keep the wolf from the door,” replied the -poet, with official modesty. - -“And is that what you use those ‘pomes’ for?” asked the man of law, -giving one visions of a small man with a big moustache belabouring a -wolf on the door-step with a roll of manuscript. - -I know of only one more malicious story, which relates to the bestowal -of a bishopric. While it was in the balance, Lord Salisbury was -suffering from one of his fits of insomnia, and, as his custom was, sent -for an M.P. son, whose speeches were the only thing which could make him -sleep. His son bothered him all night to bestow the see—it was the -premier bishopric—on its present holder. At last Lord Salisbury lost -patience. “Oh! give it to him, and leave me. I prefer insomnia.” - -It was _à propos_ of insomnia that Lord Salisbury made his finest retort -in the House of Lords. A new Liberal peer, to whom the leader was -particularly acid, because, having been a whip in the House of Commons, -he was rather conscious of his importance, was, in spite of the fact -that his income arose chiefly from a brewery, advocating Local Option, -because he said that the number of public-houses was a temptation to -drink. “Of course,” said Lord Salisbury, “I do not enjoy the same -opportunities as the noble Lord does for knowing the effect of the -number of public-houses upon the amount which is drunk, but I don’t see -his line of argument, because, though I live in a house with forty -bedrooms, I never feel the slightest inclination to sleep.” - -The Irish Party, too, came in for his acid wit. Who has forgotten his -comment on the member of the Irish Party who libelled him, and went to -America, when he lost the action, to escape paying the costs? Lord -Salisbury only shrugged his shoulders, and said that escaping was the -_forte_ of the Irish, adding, “Some prefer the fire-escape, and some the -water-escape.” - -Harold Frederic owed some of his vogue as a novelist in this country to -Mr. Gladstone, who had an immense enthusiasm for his great novel, _In -the Valley_. Frederic, a big burly man, with a burly moustache, was the -ablest American journalist in London, till the advent of Isaac Nelson -Ford for the _Tribune_, and Harry Chamberlain for the _Sun_ and the -Laffan Agency. Frederic represented the _New York Times_. He was a man -coarse in his speech, and rather coarse in his fibre, and full of -prejudices, but he had the gift of political prophecy, and, like Balaam, -his utterances were dictated by the voice within him, and not by what he -had come to say. His letters to his paper were splendid journalism. He -used often to come to Addison Mansions, because he lived just round the -corner in the old house on Brook Green. He might have been with us now, -if he had not been a Christian Scientist. He was an enormous consumer of -alcohol, though I never knew him the worse for liquor, and when he was -taken with his last illness, the professor of Christian Science, who was -called in by a woman who had great influence over him, was not able to -insist upon banishing spirits as a regular practitioner would have done. -The result was that he took stimulants (which were worse than poison to -him) whenever he felt bad, and ruined his chance of recovery. - -Rider Haggard I have spoken of elsewhere. - -Frank Hopkinson Smith is a man I should have liked to see more of at -Addison Mansions; he was one of the men I liked best among my friends in -American literary clubs. He was an engineer by profession, who had -carried out many important contracts. Writing, though he was one of the -best writers in America, was an afterthought with him. Like Du Maurier, -that delightful man and delightful writer, he stumbled upon his most -brilliant gift. - -Du Maurier became a novelist because he had become such a master of -situation and polished dialogue in his pictures and their titles. Frank -Hopkinson Smith grew to be a novelist out of the anecdotes which he told -so brilliantly at story-tellers’ nights at the Century Club. He had a -fund of stories about the Italian labour which he employed in contracts. -He always used to declare that engaging Italian labour was as simple as -Kodaking, which had for its motto, “You press a button—we do the rest.” -He said that no matter how many men he needed, all he had to do was to -ring up an Italian boss the night before, and tell him that he wanted so -many men for a certain kind of job. Then they would be at any station in -the city at seven o’clock the next morning, with the proper tools. He -added that he always put a clause into the contract that if any of them -murdered each other, the number was to be made up at once. - -“That is their weakness,” he said, “but they only practice it on each -other. It’s the only kind of labour I would undertake a contract with. -They’re better than the Irish, anyway.” - -“I don’t agree with you,” said Vermont, the sculptor; “they’re so -cruel.” - -“Cruel!” retorted Hopkinson Smith. “What price this? An Irishman named -Larkin hired an organ-monkey from an old Dago for a dollar a day. The -monkey was often badly bruised when he came back at night, and looked -frightened to death when Larkin came to fetch him in the morning. So one -Saint’s day when the old Dago had a holiday, he determined to follow -them up and watch them. The Irishman drove along till he came to the -bridge over the railway at the bottom of Twelfth Avenue, where the coal -carts all pass on their way up from the depot. Then he took the monkey -out of the cart, and tied him to a post ten or twenty yards away from -the bridge, but in full sight of it. Then he drove his horse and cart to -a convenient place a little way off, and awaited events. - -“Presently the coal carts began to stream across the bridge, and the -monkey in terror ran up to the top of the post. The whole way across -every carter took cock-shots at it with pieces of coal. Occasionally one -hit it, and then the monkey screamed with rage and pain. As soon as -there was a cart load of coal lying at the foot of the post, Larkin -brought up his horse and cart and shovelled them in, first putting the -monkey where he could not be seen, to show that the sport was over for -the present. When he was loaded up, he hitched the monkey to the cart -again, and drove into New York to the retailer who bought the coal from -him. - -“But the next morning, when he came for the monkey, he found not only -that monkey, but every monkey in the organ-grinders’ quarter, gone, and -when he got down to the bridge, the place was looking like a zoo.” - -Suddenly the popular anecdote-teller wrote _Colonel Carter of -Cartersville_, one of the best American novels of its generation. - -William de Morgan, the other novelist who achieved his first book -success so late in life, was never at Addison Mansions, but I had the -honour of meeting him at a much more interesting place—the little -_atelier_, somewhere in the Kilburn district, where he made the famous -lustre tiles by which he was known before he took to literature. George -Joy, the artist who painted the famous picture of Gordon meeting his -death at Khartum, took me to see De Morgan, knowing how enthusiastic I -was over the famous Mazzara Vase, and the other pieces preserved in -Sicily of the old Sicilian Arab lustre ware. - -Of Bret Harte and Maarten Maartens I have spoken elsewhere. - -Egerton Castle, whose _Young April_ is the most delightful book of the -romantic school, in which Anthony Hope, Henry Harland, and a few others -have written with such charm, was a rare visitor. Any one could see that -he had been a soldier. But the militariness of his active, upright -figure is no doubt partly due to the fact that he is one of the finest -fencers in the country. He has been a representative of England in the -international contests. He is likewise, as his books show, a notable -connoisseur, and he has ample means to indulge his tastes, not only from -the wide popularity of the novels which he writes, mostly in -collaboration with his wife, but from his having owned one of the chief -daily newspapers, the _Liverpool Mercury_, which is now amalgamated with -the _Liverpool Post_. The Agnes Castle who collaborates with him is, of -course, his wife, not his sister. - -Percy White was a constant visitor. He has been my intimate friend since -he published his first novel, _Mr. Bailey Martin_, that merciless -dissection of suburban snobbery. I used to write for him when he edited -_Public Opinion_, and that was a long time ago. He was one of the -handsomest men in literature, with his merry, boyish face, dark eyes, -and bright golden hair. C. B. Fry, the greatest all-round athlete in the -records of sport, is his nephew, and, though darker, reminds me very -much of Percy White as he was. Florence White, who paints portraits, is -his sister. - -Percy White’s books have never met with the circulation they deserve. If -he had been born an American, they might have had the largest -circulation in the world. He is just the writer whose circulation would -have spread like wildfire, if he had lived in America, and written of -American social life as he has written of ours. No one could have -expressed the good and the bad in the American character with the same -light touch and ruthless penetration. His is just the pen to depict the -iron courage and the insight of genius which, with or without chicanery, -lead to the amassing of millions—the selfishness, made endurable by grit -and personal charm, of the American woman—the brilliant wit and pathetic -lack of humour in Americans as a nation—the business side of sport. - -Once upon a time I introduced him to a man whom I will call the Vidler, -who ran a newspaper, and never paid anybody anything except by -advertisements in that paper. He made periodical business journeys, -collecting advertisements for his paper—my heart bled for the -advertisers—and used to engage an editor to look after his paper while -he was away. He chose Percy White for the honour on this occasion, and -asked me if I could bring them together. I gave White his message, -warning him that he would only be paid in promises, and was surprised to -hear that he was willing to discuss the matter with the Vidler. The -Vidler gave him a wonderful dinner at the Carlton, probably not paid for -yet, and then took him back to his chambers to discuss the matter in -hand. White sat up with him nearly all night, gravely taking down notes -of his projects for the paper, but reserved his decision, which resulted -in a negative. I met him the next day, and asked him how he had got on, -and when I heard how late he had been kept, apologised for all the -trouble to which I had put him, knowing how little chance there was of -his getting any pecuniary advantage out of it. - -“Don’t apologise, my dear Douglas,” he said; “I got a whole book out of -him. He’s the finest study I ever met in my life.” - -As Percy White did not take up the appointment, I set myself to find a -man who was willing to take the post, and would not suffer for it. I -found a man who was as sharp a diamond as the Vidler himself. He was -duly engaged, and I always wondered which did the other in the eye. I -have my suspicions, because when I met the Vidler a year or two -afterwards at Monte Carlo, he did not allude to the finish. - -George Gissing did not come often, though we had the great link of both -knowing and loving the Ionian Sea. - -If Gissing had not died, and there was no reason why he should have died -if he had taken ordinary care of himself—he would only be fifty-six if -he were alive now—he would have had a reputation like Barrie or Bernard -Shaw by this time, for even during his lifetime people were just -beginning to wake up to the extraordinary qualities of his writing. I am -not comparing him to either of those two; I only make the comparison -because everything pointed to his having popularity. Every now and then -some excellent writer achieves popularity. No one knows why. His -excellence is against his having a wide public, and it is very seldom -possible to tell why one is taken and another left. As the Bible proverb -says, “Two women shall be grinding at the mill; one shall be taken and -the other left.” - -Gissing had a genius for imparting romance to the sordid. - -W. J. Locke often came in those days. He was secretary to the Royal -Institute of British Architects, and combined with it the post of -literary adviser to John Lane, the publisher—a collaboration which -resulted in the publication of many notable books, of which none were -more eventually successful than his own, except, I suppose, H. G. -Wells’s, and I think that it was he who advised Lane to bring out the -works of Wells, and Harland’s _The Cardinal’s Snuff-box_, and Kenneth -Grahame’s _Golden Age_. - -Locke was always one of the most distinguished-looking persons in a -room, with his tall, slight figure, very well dressed, and his -hair—golden, with a natural wave in it—beautifully valeted. His -theatrical successes did not begin till much later, nor had he developed -his powers as a public speaker. He published admirable and solidly -successful books before he took the reading world by storm with _The -Beloved Vagabond_, and his novels won the respect of his -fellow-craftsmen from the first. In those days he lived in a modest flat -at Chelsea, and was a pretty regular attendant at literary clubs and -receptions. - -Coulson Kernahan was one of the most prominent figures in the set, -because he had both a brilliant personality, and was producing a -remarkable series of books, beginning with _A Dead Man’s Diary_. Coulson -is one of our oldest and most intimate literary friends. I met him again -directly I came back from America. He was at that time literary adviser -to Ward, Lock & Co. - -When James Bowden split from his partners, Ward, Lock & Co., and started -a publishing business of his own, Kernahan went with him, and continued -his profoundly imaginative series with books about Heaven—long, thin -volumes, longer and thinner even than the John Oliver Hobbes booklets, -which Fisher Unwin was bringing out. They sold by the hundred thousand. -They were the literary topic of the day, till Norma Lorimer in despair -said, “Kernahan is growing too chummy with his Creator.” - -In another line his imagination produced _Captain Shannon_, a mysterious -and thrilling adventure book. But he was soon to find his _métier_, and -leave thrilling fiction to Mrs. Kernahan. He became a lecturer, for -which his brilliant personality, his eloquence, his gift of humour, and -his conviction, had cut him out. He went to live in the country; he -lectured; he became an officer in the Territorials. And now he has -turned them all to account in the service of the Empire, to which he is -so passionately devoted, by going round as a caravan-lecturer to make -the youth of the country awake to the national peril from -unpreparedness. - -At a National Defence meeting, last summer, at which Kernahan was the -chief speaker, with Rudyard Kipling in the chair, Kernahan told his -audience of his last good-bye word with Captain Robert Scott. - -The hero of the South Pole asked him what he was doing, and whether he -had any new book on the stocks. - -“No,” was the reply; “I am neglecting my scribbling to work for Lord -Roberts and National Defence.” - -“Good!” said Scott, with unwonted warmth and enthusiasm. “Good! I’m with -you there!” - -Speaking of Lord Roberts, the grand old soldier is very appreciative of -the work Kernahan is doing in this direction. The veteran Field Marshal -not only wrote a eulogistic introduction to the Territorial author’s -book on soldiering, but when the latter has been addressing great -audiences on National Defence, has on several occasions sent telegrams -to the chairman, asking that his thanks be conveyed to the speaker, and -warmly commending Kernahan’s patriotism and the work he is doing for his -country. Kernahan is almost as widely known for his friendships as for -his writings. He has known intimately many distinguished men and -women—authors, actors, soldiers, artists, explorers and politicians. On -the walls of his library are many signed and inscribed portraits of -celebrities, as well as pictures inscribed to him by the painters. On -his shelves are numerous books dedicated or inscribed to him by the -writers. One takes up a volume of Swinburne and finds written in it, “To -Coulson Kernahan, whom Swinburne dearly loved, and who as dearly loved -him. From his old and affectionate friend, Theodore Watts-Dunton.” - -Another bears the inscription, “With the kind regards of Arthur James -Balfour.” Yet another, “To Coulson Kernahan, from his old chum, Jerome -K. Jerome.” - -He is famous too, or I should say infamous, as “infamous” is the only -word to apply to it, for the illegibility of his handwriting. His friend -Harry de Windt, brother of the Ranee of Sarawak, tells a good story of -this. It is to the effect that Kernahan once received a letter which ran -as follows— - -“Dear Kernahan,—Many thanks for your letter. The parts we could make out -are splendid. We are using the rest as a railway pass. No one can read -enough of it to say that it isn’t a railway pass, and as life is too -short for any one to find out what it really says, the collector has in -the end to let us through.” - -Of Horace Annesley Vachell, one of those whom the gods love, well born, -more than usually prepossessing in appearance and disposition, a -sportsman, and one of the best novelists of the day, I saw a good deal -when he first came back from California, and brought me a letter of -introduction, asking me to help him to meet the literary people in -London. I was immensely attracted to him, as attracted to him as I was -to his books, for which he had a good foundation in the variety of life -which he had led. He started with Harrow and the Rifle Brigade, and had -been many things, from a rancher in California to an artist, before he -found his vocation in literature. _The Hill_, his famous Harrow school -novel, increased his popularity wonderfully, but he was an admirable -writer from the first, both in story and style. I have heard it stated -that on one of his great books his publishers made the sporting -suggestion that he should receive no advance on account of royalties, -but a thirty per cent. royalty from the beginning, and that he accepted -the offer. - -When I wrote to Vachell to ask him what had made him turn his attention -to writing, he wrote back— - - “MY DEAR SLADEN, - - “Bad times in California turned me to scribbling, although - I had written some short stories for the magazines. I am rather - proud of the fact that I burnt my first very long novel on the - advice of a friend, who said that he could find a publisher for - it, and yet urged cremation instead!” - -Vachell told me that one of the triumphs in his career which he valued -most was the winning of the half-mile race for Sandhurst against -Woolwich, which gave them the victory in the Sports that year, 1881. -Later he was asked to run against Myers, the famous American, but wisely -refused to do so. - -He told me an amusing story of the hundred-pound prize which _T. P.’s -Weekly_ offered for the person who could discover most mistakes, -typographical and so forth, in one of his novels, which he had been -unable to revise himself. A parson wrote to him most indignantly, saying -that there were no mistakes at all in the book, and that he was -surprised that Vachell should lend himself to a cheap dodge for -advertising a novel. He hinted that Vachell had obtained money from -him—he had bought a six-shilling copy—under false pretences! Vachell in -return sent him one announcement of the result of the competition. The -man who won the prize discovered nearly _four hundred_ errors! This -sounds quite incredible, but it is true, as a most lengthy document in -his possession proves. The knowledge of his works displayed by the -winner fairly confounded him. - -He had some strange personal experiences in California. A big cowboy -rushed out of a saloon in the West, one day, followed by another cowboy -brandishing a big six-shooter. The first cowboy took refuge behind the -only cover in sight, a telegraph-post. He dodged round this, while the -second cowboy emptied his pistol into the post. All six bullets were in -the post! Afterwards, when he was chaffed by me for missing his man, he -retorted, “Boys, the son of a gun shrunk!” Both cowboys were full of -sheep-herder’s delight. - -And he told me another amusing Californian anecdote. - -“I met a pretty girl whom I had not seen for months. She informed me -that she was engaged to be married, and when I asked for details, she -replied, ‘He is not very rich in this world’s goods, but in morals, Mr. -Vachell, he’s a millionaire.’ She married her moral millionaire, and -about a year later I met her again. She was alone. Remembering her -phrase, I said, ‘How is your moral millionaire?’ She replied instantly, -‘He’s bust!’ I heard later that she had just divorced him.” - -And a short while ago he sent me one of the best newspaper bulls I -remember, which appeared in the _Western Daily Press_ review of _Loot_, -on Dec. 19, 1913. - -“Mr. Vachell, who is perhaps most widely known as the author of one of -the best modern stories of school life, _The Hell_, in which Harrow is -described,” etc. - -Another of those whom the gods love is A. E. W. Mason, who met with -success very early. Mason was a Dulwich boy, and a Trinity, Oxford, man, -and was on the stage before he took to literature, to his permanent -advantage, for it gave him that practical acquaintance with stage-craft -which hastened his success as a dramatist. - -From the moment that he published _The Courtship of Morrice Buckler_ it -was recognised that Mason was a romance-writer with the charm of an -Anthony Hope. And his reputation has gone on increasing. _The Four -Feathers_ was a book of genius. Unlike most authors, Mason has remained -a bachelor, consoling himself with yacht-sailing among the Hebrides when -he grows tired of social distractions and politics. For some years he -represented the important constituency of Coventry in Parliament as a -Liberal. And he was one of the few Liberals who dared to be independent, -which is probably the reason why he gave up politics. He was one of the -most boyish-looking members in the House, blue-eyed, clean-shaven, -fresh-coloured and slim. He has changed very little since he left -Trinity. He is a charming public speaker, and his boyishness is one of -his great charms in speaking. My friendship with Mason began on our -first visit to Salcombe, the little Devonshire town on the wooded inlet -which lies behind the Bolt Head. He had sailed into the inlet in a small -yacht, and came to see me as an old Trinity man. Mason is one of the men -who count. - -Max Pemberton has had many successes in his half-century of life. -Educated at Merchant Taylors, and Caius, Cambridge, he nearly got into -the Cambridge boat. He started his literary life by editing one of the -chief boys’ papers and writing boys’ books—his _Iron Pirate_ had a -prodigious vogue among future men. From this he soon passed to editing -_Cassell’s Magazine_, which occupied ten of his fifty years, and writing -novels, with their scenes laid in romantic and half-civilised -countries—what one might call “Balkan” novels. In these he has hardly -any rivals, because to an instinct for construction, and skill in -dialogue and description, he adds unusual ingenuity in contriving plots -and selecting subjects, and accuracy in handling facts. Pemberton’s -novels present most vivid pictures of the far countries in which their -scenes are laid. - -I met him first at the Savage Club; we were sitting next to each other -at dinner, and he introduced himself as the editor of _Cassell’s -Magazine_, and asked if I felt disposed to write a series of Japanese -stories for him—the stories which were afterwards worked up to _When We -were Lovers in Japan_ (_Playing the Game_). I was very much flattered by -his proposal, and from that day to this we have remained intimate -friends. This series was followed by the series of Sicilian stories -which were worked up into my novel, _Sicilian Lovers_. In both series I -was to give as much local colour as possible. - -After this we began to go to each other’s houses, and I well remember -the first time that we went to Pemberton’s, before he had moved to -Fitzjohn’s Avenue. It was a Sunday evening, and he had asked us to meet -poor Fletcher Robinson, who would have been one of the greatest -journalists of the day if he had survived. He was born to it, for he was -a nephew of old Sir John Robinson, who managed the _Daily News_ for many -years. He was, at the time of his death, assistant-editor of a great -daily, and he was one of the persons whose death was attributed to -incurring the displeasure of the celebrated Egyptian mummy in the -British Museum. He was a huge, fair man, with curly sandy hair; he was -beloved of society, and a poet as well as an editor. - -The popular account of his death is that, not believing in the malignant -powers of the celebrated mummy-case in the British Museum, he determined -to make a slashing attack on the belief in the columns of the _Daily -Express_, and went to the museum, and sent his photographer there, to -collect the materials for that purpose: that he was then, although in -the most perfect health, struck down mysteriously by some malady of -which he died. The ancient Egyptians certainly seem to have been able to -protect the tombs and coffins and bodies of their dead by active -spiritual powers, which I respect. But in any case, the adage of -chivalry, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_, ought to prevent people from -behaving unkindly to anything that concerns the dead. - -We continued to see a good deal of the Pembertons till Max took Troston -Hall in Suffolk because he found that London gaieties interfered with -his work. But a few years later he felt drawn back to London, and took -chambers in St. James’s, though he kept Troston on, and it was in those -chambers that he wrote one of his great successes, the revue _Hallo -Ragtime_—the best and most popular revue ever written. - -Unlike so many of our leading authors, Max Pemberton, who is a -distinguished-looking man—one would take him for a diplomat—is as -interesting to meet as his books are to read. He shines in society. - -A mutual friend of us both is Robert Leighton. Mrs. Leighton I have -mentioned above. Leighton’s gifts are of a serious editorial order, -though he has written boys’ books of wide popularity. The Leightons are -among the most popular figures at literary gatherings—they are so -lovable that they have an immense circle of friends. Robert Leighton is -recognised as having no superior as a writer on dogs. They have left -their house in St. John’s Wood now and gone to live in an old-world -house at Lowestoft. - -When Arthur Morrison, who was already known as a brilliant journalist, -one of Henley’s most incisive young men, made such a success with his -_Tales of Mean Streets_ and his _Martin Hewitt_ stories, one imagined -that he would pour out a stream of books like other writers who have -“boomed.” But he has been exceedingly moderate. We had a bond of -sympathy which used to bring him to our house. We had a collection of -very unusual Japanese curios of the humble order, and he had one of the -finest collections of Japanese prints in the country. We never saw as -much of him as we wished because he lived in Essex, and when the success -of his books enabled him to do his work where he liked, he grew more and -more reluctant to come to London. - -Another man of that generation to whom we grew much attached was Eden -Phillpotts. In those days he was struggling with ill-health and -over-work. London did not agree with him, and he had to write his novels -in the intervals of journalism. Though he told me that they seldom went -out elsewhere, he and his pretty wife were often at 32 Addison Mansions. -They lived at Bedford Park in those days. While he was assistant editor -of _Black and White_—that paper edited by so many of our friends—it -seemed to be a different one every year, during its brief existence—he -began to feel the strain a good deal, and finally determined to burn his -ships and go back to his native Devon—he was a grandnephew of the famous -Bishop of Exeter—and depend entirely upon his novels. - -The experiment was a complete success. His health improved in his native -air, and directly he could give the proper leisure to writing his -novels, he sprang into almost the first rank—alike for the extraordinary -power of his stories, for his intimate knowledge of Devonshire and -Devonian character, and for the individuality of his style. Phillpotts -never deteriorates. He is one of those men who carry the stamp of -intelligence and _simpatica_ on their faces. Now he is following in the -footsteps of the other great novelists and getting a footing on the -stage, where he will be well represented this year. - -Robert Hichens is a very handsome and intellectual-looking man—if his -portrait had been executed by the steel engravers of a hundred years ago -it would have borne a striking resemblance to the portraits of Lord -Byron. He has regular, clear-cut, refined features, of a very similar -type. I have not run across Hichens as often as might be expected in -Sicily and Egypt, though we have both been in these countries, -especially the former, so much. But I did meet him one evening at Luxor, -in the midst of one of those superb Egyptian sunsets. He was on his -_dahabea_, which he had brought over from its usual anchorage near the -bar on the Thebes side. It was a luxurious and very Oriental-looking -_dahabea_. The saloon, separated from the cabins by heavy Persian -curtains, would have made a far more picturesque scene for _Bella-Donna_ -on the stage than the steam-_dahabea_ which appeared in the actual play. -He was living on one of the old sailing-_dahabeas_, which are the most -delightful to occupy, though people generally do not sail up from Cairo -nowadays, but have them towed up to Luxor before they join them, so as -to have all their time in the picturesque, temple-studded reach between -Luxor and Assuan. - -That meeting is riveted in my mind, because Hichens, in thanking me for -a long and enthusiastic review which I had written over my signature in -the _Queen_ about his _Garden of Allah_, said that though I had spoken -in such terms of the book, and brought out all its good points, he had a -conviction that in my heart of hearts I felt a sort of repulsion for it, -which was true. I thought the heroine’s falling in love with such a man -at first, and her sending him back to his cell as a monk afterwards, -equally repellent; while I could not help doing homage to the book, and -revelling in its Eastern setting. - -Some time after my return to England I was nearly brought into a very -close relation with Hichens. - -One morning Sir George Alexander came post-haste to call on me. I was -not in. So at lunch a telegram as long as a letter arrived—would I see -him in the theatre after such an act that night? The royal box was at my -disposal if I cared to see the play. I telephoned my acceptance to -Helmsley—a good actor, but far too good a manager to be spared to take a -part—and wondered what was up. When I got to the theatre, I discovered -what I was wanted for. Hichens’s _Bella-Donna_ was coming on. All the -preparations were ready for his inspection, and Hichens could not be -found by telegram in Europe or Africa. Alexander asked if I would -superintend the staging. The fee fixed was a liberal one. But I was in a -quandary. I knew that neither J. Bernard Fagan, who had dramatised the -story, nor Alexander, had ever been in Egypt, and that the play and its -mounting, however well done, must be full of slips, to which I ought to -object. About Alexander I was not disturbed, for I knew that his only -idea would be to get the thing right. But with Fagan it might be -different. He would doubtless have been studying the subject fiercely, -and I should have to reckon with his _amour propre_, and probably lose a -friend—who had been at Trinity, Oxford, like myself—that delightful -Sheridan-like person and personality, so I gave rather a modified -consent. I suggested that fresh efforts should be made to find Hichens, -but promised that if finally he could not be found I would take his -place in correcting the Egyptianities of the piece. - -Fortunately, at the last minute Hichens did turn up, and I was saved -from the responsibility. I was very grateful, for when the first night -came, and with it stalls for the performance, there were many little -points to which I should have had to take exception, though they made no -difference to the enjoyment of such of the public as had not been in -Egypt. Still, I am sure that Fagan would have felt sore about my -correcting his scenes like a schoolboy’s Latin verses. As it happened, -Alexander and Mrs. Patrick Campbell were so magnificent in their parts, -and the piece was so splendidly produced, that the public did not bother -itself about small details, but flocked to see the play. It could hardly -have been a greater success than it was for any improvements that I -could have suggested. I never saw Hichens at his residence in -Taormina—we never happened to be in the Sicilian Eden at the same -moment. - -[Illustration: - - W. B. MAXWELL - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - - MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART II - - -W. B. MAXWELL I hardly knew in those days, though I had met him years -before, and, in the long and elaborate review which I wrote of his -_Vivien_, had hailed him as a novelist who would rise to the very head -of his craft. - -Maxwell, of course, had heredity and atmosphere in his favour. His -mother, the famous Miss Braddon, had written novels which took the world -by storm long before he was born—it is more than half a century ago -since an astonishing girl founded a new school of fiction with _Lady -Audley’s Secret_ and _Aurora Floyd_—and he and his wife live with his -mother in a stately old Queen Anne mansion in the Sheen Road at -Richmond. Maxwell, who looks like a youthful judge—he is clean-shaven, -and has a calm, judicial face, with an illuminating smile—has a judge’s -gift of scrutiny in reviewing life in his books. He is ruthlessly just -with his characters; they cannot deceive him. His sentences are not too -severe. But whatever their sentences are, the criminals leave the court -moral wrecks. He is obliged to mete out just sentences, but he is -ruthless in his summing up. His last novel, _The Devil’s Garden_, is an -excellent example of his great impeachments of wrong. His books have the -Até—the Nemesis—tracking down their victims as ruthlessly as the Œdipus -is tracked down in the tragedies of ancient Greece. - -Another writer whose novels I admire immensely, and I have had to review -a good many of them, is H. B. Marriott Watson, the New Zealander. He has -a large public, and, in my opinion, ought to have a far larger one. As a -writer of novels of adventure, I think he has no superior among the -novelists of the day. For his adventures are most romantic, and his -writing is so good—so delicate where it ought to be delicate, so strong -where it ought to be strong. Added to which, he is scrupulous about -getting his local colour and “properties” correct. In appearance he is a -typical colonist—a huge man, with a dark, resolute face. When he first -became prominent in the literary world, you might have thought that he -was captain of the famous “All Black” football team, rather than a -writer. Apart from his success as a novelist, he has been a power in -journalism. - -Charles Garvice, whose novels have a greater circulation than those of -any other living writer, is now my neighbour. We live exactly opposite -each other, with the breadth of Richmond Green between, with its old -lawns, and tall elms planted by dead kings. He lives in one of the Maids -of Honour houses, built a couple of centuries ago, abutting on the wall -of the Old Palace of the Tudors, in which Queen Elizabeth died, and -those Maids of Honour served. It has some beautiful eighteenth-century -painted panelling. I look out on its mellow brickwork, pointed with -white stone, and the fantastic Georgian ironwork of its gate, -half-buried in a tangle of swaying roses, from my study windows, just as -I look out on the crenellated wall and old perpendicular archway of King -Henry VII’s palace on the other side of the clipped yew and the great -stone-pine. - -When I first knew Garvice, twenty years ago, he was farming his own -lands in Devonshire, and just beginning to find his public on this side, -though he had long enjoyed an enormous public in America. He used to pay -frequent visits to the Authors’ Club, where, since he had rooms in -Whitehall Court, he was more of a habitué than many men who lived in -London, and became extremely popular for his genuine good-fellowship. A -few years ago, when the Club was rather languishing, he became chairman -of the committee which undertook its reconstruction, and though he had -in the interval become one of the most popular and hard-worked novelists -of the day, lavished his time and energies with happy results, so that -now it has even more members than the Athenæum, and far more than any -other literary club. He is the central figure at its great dinners. - -He wrote a delightful book about farming—not a literary exercise, but as -the outcome of many years’ practical work. Garvice, undoubtedly, has the -largest sale of any novelist in the world. I have seen the figures. Last -year’s sales alone amounted to 1,750,000 copies—books of all prices. His -romantic love-stories are conspicuous not only for their thrilling -plots—Garvice is a born story-writer—but for their freedom from all -deleterious influence. There is nothing goody-goody about them; they are -just wholesome, straight-forward romances—an almost lost art. He is only -the length of the Palace away from the river, where he keeps a -sailing-boat, and he is fond of riding in Richmond Park. He needs -recreations, for he is a very hard worker. Every morning he goes up to -his office in London, where he spends the business day in dictating his -novels, and he gives many of his evenings up to the Authors’ Club, -which, under his chairmanship, and the tireless secretaryship of -Algernon Rose, has now a membership of 1,600. Garvice is a great reader -of his brother-authors’ books. - -Feeling that the public would like to know the secret of one of the most -remarkable literary successes on record—more than six millions of his -books have been sold—one night when I had run in to see him, I got him -to tell me his story over a pipe—he smokes hard all the time he dictates -his stories, and cannot go on when his pipe goes out till it is -refilled. This is what he told me. - -“My first novel, though I had written a number of short stories before -this, was about the last of the three-deckers. When it was revised and -re-written quite recently, for a cheap edition, I understood fully why, -in its first form, it was not the brilliant success I, a youth of -nineteen, expected it to be. Quite early in my literary career I made -the acquaintance, which grew into a warm friendship, of the proprietor -of a weekly fiction periodical which had attained an enormous -circulation. He was a clever editor, with a keen nose for good stuff; -and he would buy nothing else, for he had hit upon the excellent idea -that, if you gave the masses good stuff at a low price, they would jump -at it. They jumped. I wrote the leading story for this paper for many -years, and was well paid. The serials attracted the attention of George -Munro, the famous American publisher, who was running a similar paper in -New York. He arranged for me to send advance sheets for it, and he -afterwards published the serial in cheap book form. They had an -enormous—to me a fabulous—sale, and are still selling. - -“Munro started a sevenpenny magazine, asking me to edit the English part -of it, and to write a serial and a series of short stories. I worked -nearly day and night, and was so fully occupied and contented that, -absurd as it may sound, I never gave a thought to publishing the serials -in book form here in England; notwithstanding that the books were so -popular in America that one of George Munro’s rivals hit upon the -extremely ingenious idea of waiting until half a novel of mine was -published in serial form, getting some one else to finish it, and -issuing it in volume form before I had finished the story. Of course, -this was before the International Copyright Act. Blessings on its name! - -“One day, my friend, that brilliant journalist, Robert Harborough -Sherard, while sitting at my writing-desk, took up the American edition -of _Just a Girl_. When I told him it was not published in volume form in -England, he asked my permission to take it away and try to place it. He -took it to Mr. Coulson Kernahan, who recommended it to the publisher for -whom he was reading. It came out, and, to my surprise and delight, -proved a success. The review that, more than any other, helped me, was a -very kind one in the _Queen_.[9] Then, again, the books were so -fortunate as to win the approval of Dr. (now Sir) William Robertson -Nicoll; and when he likes a book he does not fail to say so. - -Footnote 9: - - Written by myself.—D. S. - -“The rest of my literary career, if the phrase may be permitted me, is -public property. I may add that, in my early days, I sold the copyrights -of my stories. Later on, I got them back by the simple expedient of -buying the periodical, lock, stock and barrel, in which they had -appeared; and I am glad to be able to state that I hold now the -copyright of everything I have written. Some of the books have been -dramatised, and others are on their way to the stage; indeed, at an -early age, I made a dramatic essay with a little play in two acts, which -was produced at the Royalty Theatre, and obtained a success chiefly, if -not entirely, owing to the splendid cast; amongst others, I was -fortunate enough to have such actors as Richard Mansfield, who -afterwards became so famous in America, that sterling player, Charles -Denny, and Fred Everill, of the Haymarket. It would be a poor play such -men as these could not pull through. Encouraged by my first effort, I -might have directed all my attention to the stage, but fiction had got a -firm hold upon me; it was safe and regular—and there you are! But I am -making a new start, and ‘you never can tell,’ as Mr. Shaw says. - -“The story of my lecturing is soon told. I gave a lecture, consisting of -recitals linked together by biographical notes, for a Bideford debating -society. An agent who happened to hear it, thought it good enough for -the general public, and for some years past I have, during the winter -months, appeared on the lecture platform. It is a change of work, which -is good; and it is lucrative, which is also good, if not better. - -“I have just been elected President of the Institute of Lecturers. The -duties of this office will fill in my spare time—when I get it.” - -Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (“Q”), another admirable writer, not only of -novels, but of poems and essays, I have seen hardly at all since he left -Oxford, where, sometime after me, he occupied my old panelled set of -rooms at Trinity (of which he was a Scholar like myself, and A. E. W. -Mason an Exhibitioner some years later), attracted probably by the fact -that they had been Cardinal Newman’s rooms when he was an undergraduate. -Couch was a splendid example of the _mens sana in corpore sano_. He was -stroke of the College boat, as well as the most brilliant Trinity man of -his time intellectually, and he looked it. He had a lithe, active -figure, and a humorous, self-reliant face, with light eyes—the type -which takes so much beating. For a brief time he had a very successful -journalistic career in London, but he quickly decided that it was not -worth while to live in London unless you were rich enough to do all the -nice things which came along, and returned to his native Cornwall to -devote himself to literature. In Cornwall he not only wrote delightful -books, but went in for sailing, and became a power in local Liberal -politics, and was knighted. Recently he has become Professor of Poetry -in the University of Cambridge—a post he was admirably fitted to fill, -since the mantle of Francis Turner Palgrave fell upon him as an -anthologist. His _Oxford Book of Verse_ is simply delightful. - -Couch had from the first been a stylist. When congratulated early in his -career on the exquisite writing of a short story, he deprecated its -importance, because it was too conscious an imitation of De Maupassant. -“My great difficulty is not to imitate my models,” he said. In the light -of this saying, it is interesting to recall the fact that in 1897 he was -chosen for the high honour of completing Robert Louis Stevenson’s _St. -Ives_, which he did with absolute success. Stevenson must have been one -of the models he was trying not to imitate. There is no reason why he -should, for no one could want a more delightful style than his own. -_Hetty Wesley_ is an exquisite book. - -Sir Henry Rider Haggard I ought to have mentioned long before this, -since he has been one of the recognised heads of the novelists’ -profession for many years. Haggard had the good fortune for an -imaginative man to go out to South Africa when he and the South African -question were young. He was on the staff of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, -the Official Commissioner in the Transvaal, and actually assisted in -hoisting the British Flag over the Republic in 1887. His first book, -published in 1882, was about South African politics, but in 1884 he -began as a novelist, with _Dawn_, and in 1886 he achieved world-wide -fame with _King Solomon’s Mines_, one of the finest romances ever -written. _She_ came out a year later, and confirmed the success. He has -written many other famous novels. For years he was always quoted as the -most successful novelist—but that was before the days of “booming,” a -practice against which Haggard has steadily set his face. He told his -agent that he would not ever write to order, unless he was driven to -it—that the bare fact of having signed a contract to produce a given -thing by a given time paralysed his pen. Besides writing novels of -increasing seriousness, Haggard, like Doyle, has proved himself a -patriot, with the deepest sense of his responsibilities as a citizen. He -has twice tried to get into Parliament, with a view to legislation for -restoring agriculture in England, and he has given his time lavishly, -both to the investigation of the agricultural question and to serving on -various Commissions, as well as to writing books on various subjects -connected with the land. He came back from South Africa and went to live -in his native Norfolk many years ago, but in spite of this he has done -his duty in attending literary gatherings. His active figure, and -close-trimmed beard, give him the cut of a naval officer. - -His brother, Major Arthur Haggard, who has seen much service in Africa, -and written well-known books, has done patriotic service for his country -in another way by organising the Union Jack Club and the Veterans’ Club -for soldiers and sailors. - -Another visitor to Addison Mansions in latter days was William Romaine -Paterson, better known as “Benjamin Swift”—a man of extraordinary -ability, whom I should not be surprised to see in a Radical Cabinet. The -moment you meet him you are aware that you are in the presence of an -intellect of the first rank, and an uncompromising personality. A deep -reader and thinker, he has the gift of clear expression and glittering -sarcasm. I have seldom heard a more effective speaker. He has already -written a number of remarkable novels. He is a born leader, and he looks -it, with his commanding figure, his face, of the eagle type, and his -burning eye. - -I ought to have mentioned Morley Roberts before, because he was a man of -whom I saw much in those days. He was often at our at-homes, and nearly -always in the Authors’ Club when I went there. He was the greatest -personality there in those days—not only as an author whose books every -one in the Club admired, long before the public took them at their true -value, but for his wide and deep knowledge, and for the adventures he -had successfully concluded with his splendid physique. We always felt -that Morley Roberts was essentially a man, that the strength of his -books was due to the daring life he had led. I have very seldom heard -Morley Roberts make a speech, but I have seen him hold a whole room of -brilliant men from his easy-chair beside the fire, while he unfolded -some curious piece of knowledge with surprising power and -interestingness. It was he who said that books of adventure are -generally written by sedentary cowards for sedentary cowards. - -I met Morley Roberts first at a garden-party given by Rosamund Marriott -Watson, the poetess, whose husband I have for many years considered one -of the finest novelists of the day. She introduced us to each other -because we had both been to Australia, and I rather think that she -accused him as well as myself of having wooed the Muse of Poetry (though -there was no Muse of Poetry among the immortal nine). After that he came -a good many times to our house, though he never was fond of at-homes, -and I don’t remember his ever coming back after his long illness. A very -strong man, six feet high, or thereabouts, with a commanding face, and -flashing dark eyes, he was always one of the most conspicuous figures in -the room. He had been a sailor before the mast, a navvy out west, a hand -on a ranch, and I don’t know what all in his adventurous youth. - -It seems incredible to think that Somerset Maugham, who is barely forty, -should have been a long time coming into his own, yet ten years elapsed -between the publication of _Liza of Lambeth_ and the production of _Lady -Frederick_, and in the interval he had written those delightful books -_The Merry-go-Round_ and _The Bishop’s Apron_. He came to us with a -mutual friend in the year 1897, when he had just written _Liza_. I -remember, when I read it, venturing, as an old reviewer, to prophesy -that such a writer must leap into fame forthwith. I was sure of it when -I read _The Merry-go-Round_, but the public did not quite answer to my -expectations. I have always heard that _Liza of Lambeth_ was inspired by -the gruesome sights and sounds which were his environment when he was at -St. Thomas’ Hospital, that he lodged in some street where, from his back -windows, he could see the she-hooligans hitting each other with their -babies. He is, a rare thing for an author, an admirable dancer. - -Another man born in the same year, 1874, who came to his own through -plays, and was even longer in doing it, is Edward Knoblauch, the author -of _Kismet_, and joint author of _Milestones_. Knoblauch, who is an -American, born in New York, and educated at Harvard, and his sister, -came to us with Lena Ashwell a good many years ago. Knoblauch was Lena’s -reader at the Kingsway, and collaborated with the Askews in _The -Shulamite_, in which she created such a splendid character. He had -already adapted _The Partikler Pet_ for Cyril Maude. But he was writing -plays for years before he had a single one accepted, and it was not -until 1911 that he sprang into general fame with _Kismet_, quickly -followed by _Milestones_. - -Louis Napoleon Parker, another old member of the Authors’ Club, is a -very old friend of mine. I think it was Adrian Ross who introduced us, -when he first came up from Sherborne School, where he was appointed -Director of Music upon leaving the Royal Academy of Music. Strangely -enough, one who has composed such delightful music is extremely deaf. -For many years, of course, he has been one of our leading and most -prolific playwrights, and only a short while ago he composed the -incidental music for his drama, _Drake_. Parker, who was born in France, -and might almost pass for a Frenchman, has been the translator of some -of the most celebrated French plays which have been “Englished” for our -stage—_Chanticleer_, _L’Aiglon_ and _Cyrano de Bergerac_ among them. He -has had yet another sphere of activity in producing the series of -splendid masques which are associated with his name. He is, indeed, -practically the inventor of the masque in its present form, such as the -Sherborne pageant, the Warwick pageant and the York pageant. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - - MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART III - - -HENRY HARLAND, who justly made such a prodigious hit with that exquisite -book, _The Cardinal’s Snuff-box_, I knew well in America. Stedman -introduced us at one of his at-homes. He wrote then under the pseudonym -of “Sidney Luska,” and was best known for some big action he had had -with some firm of publishers in New York, the American Cassells, I -think. He was a very opinionated man, and I did not at the time believe -that he would ever write so fine a book as _The Cardinal’s Snuff-box_, -which breathes the very air of Italy, and is the most exquisite idyll of -Italian life which we have in the language. But it is only just to him -to say that Stedman, in introducing him, spoke of him in terms which -should have made me believe this. He was born in St. Petersburg, and -looked rather like a Russian. He would have been fifty-two if he had -been alive. Lane always believed in him, and made him editor of the -_Yellow Book_. He and his pretty little wife had a flat in Cromwell -Road, and were popular in the “precious” section of literary society. -His early death was a great loss to literature. - -Frank Bullen is one of the most interesting personalities I have met in -literature. He is so many-sided in his abilities and his experiences. -After being an errand-boy, and everything up to chief officer on a -sailing-ship, and a clerk in the meteorological office at Greenwich, he -became a writer, an orator and a philanthropist. No one has done more -for the men of the Merchant Service, for while he did all that man could -for them practically, he enlisted the sympathies of the world for them -in his books. A small, dark man, with very bright eyes, and a -sympathetic manner, except when he is moved to indignation, he was born -to dominate great audiences, especially when he is telling them of -wrongs which need practical redress. The wonders of the Lord which he -saw when he went down to the sea in ships, made such a profound -impression on his imagination that they fill the pages of his books with -eloquence and knowledge. With the exception of Joseph Conrad, he has no -rival among living writers as a sea-novelist. I think I met him at the -Idler first. I know that we became friends from the first day. - -Dion Clayton Calthrop, that prince of light novelists, who is always -finding fame by some new stroke of genius, was our neighbour for several -years at Addison Mansions. He is such a distinguished-looking man that I -used to watch him and wonder who he was, until one night I met him -through a mutual friend. It is not surprising that he is so brilliant, -because he is the son of John Clayton, the actor, and grandson of Dion -Boucicault. - -When I asked Calthrop, who started as an artist, what made him take up -writing, he said— - -“I really took up writing owing to a bout of insomnia when I was living -in Paris, and as I was painting in the schools all day, I tried to write -at night. I read the sketches to Norman Angell, a friend of mine (who -wrote _The Great Illusion_), and through him met Manuel, the artist, and -through him they were published in _The Butterfly_. - -“I believe in many irons in the fire; people specialise too much, so I -have books, plays, dress designs, or scene models, and a picture or two, -all going at once, and it is a great cause for regret to me that I -cannot write music. In the great days of Art, artists were so interested -in life that they tried everything—why shouldn’t we? I even have a -rock-garden full of Alpine flowers on my writing desk—true, it is only -four feet by one—but it is very interesting to see flowers grow as you -work. As a matter of fact, I am writing against an Alpine crocus, trying -to finish a book as it comes into bloom.” - -Desmond Coke, one of the most brilliant of our younger novelists, I met -in 1904 through his mother, Mrs. Talbot Coke, who had been my colleague -on the _Queen_, the wife of one of our generals in the Boer War. Mrs. -Talbot Coke was at the time—as she is still—one of the principal -contributors to _Hearth and Home_, a paper which served as a literary -cradle to Robert Hichens, whilst it was sub-edited by no less a -personage than Arnold Bennett, who was just beginning to write his -series of great novels about the pottery towns. - -Desmond Coke, who, under the pseudonym of “Charbon,” wrote the reviews -in a lively strain, possibly sometimes more welcome to his readers than -to the novelist reviewed, was at the time I speak of fresh from Oxford, -which he had made his own in fiction with that delirious skit on -feminine fiction, _Sandford of Merton_. Since then he has written a -number of novels, distinguished for their original ideas. He has long -been a keen collector, as his chambers in a backwater off Oxford Street -show, and has of late turned his collecting to good account by writing -the classic on _The Art of Silhouette_. He is very accomplished, and is -one of the chief pillars of Chapman & Hall’s publishing house. The -announcement, however, that Mr. H. B. Irving has secured his three-act -play, _One Hour of Life_, proves that here is yet another novelist who, -given the opportunity, would gladly exchange the quiet covers of -Bookland for the more adventurous and hectic boards of Theatredom! - -E. H. Cooper was a very dear friend of mine, who came near being one of -the conspicuous figures of his time. He had a short life and a merry -one—merry, at all events, for his friends. He was, perhaps, too cynical -ever to be quite merry himself, except with children. His father was a -Staffordshire country gentleman, with an estate adjoining the Duke of -Sutherland’s, and the Duchess and her children and her nephews and -nieces were much attached to that wayward genius. While he was still an -undergraduate at Oxford, he contracted the taste for gambling on -horse-races, which kept him a poor man, but enabled him to write one of -the best racing novels of the language—_Mr. Blake of Newmarket_. That -did not prevent him from writing delightful children’s books, inspired -by the Duchess’s children. He was a very handsome and romantic-looking -man, with wonderful iron-grey eyes, but, like Byron, was born lame. For -a brief time he edited the _Daily Mail_, as a _locum tenens_, I believe, -and for a long time he was Paris correspondent of the _New York World_. -Once, during that period, he made a big coup at Chantilly, and for some -days pressed me with letters and telegrams to go and stay with him for a -week at Paris and “paint the town absolutely red” at his expense. We -were to stay at the Ritz. He said he was going to be really rich for a -week, and it would supply me with the material for a whole novel. But if -he was determined to waste his one stroke of luck, I was not going to be -a party to it, and I not only refused, but did my utmost to wean him -from the idea—unsuccessfully, I think. If Cooper had really given his -mind to novel-writing and journalism, he might have made a great name, -for he was brilliantly clever, and his distinction of manner made him an -impressive figure in society. - -We were drawing near the end of our time at Addison Mansions when I met -Jeffery Farnol. Farnol, who is still young, is as likely as any one to -rank among the foremost novelists of his time. His _Broad Highway_ is -one of the best books produced by the generation, and _The Amateur -Gentleman_ was a good successor to it. He is an Englishman born, but -lived some time in America, where he made his living as a scene-painter. -There he wrote his great novel, and after disappointments in searching -for a publisher he sent it to Shirley Byron Jevons, at that time editor -of the _Sportsman_, a relative of the celebrated Professor Stanley -Jevons, the Political Economist, and brother of Dr. Frank Jevons, -Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, he himself being now connected -with literary journalism. Shirley Jevons at once recognised it as -something like a work of genius, and taking it to the old firm of -Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., told them that they must publish it. -It made its way a little slowly at first, but then the public, led by -the strong convictions of one man, swept him on to fame on an -irresistible tide. Farnol was born in Birmingham thirty-five years ago. -His parents came to London when he was seven, and he has made a suburb -of it, Lee, in Kent, his permanent home, though business may take him to -the United States for months at a time. - -He married in his early twenties the daughter of Hawley, the scenic and -architectural artist, an Englishman living in America. She was on a -visit to relatives in England, and the rash young couple, soon after the -birth of a daughter, their only child, resolved to try their fortunes on -the other side of the Atlantic, the plucky and fascinating little wife -sharing there his bad fortune as now she shares his good. The struggle -was hard enough for a time, and, if Farnol cared to relate all that he -went through in those years, the story would be a human document of -great interest. At my house he met Yoshio Markino. I was about to -introduce the already famous Jap to the coming young Englishman, when -the impulsive Markino rushed at and fondled him, crying out in delight, -“Why, it’s Jacky!” They had been fellow-students at the Goldsmiths’ -Institute when both were younger, and both unknown to fame. There Farnol -had shown welcome little kindnesses to the lonely, warm-hearted stranger -from Nippon. Their ways had parted, neither thinking to see the other -again, and least of all in this dramatic fashion and in these brighter -circumstances. _The Broad Highway_ has been dramatised for America, and -is to be staged in England. _The Amateur Gentleman_ is also to be -adapted to the stage. His third important story—he has done many shorter -things—is likely to be of modern times. - -Francis Gribble is a very old friend of mine; we belonged to the same -literary clubs, and met constantly at them, and he and his charming -Dutch wife were often at Addison Mansions. Gribble, who is an Oxford -First Class man, besides his very able novels and his biographies, which -are recognised as classics on their subject, has made a neglected aspect -of Switzerland his particular province. He is the authority on the Swiss -towns, like Geneva and Lauzanne, where so much of the scenes of some of -his biographies had necessarily to be laid. He now spends a good deal of -his time in Continental travel. I remember his telling me that it was -through his study of Swiss towns that he was led on to write biography. -The connecting link was his accidental perusal of that wonderful book, -_Benjamin Constant’s Journal Intime_. He saw from it that the life of -Madame de Staël needed to be written from a new point of view, then he -was led on to cover the whole ground of the romantic movement in French -literature from Rousseau to Victor Hugo. - -Frank Hird I have known many years. I met him first as editor of some -important journal—I forget what—with which I was arranging a -contribution, just as I met C. N. Williamson first as sub-editor of the -_Graphic_. I was astonished to find myself in the presence of a person -who was hardly more than a boy, very good-looking, very well-bred, very -well dressed. Since then I have met him repeatedly, and enjoyed the -friendship of one who fully came up to my first prepossession. I have -met him most, I think, at the hospitable villa of the Joseph Whitakers’ -in Palermo, where he frequently stayed, and showed himself as good in -private theatricals as he is as an author. The place where he seemed -most in his element was when he was correspondent to one of the chief -London newspapers in Rome, and I used to meet him in salons like the -Countess Lovatelli’s. The Countess was the sister of the Duke of -Sermoneta, one of the highest of the Roman nobility, who has a similar -position to our Duke of Norfolk. The Sermoneta family have a proud -record in Italian archæology; the Countess herself is an author, and, as -a centre of public and literary life, the Lady St. Helier of Rome. Her -“salon” is said to be the only one in which the “Whites” and the -“Blacks” habitually meet. He was always the diplomatist, more than the -correspondent, though he was so excellent at his own work, and would -have risen high in diplomacy if he had made it his career. - -Edgar Jepson and his wife were often at Addison Mansions, and I used to -meet him constantly at the Authors’ Club as I now meet him at the -Dilettanti. He is a man in whom his friends believed from the first, and -the quality of his books and his speaking have amply justified them. -Intellectually he is a typical Balliol man, but that does not prevent -his being one of the delights of Bohemia, where his popularity is -unbounded. Experts are agreed that on his day, he is the second best, if -not the best, auction-bridge player in England. He says of himself, that -he is a walking warning against writing fiction, since from his first -book he made 0, from his second six pounds nineteen and nine, and from -his third nine pounds ten and fivepence. - -William le Queux has been an intimate friend of mine for many years. A -Frenchman by birth, he is a strongly Imperialist Englishman by -naturalisation, and in his writings and politics. He has led a most -interesting life. He was once an artist in the Quartier Latin, but he -deserted this for journalism, and was sent by _The Times_ as a special -correspondent to Russia, using the opportunity to acquire an -extraordinary knowledge of the secret workings of the Nihilists, just as -he has in recent years been very much behind the scenes in the Balkans -and Turkey. For a while he was sub-editor of the _Globe_, which post he -resigned as soon as his success as a novelist justified it. Since then -he has travelled continually, and acquired a unique knowledge of the -secret service of the Continental Powers. He is one of the most popular -novelists of the day, the secret of his popularity lying in his -brilliant handling of mysteries, and the use he makes of his knowledge -behind the scenes in Continental politics. His books dealing with -supposed invasions of England are masterpieces in their way, showing an -extraordinary grasp of military details. A member of the Athenæum Club -told me once that judges and bishops almost quarrelled with each other -when a new William le Queux book came into the Club. His affable face, -with bright, dark eyes, behind _pince-nez_, and an inscrutable -expression, is familiar to frequenters of the Devonshire Club and the -Hotel Cecil. The curious thing is that, though we have been such -friends, and have been frequent visitors to the same places on the -Continent, from the little republic of San Marino, of which he is -Consul-General, upwards, we have never, so far as I remember, met out of -England. - -Bertram Mitford lived side by side with myself and “Adrian Ross” at -Addison Mansions for years. He belongs to one of the oldest families in -England. His father, the late E. L. Osbaldeston Mitford, of Mitford in -Northumberland, which has been in the possession of his family since -Saxon times, appearing in Doomsday Book, was a wonderful old gentleman; -he lived to be more than a hundred years old, and, till a few years -before his death, used to come up to London for first nights at his -favourite theatres. - -Bertram Mitford is a good sportsman, who has travelled and shot in the -back parts of South Africa, and the wild lands bordering on India and -Afghanistan. His travels have inspired novels which are splendid books -of adventure. He has also been in Italy a good deal. - -Guise Mitford, who has written one or two good novels, is his cousin, as -is the stately Lord Redesdale, the head of a cadet branch of his family, -who wrote the famous _Tales of Old Japan_. Miss Mitford, too, a once -most popular authoress, was of the clan. - -Mitford and I used to see each other constantly in Addison Mansions, and -frequently at two or three clubs to which we both belonged, but I don’t -remember ever doing the journey between together, between them and our -flats. He often walked both ways for the exercise. - -K. J. Key, the great cricketer, who for many years held the record for -the Oxford and Cambridge match, with his 130, and was afterwards Captain -of the Surrey Eleven for years, one of my most valued friends, -introduced me to Charles Marriott, of whose novels he was an immense -admirer. Key is a great reader. Unlike most cricketers, who prefer to -watch the game intently until they go in to bat, as if they were playing -whist or bridge, and wanted to see what cards were out, he used to read -a book or a newspaper till it was his turn to go in, and I have no doubt -that he saved a good deal of nerve energy by doing so. I think he met -Marriott in Cornwall, to which they are both devoted. Certainly, they -are both fond of photography. Marriott made a considerable _succès -d’estime_ with his first novel, _The Column_. He is, or was until -recently, the Art critic of one of the great London dailies, and is a -most accomplished man, of wide knowledge, and one of the best novelists -of the day. Living at Brook Green, he was a near neighbour of ours, and -from the time that Key introduced us to the time that we left Addison -Mansions, we saw a good deal of him. Key’s wife has recently published a -novel with a cricketer (not her husband) for its hero—_A Daughter of -Love_. She is a sister of Lascelles Abercombie. - -Compton Mackenzie first came to Addison Mansions as a small boy at St. -Paul’s School, where he was a friend of my son. They began to be men -very early in my son’s little cupboard of a study, overlooking Lyon’s -cake-factory. I did not see him after he made his fame as a novelist -till we came to live at Richmond. He has, like myself, a passion for -gardening. He is, of course, a son of Edward Compton, the actor, and -Virginia Bateman, and his great-grandmother was a Symonds, aunt of John -Addington Symonds, so there is one of the best strains of literary -ability in the family. The famous Sir Morell Mackenzie was Edward -Compton’s cousin. - -When I wrote to ask Compton Mackenzie, who is now indulging his passion -for gardening by living in Capri and making landscapes round his house, -what first impelled him to write novels, he said— - -“I can remember shooting peas at your guests as they came in, and -throwing cake, etc. I don’t suppose we did it always, but I distinctly -remember doing it once or twice. It is difficult to extract anything -from the past and account for my writing novels. Yet I always had a -passion for writing. In the Upper Sixth in 1896, I, with two other boys, -ran a paper called _The Hectona_, of which, so far as I know, only two -numbers are in existence. It was printed on gelatine, and all the -contributions were copied out by myself in my execrable handwriting. -Like many magazines since, it expired of illegibility. Later, at Oxford, -I ran another paper called _The Oxford Point of View_. - -“Gardening I took up to console myself for not being able to find a -publisher for my first book. It toured round London for nearly two -years, and I did not sit down and write _The Carnival_ until _The -Passionate Elopement_ lay bound upon my table. This was according to a -vow I had made. I started very early. _The Passionate Elopement_ was -printed just after I was twenty-five. It was originally—or some of it—a -play which I wrote to console my father for having got married without -warning or expectation. That was when I was twenty-two. - -“_The Carnival_, I suppose, may be called the result of helping my -brother-in-law, poor Harry Pelissier, with his Alhambra Revue. I used to -rehearse the Corps de Ballet, and, I suppose, naturally made use of such -an opportunity to make a book.” - -Lord Monkswell, who wrote a single novel, and whose sister, the Contessa -Arturo di Cadilhac, born Margaret Collier, has written some valuable -books about life in Italy, I met constantly as one of the directors of -the Authors’ Club. He was also my sponsor for another club. He was very -regular in his attendances at the Board Meetings of the Authors’ Club, -which he occasionally illuminated with a naïve outbreak, as in his -dictum about the National Liberal Club. At one of our Board Meetings, I -was advocating some change in the financial arrangements of the -billiard-room, and quoted as an example to be followed the rule at the -National Liberal Club. - -“National Liberal Club!” cried Lord Monkswell, who was at that time -Under-Secretary for War in a Liberal Government; “why, I don’t call that -a club at all—I call it a railway station!” - -Richard Orton Prowse has won admiration in high places with his -work. One of his novels ran as a serial in the _Cornhill_, and he -had a play produced by the “Stage Society.” He used to come to -Addison Mansions because we were in the same small house at -Cheltenham College—Gantillon’s, in Fauconberg Terrace. There were -only about half-a-dozen boys in the house, but we used to knock up a -game of football on a waste bit of ground at the back of the -terrace, with two small day-boys who lived in an adjoining house. -There were not more than eight of us all told—I think only seven, -and of the seven, besides Prowse and myself, there were the two -famous Renshaws, and the two famous Lambs. The Renshaws were very -small boys in those days, but so absolutely certain in their -catching, and their drop-kicking, that they counted in football -games with boys three or four years older. When they grew up, their -extraordinary scientificness in games was proved in the lawn-tennis -courts, because for years, until one of them died by his own hand, -they were undisputed champions. As it happened, I never met either -of them after they left school, but one day I was driving through a -remote Buckinghamshire village, White Waltham or something of the -kind, with a friend, when we observed a crowd, in the street outside -the village pound, of persons whom you would not have expected in -such a place. We inquired what the trouble was, and found that it -was an inquest on a suicide—one of the famous Renshaws. - -Curiously enough, there was the same element of tragedy in the history -of the brothers Lamb—Captain Thomas Lamb and Captain Edward Lamb, were -for years the finest shots in the British army. Edward Lamb was the only -boy who ever won the Spencer Cup twice; when he was at school, there had -never been such a shot at a public school. Thomas Lamb, who had the -finest nerve I ever remember in any one, broke down in a match when he -went over to the United States to represent England, and was so -mortified that he shot himself on the way home. - -I shall always remember with pride that I was the first person who ever -put a rifle into the hands of those two Lambs. I taught them how to -shoot, and did most of the explaining in that house in Fauconberg -Terrace, Cheltenham. I was at the time Captain of the school shooting -eight, and I had won the Spencer Cup myself in the Public Schools -matches at the preceding Wimbledon Meeting. I rather despaired about -Tommy Lamb; he was not quick at taking things in, but I knew that if he -could learn to shoot, his nerve and his doggedness might carry him to -any heights of success. The houses of Fauconberg Terrace were very high, -and there was a high parapet about a foot wide on the roof. I have seen -Tommy Lamb run along that parapet from end to end. He said, “If it was -only two or three feet from the ground, instead of two or three feet -from the roof, it would be nothing. Why should it make any difference? -It is all the same to me.” - -Several feet from our study window, which had a storey underneath it, -there was a railing of about the same width. He used to jump from our -window on to that railing, and keep his balance. Anybody could do it, he -said, if it was nearer the ground. Why should it make any difference? - -And he was always ready to jump from a height of twenty or thirty feet, -and never hurt himself. - -The seventh boy in those football games was Frank Lamb, the youngest -brother. I never heard if he did anything in after life, but we six, I -am quite sure, had no thought beyond a football which bounced so -unevenly on that piece of waste land. - -Tommy Lamb was a very fine fellow, singularly modest about his -achievements. Several years afterwards, when I first came back from -Australia, I went down to Wimbledon to see the Public Schools Veterans’ -Match, in which I had captained Cheltenham three or four times. Lamb, -who was then in the flower of his shooting, was very anxious that I -should take his place in that year’s team. He thought it so wrong that I -should not be shooting. I had, fortunately, not fired off a rifle for at -least three years, or I should have had great difficulty in dissuading -him from effacing himself for me, and if I had been at my very best he -would have been heavens above me in the form he showed. That was the -sort of man he was. We were in the same house at Cheltenham for two or -three years, so I knew him extremely well. - -These chapters in no way exhaust the list of my novelist friends—they -are merely reminiscences which I thought likely to interest readers -about some of them. I have not mentioned, for instance, one of my -greatest friends, that brilliant historical novelist, John -Bloundelle-Burton; or Hornung, Doyle’s brother-in-law, whom I first met -out in Australia thirty years ago; or Richard Pryce, that dainty -novelist and playwright; and I have passed by many other well-known -authors whom I knew equally well and saw very often. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - - OTHER AUTHOR FRIENDS - - -ONE is apt to let fiction speak for itself, as if it represented the -whole of literature. But it does not. Several of the men mentioned below -are novelists, but they owe their importance more to other books. - -The late W. H. Wilkins, who was much at our house, is an example. -Wilkins, who was the son and heir of a West Country Squire, was an -extraordinary mixture—a man of fashion, who was at the same time an -industrious museum-worker. He wrote admirable books on the Georgian -Courts. But he will be best remembered as the editor to whom Lady Burton -entrusted her manuscripts for publication. It was from him that I -learned the irreparable loss which she inflicted on literature by -burning a number of Burton’s manuscripts because of the grossnesses -which they contained. There was no reason why any of these grossnesses -should have been published—the manuscripts could have been printed with -lacunæ where these passages occurred, and the manuscripts could have -been left to the nation in the British Museum on condition that the -offending passages never were published. But the idea of burning -unpublished works about Arabia, by the greatest of all explorers of -Arabia and students of Arab customs, was too infamous. Wilkins put it -down to her religion. She was a very ardent Roman Catholic. - -He had a good deal to do with the _Ladies’ Realm_ in its early days, -when it was published by Hutchinson, and I believe he had a good deal to -do with the formation of the fortnightly part publications for which -this house is famous. He certainly was a friend and constant adviser of -Hutchinson’s. His books enjoyed a considerable sale. The novel he wrote -in collaboration with Herbert Vivian was one of the last of the -three-volumers. - -Wilkins was a man of strong likes and dislikes, very affectionate to his -friends. Like E. H. Cooper, he was a well-known figure in society as -well as in literary circles—and, curiously enough, he, too, was lame. - -Joseph Shaylor, the managing secretary of the Whitefriars Club, and the -managing director of Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., the -largest wholesale booksellers in the world, I have known almost as long. -It is interesting to note that Shaylor, besides being the largest dealer -in books commercially, has a most intimate and discriminating knowledge -of all the books which are worth reading, and issues delightful little -books on books, including his dear little annual _From Friend to -Friend_. - -Every one knows his volume called _The Fascination of Books_. His career -is a romance; it reminds one of Dick Whittington. He has himself told us -that he is a self-made man—_i. e._ he has had nothing but his own -intelligence and grit to help him. He was born in Stroud in 1844, where -he was apprenticed to a bookseller named Clark. It was part of Shaylor’s -duty to fetch the London papers from the train in the morning. In 1864 -he came to London, at once entering the firm of Simpkin, Marshall & Co. -His diligence and business acumen generally was noted, and after a while -he was given charge of one of the departments. It became increasingly -evident to his employers that their confidence in, and judgment of, this -young man from the country had not been misplaced, and within five or -six years after the formation of the company, as it now stands, Shaylor -was elected to the position of one of the managing directors. - -Shaylor is an authority on the history of books and bookselling, and has -many interesting stories to tell of how things were done in the trade -years ago, when life was more leisurely. In those golden days, reviewers -had some power; a good review in _The Times_ sold two hundred thousand -copies of _The Fight at Dame Europa’s School_, timidly brought out in -the very smallest way, and an article in _The World_ sold four hundred -copies of _Called Back_. How a book sells depends very much upon the -original subscription before publication, of which Shaylor, as head of -the world’s biggest buyers, thinks it worthy. Of him it may be justly -said that he has his finger on the pulse of English literature and that -his diagnosis is accepted by the world. - -Ernest Thompson Seton—who took for his pen-name Ernest Seton -Thompson—came to us first many years ago, when he became engaged to a -friend of ours, the beautiful Grace Gallatin, daughter of the Speaker of -the California House of Representatives. A descendant of the last Earl -of Winton, he went to Canada when he was only five, and lived in the -backwoods for ten years. Then he went to school and college in Canada, -and had two years’ art-training in London before he returned to Manitoba -to study natural history, eventually becoming naturalist to the Manitoba -Government. In 1898, when he was thirty-eight years old, he published -his _Wild Animals I have Known—the Biographies of Eight Wild Animals_, -which went through ten editions in the first year, and was the -foundation of his fame and large fortune. He founded the outdoor-life -movement, known as _The Woodcraft Indians_, which has a membership of -nearly a hundred thousand, and in addition to his soundness as a -naturalist, he is the most dramatic lecturer I have ever heard. He -lectures on the psychology of wild animals as if they were human beings, -and is said to be the most popular lecturer living. His books about wild -animals have delightful sketches of animal playfulness and humanness in -their margins, some of which are by himself, and some by his wife. - -Dr. Dillon, whose articles in the _Daily Telegraph_ on the Balkan -question during the war formed the most illuminating comment on the -subject, I have been meeting for years at Violet Hunt’s. He is an -elderly man, who looks more the scholar and the recluse than the -publicist with his finger on the pulse of all Eastern Europe. - -Max Beerbohm, Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree’s brother, is recognised as one -of the most brilliant wits and intuitive critics of the day, as well as -our most inspired caricaturist. There are few educated people in England -who are not familiar with his work. I met him first at a dinner of the -Women Journalists. We were both guests of the Club, and Mrs. T. P. -O’Connor, who was in the chair, said to me, “You know Max Beerbohm, -don’t you?” - -I did not know him, though I had always wanted to know him, because I -was a great admirer of his work and his wit. I said, “No, I don’t,” and -was about to add what pleasure it would give me, when he took the words -out of my mouth by saying, “I refuse not to be known by Mr. Douglas -Sladen.” That was our introduction. - -He was in splendid form that night. He and a man with an unpronounceable -Polish name, who was one of the leading foreign journalists in London, -were deputed to reply for the visitors. The Pole, who spoke very broken -English, at interminable length, made Max Beerbohm very angry, because -he hated the idea of speaking to a jaded audience, so when at length his -colleague sat down, and he rose to make his speech, he began, “I, too, -am a foreigner. I go about in holy terror of the Tariff Reform League.” - -The audience recognised that he was really alluding to the Aliens Act, -and rocked with laughter. - -I remember Mark Twain being similarly annoyed at a dinner of the -American Society, when he had to speak after a number of verbose -platitudinarians. He was quite dispirited when he rose, and confined -himself to a few sentences. After the dinner was over, he told me this, -and he went on to say, “But I was wrong, for the late Sir Henry -Brackenbury spoke after me, and look what he did with the audience! He -took them up in his hand, and moved them to tears and laughter, just as -he pleased.” - -That speech of Sir Henry’s certainly was magnificently eloquent. It was -during, or just after, the South African War, and the phrases in which -he alluded to the war swept the audience, though they were mostly -Americans, right off their feet; they were as fine as John Bright’s -immortal allusion to hearing the angels’ wings in his Crimean War -speech. I only once heard a finer speech—the sermon preached in St. -Paul’s by the present Archbishop of York, then Bishop of Stepney, upon -the centenary of Nelson’s death. In that sermon over and over again the -words were flames. There is nothing so inspiring as a supreme speech at -a supreme moment. - -Dr. G. C. Williamson, the art editor of George Bell & Sons, is one of -the most potent figures in the world of art—in fact, there are few -branches of art on which he has not got any reasonable information at -his fingers’ tips. He has written books which have met with wide -acceptation on several of them, and has been a great collector and -traveller. - -I met him under curious circumstances. We were both, though I did not -know him then, in St. Peter’s, witnessing the Jubilee of Leo XIII. On -occasions like this in Italy no one interferes with the liberty of the -sight-seer, and as I was not, in the nature of things, likely to see the -Jubilee of another Pope, and I had to write a description of it, I -determined to seize whatever opportunity I could for seeing it, without -any _mauvais honte_. The cathedral had been so packed for the past six -hours that it was practically impossible to see anything unless you -seized some coign of vantage. Williamson and I were standing close to -one of the great piers of the nave, and the base had a projection some -feet from the ground. I determined to stand on it, but he was between me -and the pier. He very good-naturedly made way for me, and helped me to -scramble up, calling out “_Viva il papa re! Viva il papa re!_” all the -time. I offered, of course, to share my giddy eminence with him, turn -and turn about, but he was a devout Catholic, and though he saw no harm -in my ambitions, which he furthered so nobly, he was quite content to be -in the church, and worshipping. He did not want to see more than -everybody saw without striving, when at last it happened—the carrying of -the frail old Pope on his _Sedia Gestatoria_, supported on men’s -shoulders, between the snow-white _flabella_. - -When it was all over, we exchanged cards, and that was the beginning of -my friendship with the famous art critic. - -It certainly was about the most impressive sight I ever saw—that vast -cathedral, packed with a hundred thousand human beings, with the -nonagenarian Pope dressed in snow-white garments borne on his moving -throne from the High Altar to the Chapel of the Crucifix. - -It is not too much to say that literary London felt a shock when it -heard that William Sinclair had resigned the Archdeaconry of London -which he had held with such conspicuous success for twenty-two years, -and retired to a Sussex benefice. He had been one of the foremost -figures in every London function of the time, since the Jubilee of Queen -Victoria, and he had started life as a Scholar of Balliol and President -of the Union—the University Debating Society at Oxford. Being a -bachelor, there was no reason why he should restrict himself to dining -at home, and, consequently, he was the most prominent figure at public -dinners, of a patriotic, philanthropic or useful character, where he -spoke comparatively seldom, considering what a good speaker he is. Being -a connection of half the Scottish aristocracy—he is a cousin of the Lord -of the Isles—he was equally conspicuous in country house parties. A -constant attendant at the functions of the Authors’ and other literary -clubs, his eminence as an ecclesiastic and a public man obscured the -fact that his performances as an author were among the most -distinguished of those present, for he has a gift of saying wise things -in epigrammatic form. His _magnum opus_ is a book on his own cathedral, -and here I may incidentally remark that few archdeacons have ever -exercised such influence on the Dean over the care of the cathedral. His -great object was to emphasise the voice of St. Paul’s as that of the -nation in its religious aspect, and it was with this view that he -prevailed on the Dean and Chapter and the Crown to install the Imperial -Order of St. Michael and St. George in the Chapel of the Cathedral where -they meet for annual commemorations. His loss, also, from the Sunday -afternoon pulpit of St. Paul’s has been distinctly felt. It was one of -the institutions of London. He was a wise man to retire for leisure to -write and travel while he was still in his prime. - -Basil Wilberforce, the Archdeacon of Westminster, and son of the great -Bishop, I came to know because we used to meet at dinner at Lady -Lindsay’s. It was there that I heard him declare his firm faith in the -Holy Grail—I am refering to the vessel which had been discovered a short -time before at Glastonbury Abbey, and which was believed to emanate a -luminous _aura_ at night, from time to time. The Archdeacon declined the -honour of having it left in his bedroom at night to test the truth of -the allegation, either because he thought his emotions might act on his -imagination, or because he did not think himself worthy, but I -understand that it was left in Sir William Crookes’, the great F.R.S.’s -room for three nights without his observing any phenomena. - -I remember George Russell—the Rt. Hon. G. W. E. Russell, the editor of -Matthew Arnold’s letters, and Under-Secretary for India in Lord -Rosebery’s Government—who was present that night, interposing a jarring -note of incredulity, which the Archdeacon very sweetly forgave in an old -friend. - -Until her prolonged absences from London for ill-health, Mrs. Neish, the -wife of the Registrar of the Privy Council, was, on account of the -remarkable rapidity with which she made her way in literature as well as -for her beauty, a conspicuous figure in London literary society. She -made her way so quickly because she was a born writer, and mingled the -witty and the pathetic naturally. She was a daughter of Sir Edwin -Galsworthy. There is literature in the family. She is a first cousin of -the great novelist and playwright, John Galsworthy. Her husband’s father -was a Scottish laird, who in an inspired moment advanced the capital for -founding the _Dundee Advertiser_. She has often done the _Saturday -Westminster_ and written many nature sketches. - -One of the principal figures in literary society, and one of my most -valued friends, is M. H. Spielmann, the great art critic who discovered -and bought the lost Velasquez a year or two ago. Spielmann was for -seventeen years editor of the _Magazine of Art_, and is an authority on -_Punch_ and its contributors, as well as on painting and sculpture. He -is the author of several standard works, and has been juror in the Fine -Arts’ section of innumerable exhibitions. He is also a keen politician -on the Conservative side, though he is the brother-in-law of the Rt. -Hon. Herbert Samuel, and is an admirable speaker. But you always feel -that it is not his accomplishments which count in Spielmann, though he -has so many; it is himself—his shining character, his almost feminine -gentleness and considerateness, combined with unusual firmness and -principle. There are few men in London who could be so ill spared as -Spielmann. - -[Illustration: - - THE JAPANESE ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS. - (_From the Painting by Yoshio Markino._) -] - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - - FRIENDS WHO NEVER CAME TO ADDISON MANSIONS - - -I OUGHT to say something here of the interesting people I have known, -who never happened to come to Addison Mansions, for one reason or -another. - -Distance prevented the great Dr. Boyd of St. Andrews—the famous -A.K.H.B., of whom I saw a good deal in the long summer I spent at St. -Andrews—from coming. Dr. Boyd possessed the most crushing powers of -repartee of any person I ever met. One day, when he was walking with me -along the street at St. Andrews, which leads down to the links, some one -presented an American publisher, a partner in a famous firm, to him. - -“I am very glad to meet you, Dr. Boyd,” said the publisher. “I enjoyed -your _Scenes from Clerical Life_ so much.” - -“I did not write that book, sir,” said the terrible Doctor. “I wrote -_The Recreations of a Country Parson_—and you ought to know it, because -your firm stole them both.” - -I once unconsciously helped him in using this talent, which happened in -this wise. Dr. Boyd was a reformer as drastic as John Knox. The great -humanising movement in the Scottish Church, which made its services and -music so much more beautiful and its attitude so much less angular, was -largely his work, for he was not only one of the most eloquent of the -notable ministers who worked for it, but he had any amount of backbone. -An old ultra-Protestant lady, having perceived this, paid an evangelist -a thousand a year to go about Scotland preaching against him. One Sunday -he was at St. Andrews, on the public space where the inhabitants used to -practice archery, preaching against Dr. Boyd. His preaching was all -“limehousing,” an appeal to the coarsest prejudice, most banal abuse and -derision. It was so ludicrous that I took most of it down in longhand, -in the intervals when he paused for applause, as he did whenever he -imagined that he was scoring. It so happened that I was having -afternoon-tea with Dr. Boyd, and that he was preaching in his own church -that evening. I began to sympathise with him in being made the subject -of such a persecution. - -“Were you there?” he asked. I nodded. - -“Do you remember at all what he said?” - -I produced my notes. - -“Do you mind reading them out to me?” he asked, after a despairing -glance at the writing. I did. He took no notes; but he had an admirable -memory, and he evidently took it all in, for that evening, without -having lowered his dignity by being present at the evangelist’s attack -on him, he turned the tables on the offender from his own pulpit, with a -dissection of his remarks which can only be compared to throwing -vitriol, though it was all done with beautiful polish and observance of -form. - -He was never more amusing than when he was sympathising about the -difficulties which he described Andrew Lang as experiencing when he came -to St. Andrews. He was such a master of innuendo. - -Dr. Boyd wrote his books in handwriting so minute that he could get two -thousand words on to one foolscap page. The firm who always printed them -for his publishers had large magnifying glasses fitted to the case on -which his copy was fixed for setting it up. And Dr. Boyd was very proud -of it. - -One of Dr. Boyd’s sons has inherited his power as a writer—my friend -Charles Boyd, who acted for some time as private secretary to Cecil -Rhodes in South Africa. - -Sir Charles Dilke, M.P., took a flattering interest in my books, and was -very friendly in his intercourse with me. The most amusing reminiscences -I have in connection with him are _à propos_ of a dinner at which we -were both taken in, though I was too obscure for it to signify in my -case. - -A dinner for a high-sounding object was given at Prince’s. Sixty -important public men and leading writers and journalists were invited, -and Sir Charles Dilke was asked to respond to the toast of the evening. - -His rising to speak was the signal for three great acetylene flares to -be turned on, which reduced the scores of electric lights in the room to -looking like the gas jets in the Richmond railway-station. This was -taken as a compliment to Sir Charles, though it would have disconcerted -any less practised speaker. - -When his speech and the other speeches were over, the chairman -electrified the assemblage by informing them that a new sort of -gramophone would reproduce for them Tennyson’s last words in the voice -in which he spoke them. It was a most impressive moment. For a few -minutes one did not realise the colossal impertinence of pretending that -there had been a phonograph in Tennyson’s bedroom on this solemn -occasion. But, of course, the record might have been produced by a man -who knew Tennyson’s voice well enough to imitate it, as certain reciters -imitate celebrated actors. We did not realise this at the time. The next -day the dinner was duly reported, with the names of the makers of these -wonderful lamps, and this wonderful phonetic record, and later on it -transpired that these two parties had paid for the dinner, which was -only got up to advertise them. - -This is one of the two cleverest pieces of journalism I remember. The -other happened on the night that King Edward died. A great London -linen-draping firm had an elaborate intelligence system during the -well-beloved monarch’s last illness. They were well served. I happened -to see the head of the firm about twelve hours before the nation was -plunged into mourning. - -“You may take it from me,” he said, “that his Majesty won’t live another -twenty-four hours.” - -As he was in the habit of making impressive statements, I discounted -what he said. But he was right, and acting on his information, he bought -up all the available mourning in the market, and scored a huge business -victory. I met him long afterwards, and alluded to the information which -he had given me. - -“I wasn’t the only one who took pains to know,” he said, “for that -night, at the hour the King died, I was driving from the hotel, where I -had been dining, to my office, with the correspondent of one of the -great French newspapers. As we passed the Palace, one of the top windows -was opened, and a person came to it with a lighted candle, and blew it -out. ‘Did you see that? Do you mind driving me to the West Strand -post-office?’ said my French friend. ‘Why, no,’ I said; ‘but what do you -want to go there for?’ ‘To send a cipher-wire to my paper that his -Majesty is dead.’ ‘Isn’t it a great risk?’ I asked. ‘If it was, I would -take it. But even a good rumour is worth something.’” - -The Frenchman was right, and he won his victory. - -The late Lord Dufferin was another man who was very kind to me about my -writings. I suppose that they appealed to him for the same reason that -they appealed to Dilke. Both of them were deeply interested in Greater -Britain, and in travel generally, and I have written books full of -enthusiasm for travel and the Colonies. - -Lord Dufferin never forgot any one who had served him. When his new -title forced a new signature on him, he sent a new photograph with the -Dufferin and Ava signature to all his journalist friends, though some of -them had passed out of his sphere for years. - -He always did the right thing. I remember the late Lord Derby beginning -a speech at a dinner at Winnipeg at which I was present, “As Lord -Dufferin, who seems to have left nothing unsaid, observed,” etc. - -On that same vice-regal progress to the West, I was showing Lord Derby -some Kodaks I had taken on various occasions at which he had been -present—crowded functions in cities, full-dress rehearsals of Chippeway -Indians on the war-path, and the like. One print was from a negative -which I had of these Chippewas, with their necklaces of cartridges and -their feather head-dresses, taken on the top of the massed choirs of -Manitoba, singing “God save the Queen.” Lord Derby begged this -photograph from me, “That’s a photograph of the whole trip,” he said. - -He remained surprisingly popular, considering the maladroitness of one -of his aide-de-camps—a delightful Guardsman who is now dead. I have -heard this A.D.C., whom Nature had gifted with the most graceful -manners, say appalling things. - -At one provincial capital, the mayor gave a ball in Lord Derby’s honour. -I had just been presented to the mayor, and was standing quite close to -him, when Lord Derby came in. When the official presentation was over, -Lord Derby, who always wished to get on a friendly footing with his -hosts, asked his A.D.C. in a whisper, “What is the mayor, M——?” The -Governor-General wished to know if his host bred cattle, or ran a -timber-mill, or owned a hotel, or what, so that he might say the -appropriate thing. But the A.D.C.’s reply, which, like Lord Derby’s -“What is the mayor, M——?”, was perfectly audible to that functionary, -was “Toned-down Jew.” So much for the _entente cordiale_ at—we will call -it Medicine Hat. - -At a ball given by Lord Derby, I watched that same A.D.C. taking an -important politician, whom he should have known perfectly well, to -introduce him to his own wife, a young and pretty woman who considered -herself one of the lions of Canadian society. The situation struck me as -a promising one, so I listened to hear what he would say. - -“Mrs. Um,” he said; “may I introduce Mr. Um-um to you?” She looked up at -him with an amused smile, and he continued quite blissfully, “He’s a -stupid old buffer, but I’ll get you away from him as soon as I can.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - - MY TRAVELLER FRIENDS - - -CONSIDERING the number of years which I have devoted to travel, I have -not met a great many explorers, certainly nothing like so many as I -should have met if I had been a regular attendant at the meetings of the -Royal Geographical Society. These interest me extremely, but I have an -unfortunate habit of going to sleep at lectures, however interesting I -find them, so I shrink from going to them. Otherwise I should have -joined the society long ago, and been a regular attendant. - -The last time I went there was many years ago, when a great explorer and -mighty hunter had just returned from Mashonaland. He read an immensely -interesting paper; I quite forgot to go to sleep. Among the speakers who -followed was a pompous old gentleman, who scourged the lecturer with the -most inane platitudes, winding up with the question, “May I ask the -lecturer what he thinks of the climate of Mashonaland?” and the explorer -replied, “There’s nothing wrong with the climate of Mashonaland, but it -isn’t the sort of place where you could get drunk and lie all night in -the gutter, without knowing about it the next morning.” - -The old gentleman gasped, and so, I think, did the audience, but the -lecturer seemed quite unconscious that he had done anything beyond -giving sound advice. - -My friendship with the famous Dr. George Ernest Morrison, of Peking, I -have described in the chapter on Australians. When I was living in -Melbourne, I saw a good deal at the Melbourne Club of Augustus Gregory, -one of the doyens of Australian exploration, actually the first, I -believe, to accomplish the transcontinental journey successfully. He -told me that when their supplies ran short, the things they missed most -in the terrific heat were fat and sugar. When their water ran short, -they more than once refilled their water-bottles by wringing the dew out -of their blankets. - -Curiously enough, fat and sugar were the things equally most missed by a -party of Canadian explorers who were engaged one winter in finding the -pass by which the Canadian Pacific Railway crossed the Rocky Mountains. -Their leader, who was running a small steamer up from Golden City to the -source of the Columbia in Lake Windermere, told me so, when I was a -passenger with him. I had just shot a wild goose on a shoal with my -Winchester rifle from the deck of the steamer, and he had come out of -his cabin to see what the matter was. - -I had a unique experience at that Canadian Lake Windermere. I was lying -flat on my back in the reedy shallows at its edge, enjoying a bath in -water above human temperature, when a deputation of ranchers waited on -me to ask if I would act as judge in the annual horse-races for Red -Indians, which were to be held that afternoon. They had heard that an -author had come up with the steamer from Golden City, and wished to pay -me this unique compliment. I protested my inexperience in the matter, -but dressed and accompanied them to a sort of pulpit made of fresh -lumber, which I occupied while half-a-dozen races were run on little -barebacked horses (I wondered if these were _mustangs_, but did not dare -to show my ignorance by inquiring) by naked braves and squaws in -trousers with a feather trimming down the seam. As I escaped uninjured, -I suppose that my judgments were accepted. Colonel Baker, a brother of -Valentine and Sir Samuel, was one of the deputation. - -In the time of which I am writing, when people came back from the wilds, -it was the fashion to fête them at the literary clubs. In this way I met -Captain Lugard, who was fresh back from his strenuous efforts in Uganda, -and Mr. F. C. Selous, when he came back from his pioneer expedition to -Mashonaland and Matabeleland, which led to their annexation, and the -foundation of Rhodesia. Selous was the greatest hunter that England ever -sent to South Africa. For twenty years he made his living as an -elephant-hunter and collector of rare natural history specimens, and -took the chief part in bringing about the annexation of Matabeleland. In -later days he has taken a great part in the measures for preserving the -wild animals of Africa by a splendid system of game laws, far stricter -than our own. - -Of all the author-explorers who came to Addison Mansions, I have known -none so well as Arnold Henry Savage Landor, grandson of the poet Walter -Savage Landor. I first met Landor at Louise Chandler Moulton’s house in -Boston, on one Sunday night in 1888, when he was twenty years old, and I -have seen him constantly ever since. While we were at Washington, as I -have said elsewhere, he was my guest for a week. We were at Montreal -together one winter season, and saw each other nearly every day, and -when we got to Japan, almost the first person we saw there was Landor. -We stayed in the same hotel there for months. - -When we first met Landor, he was an artist, who made a considerable -income by portrait-painting. It was not until after we had met in Japan -that he went upon his first exploring expedition among the Hairy Ainu in -the North Island of Yezo and the Kuriles. - -After we left Japan, he went across to China, and went very far afield -in it. But he did not achieve world-wide fame until he made his -expedition into the Forbidden Land. Every one has read of the tortures -to which he was subjected there, but it is not every one who met him on -his way back, as we did, when his spine was so injured that he could not -sit down, and his eyes still had a white film over them from being -bleared with fire. I knew of his endurance, because I had seen him go -out in Montreal in an ordinary English overcoat and bowler when the -thermometer was twenty-five below zero; and I knew of his courage from -the fracas he had with the New York police when they were breaking the -queue at the Centenary Ball for people who gave them money to get in out -of their place, in which he came within an ace of being clubbed. - -Landor is always witty. I heard him say to a man who was bragging to him -about the size of everything in his country, “You see, I am so small -that I have to come into a room twice before any one can see me.” - -He is also extremely courageous. I once heard a dispute between him and -a man of six feet two, whose portrait he was painting. While he was -painting it, he did a small commission for this man’s partner, who -wanted it in a great hurry as a wedding-present. - -“If you work for other people, I won’t have the portrait,” said the -giant. - -“You must have it,” said Landor. - -“Upon my word as a gentleman, _nothing_ can make me have it,” said the -giant, whose name was B——. - -“Mr. B——,” said Landor, “nothing could make you behave like a -gentleman.” - -And his courage in taking other risks is just as great. - -Undismayed by his experiences in Thibet, he was back in the Himalayas -two years afterwards, and reached an altitude of 23,490 ft. He was with -the Allied troops on their march to Peking, and was the first European -to enter the Forbidden City. He visited four hundred islands in the -Philippines in a Government steamer, lent him by the United States for -the purpose. He crossed Africa in the widest part, marching 8,500 miles -to do it, and he crossed South America from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to -Lima in Peru, over the great central plateau, across the swamps of the -Amazon and the heights of the Andes, with followers selected from the -most desperate criminals in the gaols, because they were the only -Brazilians who would undertake the risk. That last journey alone cost -him seven thousand pounds. All Mr. Landor’s books are illustrated with -his own paintings and photographs. It must be remembered that he was an -artist before he was an explorer or an author. - -Though he is contemptuous of hardships and semi-starvation in his -explorations, and travels with a lighter equipment than any other -explorer, he likes luxurious surroundings when he is back in -civilisation, and lives in a charming flat in one of our most luxurious -hotels. - -He also has a large estate in Italy, near Empoli and Vinci, where he has -carried on the wine-growing business very successfully. Landor’s mother -is an Italian, and he himself was born and educated at Florence, where -his father, a younger son of the celebrated Walter Savage Landor, has -always lived, and amassed a magnificent collection of works of art. - -It is not generally known that Landor was one of the first to take up -the invention of aeroplanes. He began long before the Wrights, as long -ago as 1893, when he succeeded in flying a hundred yards, and later he -built a more perfected machine not unlike the ordinary aeroplanes. But -he was away, making his celebrated journeys across Africa and South -America while the invention advanced with such leaps and bounds, and he -abandoned aviation. - -Landor speaks many languages. He has lectured in English, Italian, -French, and German, before learned societies, and he can speak several -other European and Oriental languages and many savage dialects. For he -has travelled all over the world, although the attention of the public -has been concentrated on the big journeys of exploration which have -formed the subjects of his books. - -Sir H. M. Stanley I only knew after he had retired from exploring, and -was living at Richmond Terrace, Whitehall. I met him through having been -a friend of his wife, who, as Dorothy Tennant, was a leading figure in -the most brilliant set in London Society, and in so many altruistic -movements. I had met her brother, Charles Combe Tennant, when we were -both at Oxford—he at Balliol and I at Trinity. He either proposed me or -seconded me, I forget which, for the Apollo, my other sponsor being J. -E. C. Bodley, who was both at Harrow and Balliol with Tennant. Bodley -has since become a very distinguished literary man. He is perhaps the -best writer we have upon French Constitutional questions, and he was -selected by the late King Edward VII to write the book on the -coronation, which involved a very wide knowledge of the British -Constitution. - -Lady Stanley wrote a book on London Street Arabs and put together and -edited an admirable autobiography of her famous first husband, whose -name she retains. Her sister married Frederick Myers of Psychical fame, -the greatest Cambridge scholar of his generation. - -But it is not only the books she has written, and the brilliant -intellectual people whom she has gathered around her, which constitute -her claim to being remembered, for she has taken a leading part in the -betterment of London. She has naturally worked hardest in Lambeth, where -she became acquainted with the swarming thousands of Surrey when Stanley -was member for one of the Lambeth Divisions, and it was from Lambeth -that she drew most of her boy-models to make studies for her book -illustrations of London ragamuffins. - -Isabella Bird—Mrs. Bishop—one of the most famous travellers in the East, -I met once near Hakone in Japan. She was a curious-looking old lady, -dressed like a native woman, with nothing but rope-sandals, which cost -three-halfpence a pair, on her feet. We came upon her very suddenly, -because Norma Lorimer and I had gone in to examine the interior of a -pretty building made of some light-coloured, unpainted wood, into which -people seemed to go as they pleased. As Miss Lorimer was then not long -out of her teens, and the building proved to contain naked men and women -bathing together, only separated by a bamboo floating on the top of the -steaming pool, we came out much quicker than we went in, and almost fell -upon Isabella Bird and her attendant. - -When we were at Khartum, the Sirdar, Sir Reginald Wingate, introduced me -to the famous Father Ohrwalder, the good old Austrian priest who had -made the sensational escape from Omdurman twenty years before, and wrote -the extraordinarily vivid account of his captivity which is one of our -principal sources of knowledge of life in Omdurman. He was then a -venerable old man, with a patriarchal beard, very frail, and exhausted -by conversing for a few minutes, but the Austrian Bishop, who spoke -excellent English, took his place, and we had an interesting -conversation. He was not, he informed me, allowed to make converts in -the northern part of the Sudan, where the inhabitants are chiefly -Mohammedan. I asked him if he made many converts among the pagans in the -southern part. He said not as many as he ought, but I elicited from him -that he set his face sternly against polygamy, and the Sirdar’s -Intelligence officer had informed us that one of the favourite forms of -investment in those provinces was to buy as many wives as you could and -make them work for you. - -Wingate himself was most kind to us during our visit to the Sudan. He -placed his three steamers or yachts at our disposal, and deputed his -Intelligence officer to accompany us, whenever he had no actual need of -him. - -The late John Ward, F.S.A., I never met on any of his journeys to Egypt -or the Sudan or Sicily, though we corresponded for some years. I have -found his books most valuable. He had a perfect genius for collecting -indispensable illustrations, and his books are encyclopædias of local -colour. - -The late George Warrington Steevens, the finest correspondent the _Daily -Mail_ ever had—it is said that they paid him five thousand a year—a -small, pale, delicate-looking man, with double eye-glasses, and an -alert, rather humorous expression, used to come to us at Addison -Mansions with his wife. She was a good deal older than he was, but he -always said that she had been the making of his career, which came to an -untimely end while he was besieged in Ladysmith. - -His conversation was as sparkling as his journalism. I remember when we -were discussing Kitchener’s conquest of the Sudan at the Authors’ Club -one night, telling him that Maxwell (now Sir John Maxwell, late -commanding the Army of Occupation in Egypt), who was one of Kitchener’s -most trusted officers, had been at Cheltenham College with me. - -“What sort of man is Maxwell now?” I asked; and he answered, “The sort -of man you put in charge of a conquered town.” - -Arthur Weigall, who was Inspector of Monuments in Upper Egypt when we -were there, came to see us several times at Addison Mansions. One hardly -expected to find a member of the great Kent cricketing family one of the -chief experts in deciphering Egyptian inscriptions and judging their -antiquities. Weigall was rather superstitious for so great an -Egyptologist, though I confess that I should not have liked to outrage -the dignity of the tomb of a queen at Thebes, as he and a house-party he -had at his fine mansion on the river near Luxor, proposed to do. They -got up a sort of comedy to be performed in the tomb, and the performance -was blocked by a series of accidents—sudden illness, the breaking of a -leg, and so on. - -We had a delightful expedition with him to some of the less-known tombs -at Thebes. At his house I saw a couple of articles he had published in -_Blackwood’s Magazine_ on Aknaton, the heretic Pharaoh, and I think -Queen Ti. I saw at a glance that, like Sir Frederick Treves, he was a -born writer, with quite a Pierre Loti feeling for style, and learned, to -my surprise, that he had not been able to find a publisher for two books -which he had ready. I gave him a letter of introduction to my literary -agent, setting forth the circumstances, which resulted in the instant -acceptance of both books by leading publishers. One of them was his -admirable _Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt_. - -Edward Ayrton, a most brilliant young Egyptologist, who discovered the -famous gold treasure in the tombs of the Kings at Thebes, and has since -been Government Archæologist in Ceylon, we met at his lonely hut among -the tombs of the Kings. We came upon him the first time, dressed in -immaculate flannels, as if he was just starting off for a tennis match, -and playing _diavolo_. He is young enough to have been at St. Paul’s -with my son. It required a man of strong nerve to live where he lived, -surrounded by the spirits of so many Egyptian monarchs and their great -officers, and practically at the mercy of any evilly-disposed Arabs. The -spirits of bygone Egyptians have, above all others, in the history of -psychical science, manifested their sustained interest in human affairs. -Ayrton was acting then, not for the Government, but for a rich American. - -John Foster Fraser, who was my colleague on _To-day_, though he is so -much younger than I am, a remarkably able and energetic man, who once -went a bicycle tour of nearly twenty thousand miles round the earth, and -would have gone farther if the land had not come to an end, has made -many long and adventurous journeys through dangerous countries, and has -written notable books. The story I liked best about his wanderings was -that he always used the public tooth-brush, provided by a civilised Shah -who had been to Europe, in the rest-houses of Persia. He certainly added -that no previous visitor to these rest-houses had ever known what the -brushes were used for. - -Speaking of teeth, I once knew a dentist who visited Persia. Knowing the -prestige of the royal family there, he thought that his fortune was -made, when the Shah and his mother ordered sets of false teeth—the -Shah’s made of pearls, I think, and his mother’s of diamonds. But next -day he was overtaken by a crushing blow. The Shah, to prevent false -teeth from becoming too common, confined their use to the royal family, -and the poor dentist had to fall back on writing novels—it was C. J. -Wills. - -This Shah, or another, on his return from a visit to Europe, made his -entire harem adopt British ballet-girls’ skirts. - -This same Shah, when he visited London, asked the Secretary of State for -Foreign Affairs to recommend some one to show him round the gilded hells -of London. The man, whose accomplishments thus received official -recognition, gave great satisfaction, I believe, but as he is still -alive, I shall not divulge his name, lest he should be overwhelmed with -overtures from publishers. His mother was a famous Society hostess. - -I have known some Arctic and Antarctic explorers. I was, as I have -mentioned elsewhere, in the chair at the Savage Club on the night that -we entertained Nansen. Trevor-Battye, who afterwards conducted an -expedition to Kolguev in the Barents Sea, himself, came up to me, asking -me to introduce him to Nansen. Of course, I had great pleasure in doing -so. Nansen, who was a tall, wiry man, and looked much less at home in -his dress-clothes and his Orders than in his Arctic furs, looked my -friend up and down. The latter was a remarkably smart-looking man, and -was very well dressed. Nansen was not to know that he came of a family -famed for their strength and endurance in Indian frontier warfare, so he -said with a smile, which showed the wide openings between his teeth in -his lower jaw, “If you come with me, remember that you won’t be able to -wash for three years”—he meant, of course, after they had got to the -Arctic regions. Battye, who is a most distinguished naturalist, and a -well-known author, was not deterred, but Nansen’s list was already -really full. Battye was editor-in-chief of Natural History in the -Victoria History of the Counties of England. At the Authors’ Club, where -he was a habitué in those days, we used to ask him why he had not gone -to the North Pole whenever we wanted to get a rise out of him. He was a -frequent visitor to our house. - -Another Arctic explorer who often came to see us after he had got back -from his three years in the Arctic circle, was Fred Jackson, who -conducted the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition. Jackson was a very -adventurous man. He had made an expedition across the Great Tundra -Desert, and another across Australia, before he went to Franz Josef -Land. With his swarthy face, bright dark eyes, and general air of _joie -de vive_, Fred Jackson looks much more like the manager of some great -English business concern in the Tropics than an Arctic explorer. Yet he -was an Arctic explorer, and a very hardy one. Everybody remembers the -photograph of the meeting of Nansen and Jackson in the Arctic -circle—Nansen swaddled to the chin in the fur clothes of his kind, -Jackson showing a starched English collar, a proper tie, and a triangle -of shirt-front. - -Back from the Arctic circle, Jackson volunteered for South Africa, -distinguished himself, won medals, and became a captain in the -Manchester Regiment—_Hac arte Pollux_. - -We often had with us I. N. Ford, whose advent to England as -correspondent of the _New York Tribune_ was practically the beginning of -the _entente cordiale_ between Great Britain and the United States. His -predecessor, the well-known G. W. Smalley, had been very much spoiled in -English society, but he never set himself whole-heartedly to produce -hearty relations between the two countries any more than Harold Frederic -did in his correspondenting in the _New York Times_. _The Tribune_, had, -in fact, been frequently in open hostility to England—so open that I -heard the following conversation at a dinner-party in Washington in the -year 1889 at Colonel John Hay’s. General Harrison had just been elected -President of the United States, and the moderate Republicans made no -secret of the fact that they would have liked to see Colonel John Hay, -who had been Abraham Lincoln’s private secretary, Harrison’s Secretary -of State. His character stood as high as any one’s in America; no man -since George Washington had been so fit to be President of the United -States; for he was as clear-headed and able and unwavering as he was -honourable, and his immense private wealth set him above temptation. But -it was that very wealth which prevented him from being nominated. -Americans are determined that wealth shall not command the Presidency as -it has the Senate. - -Well, that night Savage Landor and I and a number of leading American -politicians—the men who were to form Harrison’s Cabinet were most of -them there—were dining with Hay at his palatial mansion, built in a -heavy-browed sort of Spanish-Moresco style by the celebrated Richardson. -The new President’s private secretary, a commercialish little -Englishman, had promised to come, and he kept us waiting so long that -finally we went in to dinner without him, half-an-hour late. - -At last he made his appearance, breathless, and, upsetting a -water-bottle as he took his seat, blurted out, “Whitelaw Reid” (then -editor and proprietor of the _Tribune_) “has been moving heaven and -earth to get the Court of St. James’” (_i. e._ the post of American -Minister to England), “but the President won’t give it him. He’s afraid -that England will refuse to receive him because of the way in which the -_Tribune_ has behaved.” - -A good many years later he achieved the goal of his ambition, for I. N. -Ford had come to England in the interval, and had made the _Tribune_ to -America what the London _Times_ is to England in the matter of foreign -politics. Ford had won distinction earlier as an author writing on -travel in Central America. - -Another man who did a lot of spade-work in promoting the _entente -cordiale_ was John Morgan Richards, who has lived in England for many -years, and has more than once been President of the American Society of -London. American from his backbone to his finger-tips, John Richards had -a fine Quaker sense of justice and peace on earth which made the eagle -lie down with the lion like a couple of lambs wherever he was present. -His brilliant daughter, Mrs. Craigie—better known in literature as John -Oliver Hobbes—was a potent link between the two countries. - -Both he and his converse, G. R. Parkin, the Canadian, who was the real -father of Imperial Federation, and who is now usefully and congenially -employed in managing the Rhodes Scholarship Fund, were often at our -house. G. R. Parkin and Gilbert Parker, another Canadian, were sometimes -confused with each other in those days, by people who did not know them -personally. - -Canada has sent us a lot of good men. Beckles Willson, who lives in the -old mansion in Kent which was the birthplace of General Wolfe, the -conqueror of Canada, has poured out a stream of information about Canada -in a most attractive form. Who does not remember the elder Pitt asking -Wolfe, a boy of thirty-three, to dinner just after he had appointed him -to command the military in Canada? Wolfe got very drunk, and for a -moment Pitt feared that he had made a mistake. But he remembered how the -boy had behaved under fire in that descent on the Breton coast, and let -him go to Canada without misgivings. - -I have known Seton Watson, the Perthshire Laird who has done so much for -the Slav population of Hungary, since he was a small boy. When at New -College, Oxford, he showed his future bent by winning the Stanhope—the -University Prize for an historical essay. His first work, after he went -down, was to translate Gregorovius’s _Tombs of the Popes_. But he soon -began to give his attention to Hungary, where he has travelled a great -deal, and took up the cause of the Slav races who are being oppressed by -the Magyars. He held a successful exhibition of their art in London a -year or two ago. - -Another friend of mine who has done similar good work is Campbell -Mackellar. He, however, has chiefly devoted himself to the Balkans, and -in Montenegro no Englishman is so well known and beloved. At his -hospitable table I have met some of the leading representatives of the -Balkan States who came to England during the war. - -Connected both by property and family with Australia, his book-writing -has been chiefly about Australia, and it was he who wrote the -description of the Adam Lindsay Gordon country in South Australia which -appears in the book I wrote with Miss Humphris about _Adam Lindsay -Gordon and His Friends in England and Australia_. Mackellar has likewise -done a good deal for the recognition of Australian Art in London—a fact -commemorated in an album of original sketches presented to him by the -Australian artists who are over here. - -It was no mere accident which made Miss Humphris and myself collaborate -in _Adam Lindsay Gordon and His Friends in England and Australia_. It -was true that we were strangers when she wrote to ask me to collaborate, -but we brought common traditions to bear on the book. In Cheltenham, -where Gordon spent his boyhood, Miss Humphris lives, and I was six years -at the College. Gordon was a College boy, and his father was a College -master. Miss Humphris could not be at the College, as I was, but her -grandfather was the architect who built its principal buildings. Like -Gordon, both Miss Humphris and I went to Australia, and we spent years -there, though not so many as he did, and as a connection of one of -Australia’s greatest racing men—the famous Etienne de Mestre—it was -natural that she should take an absorbing interest in the steeplechasing -exploits of Adam Lindsay Gordon. - -[Illustration: - - SIR GILBERT PARKER - _Drawn by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -Edith Humphris has an extraordinary power of collecting and sifting -materials for a book. Off her own bat, she collected all the facts of -Gordon’s early life at Cheltenham and Prestbury. The grist which I -brought to the mill, besides a study of Gordon’s life in Australia and -his poems, which I had blocked out more than thirty years before, when I -tried to get Cassell’s to undertake its publication, was the mass of -material put at my disposal by people who had known him in the flesh, -and treasured remembrances and keepsakes of him. Miss Humphris knew that -the letters to Charley Walker existed; I tracked their owner down and -got permission to reproduce them. Henry Gyles Turner, who gave me leave -to use all the materials in _Turner and Sutherland_, was a friend of -mine in Australia. George Riddoch, who gave us all the Riddoch poems and -reminiscences, is a friend of mine, introduced by old friends in -Australia. Lambton Mount, Gordon’s partner on the West Australian -Station (brother of Harry Mount), is a friend of mine, and gave me all -his information orally. General Strange, who was Gordon’s friend at -Woolwich, and wrote about him in _Gunner Jingo’s Jubilee_, is an old, -old friend of mine. Frederick Vaughan and Sir Frank Madden and Mrs. -Lauder wrote their reminiscences for me, as did Campbell Mackellar of -the Gordon country in South Australia. And John Bulloch, the editor of -the _Graphic_, who wrote the wonderfully interesting pedigrees and -chapters about Gordon’s family, wrote them for me. - -But Miss Humphris wrote all her part of the book, including a great deal -about Gordon in Australia, herself, from studies which she had been -making since she was a child. - -Talking of Australia, at one time I saw a good deal of Basil Thomson, -the son of the great Archbishop of York, who in those days was an -author, but is now secretary of the Prison Commission, after having been -governor of Dartmoor and Wormwood Scrubbs prisons. - -Thomson, when I first knew him, had just come back from being Prime -Minister of the Tonga Islands. I asked why he gave it up. He said that -things were no longer what they had been in Government circles in Tonga; -when he was there, even the Government could only raise the wind by -having fresh issues of postage stamps manufactured for them by -stamp-dealers in England, who paid for the privilege of selling the -stamps in England without accounting for them to the Government of -Tonga. But in the palmy days of Tonga it was very different. Then, a -Prime Minister, who was also a Nonconformist missionary, procured the -monopoly of selling trousers from the King of Tonga, before he induced -the king to make the whole population turn Christian, and make it -illegal to appear without trousers. - -You sometimes hear people say, “What would you do if you were on a -desert island?” I once came very near seeing life on a desert island—it -was in a little settlement of less than a dozen families, on an island -adjoining the mainland on a desolate coast of Asia. It had a Consul. - -“It seems an awfully dead and alive hole,” I said to him. - -“It is not so bad as it looks,” he replied. “We have a splendid rule -here; as there is no kind of amusement in the place, except making love, -we passed a resolution that no one should get in a temper over the -infidelity of a spouse. We manage our loves like other people manage -their friendships—if a woman likes to have an affair with another -woman’s husband, it is nobody’s concern but hers and his. Since we have -made this arrangement, this has been the happiest place in the world, -though we live on a mud bank, without even a tennis-court. Before this -golden age began, the quarrelling was awful. Two men simply could not -get out of each other’s way, and they felt obliged to resort to violence -to maintain their self-respect, though they might not value the -affection they were losing so much as an old glove.” I forget the -profession of the Solon to whom the community owed this up-to-date -method of law-giving. - -Fred Villiers, the war-correspondent, was making his way across Canada -at the same time as we were, on a lecture tour. He had a number of -wonderful battle-slides, and he looked highly picturesque in his service -kit. He had also a splendid advance agent, whom I will only call by his -Christian name, because he was the son of an English bishop, and had -very distinguished connections. Henry never forgot his dignity, and even -in the wilds of the North-West always wore a tall silk hat, with its fur -worn thin by constant brushing, because he was Villiers’ agent. - -We had run across him at many C.P.R. capitals before he came to our -rescue at a woe-begone place called Kamloops in British Columbia. We -arrived there after midnight, and proceeded to the hotel, which should -have been expecting us, as it was the only train in the day from -Montreal. We found the hotel open, but absolutely deserted. We could -have helped ourselves to anything we liked in the bar, and taken our -choice of the bedrooms. At that moment appeared Henry, who asked us what -we would like to drink, and told us the Kamloops charges for it. He then -took us round, and gave us our choice of bedrooms, and when we wanted to -know why he had suddenly become landlord, told us that the landlord had -just died, and the Irish servants were afraid to be in the house with a -corpse. - -We slept the night there, and paid our bills to Henry in the morning. -Norma Lorimer, who was with us, had a room which smelt horribly of -disinfectants. Henry said that the dentist, who came up once a week from -Seattle, had used that room as his surgery the day before, but the -inhabitants said that the corpse was there. - -This was nothing to an experience of Lewis Clarke, a son of the -celebrated Marcus Clarke, who wrote _For the Term of his Natural Life_, -and edited the first complete edition of Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poems—a -man who has had an extraordinarily adventurous life. This happened to -him, I think, in the wilds of New Guinea. He had gone to sleep under a -tree. During the night there came on a violent wind, and he was awakened -by something cold and heavy, which kept brushing his face. Whatever it -was, it only just touched him, and when he brushed it away, yielded -lightly to his touch. After pushing it away for a while, he came to the -conclusion that it did not matter, and got to sleep again. In the -morning he was awakened by an awful stench, and when he opened his eyes -to see what it was, found the bare toes of a dead Chinaman, who had -hanged himself, knocking against his nose. - -When I was at Canton, I went to visit our Consul-General there. I was -with him in his office one day when he was trying a case. An Englishman -had gone out shooting, and a Chinaman had sent his children after him, -with instructions to get into the line of fire and be shot, which duly -happened. The affectionate father then brought an action against the -Englishman for damages occasioned to him by the injuries to his -children. It was perfectly plain that the children had had themselves -shot on purpose, but to my utter surprise the Consul made the Englishman -pay. - -When the parties had left the room, I reproached him with the -miscarriage of justice. His only reply was, “I know it, my dear fellow, -as well as you do; but I have been Consul here for thirty years (I -forget exactly how many he said), and it is impossible for me to -conceive any circumstances under which the British Government would -support me.” - -I may add that he was much loved and respected by the British community, -whom he was unable to protect. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVII - - MY ACTOR FRIENDS - - -SINCE I came back to London a score of years ago, I have known at least -a hundred actors and actresses, but they did not all visit us at Addison -Mansions—some, whom I knew quite well, never could summon up the energy -to go as far west as West Kensington. Actors like to live right in the -centre of things, or right out in country air. There is quite a colony -of them at Maidenhead; Maxine Elliot lives near Watford, in the Manor -House which belonged to my uncle Joseph, and Edward Terry had a house at -Barnes, which is now sublimed into Ranelagh Parade. - -Among our chief actor friends were the Grossmiths. Weedon Grossmith, -with his pretty wife, came constantly. That diffident manner of his -hides brilliant abilities. We are apt to forget that besides being one -of the finest comedians of the day, he was once a regular exhibitor at -the Royal Academy (which furnished him with the subject for a farce). -What has made Weedon so “immense” is his absence of _mauvais honte_. He -has dared to play the humiliating parts, of which he is the finest -living exponent, with perfect sincerity. He has often said to me, “Why -don’t you write me a play, Douglas? If you make me a bally enough little -fool, I’ll take it; if you make me a big enough coward, I’ll take it; if -you make me a bad enough cad, I’ll take it. It is my art to put this -kind of character into the pillory.” And so it is; there is no one who -can excel him in depicting the ignoble, foreign as it is to his own -character. - -His brother George, with his wife and daughters and his son -Lawrence—George the younger had already flitted from the paternal nest, -and was earning forty pounds a week—were also constant visitors. -Lawrence was always the mirror of smartness. I think he was very bored -with that sort of party, but he adorned it. - -Geegee, as he loved to call himself, was full of frolic. He could make -light of anything. He made light of the awful play in which he appeared, -which was written for the mistress of a millionaire. The author was -given five thousand pounds to write a play and put it on the stage. The -only condition was that the millionaire’s mistress should be on the -stage the whole time, and have nothing to say. - -He was once the cause of my seeing the finest piece of acting off the -stage which I ever saw. One of our greatest living actors is always -chaffed about his _penchant_ for duchesses. Grossmith and I were having -supper together by ourselves at his party at the Grafton Galleries. -Presently we saw the great actor standing beside us, and Grossmith, -without bothering about his being within earshot, said, “We’ll ask —— to -sit down and have some supper with us; when he’s been there about two -minutes, he’ll look at his watch, and say that he must leave us because -he promised to be at the duchess’s in a quarter of an hour.” - -The great man sat down and attacked a mayonnaise vigorously. Presently -he looked at his watch, and made an elaborate and rather snobbish -apology to Grossmith for having to leave, but he had promised the -Duchess of ——d, etc., and all the time he was making it, trod on my foot -till I nearly yelled. Then he got up and left us, pausing to speak to -some one a few yards off to have the satisfaction of hearing Grossmith’s -“There, didn’t I tell you!” - -Fred Terry, the “manliest actor on the stage,” and his beautiful wife, -Julia Neilson, used to come and see us sometimes. I met them first at -Hayden Coffin’s, where she was filling the room and the garden with her -glorious singing one summer dawn. When she rose from the piano, she made -several vain efforts to get Terry away; he was telling Coffin, myself, -and one or two others, some of his experiences. When she came back the -third time, he said, “My wife always has a devil of a trouble to make me -put on my dress-clothes, but when I have once got them on, I never want -to go home.” - -That night, a rather shy little man, very alert and intelligent-looking, -had given us a recitation of his own which was so breathlessly witty, -that the audience could not seize all the points. Coffin introduced him -as “a very clever friend of mine, Mr. Huntley Wright,” and his name -meant nothing to the audience. A year later they would have stood on the -mantelpiece to get a better view of the king of musical comedians. Both -he and his sister Haidée, that brilliant character-actress, used to come -to Addison Mansions in those days. That the Coffins should do so was -natural, because I had known Charles Hayden Coffin since he was a boy at -school and I was a man at Oxford. He and his sisters and I and my -sisters used to skate together at Lillie Bridge. His father was the -leading American dentist of London, and Coffin himself was a dentist, -or, at all events, in training for it, for several years. But he had -such a glorious voice that it was inevitable that he should find his way -to the musical stage, and have the longest reign on record as a _jeune -premier_. He thrilled London with his “Queen of My Heart To-night.” He -has deserved his success twice over—both on account of his singing, and -for the way in which he has helped others; no one has done more for the -beginners in his own profession, and for helping unknown composers of -ability to get a hearing. There are many people quite famous now whom I -heard before they were known to fame at all, at his charming cottage, -that _rus in urbe_ on Campden Hill, which has the same initials as -himself—C. H. C., Campden Hill Cottage, Charles Hayden Coffin. - -With Julia Neilson I should have mentioned her handsome cousin, Lily -Hanbury, who was, till her premature death, one of the beauties of the -London stage. She came often to us. - -It is natural, in connection with her, to think of Constance Collier, -now Mrs. Julian L’Estrange, who filled her place, and has gone so much -farther, for she has not only personal attraction, but real power. She -was, as all the world knows, leading lady at His Majesty’s before she -went to America, but all the world does not know that she is the most -accomplished tango-dancer on the stage. - -There is no more attractive figure on the stage than Ben Webster. Young -as he is, he found time to be a barrister before he began his long -succession of leading parts, and though he is one of the least stagey -actors on the stage, he was born in its purple. He is a grandson of Ben -Webster I., who had a claim to fame besides his acting which has long -since been forgotten, for he was the founder of the great _Queen_ -newspaper, which he sold to Sergeant Cox—strange godfathers for the -_Queen, the Lady’s Newspaper_. Sergeant Cox was the uncle, not the -father, of Horace Cox, who was at the head of the _Field_, the _Queen_, -and the _Law Times_ for most of the last half century. Webster married -an actress, May Whitty, so well known, not only for her acting, but for -her activity in woman movements. They were very often at Addison -Mansions, and among the strongest supporters of our Argonauts Club. - -Lena Ashwell we have known better than any other great actress, because -we came to know her family long before she went on the stage, through -her sister, Mrs. Keefer, wife of the engineer who built the famous -bridge over Niagara. In those days she was studying at the Royal Academy -of Music, and she is an F.R.A.M. She has a singularly beautiful voice -for singing as well as speaking. Conscious of the burning dramatic -temperament which won her her fame in the impersonation of the heroine -in _Mrs. Dane’s Defence_, she has always cast her eyes on the stage. -When she was only fourteen she spoiled a chicken she was cooking by -forgetting to remove the insides because she was so enthralled with -reading _King John_. In intensity she is unsurpassed by any actress on -the stage. She is really as good in tender parts as in grim parts, but -she is less known in them, though every one should remember how -delightful she was in _The Darling of the Gods_. - -Lena Ashwell enjoys the almost unique distinction of having been born on -a British man-of-war, the fine old ship which did duty under Nelson, and -was the Wellesley training-ship till she was accidentally burnt a few -months ago. Her father was a captain in the Navy. - -Having been brought up in Canada on the St. Lawrence, she is a wonderful -canoeist. Her grace on the water used to be the theme of the frequenters -of Cookham Reach. - -Her brother, Roger Pocock, has written the best novels of the Canadian -North-West. They are descendants of the famous traveller, and had a -great-great-uncle, Nicholas Pocock, the sea-painter who painted Nelson’s -Battle of the Nile and Lord Howe’s Glorious First of June. Another -ancestor wrote farces in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. - -Lena Ashwell owns the Kingsway Theatre, and has produced some notable -successes there, in which she showed her determination to give brilliant -beginners—whether actors or dramatists—a chance. But since 1908, when -she married Dr. Simson of Grosvenor Street, she has chiefly given -herself up to feminist and benevolent movements—the chief of which was -the founding of the Three Arts’ Club for young actresses, musicians, and -painters to make their home as well as their club. The Three Arts’ Club -has an excellent magazine of its own, and confers the various advantages -of an Institute on its members. She is also a prominent worker for the -Suffrage Movement. - -One of the earliest of our actor friends, and one of our most frequent -visitors, was James Welch, who first came with his brother-in-law, Le -Gallienne. He had given up chartered-accounting for the stage for five -or six years before we knew him. But a good many years more had to pass -before he came into his own as the genius of farce, though he played -with real power and success in several of Ibsen’s plays, and Bernard -Shaw’s first play, _Widowers’ Houses_. It was in _Mr. Hopkinson_, in -1905, after he had been on the stage for eighteen years, that he became -an idol of the public, and was enabled to go into management. - -Ever since then he has been enormously successful, and in spite of it, -has remained the same simple, impulsive, unspoiled person as ever. He -used often, as I have told in another chapter, to go to the Authors’ -Club with me. - -One night not long since, when I was chatting with him in his -dressing-room at the theatre, and was asking him when he could have -another game of golf, he said, “I don’t know, I’m sure. I have contracts -with cinema-film photographers for seven thousand pounds, and I don’t -see how the devil I am going to get them all in.” - -I felt quite oppressed with the unfairness of things, for I had known -this same man when he was just as brilliant an actor, eating his head -off with chagrin at not being able to get an engagement (of which I am -sure he was badly in need pecuniarily), and now here were photographers -and film-makers tumbling over each other in their anxiety to take him in -his inimitable fooling in _When Knights were Bold_, or his misery and -stupefaction in his great condemned cell-scene from the Coliseum. - -Welch is quite a decent golfer—down to 8, I think, though the time was -when I had to give him 8. He is also a remarkably good spinner of golf -stories. I tell him that whenever he is hard up for a curtain-raiser, he -could easily hold a house for half-an-hour with his golf-stories. - -One of his favourites is about his caddie at Aberdeen, to whom he gave -two seats to see him in _When Knights were Bold_. Next day on the links, -he asked the man how he liked it. - -“My wife laughed,” said the cautious Scot. - -“And what did you think of it?” - -“Oh, I? Now tell me, mon, do you make a guid thing of it?” - -“I do pretty well.” - -“Ye do?” said the caddie. “Then my advice to ye is, to drop golf—ye’ll -never make a living at that.” - -Mrs. Welch is a daughter of Lottie Venne, one of the best women -comedians we ever had on the English stage—a frequent visitor to us at -one time, as was that fine actress, Fanny Brough (Mrs. Boleyn), an -eminent member of an eminent family, whom we first met at an Idler tea. - -At the Idler, too, we met the Beringers, of whom we saw a good deal at -that time—Mrs. Oscar Beringer, the playwright, and her daughters Esme -and Vera, who were both on the stage. Vera, the younger, has followed in -her mother’s footsteps, and written plays—one with Morley Roberts. Esme, -who is very popular both as a woman and an actress, has played in a -large number of parts with an unvarying success. - -We knew Beatrice (Robbie) Ferrar much better than either of her sisters, -though all three came to our at-homes, just as they were all three on -the stage. Though she had been on the stage six years when we met her, -she still looked a mere child. She was for years one of the best -_ingénue_ actresses (for which her pretty, small features, bright -colouring and demure expression, gave her natural advantages) on the -stage. She was one of the most familiar figures at the Idler functions. - -Rowena Jerome, who has scored several successes in her father’s plays, -was only a little child, playing horses, remarkably clever and -precocious, in the days when we were going to the Idler teas and -Jerome’s house in the Alpha Road, St. John’s Wood. - -Among other actors and actresses we met at the Idler teas or at Jerome’s -were Ian (Forbes) Robertson and his wife, and their daughter, Beatrice -Forbes-Robertson, Nina Boucicault, the Henry Arthur Jones’s, Kate and -Mary Rorke, Olga Nethersole, George Hawtrey, Lindo and Phyllis -Broughton. I saw Phyllis Broughton the other day, looking absolutely the -same as the very first time she ever came to our flat, twenty years ago, -the gentlest-faced actress I ever met. - -Forbes-Robertson’s brother, Ian Robertson (who never used the name of -Forbes himself, though his pretty daughter Beatrice resumed it when she -went on the stage), came to us less frequently than his wife and -daughter, who were habituées. - -Mrs. Robertson was a daughter of an old friend of mine, that remarkable -man Joe Knight, who always seemed to me as if he ought to have been -Henty’s brother. As dramatic critic of three leading newspapers, the -_Athenæum_, the _Globe_, and I forget the other, he had almost as much -power to make and unmake as Clement Scott had. He used his influence -most generously. At the same time he was a scholar of omniscience; he -performed the Herculean task of editing _Notes and Queries_ for the -proprietors of the _Athenæum_; and he had a daughter so good-looking and -charming that I always thought of her as Romola when I thought of her -with him. I have no doubt that before she married Ian Robertson she had -made herself as useful to the scholar as Romola. - -Their daughter, Beatrice, has made a distinguished name for herself on -the American stage. - -It was an odd thing that I should not have met (Sir J.) Forbes-Robertson -at Jerome’s, considering how much they have done since to make each -other’s fortunes in the _Third Floor Back_, for which Jerome, as he -always does when I am in England, sent me stalls on one of the opening -nights. But, as a matter of fact, I met Forbes-Robertson at Palermo in -the Venetian palace which Joshua Whitaker, the head of the great Marsala -wine-firm, built for himself, adjoining the old Ingham house in the Via -Bara. Forbes-Robertson was staying there, and I am in and out of the -Whitakers most days when I am in Palermo. He was convalescing from a -severe illness, and we went about, the little which he could manage, -together in Sicily, and afterwards for a whole week together in Venice. - -He was, I remember, very tickled with one trip which he took in Sicily -when he got stronger. A nephew who lives in England, but has very large -possessions in Sicily, came out to stay with the Whitakers. They wished -him to visit his various properties in the interior when he was there. -But the thing did not interest him; he was a subaltern in the Guards, -taken up with much more important thoughts. But he was an ardent admirer -of Forbes-Robertson on the stage, and he was willing to go wherever his -uncle desired if Forbes-Robertson would go with him. - -Forbes-Robertson was eager to oblige his hosts, and captivated with the -manner of the expedition, for, as they were going into brigandy parts of -the island, and the person of a great landowner is the favourite prey of -the brigand, they had to have an escort, and sit with loaded revolvers -on their knees. - -Everything passed off happily, and Forbes-Robertson came back with the -knowledge that an orchard in which pistachio trees bear freely is as -good as a gold-mine. - -In Venice he was quite well again, and spent all day in letting us show -him the _artist’s bits_ of Venice, for there was a time when, like -another of our leading actors, he expected to make his living as a -painter, not as an actor. He was educated at the Royal Academy till he -was twenty-one, after leaving the Charterhouse, where he was four years -the senior of Baden-Powell. - -He was especially delighted with the gondola expeditions we made to the -back canals of Venice. One day it would be along by the lagoon, where -the timber-rafts lie floating, and collect weeds and local colour, past -the ruining abbey of the Misericordia and Tintoretto’s Church, S. Maria -del Orto, to Tintoretto’s house, now woefully humiliated by being a -“tenement,” but unrepaired and unaltered since that prince of painters -lived and worked in it. It may easily be found, since it is near the -Camel sign of a mediæval Moorish merchant. Another day it would be -across the Giudecca, where the big Adriatic fishing-boats, with figures -of saints and monsters on their scarlet and orange sails lie anchored, -generally with their sails flapping against their masts, as if they knew -that they were there for ornament to the landscape. Across the Giudecca -there was the famous Redentore Church, with its three far-famed Madonnas -by the pupils of Bellini, and there was more than one house with that -rarity for Venice—a garden. - -Over the other side of the Giudecca we all went into the great old -garden of some Marchese. Venice has gardens there, but the Venetians are -so unused to gardens that they abandon them to dull evergreens, when, -having nothing to overshadow them, they might be as full of gay flowers -as a sarcophagus in Raphael’s pictures of the Resurrection. The only -person I know who does make use of his garden chances is Dr. Robertson, -the Presbyterian Minister, who wrote that wonderful book, _The Bible of -St. Mark’s_. - -I think Forbes-Robertson enjoyed the visit to Tintoretto’s house best of -all. The well-head in the court was untouched except by the soft fingers -of three centuries; the studio, with its open timber roof and huge -fireplace, had nothing about it to distract the eye from memories, for -it was a bare tenement of the poor. And it was such a very little way -from S. Maria del Orto, a name made classic to the British public by the -robbery of one of the most precious Madonnas of John Bellini—Santa Maria -del Orto, which contains a frescoed choir by Tintoretto, and his -“Presentation in the Temple,” and his tomb. When we were looking at the -immortal Venetian pictures in the Accademia and the Doge’s Palace, or -studying the faded marbles which jewel the interior of St. Mark, he was -so overcome with reverence that it seemed almost a pain to him. He had -not, I think, been in Venice before. At all events, he did not know it -as I did—I could take him to any point of interest in the city by a few -minutes’ walk, and perhaps crossing the Grand Canal by a traghetto. I -have written half a book about Venice, and some of my best writing is -about it. I do not know why I never finished it. - -Henry Arthur Jones’s family I have known since they were children. Mrs. -Jones used to come to our parties before the eldest of her children was -out of the schoolroom, and we spent one summer in the same house at -Ostend, so we have watched the elder girls coming to the front on the -stage with interest. Of the great dramatist himself I have spoken -elsewhere. If he had chosen, he could have been equally famous as a -writer of books. He has a profound mind, and a popular method of -statement. - -Olga Nethersole could not come in the evenings to our at-homes, because -she was generally acting, but she came for long talks in the afternoons. -I found her remarkable, not only as an actress of a singularly emotional -type, but from the interest which she takes in the social problems of -the day, such as criminology and emigration. A year ago, at a party -given by the C. N. Williamsons at the _Savoy_, when we were comparing -notes on the Canadian North-West, from which she had just returned, and -which I knew twenty years ago, I was much struck by her grasp of the -subject. - -I cannot remember whether it was at the Idler or at “John Strange -Winter’s” that I first met Martin Harvey, who, like Forbes-Robertson, is -a painter in his leisure moments. He was with Irving in those days, -recognised already as the most capable all-round actor in the company, -and for his wonderful conscientiousness and finish. Harvey had the good -sense to bide his time, and when he did launch on his own account in -_The Only Way_, which Frederick Langbridge, the poet, dramatised in -collaboration from Dickens’s _Tale of Two Cities_, he made an -instantaneous and gigantic success. In the days when he used to come to -us, he was singularly boyish-looking, and delightfully modest about his -powers, though all his friends knew that he was a genius. - -It was certainly “John Strange Winter” who introduced us to Mary Ansell, -at that time one of the twin stars of Barrie’s first play, _Walker, -London_. - -It may have been Mary Ansell, who was noted for her beauty, who -introduced us to the other star of the play, Irene Vanbrugh, equally -noted for her prettiness and her archness, who continues to this day to -interpret the whimsicalities of Barrie with such delightful -_espièglerie_. She was a Miss Barnes, daughter of a Prebendary of -Exeter—there were four daughters living with their mother in Earl’s -Court Road. Violet, the eldest, and Irene, the youngest, then unmarried, -were on the stage, Angela was a violinist or violoncellist—I never -remember which of these instruments my friends play—and Edith, the fair -one of the family, frowned on the stage, and married somebody of -importance in India. Angela came to us oftenest. A little later Violet -Vanbrugh married Arthur Bourchier, whom I had met long before when he -was at Christchurch, Oxford, and the leading light of the Oxford A.D.C., -of which Alan MacKinnon, an old friend of mine at Trinity, who -introduced us, was another leading light. - -Bourchier, the inimitable, is, I fancy, the only professional -Shakesperian actor who could have the chance of taking the part of one -of his own family in Shakespeare. For Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of -Canterbury, is a character in Shakespeare’s _Richard III_. He was also -Henry VI’s Chancellor, as Sir Robert de Bourchier was to Edward III in -1340—the first of the lay-Chancellors of England. - -The first time I saw Bourchier act was when he was an undergraduate at -Oxford—the part was Harry Hotspur, and he was superb in it, because -this was a part in which he could use his art and his personality in -equal proportions. Since then I have seen him blend his two great -qualifications of character-acting and potent personality, in many -parts, in Henry VIII pre-eminently, and I have seen him exercise the -two qualifications separately in many parts, now as an old -seventeenth-century Bishop, overflowing with goodness, now as a bluff, -practical joker in boisterous farce with Weedon Grossmith. He is -certainly one of the finest actors on the stage, when you consider him -from the double standpoint of his tremendous personality, and his -power to disguise it in parts entirely foreign to one’s idea of -Bourchier. I cannot help liking him best as himself on the stage, -because to me there is nothing so interesting as personality, and he -has such an inexhaustible flow of wit and high spirits. - -If Bourchier had had no success on the professional stage, his name -would have been immortalised in its annals, for it was he who persuaded -Jowett, of Balliol, the then Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, to abolish the -statute of the University against Oxford having a theatre, and he -actually enlisted Jowett’s services into raising the money for building -one. - -When I first went to Oxford, we had no theatre on account of the famous -statute. Our ancestors regarded actors as “rogues and vagabonds,” and -only a year ago a well-known actor got off serving on a jury on the -grounds that he was legally a rogue. But though the town might not have -a theatre, it might have as many low music-halls as it liked, because -the University did not consider what went on in “the halls” as acting at -all. The real point at issue—would the ladies of a caste like Irving’s -or Tree’s be as likely to tempt the St. Anthonys of Oxford out of their -hermitages in the deserts of learning—was entirely lost sight of. - -With Bourchier one naturally thinks of Aubrey Smith, who had to play Sir -Marcus Ordeyne in Bourchier’s theatre—Smith, who was the chief light of -the Cambridge A.D.C., and the crack Cambridge bowler of his time in the -’Varsity matches. - -Smith’s beautiful sister, Mrs. Cosmo Hamilton, who latinised her name -into _Faber_ when she went on the stage—she told me so herself—was only -just coming into her own when she died—cut off in her very flower. There -was no more genuinely liked and esteemed woman on the stage. - -Granville Barker, the typical clever, red-headed boy, though he was not -then old enough to have been promoted to dress-clothes, used to come -with an extremely intelligent and charming mother, the mother of a large -family, I always understood, though she looked far too young. They were -brought by Edwin Waud, the artist, as far as I remember, and they were -friends of Gleeson White’s. Granville was a very bright boy when you -spoke to him, but he was never much in evidence; he left his mother, so -that she might enjoy herself, instead of having to keep him amused. He -may have gone to the sandwiches and lemonade in the dining-room—more -probably, he was not allowed to smoke, and went to do that. - -I fancy that Acton Bond, who now runs the British Empire Shakespeare -Society, must have been a friend of Gleeson White’s, because he came -into our life so very early. Bond was an institution in Bohemia. He was -a singularly handsome and distinguished-looking actor, who took -Shakespeare and other “costume” parts. He was one of the most courteous -men I ever met, and I knew that I could confer pleasure on anybody by -introducing Bond. This was an important consideration to a host who made -a point of keeping all his guests introduced and amused for all the -evening. Bond knew all the denizens in Bohemia, and had a fund of -conversation about them, in addition to being personally very -interesting; and, as a fair golfer, a good man in a boat, a good dancer, -and so on, was a “find” for a country house. Even when he was acting -most, his heart inclined to the other side of his profession—to training -people for the stage and running the Actors’ Association—a sort of Union -for Actors. He did an immense amount of useful work. He married the -charming Eve Tame comparatively lately. A tall man, with a graceful -figure, he carried himself extremely well, and, with his fine classical -head, perpetuated the tradition of the Kembles. - -Ray Rockman was one of our Argonaut friends, and became a very intimate -friend indeed. She stayed with us at Salcombe and elsewhere, besides -being constantly at our house. With her tall, slight, aristocratic -figure, the face of a marquise of Louis XV’s court, and her wonderful -Oriental eyes, she had the presence of the greatest _tragédiennes_ who -have adorned our stage. When you see her in a drawing-room, you think -instinctively of Sarah Bernhardt’s great parts, and rightly, because she -was Sarah’s understudy in them in Paris before she came to England. If -any actor-manager had wanted a leading lady for tragedy, she would have -been one of the most famous actresses on our stage to-day, for she had -the divine fire. But London does not run to tragedies, except for the -glorification of an actor- or actress-manager, so she had to descend to -being the villainess of melodramas generally finishing up with suicide -in the last act. In the _Great Ruby_ she showed her real dramatic power. -But she has never had the chance of becoming the leading lady at one of -our chief theatres like His Majesty’s, where she could have taken London -by storm with her magnificent presence and carriage and the passion she -can put into her acting with her marvellous Oriental eyes and coal-black -hair. These she owes to her being a South Russian. I am not sure whether -she was born in Russia or the United States, where her father is a -doctor in Montana—a friend of the Copper King. If any one were to make a -play out of Sarah Siddons, Ray Rockman would be the ideal actress to -cast for the leading part. - -It was Ray who introduced me to the wonderful Annie Russell, the most -temperamental of American actresses. I say American, though she was born -in Liverpool, because practically all her work has been done on the -other side, and it was Ray who introduced me to Sarah Bernhardt. -Unfortunately, Sarah does not like talking English, and I am not equal -to saying anything very interesting in French, though I read it with -facility, and know plenty of “kitchen” French for use at hotels and -railway-stations. Sarah sent me seats to see her in _Hamlet_, which she -pronounced “omelette.” I found it rather wearisome, to be quite honest, -because I hear French so badly, and when I went down to see Ray and her -in her dressing-room at the end of the first act, I gladly accepted her -invitation to spend the rest of the evening in her dressing-room, “if I -could not follow her easily.” - -It was extremely interesting to watch her dressing, and she did not take -any more notice of my presence than if I had been a fly, while she was -actually being got ready for the stage, though she made herself -extremely pleasant during the acts when she was off the stage. She could -divest herself of the personality of Hamlet, and resume it at a moment’s -notice. Ray speaks French as well as English, so everything was quite -simple, with her there to interpret. During the longest interval a -message came down for her that the Prince of Wales (afterwards King -Edward VII) was in the house, and Sarah went off to see him for a long -time; it seemed like half-an-hour. She invited me to go with Ray to -visit her at that wonderful rock island off the Breton coast, but for -some reason or other I did not make the effort. I think I had made -arrangements to go to St. Andrews. - -Elizabeth Robins I met at the Idler. One always thought of her as the -actress in those days, and not, as one now thinks of her, as the -novelist. Elizabeth Robins is a tall, spare, Western woman, with a very -eloquent face. She is the greatest Ibsen actress we have had in England. -She had the unusual courage, for the stage, to think that good looks and -elegance in dress were of no consequence, when she was presenting -Ibsen’s characters. Her one desire was to fulfil his conception exactly, -and she did it most convincingly. - -A few people, like myself, knew that she was the “C. E. Raimond” who -wrote _George Mandeville’s Husband_ for that series of Heinemann’s, but -we imagined it to be a passing phase with her, instead of the prelude to -a series of great novels on burning questions. - -I do not know who brought Gertrude Kingston to us first, but she often -came. She was the accomplished violinist mentioned in Lord Roberts’ -dispatch of September 13, 1901, as having rendered special service -during the war in South Africa. Mrs. Silver, for this is her real name, -is an authoress as well as an artist and a collector, as I discovered -when we were going over the old things in Phillimore Lodge together -before the sale. - -Alice Skipworth was a lovely woman with a gorgeous voice, whose fortunes -on the stage were made in an extraordinary way. An actor-manager engaged -her without any experience of acting to understudy his wife, who -financed his plays, in an American tour. When they got to Philadelphia, -I think it was, on the second night his wife took ill, and Mrs. -Skipworth duly took her place. Philadelphia went wild over her beauty -and her voice, and the actor-manager found himself in the unpleasant -predicament of having to decide whether he would close his doors, or -persuade his wife to let Mrs. Skipworth go on taking her place. His -wife, who was, I believe, very charming herself, was a sensible woman, -and thought it would be better to coin money by doing nothing than to -bankrupt herself by acting, so the understudy acted and sang throughout -the tour, and came back a leading lady in musical comedy. She was a very -clever woman; she could have written an excellent novel about Bohemian -life; she had the knowledge; and she was both witty and epigrammatic. - -I need not explain who Murray Carson is. He was a very great light in -those circles, because he was an actor-manager, and as such had the -distinction of giving Lena Ashwell one of her first chances in -_Gloriana_. In addition to his successes as an actor and a manager, he -was joint author with Louis Napoleon Parker in that delightful play -_Rosemary_, since which he has written many plays. He is quite a -well-known figure at various literary clubs, noted for his remarkable -resemblance to the first Napoleon. The collaboration of these two -Napoleons was, I imagine, a mere coincidence. - -My last meeting with Decima Moore I am never likely to forget. She was -very fond of watching polo, and we were sitting together in the pavilion -at a club to which I belong, when a man was thrown from his pony, and -dragged along the ground for several yards on his face, his nose -ploughing a regular furrow till it was broken. I went down to where he -was lying. Every one thought he was killed, because he lay insensible -for so long. When he did come to, he said, “Is my nose broken, doctor?” -The doctor said it was, and then he said, in my hearing, “Then I hope -you will make a better job of it than God did,” which seemed to me the -most extraordinary piece of _sang-froid_ for a man who, the moment -before, had been almost across the threshold of life and death. - -Sir Charles Wyndham, whose real name I cannot for the moment remember, -and “Mary Moore,” I have seen chiefly on the Riviera at Cimiez. I make -it the excuse for my forgetfulness that he forgot what he was forgetting -once, when, coming up cordially to shake hands with me, he said, “I -remember your name quite well, but I can’t recall your face.” - -Wyndham fought in the war between North and South in the United States, -and he was a member of the company of John Wilkes Booth, the actor, at -the time that the latter assassinated President Lincoln in the theatre; -I have never heard if he was actually on the stage at the time. He was -brought up, I understood, as a doctor. - -As an instance of Wyndham’s lapses of memory, I may quote that one day -at Ranelagh he asked me if I was a member of the Club. I said “Yes.” -“Can I telephone from here?” “Oh, yes.” - -When we got to the telephone, he began turning up the name of his man of -business, who had a name, which I will not mention, as ordinary as -Skinner; there might have been a couple of score of the name in the -telephone book. He read down the list. “I can’t remember his initials,” -he said. I looked at him as if to say, “Don’t you often see him?” He -caught my eye. His actor’s intuition told him my thoughts. “I know what -you’re thinking,” he said. “Yes, I do ’phone to him every day, but I -can’t for the life of me tell which of all this lot he is.” - -Irving once told me at lunch a story which he probably told many others. -He was touring in the United States, and staying either at St. Louis or -Cincinnati. One morning at breakfast a large rat ran across the room. As -he had been up till past five that morning, being entertained by the -local Savage Club—I forget its name—he was feeling rather cheap, and -gave a little start. “You needn’t mind him, Mis’ Irving,” said the negro -waiter; “he’s a real one.” - -The Trees I have known for a long time. It is an undiluted pleasure to -meet Tree out at lunch—like all actors, he affects lunches more than -dinners. There are few men so witty. When most of the great actors and -actresses were exhausting their powers of polished vituperation on the -unhappy Clement Scott for his generalisations upon the morals of the -stage, Tree’s reply as to what he thought of the matter was, that -nothing Clement Scott had said made him think any less of him, and Lady -Tree’s rejoinder to the late W. T. Stead is historical. - -Cyril Maude always gives me his smile when we meet at a certain polo -club, and often “passes the time of day” to me very pleasantly. But I -know that he is another of the people who remember your name, when they -meet you, but cannot recall your face. Still, I forgive him for the sake -of that Major in _The Second in Command_. His charming wife, Winifred -Emery, whose triumph I saw the night she won her place in the first rank -as Marguerite in Irving’s _Faust_—she was the understudy—always -remembers my face as well as my name. There never was an actress on our -stage who showed more spirit, unless it is Lena Ashwell turning on a -bully, for Lena turns to bay like the lion “on that famed Picard field.” - -The Maudes’ daughter is now rapidly coming to the front. I saw her as -one of Portia’s ladies in the _Merchant of Venice_ looking -(intentionally, I suppose) for all the world like the exquisite -Tornabuoni heiress in the choir frescoes of Santa Maria Novella at -Florence, and could hardly believe that it was the same merry, everyday -girl that I meet at the Adrian Ross’s. - -[Illustration: - - SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM-TREE - _From the drawing by Yoshio Markino_ -] - -Edward Terry I first met at the Savage, where he was one of the most -influential members, and afterwards at Barnes, where he had a dear old -house near the church, which has been improved away to make room for a -sweet-shop and a garage and an auctioneer’s lair. Though he was so -capable in the chair, and such an excellent comedian, I don’t remember -his ever saying anything worth remembering when we walked or “bussed” -down Castelnau together. - -Penley I never met in private life; I only met him at the Savage, where -he never would do a turn, and where his dignity—not assumed—when he was -in the chair was as funny as _Charley’s Aunt_, and proceedings were -conducted in the voice of the curate in _The Private Secretary_. - -I first met Mrs.—and Mr.—Patrick Campbell at a party at Oswald -Crawfurd’s in the very early ’nineties. She had been enjoying triumphs -in the provinces for some years, but London was for the first time being -thrilled by that marvellously seductive voice, that languorous grace, -and that panther-like personality, which is sleek till it springs. Of -all actresses, Mrs. Campbell is most closely connected with Kensington, -for she was born in the Forest House, Kensington Gardens, and lives no -farther off than Kensington Square, where she occupies one of the old -houses on the west side. - -_The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ at one end of her career in London, and -_Bella-Donna_ at the other, established the fact that for parts in which -the infidelity of a wife brings in passion and intrigue of tragic -proportions, she has few equals on the stage of any country. It is the -Italian side of her nature coming out—her mother was a Miss Romanini. -Indeed, one can picture her at her very finest in an Italian mediæval -play—such as the scene where his beautiful mother mourns over the body -of the terrible young Griffonetto Baglioni. - -Like Lena Ashwell and Julia Neilson, Mrs. Campbell (Mrs. George -Cornwallis West) might have expected to make her name by music. - -She supplies one more illustration of the siren voice of Africa, which -never ceases to call to those who have once listened to it. For Patrick -Campbell made his work in Africa, and died there in the Boer War, and -now their daughter Stella, who had made her mark on the stage with her -_Princess Clementina_ in Mason’s play, has married and gone to live at -Nairobi. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CHAPTER XXVIII - - MY ARTIST FRIENDS - - -MY first connection with artists came through my cousin, David Wilkie -Wynfield, who was the nephew and godson of the great Sir David Wilkie. -He was a popular artist in both senses of the word, for engravers used -to multiply his pictures like “The New Curate,” and there was no more -popular figure at the Arts’ Club or in the homes of his brother artists. -A repartee of his was the origin of the picture in _Punch_, where a -painter who wants to know why he does not get into the Royal Academy is -told that he should not wear such thick boots. He and some brother -artists, of whom I think Marcus Stone and G. A. Storey are the only -survivors, took Ann Boleyn’s castle of Hever (when, if not abandoned to -the owls and bats, it had not yet become the home of the Astors), as a -summer sketching-box, and I have a picture of them grouped round the -entrance arch, which he painted. - -So that he might have a better opportunity of introducing me to all his -friends, he put me up for “The Arts,” of which I remained a member till -his death. In those days it was located in a delightful old house in -Hanover Square, which had belonged to and been frescoed by Angelica -Kauffmann. There I made the acquaintance of the most famous artists of -the day, both painters and sculptors, for your artist, unlike your -author, loves to go to the club at night to relieve his mind after his -long day’s work, by playing pool or demolishing the claims of his rivals -to be considered artists in long technical conversations through clouds -of smoke. The art of blowing smoke-rings is a speciality of artists. I -have heard a famous R.A. recommend a young painter, who was complaining -that _he_ could never get his pictures into the Royal Academy, to paint -small grey pictures. “Why?” asked the disappointed aspirant. “Because -they are the pictures which Leighton needs to show off his own pictures -properly, and he always picks them out first.” - -Another time, at the committee meeting when Herbert Schmaltz was up for -election, the chairman asked, “Does anybody know anything about Mr. -Schmaltz?” and the most popular landscape painter of the day replied, -“Mr. Schmaltz is a man who has taken the illustration of the Bible into -his own hands.” - -It was Wynfield who introduced me to Joe Jopling. There have been few -at-homes more popular than Mrs. Jopling-Rowe’s. Jopling, who was a great -rifle-shot—he won the Queen’s Prize at Wimbledon—as well as a regular -exhibitor in the Academy, died a few years after I came to know them, -and his widow married George Rowe. Mrs. Jopling-Rowe, who is a popular -and admirable portrait-painter, and a constant exhibitor at all the -principal picture-shows, like the Academy and the Salon, when first I -knew her lived at Beaufort Street, Chelsea, but an epidemic of burglars -drove her from there to Pembroke Road, Earl’s Court, and from thence to -an old house in Pembroke Gardens. It made no difference to her at-homes, -which have always been crowded with really distinguished people, for she -has known all the leading artists, most of the leading authors and -actors, and not a few of the leading public men and women of her time. -Millais painted her portrait in her youthful prime, and if one sees her -standing near it, where it hangs in her house, one notices how little -she has altered in those intervening years, which have been so full of -painting triumphs and brilliant society. - -Many artists used to come to Addison Mansions. West Kensington is not -like St. John’s Wood or Chelsea; there was no West Kensington Arts’ -Club, and artists had not many meeting-places except Phil May’s studio -and our flat. Solomon, already nearing his zenith, used often to come -with his brother Albert, and so did Arthur Hacker, though they both -lived some way off. We were asked to Solomon’s wedding—we and Henry -Arthur Jones, I think, were the only Gentiles present at this splendid -ceremony, carried out with all the historical rites. Albert Solomon very -good-naturedly sat with us to tell us the significance of everything. It -was as interesting as an Easter service in a Sicilian cathedral. - -It was easier for J. J. Shannon, for he lived quite close, in Holland -Park Road, in an old farmhouse, which he gradually transformed into a -charming mansion, where one used to meet most interesting people. - -David Murray, the famous landscape painter, was another frequent visitor -among the Academicians, very popular for his wit and camaraderie, very -ready to help any one who needed a push in high quarters. - -He has altered surprisingly little—only last summer I met him at a ball -at Sir St. Clair Thompson’s, the eminent throat specialist’s, whom I -knew as far back as 1886 when he was honorary secretary of the Club at -Florence. David was dancing as much as most of the young men, and not -looking perceptibly older than when I met him a quarter of a century -ago. He is another of the intellectual artists who read deeply, and he -is much interested in Japan. He very good-naturedly came to advise me -about my pictures when I was selling the contents of Phillimore Lodge, -but we had already parted with the celebrated Nattier of Louis XV -dressed as Hercules—a Burke heirloom—my father sold that to Colnaghi for -£1500. - -Alfred Drury, that delightfully poetical sculptor, was another -Academician who came often. Drury has a beautiful voice. - -It was only in our last days at Addison Mansions, after we had given up -those large evening at-homes, that William Nicholson, not an -Academician, but one of the greatest artists of them all, came. -Nicholson was not only one of the finest painters of the day in -inspiration and technique, but was the pioneer of a new movement, being -the first painter to have an artificial reproduction of daylight -installed in his studio—a costly and highly scientific combination of -various lights. By means of this painting is rendered independent of the -weather and the time. He has painted all night before now. Mark Barr, a -scientific friend of ours, who devised the apparatus for this, the most -brilliant man I ever met, brought him. - -Another pioneer of art who used to come to Addison Mansions often, when -he had a studio in Brook Green, was Francis Bate, the moving spirit of -the New English Art Club. His influence on art has been profound. The -new English Art Club may have been identified with a certain extravagant -phase by scoffers, but it has embraced men like Sargent and Shannon, as -well as apostles of stiff blue cabbages. - -The public were quick to appreciate the charm of the soft grey studies, -in which so little was indicated and so much implied, of Theodore -Roussel and Paul Maitland. Maitland, in spite of his delicate health, -was a student as well as a painter. He was a very clear thinker, like -the late Sir Alfred East, another Academician who often joined our -symposia. I always felt that East could have made his name as easily in -literature as in art. - -The artist who has played the greatest part in the book life of his time -is, of course, Walter Crane, a really profound student and thinker, who -has held all sorts of most important directorships in art, and delivered -lectures of historical importance. No artist has such a record in _Who’s -Who_, for Crane is not only an illustrator of books, but a writer, and -as eminent a socialist as he is an artist. He describes himself as -“mostly self-taught,” but he was apprenticed to W. J. Linton, and -exhibited in the Royal Academy when he was only sixteen. He lives in -ideal surroundings, in a rambling house, more than two centuries old, in -Holland Street, Kensington. The thing which always struck me more than -the old curios which find such a fitting niche in the house, are the -rubbings of the brasses of his ancestors, for Crane has a long line of -knightly ancestors, one of whom was Chancellor of England in Stuart -times. Of his work I need not speak, for he has founded one of the -schools of modern English Art. - -When I asked Walter Crane if he had been turned into an artist by any -sensational incident, he said— - -“My progress—if I may so call it—has been very gradual and quite -unsensational, I think—except to myself. I had the great advantage of -having an artist for a father, and never remember the time when I did -not handle a pencil of some kind, though it was often a _slate_ pencil. -I had no early struggles to have my wish to be an artist allowed and -encouraged, or any strife about the realisation of that ideal with a -bourgeois-minded family, as one so often hears about in artists’ -histories. I never started for anywhere with half-a-crown in my -pocket—anything of the sort usually quickly burnt a hole in what little -pocket I may have had—and no doubt that is the principal reason why I -remain poor. - -“My early fondness for drawing animals caused confident and friendly -critics to say, ‘He will be a second Landseer!’ and nothing could have -had a more glowing prospect for me at the time; but times have a way of -changing, and ideals change with them, especially when one is ‘growing -up.’ - -“At the age of sixteen I had what might be called my first picture -accepted at the Royal Academy—first time of asking—but the subject was -‘The Lady of Shalott,’ and my source of inspiration was by no means -Landseer, but rather the pre-Raphaelites, and I was already deeply read -in Ruskin. - -“You speak of the ‘paradox of my being a socialist’ in spite of my -descent. Why should it be a paradox for one who loves beauty and -harmony, and strives to realise it in his work, but who sees around him -a world scrambling for money, glutted with riches at one end of the -social scale, and penniless and destitute at the other, while all the -time the bounty of Nature and the invention and labour of man provides -abundance—but only for those who can exchange the necessary counters, -and for those who hold the keys of the means of the maintenance of life? - -“Socialism does not mean lowering the standard of life, but raising it, -and with the abolition of the struggle for mere bread, and the -substitution of co-operation for competition, it will be possible to -build a society founded upon some better basis than cash, a surplus -value. Indeed, it may be said that a true aristocracy might then become -possible, since personal qualities and character would then have their -real value, purged of the harrowing, selfish burden of private ownership -of the means of life, and estimated by service to the community.” - -My most intimate artist friend is Réné de l’Hôpital, who, in spite of -his name and his descent, speaks not a word of French. De l’Hôpital is -one of those happy portrait-painters who can get a likeness; but he is -more than that; if he had a literary turn, he could write as good a book -as any one on “collecting” economically, for he has a wonderful -knowledge of old furniture and its West-end and East-end values. I know -the extent of his knowledge because he and my brother-in-law, the late -Frederick Robert Ellis, were my advisers when I sold the contents of -Phillimore Lodge, and the auctioneer said they fetched half as much -again as they were worth, because we knew their value and their points -were so well brought out. De l’Hôpital owed his knowledge partly to the -fact that he was born in a great old house full of treasures. Having -known what it was to struggle himself, when he became an artist against -the wishes of his family, he does a great deal for the poor. - -De l’Hôpital, who is a French count, son of the sixth Duke de Vitry, has -had the honour of painting Prince Arthur of Connaught and Pope Leo XIII, -and was a Gold Staff officer at the coronation of King George V. He -married a daughter of John Francis Bentley, the great architect who -built the Westminster Cathedral. Mrs. de l’Hôpital has written a book -entitled _The Westminster Cathedral and its Architect_, and collaborated -with me in one of my books in which she would not allow her name to -appear. - -Two painters who used to come to Addison Mansions arise in my mind with -East. Both were portrait-painters, recognised as among the soundest -executants of their craft—J. H. Lorimer and Hugh de Trafford -Glazebrook—for both were interested in literature as well as art—a not -common trait among artists—and both of them paint portraits with -enduring and outstanding merit. Lorimer, as I have said, was the son of -the late Prof. Lorimer of Edinburgh University, the eminent -international jurist who made the restoration of Kellie Castle his -hobby, and brother of Sir Robert Lorimer, who restored St. Giles’ -Cathedral at Edinburgh, and a cousin of Norma Lorimer, the novelist. -Glazebrook was a brother of Canon Glazebrook, late head master of -Clifton, an Oxford friend of mine who never won the high jump, though he -could clear five feet eleven, because he happened to have for a -contemporary the only man who ever cleared six feet in the ’Varsity -sports. - -A new school of black-and-white artists was coming rapidly to the fore. -Pictorial journalism on an unprecedented scale had invaded England from -America, and a number of new illustrated papers and magazines had -started, and they relied for their pictorial side on ideas which must -have seemed revolutionary to those who had been brought up on the old -standard productions of the _Illustrated London News_. The foundation of -_The Graphic_ a decade or two earlier had been a sign of the times. - -The most extraordinary artist of the movement could hardly be called a -journalist proper, because most of his work was done for books published -by John Lane, and for the _Yellow Book_. Beardsley, who was a mere boy, -with his boyishness accentuated by his fair hair and consumptive’s -pink-and-white complexion, came nearly every week with a very pretty -sister who made her name rapidly on the stage. Beardsley, who had a -workmanship of spiderish delicacy and an imagination like Edgar Allan -Poe, which resulted in the creation of female types of appalling -wickedness and snake-like fascination, did not talk much “shop”; he was -more occupied with the studies on which these extraordinary creations -were founded. He was a very interesting man to talk to, very modest. He -always impressed me as a man with a wonderful future if he were not cut -off, as he was, by an early death. - -Phil May, another genius of the movement, was one of our most constant -visitors. He lived, as I have said, in a studio improvised from a -stable, almost opposite Shannon, in those days. He did more than most -men to revolutionise black and white, because he was one of the first -who grasped the value of Japanese effects and introduced them into his -work. But his method of producing these Japanese effects was not -Japanese. A Japanese artist fills the brush, which he uses as pen and -pencil, with Indian ink, and secures his effects with a few dexterous -sweeps. Phil May drew his picture in the English way with comparatively -few lines, then studied his own work to see what was superfluous, and -rubbed out every superfluity. He was not the rapid worker which one -imagined from his style. After he left the Australian paper with which -he was connected, he remained a free lance for years, drawing whatever -came into his head as irresistible, and selling it to one or other -journal, and bringing out collections of his drawings of the year in his -famous annual. It was, perhaps, not the best way of making money, but it -came very naturally to him, for he was as brilliant a wit as he was an -artist. He was a man of inspirations; he could be irresistibly funny -with such simple materials as the henpecked husband. He was the reverse -of henpecked himself. He had a devoted and very pretty wife, who was -forgiving to all the faults he committed in his bland and childlike way, -and I often used to think that his jokes about henpecked husbands formed -his way of crying “peccavi.” Who that had ever seen it could forget his -picture of the husband coming home at three o’clock in the morning and -being asked, “What do you mean by coming home at this time of night?” -and pleading that there was nowhere else open? Or his picture of the -drunken lion-tamer, who had taken refuge from his wife in the lion’s -cage, with his wife outside the cage crying “You coward!” - -I do not think he ever made his speech in the rooms of the Piscatorial -Society the subject of a picture, but it was worth it. He was the guest -of the evening and had dined a little too well—at any rate, as far as -drink was concerned. When he rose to respond to the toast of his health, -he looked round the room and saw dozens of glass cases stuffed with -salmon and pike of monstrous size, the pride of the Society. He took -them all in with a wave of his hand, and said, “I suppose you will tell -me that there is only one ——y kipper on that wall!” - -On another occasion I was with Phil and Corbould at the Savage Club. We -stayed there very late, and when Phil finally made up his mind to go -home, he could not remember where he lived. Of course, we knew his own -studio quite well, because it was close to our homes, and we had been -there scores of times, but he was not residing there; he was staying in -lodgings, for he had just come back from the Japan fiasco. He had -received a commission from the _Graphic_ to go to Japan for a year or -more, and do sketches for them. They offered him very liberal terms, and -he accepted them. He let his studio for a year, and started off full of -good intentions. But he never got to Japan. He stopped somewhere on the -way—a very long way from England—and abandoned himself to a lotus life -of mild dissipation—we might, perhaps, have called him a -lotus-drinker—and the _Graphic_ had to bring him home again. It was soon -after he got home that this event at the Savage happened. - -“Where to?” asked the cabby. - -“I don’t know,” said Phil. “I have forgotten where I live; it is not my -own house.” - -“Well, how am I to get you there?” asked the cabby. - -“I do not know what the name of the house is,” said Phil; “but I think I -could draw it.” - -“There are a good lot of houses in London,” said the cabby, “and they -are mostly all alike.” - -“But there is a church near it,” said Phil; “and I could draw that.” - -A menu card and a pencil were procured, and he drew a picture of the -ordinary London house and a rather toyshop church. The cabby looked at -it and said, “I know where it is; that’s Osnaburgh Terrace,” so Phil got -into the cab, and then the cabby turned round to Corbould and myself and -said, “That’s Phil May, ain’t it?” We said yes, and he unbuttoned his -coat and put the menu card carefully in his pocket, remarking, “It will -be worth something some day.” - -The extraordinary thing was that any one who was so witty and such a -consummate artist should have been ignored by _Punch_ for so many years, -though he became in the end one of its most honoured contributors. The -editor approached him in a very curious way when he felt that he could -not ignore him any longer. He did it through the firm who at that time -reproduced illustrations for _Punch_. - -Phil May was one of the best-hearted of men, generous to a fault, alike -with his money and in his attitude to his rivals. - -Very famous people used to come sometimes to those ultra-Bohemian -gatherings in his studio, including some of the Queens of the music-hall -stage. - -It was Phil May, I believe, who drew the inimitable cartoon in the _St. -Stephen’s Review_ of Mr. Gladstone, with a malevolent eye, gathering -primroses on the banks of the Thames on the anniversary of his -illustrious rival’s death, which had for its title— - - “A primrose by the river’s brim, - A yellow primrose was to him, - And it was nothing more.” - -The cartoon was received with universal acclaim, but the general -public—_quorum pars fui_—did not bother as to who the artist was. I did -not know Phil at the time. He was just back from Australia, where he had -been working for the _Sydney Bulletin_. - -Phil May had the head of a mediæval jester, and was fond of drawing -himself in the cap and bells. - -Another black-and-white humorist of a different type who was with us -just as much was Dudley Hardy, whose satirical sketches of ballet girls -and their admirers filled the periodicals of the day, obscuring Dudley -Hardy’s claim as an artist. He was a son of the well-known marine -painter, T. B. Hardy, and was lured from doing the really admirable work -with which his friends are familiar, by the fatal popularity of his -theatrical caricatures. It was long before he could make up his mind to -break away from that and do himself justice in painting. His sister -married a very great friend of ours, a water-colour painter of -extraordinary cleverness and charm, Frank Richards. We have many of his -pictures, mostly impressionist water-colours, which prove the heights to -which Richards could have risen if he had continued to have the leisure -to which he was born. He might have done very well in black-and-white -too. He could have come nearer to Phil May than most people, for he too -had caught the spirit of Japan in the simplicity and bold curves of his -drawing; and he had considerable humour. His limpidity and the charm of -his colouring were especially shown in his paintings of Venice. - -His portrait of Dudley Hardy is simply admirable, for Dudley, with his -whimsical smile and jaunty way of wearing his hat, looks like a Parisian -notable. - -For some years we saw more of Reginald Cleaver than any other artist. -Cleaver was at that time the favourite artist of the _Graphic_, as well -as a regular contributor to _Punch_. He was excellent in catching -likenesses, and his crisp and beautiful handiwork made his pictures of -passing events most attractive. The _Graphic_ always sent him to the -most important functions, such as royal weddings. He hated this work, -because he was far too gentlemanly and too shy to push, and the people -in charge of royal functions seemed to take a pleasure in putting every -disadvantage they could in the way of the artists and journalists who -had to immortalise the occasion for their fellow-countrymen. The artist -was expected to stand behind the organ or anywhere else provided he was -sufficiently out of sight; whether he could see or not was of very -little consideration. But one day Fate overtook the autocrat who used to -browbeat the Press. It was in the days when the late King was Prince of -Wales, and his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, had just become a German -reigning prince as Prince of Saxo-Coburg Gotha. Cleaver, who was posted -where he could not see the procession as it entered, imagined that the -Duchess of Edinburgh as a reigning princess would take precedence of the -Princess of Wales, and gave her precedence in his picture in the _Daily -Graphic_. Before ten o’clock the next morning a messenger from -Marlborough House arrived at the _Graphic_ office to know the meaning of -this libel, and the editor explained that the artist had been placed in -a position where he could not see the Princess. The Princess was -furious. She attached no blame to the artist, but she sent for the -autocrat and gave him to understand that there must be no more accidents -of this kind, and from that day forward there was a great change in the -way in which artists were treated at royal functions. - -We spent several of our summer holidays together. Cleaver’s sketches of -famous people at historical functions will have a permanent value. He -had no rival in fidelity and charm in this kind of work. In recent years -the world has seen too little of his work owing to his being so much -abroad. He is the elder brother of Ralph Cleaver, the well-known -political caricaturist. - -Holland Tringham, a very good-looking and well-bred man, of whom I saw a -good deal at that time, had a battle royal with a millionaire duchess -over a similar question. He went down to represent one of the chief -illustrated papers at a great ball she was giving at her country house. -When he got there, he was received with scant ceremony, but began his -work. When supper-time came, the housekeeper arrived to tell him that he -would find his supper in the still room. He showed her the beginnings of -his sketch—and he was a brilliant artist—and said, “Take this to her -Grace and tell her that if she does not come and fetch me to supper with -her guests, I shall tear it up, and go home.” - -Her Grace came, took him to supper, and introduced him to her friends -galore, and the picture appeared. Of course, Tringham was very sure of -his position as an artist with the paper, or he would not have risked -the chance of being sacrificed on the altar of the offended duchess. I -should like to have heard what the housekeeper told her. - -There has not been so much of this snobbery lately among hostesses; the -race for publicity having become too acute. - -I must have met Sambourne, who succeeded Sir John Tenniel as chief -artist of _Punch_, when I was a boy, for he married a Miss Herapath, and -when we were children she and her brothers were generally having tea at -our house in Upper Phillimore Gardens if we were not having tea at -theirs a few yards away. I never lost sight of him, and in the last -years of his life saw more rather than less of Sambourne, whose -thoroughness was always a marvel to me. No pains were too great for him -to be accurate in the details of his cartoons and whimsicalities. I -forget how many thousand photographs he told me he had, which he could -use like a dictionary. But I remember that his idea of the best day’s -holiday one could take was to go to Boulogne in the morning on a day -when there was a good sea on, lunch there, and come back in the -afternoon. - -His successor on _Punch_, Bernard Partridge, was very often at Addison -Mansions in the old Idler and Vagabond days. He had already achieved -fame in two directions—as a black-and-white artist whose handiwork was -unexcelled for delicate beauty and romantic charm, and as an actor. But -he did not act under his own name; he was Bernard Gould behind the -footlights. Partridge’s father, the late Prof. Richard Partridge, was a -Fellow of the Royal Society and one of the greatest surgeons of his day. -Mrs. Partridge, then Miss Harvey, was also often at our at-homes. - -Another _Punch_ and _Graphic_ artist often with us was Alexander Stuart -Boyd, whose wife, Mary Stuart Boyd, is a favourite novelist of the great -house of Blackwood. Boyd has the dry wit of his race, so it is not -surprising that such a fine artist should have found his way to _Punch_. -He now gives his time to painting and spends much of his time at a house -he has in the Balearic Islands. He was a very old Vagabond. I met him -there or at the Idler teas. - -There, too, I met Hal Hurst, my neighbour and constant associate for -years, though we do not often meet now. I have various pictures of his -in my present house. Hurst, who was a very clever artist, and his friend -Alyn Williams, the president of one of the two Miniature Painters’ -Societies, not only shared a studio in Mayfair, but married beautiful -young wives about the same time, who were constantly together, one very -dark and the other very fair. Mrs. Williams was the picture of health, -but suddenly she was struck down by a mysterious malady, and almost -wasted to death, a terrible shock to all who had seen much of them. -Then, for no apparently sufficient reason, she suddenly picked up again, -threw off her malady completely, and was restored to her old radiant -health; it was like coming back from the grave. The Royal Family have -been great patrons of Williams’ miniatures. - -Oddly enough, I knew the president of the other society of miniature -painters equally well—Alfred Praga, an Italian by extraction, a -well-known and popular member of the Savage Club. Praga lives in a -picturesque grey house off Hornton Street. His wife is a well-known -writer. - -With them it is natural to mention the brilliant Robert Sauber, a German -by extraction, who for years was one of the most popular artists in -journalism; whatever paper or magazine you took up, it was almost sure -to have a cover with a charming female figure designed by Sauber. I have -a delightful specimen painted for the menu of the Vagabond Club on some -important occasion. But Sauber was not only a journalistic artist; he -has been painting large decorative panels and ceilings and portraits for -the last thirteen years, and has done no illustrations for the last -twelve years. He is an exhibitor at the principal Salons in London, -Paris and Munich. - -While mentioning _Punch_ artists, I forgot two who were constant -visitors at Addison Mansions—John Hassall and Chantrey Corbould. - -The man who helped to keep our at-homes going more than any one else was -Chantrey Corbould, the artist, a godson of the great Sir Francis -Chantrey, whose bequest is almost as famous as his sculpture; he was a -nephew also of Charles Keene, the immortal _Punch_ artist and etcher, on -the mother’s side. Edward H. Corbould, his father’s eldest brother, -taught the Royal Family. - -Corbould was a huge man, with a very jovial, high-coloured, handsome -face, and a very horsey appearance, as becomes one of the best -hunting-picture artists who ever drew for _Punch_. He had a very loud -and hearty laugh, which could be heard all over the house, and told good -stories, and always had a court of the ladies of Bohemia round him in -the inner room. He had one golden quality; whenever he saw a woman -sitting neglected, he went over and fetched her to join his circle, and -the older and uglier she was, the more particular he was to do it. - -I was wrong in saying that we never had an entertainment at our -at-homes—Corbould’s stories were an entertainment, but people had not to -keep silent with them; the more noise they made, the better he liked it. -He was very funny sometimes. - -When I asked Corbould what first turned his attention to Art, he said— - -“I was always for the Arts. Charles S. Keene, my mother’s brother, took -me in hand, saying ‘sketch from Nature,’ so I am altogether self-taught. -I never went to any Art school. Keene’s idea was that I should -eventually step into a ‘staff appointment on _Punch_.’ I began under -Shirley Brooks, then Tom Taylor, and later under F. C. Burnand. Tom -Taylor promised me the first vacancy at ‘The _Punch_ Table,’ but he -died, and F. C. Burnand took on Furniss. I began with _Punch_ in the -early ’seventies; later I worked for the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated -London News_, the _Daily Graphic_ (1890), etc. I have always loved -‘gee-gees.’” - -John Hassall is a universally popular man, and certainly one of the most -capable artists of the day. One cannot be sure to what heights he will -rise. He was not much more than a boy when he first came to our house, -and he was not much more than a boy when he first got into _Punch_. As -he is a brilliant caricaturist, with a strong political sense, he could -be the Conservative F.C.G. whenever he chooses. Probably he would -dislike the drudgery of producing constant political cartoons—all work -done against time. G. R. H., the famous cartoonist of the _Pall Mall -Gazette_, found the work too exacting, and Hassall, the most popular -poster designer of the day, has many irons in the fire which require -attending to. But he is a born caricaturist of the unexaggerating kind -which the future will demand. - -Joseph Pennell, the artist, and his charming wife, one of the best -travel-writers in America, have been friends of ours for many years. -They live in an old house in Buckingham Street, Strand, near the gate, -which now does nothing on the Thames Embankment but is, I suppose, the -last of the water-gates of the Thames. Pennell conferred one of the -great pleasures of our lives on us by making us go to Le Puy, at the -source of the Loire, which he had been drawing for some periodical. The -statues of saints and tiny chapels standing up on needle rocks against -the sky, which look so fascinating in his sketches, are not a whit less -fantastic in real life, and, until quite lately, you could see from the -plain High Mass being celebrated in the cathedral, which was at the -western end of the rock. The great west doors were flung open for the -purpose, until the mortality among the priests became too great. At Le -Puy the old market-women wear their hats over their caps, and frogs are -as cheap as dirt—real edible frogs. - -I went to a banquet given by the town to its most famous son, M. Dupuy, -who was then Prime Minister of France, and was, as it happened, a -native, though he did spell the Puy in his name with a small p. We paid -three francs a head—less than half-a-crown—for the banquet, including -wine, and an introduction to the Premier. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - INDEX - - - of the leading people about whom Personal Reminiscences or New Facts are - related. - - Adcock, St. John, 200 - - Ainslie, Douglas, 114 - - Alamayu, Prince, 256-257 - - Albanesi, Madame, 133 - - Alden, H. M., 48 - - Alden, W. L., 102 - - Alexander, Boyd, 226 - - Alexander, Sir George, 277, 278 - - Alexander, Mrs. (Mrs. Hector), 119 - - Allen, Grant, 258-259 - - Allhusen, Mrs. Henry, 126 - - Angell, Norman, 171 - - Argonauts’ Club, The, 179-180 - - Arnim, Countess von, 244 - - Arnold, Sir Edwin, 116-117 - - Ashwell, Lena, 331-332, 345 - - Atherton, Gertrude Franklin, 131-132 - - Austin, Alfred, 263 - - Authors’ Club, The, 146-161 - - Ayrton, Edward, 319 - - - Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 153, 168, 235 - - Barker, Granville, 339 - - Barlass, Douglas, 111 - - Barr, Robert, 101-102, 162-163 - - Barrie, Sir J. M., 77, 157, 158 - - Bashford, Lindsay, 199-200 - - Bate, Francis, 348 - - Battye, Aubyn Trevor-, 320-321 - - Baumann, A. A., 194 - - Beardsley, Aubrey, 352 - - Becke, Louis, 242 - - Beerbohm, Max, 302-303 - - Belloc-Lowndes, Marie, 135 - - Beresford, Lord Charles, 171 - - Bernhardt, Sarah, 167-169, 341 - - Besant, Annie, 251 - - Besant, Sir Walter, 58, 147-150, 182, 251 - - Bigelow, Poulteney, 155 - - Bird, Isabella, 317 - - Boldrewood, Rolf, 241-242 - - Bond, Acton, 339-340 - - Boosè, J. R., 250 - - Boothby, Guy, 242 - - Bourchier, Arthur, 338-339 - - Bourget, Paul, 66 - - Bourne, Cardinal, 218-219 - - Boyd, A. K. H., 307-308 - - Boyd, A. S., 357-358 - - Brackenbury, Sir Henry, 303 - - “Braddon, Miss,” 119 - - Bradley, Dean, 128 - - Brandes, Georg, 6 - - Brinsmead, John, 4 - - Brodhurst, J. Penderel, 119 - - Bullen, Frank, 242, 288-289 - - Bulloch, J. M., 198-199 - - Bunning, Herbert, 66 - - Burgin, G. B., 162, 164-165, 166, 176 - - Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, 130 - - Burroughs, John, 260, 270 - - Burton, Sir Richard, 10 - - - Cable, G. W., 260 - - Caine, Hall, 113, 157, 253-254 - - Callaghan, Admiral Sir G., 210-211 - - Calthrop, Dion Clayton, 289 - - Campbell, Frances, 243 - - Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, 278, 345 - - Cardigan, Lady, 141-142 - - Carman, Bliss, 111-112 - - Castle, Egerton, 267 - - Cave, George, K.C., M.P., 130, 191 - - Cawston, George, 169 - - Chambers, Haddon, 244 - - Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston, 175 - - Clarke, Lewis, 327 - - Cleaver, Reginald, 355-356 - - “Cleeve, Lucas,” 138 - - Cleveland, President, 30, 50 - - Clifford, Mrs. W. K., 127-128 - - Coffin, C. Hayden, 329-330 - - Coke, Desmond, 289-290 - - Cook, Theodore Andrea, 195 - - Cooper, E. H., 290-291 - - Corbould, A. Chantrey, 353, 354, 358-359 - - Corelli, Marie, 25, 126 - - Cornish, Herbert, 202 - - Coronation, The, 200 - - Couch, Sir A. T. Quiller-, 283-284 - - Courtney, W. L., 194-195 - - Crane, Walter, R.I., 349-350 - - Craven, Miss Maude Chester, 140-142 - - Crawfurd, Oswald, 148 - - Creighton, Bishop, of London, 153, 170-171 - - Crockett, S. R., 255 - - Croker, Mrs. B. M., 120-121 - - - “Danby, Frank,” 135 - - Darnley, Countess of, 245 - - Davidson, John, 107 - - De l’Hôpital, René, 350-351 - - De Lorey, Eustache, 67, 218, 226 - - De Morgan, William, 266-267 - - Denison, George Taylor, 32 - - Derby, late Earl, 310-311 - - Devonshire Club, 187 - - Dickens, Charles, 1 - - Dilettante Club, The, 62 - - Dilke, Sir Charles, M.P., 308-309 - - Dillon, Dr., 302 - - Diósy, Arthur, 177 - - Dobson, Austin, 104 - - Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 73-77, 156-157, 176 - - Dufferin, late Marquis of, 310 - - Dundonald, Earl of, 81, 169, 170 - - Dunn, James Nicol, 197 - - - Edward, H.M. King, 181, 187, 309, 341 - - Egerton, George, 134-135 - - Eliot, George, 251 - - Escoffier, M., 198 - - - Fagan, J. Bernard, 278 - - Farnol, Jeffery, 291-292 - - Fawcett, Edgar, 112 - - Fenn, Fred, 258 - - Fenn, G. M., 257 - - Field, Eugene, 54 - - Fletcher, Benton, 223 - - Forbes-Robertson, Sir J., 90, 334-336 - - Ford, I. N., 321-322 - - Fowler, Ellen Thorneycroft, 129, 164 - - France, Anatole, 67 - - Fraser, John Foster, 319-320 - - Frederic, Harold, 264-265 - - Freeman, Rev. H. B., 194 - - Fry, C. B., 172 - - - Garvice, Charles, 280-283 - - George V., H.M. The King, 41 - - Gilbert, W. S., 237 - - Gissing, George, 269 - - Glazebrook, Hugh de Trafford, 351 - - Glazebrook, Canon M. G., 351 - - Gore, Right Rev. C., Bishop of Oxford, 10, 11, 153, 192 - - Gorst, Mrs. Harold, 138 - - Gorst, Sir John, 138 - - Gosse, Edmund, 26, 103 - - Grace, W. G., 198 - - “Grand, Sarah,” 124 - - “Gray, Maxwell,” 119 - - Gribble, Francis, 292-293 - - Grossmith, George, 176-177, 328-329 - - Grossmith, Weedon, 328, 338 - - - Haggard, Sir H. Rider, 284-285 - - Hamilton, General Sir Ian, 154, 169 - - Hardy, Dudley, 355 - - Hardy, Thomas, 117, 208, 253 - - Harland, Henry, 288 - - Harraden, Beatrice, 129-130 - - Harris, Sir Augustus, 149 - - Harte, Bret, 94-95 - - Harvey, Martin, 337 - - Hassall, J., 358, 359-360 - - Hatton, Joseph, 254-255 - - Hay, Colonel John, 30, 50, 150, 321-322 - - Hearn, Lafcadio, 68 - - Hedgcock, Walter, 185 - - Helmsley, C. T. H., 278 - - Henley, W. E., 26, 117-118 - - Henniker-Heaton, Sir J., 263 - - Hentschel, Carl, 86-87, 176 - - Henty, G. A., 256 - - Hichens, Robert, 277-278 - - Hicks, Seymour, 183 - - Hind, Lewis, 188-189 - - Hird, Frank, 293 - - “Hobbes, John Oliver,” 131, 175 - - Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 27, 96, 145, 252 - - “Hope, Anthony” (A. H. Hawkins), 78-79, 175-176, 180 - - Houghton, H. O., 27 - - Howells, W. D., 259 - - Humphris, Edith M., 324-325 - - Hunt, Violet, 135-136 - - Hurst, Hal, 358 - - - Ingram, Rt. Rev. A. F. Winnington-, Bishop of London, 153 - - “Iota” (Mrs. Mannington Caffyn), 243 - - Irving, Sir Henry, 167, 344 - - - Jackson, Frederick, 321 - - Jacobs, W. W., 98-99 - - James, Henry, 261-262 - - Jefferies, Richard, 258 - - Jepson, Edgar, 293-294 - - Jerome, Jerome K., 65, 82-91, 96, 158, 162-163, 167, 188, 334 - - Jerrold, Walter, 195-196 - - Jeyes, S. H., 25, 191-194 - - Jones, Henry Arthur, 154, 209, 336-337, 347 - - Jowett, Rev. Benjamin, Master of Balliol, 10, 338 - - - Kenealy, Alexander, 201 - - Kenealy, Arabella, 201 - - Kernahan, Coulson, 165-166, 270-271 - - Key, K. J., 295 - - “Kingston, Gertrude,” 342 - - Kipling, Rudyard, 77 - - Knight, Joseph, 334 - - Knoblauch, Edward, 287 - - - Lamb, Captain Thomas, 298-299 - - Lambs, The, 297, 298-299 - - Lambton (Meux), Admiral Sir Hedworth, 171 - - Landor, A. H. Savage, 30, 37, 314-316, 322 - - Lane, John, 134, 269, 352 - - Lang, Andrew, 104, 308 - - Larisch, Countess Marie, 141 - - Lawrence, Sir Walter, Bart., G.C.I.E., 8 - - Le Gallienne, R., 108, 259 - - Lehmann, Rudolf, 94 - - Leighton, Marie Connor, 137, 275-276 - - Leighton, Robert, 275-276 - - Le Queux, William, 294 - - Lewin, P. Evans, 250 - - Lindsay, Lady, 114, 124-125 - - Linton, Mrs. Lynn, 119-120 - - Locke, W. J., 269 - - Longfellow, Miss Alice, 27 - - Lorimer, Norma, 139-140, 212-213, 215, 327 - - Lovatelli, Countess, 293 - - Low, Sidney, 191 - - - “Maartens, Maarten,” 66 - - McCarthy, Justin, M.P., 108 - - McCarthy, Justin Huntly, 108 - - Mackay, Charles, 25 - - Mackellar, C. D., 323-324 - - Mackenzie, Compton, 296-297 - - “Maclaren, Ian,” 161 - - Maclaughlan, Hugh, 238 - - “Malet, Lucas,” 129 - - Markino, Yoshio, 69-72, 226-227, 228 - - Marriott, Charles, 295 - - Marryat, Florence, 137 - - Marston, R. B., 199 - - Martin, A. Patchett, 183, 249, 250 - - Martin, Robert Jasper, 151-154 - - Mason, A. E. W., 273-274 - - “Mathers, Helen,” 130 - - Maude, Cyril, 344 - - Maugham, W. Somerset, 286-287 - - Maxwell, Gen. Sir J. G., 318 - - Maxwell, W. B., 279 - - May, Phil, 92, 352-355 - - Meredith, George, 181, 252 - - Miles, Eustace, 172 - - Millais, Sir J. E., P.R.A., 7 - - Mitford, Bertram, 294-295 - - Monkswell, Lord, 297 - - Montrésor, Miss, 136-137 - - Moore, T. Frankfort, 79-80, 166 - - Mordaunt, Elinor, 245-246 - - Morris, Sir Lewis, 103 - - Morrison, Arthur, 276 - - Morrison, Dr. G. E., 15, 246-248, 312 - - Moulton, Louise Chandler, 26, 52 - - Murray, David, 348 - - Myers, F. W. H., 104-106 - - - Nansen, Frithjof, 187, 320-321 - - “Neilson, Julia,” 329, 330, 345 - - Neish, Mrs. Charles, 306 - - Nethersole, Olga, 337 - - Nevill, Lady Dorothy, 125 - - Newman, Cardinal, 8-9, 219 - - Nicholson, William, 348 - - Nicoll, Sir W. Robertson, 197, 282 - - Nimr, Dr., 224 - - Norman, Sir Henry, M.P., 247 - - Nye, Bill, 154, 177 - - - - O’Connor, T. P., 168, 198 - - Odell, J. S., 186 - - Ohrwalder, Father, 317-318 - - Oliver, Edwin, 201 - - O’Rell, Max, 100-101 - - Osgood, Irene, 131 - - - Pain, Barry, 102 - - Pankhurst, Christabel, 172, 173 - - Parke, Ernest, 200 - - Parker, Sir Gilbert, 262 - - Parker, Louis Napoleon, 287 - - Partridge, Bernard, 357 - - Paternoster, G. Sidney, 62, 200 - - Pemberton, Max, 274-275 - - Pennell, Joseph, 360 - - Percival, Bishop of Hereford, 23 - - Perrin, Mrs. Charles, 121-123 - - Phillpotts, Eden, 276-277 - - Praed, Mrs. Campbell, 241 - - Prowse, R. O., 297 - - - Raper, R. W., 10, 192-193 - - Ratti, Henry, 240 - - Reid, Rt. Hon. Sir George, 178-179 - - Reid, Sir H. Gilzean, 201-202 - - Reid, Whitelaw, 322 - - Renshaws, The, 297-298 - - Richards, J. M., 322-323 - - Ridge, W. Pett, 98, 172 - - “Rita,” 244 - - Rives, Amelie, 131 - - Roberts, Field-Marshal Earl, V.C., 120, 167, 169 - - Roberts, Morley, 285-286 - - Robertson, Rt. Rev. A., Bishop of Exeter, 10 - - Robertson, Sir George Scott, M.P., 177-178 - - Robertson, Mrs. Ian, 334 - - Robins, Elizabeth, 341-342 - - Robinson, F. W., 255-256 - - Robinson, Fletcher, 275 - - Rockman, Ray, 340-341 - - Rolfe, Eustace Neville, 207 - - Roosevelt, Theodore, 224 - - Rose, Algernon, 159-160 - - Rosebery, Lord, 235 - - “Ross, Adrian,” 113-114 - - Rowe, Mrs. Jopling, 64, 347 - - Rusden, G. W., 248-249 - - - St. Helier, Lady, 125, 293 - - Salisbury, late Marquess of, 264 - - Sambourne, Linley, 357 - - Sarrûf, Dr., 224 - - Sauber, Robert, 358 - - Savage Club, 181-187 - - Saxony, Ex-Crown Princess of, 141, 142 - - Schmalz, Herbert, 347 - - Scott, Capt., R.N., 173 - - Seaman, Sir Owen, 200 - - Seddon, Rt. Hon. J. R., 171 - - Selous, F. C., 313-314 - - Seton, Sir Bruce, 26 - - Seton, Ernest Thompson, 173-174, 302 - - Seymour, Admiral Sir Edward, 151 - - Seymour, Admiral Sir Michael Culme, 34 - - Shannon, J. J., R.A., 348 - - Sharp, William, 25, 112, 113 - - Shaw, Bernard, 65, 237 - - Shaylor, Joseph, 301-302 - - Sherman, Gen. W. Tecumseh, 30 - - Shorter, Clement, 196-197 - - Shorter, Dora Sigerson, 115-116 - - Sickert, B., 92-93 - - Sidgwick, Henry, 105-106 - - Sidgwick, Mrs. A., 136 - - Sidney, F. E., 80 - - Sinclair, Archdeacon, 155, 156, 304-305 - - Sladen, Arthur, C.M.G., 6 - - Sladen, Sir Charles, K.C.M.G., 14 - - Sladen, Douglas Brooke (my father), 1 - - Sladen, Col. Sir Edward, 120 - - Sladen, Gen. John, 120 - - Sladen, John Baker, D.L., J.P., 1 - - Sladen, Lieut. Sampson, R.N., 6, 69 - - Smith, Frank Hopkinson, 265-266 - - Smith, Goldwin, 32 - - Solomon, Solomon J., R.A., 347 - - Southesk, the late Earl of, 238 - - Spender, Harold, 200 - - Spender, J. A., 200 - - Spielmann, M. H., 306 - - Stanley, Lady (Dorothy), 316-317 - - Stanley, Sir H. M., 105, 316 - - Stanton, Father, 10, 80-81, 170-171 - - Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 27, 52, 96 - - Steel, Mrs. Flora Annie, 123, 175 - - Steevens, G. W., 318 - - Stepniak, Sergius, 67, 154 - - “Stevens, Miss E. S.,” 143-145 - - Stockdale _versus_ Hansard, 1 - - Stockton, Frank, 97-98, 154 - - Stoker, Bram, 80 - - Strindberg, August, 67 - - Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, 12 - - “Swan, Annie S.,” 137 - - “Swift, Benjamin,” 285 - - - Taylor, J. H., 72 - - Tedder, H. R., 158 - - Tennyson, 309 - - Terry, Fred, 329 - - “Thirlmere, Rowland,” 114 - - Thomas, Brandon, 183 - - Thomas, Margaret, 249 - - Thomson, Basil, 325 - - Thring, G. Herbert, 158-160 - - Thurston, Katherine Cecil, 136 - - Tree, Sir H. Beerbohm–, 344 - - Trench, Herbert, 110 - - Tringham, Holland, 356-357 - - Turner, Henry Gyles, 248, 249 - - “Twain, Mark,” 53, 95-97, 303 - - Tynan, Katherine, 116 - - - Vachell, H. A., 271-273 - - Vagabonds’ Club, The, 162-182 - - Van Horne, Sir William, 31 - - Victoria, H.M. Queen, 189-190 - - Villiers, Fred, 326 - - Visetti, Albert, 115 - - - Ward, Sir Edward, K.C.B., 178 - - Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 126-127, 241 - - Ward, John, F.S.A., 318 - - Watson, A. E. T., 202-203 - - Watson, H. B. Marriott, 279-280 - - Watson, R. Seton-, 323 - - Watson, William, 106 - - Watt, A. P., 204 - - Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 113 - - Webbe, A. J., 191-192 - - Webster, Ben, 330-331 - - Weigall, A. E. P., 318-319 - - Welch, James, 107, 332-333 - - Wells, H. G., 99-100 - - Weyman, Stanley, 255 - - Wheelton, Mr. John, Sheriff, 1 - - Wheelton, Mary (my mother), 4, 5, 6 - - Whistler, J. MacNeill, 64 - - Whitaker, G. H., 199 - - White, Gleeson, 112 - - White, Herbert K., 197 - - White, Percy, 267-268 - - Whittier, John Greenleaf, 27 - - Wilberforce, Archdeacon, 305-306 - - Wilde, Oscar, 64, 108-111 - - Wilkins, Mary E., 145 - - Wilkins, W. H., 300-301 - - Williamson, Alice (Mrs. C. N.), 132-133, 163 - - Williamson, C. N., 132-133 - - Williamson, Dr. G. C., 304 - - Willoughby de Broke, Lord, 174-175 - - Wills, C. J., 320 - - Wingate, Sir Reginald, 317, 318 - - “Winter, John Strange,” 133-134 - - Wolf, Lucien, 154-155 - - Wolseley, Field-Marshal Viscount, 151-152 - - Wood, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn, V.C., 154 - - Wood, J. S., 201 - - Woods, Rev. H. G., Master of the Temple, 11 - - Woods, Margaret, 128-129 - - Worsfold, Dr. Cato, 159 - - Wright, Huntley, 330 - - Wyndham, Sir Charles, 343-344 - - Wynfield, David Wilkie, 346 - - - Yeats, W. B., 106-107 - - - Zangwill, Israel, 88, 91-94 - - Zola, Emile, 67, 154 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, - BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., - AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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} - .c022 { font-size: 0.7em; } - .c023 { font-size: 85%; } - .c024 { margin-left: 1.39%; margin-top: 1em; font-size: 85%; } - .c025 { margin-top: 1em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } - .c026 { margin-top: .5em; } - body {width:80%; margin:auto; font-size: 14pt; } - .tnbox {background-color:#E3E4FA;border:1px solid silver;padding: 0.5em; - margin:2em 10% 0 10%; } - .box1 {border-style: solid; border-width:thick; padding: 1em; margin: 0 10% 0 10% } - h1 {font-size: 2em } - h2 {font-size: 1.5em } - .std-table {font-size:85% } - </style> - </head> - <body> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Twenty Years of My Life, by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Twenty Years of My Life</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Illustrator: Yoshio Markino</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: May 18, 2021 [eBook #65376]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: MFR, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE ***</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div> - <h1 class='c001'>TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE</h1> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c002' /> -</div> -<div id='frontis' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/frontis.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE ROOF GARDEN AND POMPEIAN FOUNTAIN AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS.<br />(<i>From the Painting by Yoshio Markino.</i>)</p> -</div> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='c004'>TWENTY YEARS</span></div> - <div><span class='c004'>OF MY LIFE</span></div> - <div class='c005'><span class='small'>BY</span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='xlarge'>DOUGLAS SLADEN</span></div> - <div class='c000'><span class='small'>AUTHOR OF “WHO’S WHO”</span></div> - <div class='c005'>WITH FOUR COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS AND TWELVE PORTRAITS</div> - <div class='c000'><span class='small'>BY</span></div> - <div><span class='xlarge'>YOSHIO MARKINO</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/publogo.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c005'> - <div><span class='xlarge'>NEW YORK</span></div> - <div><span class='xlarge'>E·P·DUTTON & COMPANY</span></div> - <div><span class='xlarge'>PUBLISHERS</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div><span class='c006'><span class='sc'>Printed in Great Britain by</span></span></div> - <div><span class='c006'><span class='sc'>Richard Clay & Sons, Limited</span>,</span></div> - <div><span class='c006'>BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E.,</span></div> - <div><span class='c006'>AND BUNGAY SUFFOLK.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c002' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c002'> - <div>AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED</div> - <div class='c000'>TO</div> - <div class='c000'><span class='xlarge'>JEROME K. JEROME</span></div> - <div class='c000'>ONE OF THE EARLIEST AND DEAREST OF MY</div> - <div class='c000'>LITERARY FRIENDS</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c002' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span> - <h2 class='c007'>INTRODUCTION</h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>When</span> I wrote <i>Who’s Who</i>, sixteen or seventeen years ago, -I used to receive shoals of funny letters from people who -wanted, or did not want, to be included, and now, when I -have not edited the book for more than a dozen years, I still -receive letters of criticism on the way in which I conduct it, -and usually consign them to limbo. A few months ago, -however, I received the subjoined letter, which is so out of -the ordinary that I quote it to show what illustrious correspondents -I have. I must not attach the author’s name, -though every grown-up man in the civilised world would be -interested to know it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Sir</span>,</p> -<p class='c010'>“Kindly cease to omit my name from your ever-increasing -list of persons as annually placed before the -public for sale at any price it is worth. Just put me down -in place of Victoria Alice, who is an American pure and -simple, while I am left out in the cold. I am the daughter of -King Edward VII....<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c011'><sup>[1]</sup></a> I am the legal spouse of -Nicholas II, Czar of Russia, being legally married to him -in 1890, Aug. 14, a ratification of which occurrence was held -by me in hallway of British Embassy, Paris, France, 1900, -same date. Just give me a notice, will you, instead of harping -on the sisterhood of King George V, who form among themselves -a similar affair to that held by female contingent of -Synagogue, doing more damage in the community, and -eventually in the world, than any one set of people anywhere, -with method so secret that even Rabbi is unable to uncover -the original design known as main point in England.</p> -<div class='c012'>“Sincerely,</div> -<div class='c012'>“Etc., etc.</div> -<p class='c013'>“<i>October 23, 1913.</i>”</p> - -<div class='footnote c014' id='f1'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. </span>This portion of the letter could not be printed.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>If I could tell all I know about the interesting people I -have met, the book would read like my own <i>Who’s Who</i> -re-written by Walter Emanuel for publication in <i>Punch</i>. As -it is, the book contains a great deal of information about -<span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>celebrities which could never appear in <i>Who’s Who</i>, and all -the best anecdotes which I remember about my friends, -except those which would turn my friends into enemies, and -even some of those I mean to give in this preface, minus the -names, to prevent their being lost to posterity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The twenty years of my life which I here present to readers -are the twenty years which I spent at 32, Addison Mansions, -Kensington, during which I was in constant intercourse with -most of the best-known writers of the generation. The book -is therefore largely taken up with personal reminiscences and -impressions of them—indeed, not a few of them, such as -Conan Doyle, J. K. Jerome, I. Zangwill, H. A. Vachell, Charles -Garvice, Eden Phillpotts, Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Mrs. -Croker, Mrs. Perrin, Madame Albanesi, Compton Mackenzie, -and Jeffery Farnol’s mentor, wrote specially for this book -an account of the circumstances which led to their being -authors. For it must be remembered that the majority of -authors start life in some other profession, and drift into -authorship as they discover their aptitude for it. Conan -Doyle was a doctor, in busy practice when he wrote <i>The -White Company</i>; Jerome was a lawyer’s clerk when he -wrote <i>Three Men in a Boat</i>; both Hardy and Hall Caine began -as architects; Zangwill was a teacher, and W. W. Jacobs was -a clerk in the General Post Office.</p> - -<p class='c016'>An index of the authors of whom personal reminiscences -are told in this book will be found at the end.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Its earlier chapters deal with my life prior to our going to -Addison Mansions, giving details of my parentage and bringing-up, -of the seven years I spent in Australia and the United -States, and my long visits to Canada and Japan. From that -point forward, except for the four chapters which deal with -the writing of my books, the present volume is occupied -chiefly with London literary society from 1891 to 1911.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was in the ’nineties that the late Sir Walter Besant’s -efforts to bring authors together by the creation of the -Authors’ Club, and their trade union, the Authors’ Society, -bore fruit. English writers, who had hitherto been the -reverse of gregarious, began to meet each other very often -at receptions and clubs.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In those days one made new friends among well-known -authors, artists, and theatrical people every day, at places -like the Authors’, Arts, Vagabonds, Savage, Hogarth and -Argonauts’ Clubs, the Idler teas, and women’s teas at the -Pioneer Club, the Writers’ Club, and the Women Journalists’, -and various receptions in Bohemia. It was almost an offence -<span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>to spend an entire afternoon, or an entire evening, in any other -way, and though it made inroads on one’s time for work, and -time for exercise, it gave one an intimacy, which has lasted, -with men and women who have since risen to the head of -their professions. That intimacy is reflected in these pages, -which show a good deal of the personal side of the literary -movement of the ’nineties and the literary club life of the -period.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have endeavoured in this book to interest my readers in -two ways—by telling them the circumstances in my bringing-up, -and my subsequent life, which made me a busy man of -letters instead of a lawyer, and by giving them my reminiscences -of friends who have won the affection of the public -in literature, in art, and on the stage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As I feel that a great many of my readers will be much -more interested in my reminiscences than in my life, I advise -them to begin at Chapter VI—or, better still, Chapter VIII—from -which point forward, with the exceptions of Chapters -XVI-XIX, the book is taken up more with the friends I have -had the good fortune to know than with myself.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Before concluding, I will give three or four stories too -personal to have names attached to them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I once heard a Bishop, who in those days was a smug and -an Oxford Don, remark to a circle of delighted undergraduates, -“My brother Edward thinks I’m an awful fool.” As his -brother Edward was Captain of the Eton Eleven, and -amateur champion of something or other, there is no doubt -that his brother Edward did think him an awful fool.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I once heard an author, at the very moment that Robert -Louis Stevenson, as we had learnt by telegram that afternoon, -was lying in state under the sky at Samoa, awaiting burial, -say, replying to the toast of his health at a public dinner, -that he had been led to write his most popular book by the -perusal of Stevenson’s <i>Treasure Island</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I said to myself,” he naïvely remarked, “that if I could -not write a better book than that in six weeks, I would shoot -myself.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The same man, when another of his books had been dramatised, -and he was called before the curtain on the first night -of its production, informed the audience that it was a very -good play, and that it would be a great success when it was -decently acted. So complacent was he about it that the -friend who tried to pull him back behind the curtain by -the tails of his dress-coat failed until he had split the coat -up to the collar.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>This man has the very best instincts, but he has a genius -for poking his finger into people’s eyes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I once knew the brother of a Bishop, who left the Church -of England, and went to America to be a Unitarian clergyman, -because he wished to marry a pretty American heiress, -and he had a wife already in England. By and by his new -sect heard of it, and expelled him with conscious or unconscious -humour for “conduct incompatible with membership -in the Unitarian Church.” He hired a hall from the piano -company opposite, and nearly the whole congregation moved -across the street with him. Except in the matter of monogamy, -he was a most Christian man, and his congregation -had the highest respect and affection for him and his bigamous -wife; and this in spite of the fact that he constantly alluded -to the Trinity as he warmed to his subject in sermons for the -edification of Unitarians. If he noticed it, he corrected himself -and said Triad. He was one of the most delightful men -I ever met, and his influence on his congregation was of the -very best.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the days when I saw so much of actors at our own flat, -and went every Sunday night to the O.P., I was once asked -to arbitrate in a dispute between an actor-manager and the -critic of a great daily, who had exchanged “words” in the -theatre. The critic either dreaded the expense of a lawsuit, -or had no desire to make money if he could obtain the <i>amende -honorable</i>. I heard all they had to say, and then I turned -round and said to the great actor, “Did you say that about -Mr. ——?” and he replied with an Irishism which I got -accepted as an apology: “I really couldn’t say; I’m such a -liar that I never know what I have said and what I haven’t -said.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>These are stories to which I could not append the names, -but the reader will find as good and better if he turns up the -names of S. H. Jeyes, Oscar Wilde and Phil May in the index.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> -<div class='std-table'> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='14%' /> -<col width='74%' /> -<col width='11%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c017'><span class='small'>CHAP.</span></td> - <td class='c018'> </td> - <td class='c019'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>I</td> - <td class='c018'>MY LIFE (1856-1886)</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>II</td> - <td class='c018'>MY LIFE (1886-1888)</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_20'>20</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>III</td> - <td class='c018'>I GO TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_26'>26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>IV</td> - <td class='c018'>I GO TO JAPAN</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_35'>35</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>V</td> - <td class='c018'>BACK TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_46'>46</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>VI</td> - <td class='c018'>LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_52'>52</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>VII</td> - <td class='c018'>WE START OUR LITERARY AT-HOMES IN LONDON</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_57'>57</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>VIII</td> - <td class='c018'>OUR AT-HOMES: YOUNG AUTHORS WHO ARE NOW GREAT AUTHORS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_73'>73</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>IX</td> - <td class='c018'>THE HUMORISTS AT OUR AT-HOMES</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_82'>82</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>X</td> - <td class='c018'>THE POETS AT OUR AT-HOMES</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_103'>103</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XI</td> - <td class='c018'>LADY AUTHORS AT ADDISON MANSIONS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XII</td> - <td class='c018'>LITERARY CLUBS: MY CONNECTION WITH THE AUTHORS’ CLUB</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_146'>146</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XIII</td> - <td class='c018'>LITERARY CLUBS: THE IDLERS AND THE VAGABONDS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_162'>162</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XIV</td> - <td class='c018'>LITERARY CLUBS: THE SAVAGE CLUB</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XV</td> - <td class='c018'>MY CONNECTION WITH JOURNALISM</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_188'>188</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XVI</td> - <td class='c018'>THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART I</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_204'>204</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XVII</td> - <td class='c018'>THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART II</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_216'>216</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XVIII</td> - <td class='c018'>THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS. PART III</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_223'>223</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XIX</td> - <td class='c018'>HOW I WROTE “WHO’S WHO”</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_233'>233</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>XX</td> - <td class='c018'>AUSTRALIANS IN LITERATURE</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_240'>240</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXI</td> - <td class='c018'>MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART I</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_251'>251</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXII</td> - <td class='c018'>MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART II</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_279'>279</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXIII</td> - <td class='c018'>MY NOVELIST FRIENDS. PART III</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_288'>288</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXIV</td> - <td class='c018'>OTHER AUTHOR FRIENDS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_300'>300</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXV</td> - <td class='c018'>FRIENDS WHO NEVER CAME TO ADDISON MANSIONS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_307'>307</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXVI</td> - <td class='c018'>MY TRAVELLER FRIENDS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_312'>312</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXVII</td> - <td class='c018'>MY ACTOR FRIENDS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_328'>328</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c017'>XXVIII</td> - <td class='c018'>MY ARTIST FRIENDS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#Page_346'>346</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span> - <h2 class='c007'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>COLOURED PICTURES BY YOSHIO MARKINO</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='std-table'> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='88%' /> -<col width='11%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>THE ROOF GARDEN OF 32 ADDISON MANSIONS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#frontis'><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>THE MOORISH ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i072f'>72</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>THE DINING-ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS IN WHICH MOST OF MY BOOKS WERE WRITTEN</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i204f'>204</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>THE JAPANESE ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i306f'>306</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>PORTRAITS BY YOSHIO MARKINO</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='std-table'> - -<table class='table2' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='88%' /> -<col width='11%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>DOUGLAS SLADEN</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i026f'>26</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>ISRAEL ZANGWILL</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i050f'>50</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i074f'>74</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>JEROME K. JEROME</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i098f'>98</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>MISS BRADDON</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i124f'>124</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>CHARLES GARVICE</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i150f'>150</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>G. B. BURGIN</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i174f'>174</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>SIDNEY LOW</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i191f'>119</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>HALL CAINE</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i224f'>224</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>W. B. MAXWELL</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i278f'>279</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>SIR GILBERT PARKER</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i324f'>324</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c018'>SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM-TREE</td> - <td class='c019'><a href='#i344f'>344</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span> - <h2 class='c007'>INDEX OF REMINISCENCES</h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>At</span> the end of the book will be found an index of the -well-known people about whom personal reminiscences or -new facts are told—such as Prince Alamayu of Abyssinia, -Mme. Albanesi, Sir Edwin Arnold, Lena Ashwell, Sarah -Bernhardt, Sir Walter Besant, Rolf Boldrewood, Hall -Caine, Dion Clayton Calthrop, Mrs. Clifford, Bishop -Creighton, Mrs. Croker, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Lord -Dundonald, Sir J. Forbes-Robertson, Charles Garvice, -Bishop Gore, Sarah Grand, George Grossmith, Thomas -Hardy, Bret Harte, W. E. Henley, Robert Hichens, -John Oliver Hobbes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Anthony -Hope, J. K. Jerome, S. H. Jeyes, C. Kernahan, A. H. Savage -Landor, Maarten Maartens, Compton MacKenzie, Yoshio -Markino, “Bob” Martin, George Meredith, Frankfort -Moore, Dr. G. E. Morrison of Peking, F. W. H. Myers, -Nansen, Cardinal Newman, Mrs. Perrin, Eden Phillpotts, -Rt. Hon. Sir Geo. Reid, Whitelaw Reid, Lord Roberts, -the late Lord Salisbury, F. Hopkinson Smith, Father -Stanton, Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, August Strindberg, -Mark Twain, H. A. Vachell, J. M. Whistler, Percy White, -Oscar Wilde, Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Lord -Willoughby de Broke, Margaret Woods, Sir Charles -Wyndham and Israel Zangwill.</p> -<div class='c020'>D. S.</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span><span class='c021'>TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER I<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY LIFE (1856-1886)</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>I was</span> born on February 5, 1856, in the town-house of -my maternal grandfather. My father, a solicitor by profession, -who died in the last days of 1910, at the age of -eighty-six, was almost the youngest of the sixteen children -of my paternal grandparents, John Baker Sladen, D.L., -J.P., of Ripple Court, near Dover, and Etheldred St. Barbe. -The name St. Barbe has been freely bestowed on their -descendants because the first St. Barbe in this country has -the honour of appearing on the Roll of Battle Abbey.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My maternal grandparents were John Wheelton and Mary -Wynfield. Mr. Wheelton (I was never able to discover any -other person named Wheelton, till I found, among the -survivors of the loss of the <i>Titanic</i>, a steward called Wheelton; -truly the name has narrowly escaped extinction), from whom -I get my third Christian name, was in business as a shipper -on the site of the General Post Office, and was Master of the -Cordwainers’ Company. He was Sheriff of London in the -year of Queen Victoria’s marriage. Though he lived at -Meopham near Tonbridge, he came from Manchester, and -I am, therefore, a Lancashire man on one side of the house. -But oddly enough I have never been to Manchester.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Charles Dickens, when he first became a writer, was a -frequent guest at his hospitable table, and has immortalised -him in one of his books. He was in a way immortalised by -taking a leading part in one of the most famous law cases in -our history, Stockdale <i>versus</i> Hansard. As Sheriff he had -to levy an execution on Hansard, the printer to the House -of Commons, who had published in the reports of the debates -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>a libel on Mr. Stockdale. The House declared it a breach of -privilege, and sentenced the Sheriff to be imprisoned in the -Speaker’s house, from which he was shortly afterwards -released on the plea of ill-health. But with the City of -London as well as the Law Courts against them, the members -of the House of Commons determined to avoid future collisions -by bringing in a bill to make the reports of the proceedings -of Parliament privileged and this duly became law.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have in my possession an enormous silver epergne, -supported by allegorical figures of Justice and others, which -the City of London presented to my grandfather in honour -of this occasion, with a few survivors of a set of leather fire-buckets, -embellished with the City arms, which now do -duty as waste-paper baskets.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was baptised in Trinity Church, Paddington, and shortly -afterwards my parents went to live at 22, Westbourne Park -Terrace, Paddington, continuing there till 1862.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was in this year that my last sister, Mrs. Young, was -born, just before we changed houses. My eldest sister, who -married the late Rev. Frederick Robert Ellis, only son of -Robert Ridge Ellis, of the Court Lodge, Yalding, Kent, and -for many years Rector of Much Wenlock, was born in 1850. -My second sister, who married Robert Arundel Watkins, -eldest surviving son of the Rev. Bernard Watkins, of Treeton, -and afterwards of Lawkland Hall, Yorkshire, was born in -1851; and my brother, the Rev. St. Barbe Sydenham Sladen, -who holds one of the City livings, St. Margaret Patten, was -born in 1858.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My father, having become better off by the death of my -two grandfathers in 1860 and 1861, bought a ninety-six -years’ lease of Phillimore Lodge, Campden Hill, which I -sold in 1911.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I believe that I never left London till I was four years -old, when we all went to stay with my uncle, the Rev. William -Springett, who still survives, at Dunkirk Vicarage, near -Canterbury. While we were there I first saw and dipped -my hands in the sea, which I was destined to traverse so -often, at a place called Seasalter, to which we drove from -Dunkirk.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>From 1862 to 1868, when my mother died, we children -generally spent the summer at Brighton, from which my -father went away to a moor in Yorkshire for the grouse-shooting. -As a child, I soon grew tired of Brighton, which -seemed so like a seaside suburb of London. I used to think -that the sea itself, which had no proper ships on it, was like -a very large canal. I longed for real sea, like we had seen -at Deal, where we went to stay in my grandmother Sladen’s -dower-house, shortly after our visit to Dunkirk. There we -had seen a full-rigged ship driven on to the beach in front of -our house in a gale, and had seen the lifeboat and the Deal -luggers putting out to wrecks on the Goodwin Sands, and -had seen the largest ships of the day in the Downs. I -loved the woods we had rambled in, between Dunkirk and -Canterbury, even better still. I never found the ordinary -seaside place tolerable till I became enamoured of golf. -Without golf these places are marine deserts.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I never tasted the real delights of the country till we -went in the later ’sixties to a farmhouse on the edge of the -Duke of Rutland’s moors above Baslow, in Derbyshire. -With that holiday I was simply enchanted. For rocks meant -fairyland, as they still do, to me. And there I had, besides -rocks, like the Cakes of Bread, the clear, trout-haunted -mountain-river Derwent, and romantic mediæval architecture -like Haddon Hall. Besides, we were allowed to run wild -on the farm, to sail about the shallow pond in a cattle-trough, -to help to make Wensleydale cheeses (this part of Derbyshire -arrogates the right to use the name), and to hack the garden -about as much as we liked. It was there that I had my first -real games of Red Indians and Robinson Crusoe, and there -that I had the seeds of my passion for architecture implanted -in me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We drove about a great deal—to the Peak, with its caverns -and its queer villages, to the glorious Derbyshire Dales, and -to great houses like Chatsworth. Certainly Baslow was my -fairy-godmother in authorship, and my literary aspirations -were cradled in Derbyshire. My father gave me a good -schooling in the beauties of England. We were always taken -to see every place of any interest for its scenery, its buildings, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>or its history, which could be reached in a day by a pair of -horses from the house, where we were spending our summer -holidays. He had the same <i>flair</i> for guide-books as I have, -and taught me how to use them intelligently.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Up till 1864 I was taught by governesses with my elder -sisters. There were three of them, Miss Morrison, Miss Bray, -and Miss Rose Sara Paley, an American Southerner, whose -parents had been ruined by the Civil War. She was a very -charming and intelligent woman, and taught my eldest sister -to compose in prose and verse. For a long time this sister -was the author of our home circle. I was too young to try -composition in those days, but seeing my eldest sister do it -familiarised me with the idea of it. I also had a music -mistress, because it was hoped that playing the piano would -restore my left hand to its proper shape, after the extraordinary -accident which I had when I was only two years -old. She was Miss Rosa Brinsmead, a daughter of the John -Brinsmead who founded the famous piano-making firm. The -point which I remember best about her was that she had -fair ringlets like Princess (now Queen) Alexandra, who had -just come over from Denmark and won all hearts.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The accident happened by my falling into the fireplace, -when my nurse left me for a minute. To raise myself up -I caught hold of the bar of the grate with my left hand, and -scorched the inside out. It is still shrivelled, though fifty-five -years have passed since that awful day for my mother, -when she found her only son, as she thought, crippled for -life.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But though it chapped terribly every winter, and would -not open properly for the next three or four years, I soon -got back the use of my hand, and no one now suspects it of -being the least disfigured till I hold it open to show them. -The back was uninjured, and it looks a very nice hand by -X-rays, when only the bones are visible.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The doctor recommended that, being a child of a very -active brain (I asked quite awkward questions about the -birth of my brother shortly afterwards), I should be taught -to read while I was kept in bed, as the only means of keeping -my hand out of danger, and I was given a box of letters which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>I always arranged upon the splint of my wounded hand. -By the time that it was well I could read, and on my fifth -birthday I was given the leather-bound Prayer-book which -I had been promised whenever I could read every word -in it. I have the Prayer-book still, half a century later.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Poor Miss Brinsmead had a hopeless task, for though I -could learn to read so easily, I never could learn to play on -the piano with both hands at the same time, except in the -very baldest melodies, like “God Save the Queen,” and the -“Sultan’s Polka.” These I did achieve.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In 1864 I was sent to a dame’s school in Kensington -Square, kept by the Misses Newman, from which I was -shortly afterwards transferred to another kept by Miss -Daymond, an excellent teacher, where I had Johnny and -Everett Millais, and sons of other great artists, for my -schoolfellows.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In 1866, though it nearly broke my mother’s heart, I -was sent to my first boarding-school, Temple Grove, East -Sheen—in the old house where Dorothy Temple had lived, -and Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, the greatest -of that illustrious race, was born—the school, moreover, -which had numbered Benjamin Disraeli among its pupils. -How many people are there who know that Dizzy was -schooled in the house in which Palmerston was born—those -two great apostles of British prestige?</p> - -<p class='c016'>Here I stayed for three years before I won the first junior -scholarship at Cheltenham College, and here, from my -house-master, I had a fresh and wonderful department of -knowledge opened to me, for he used to take me naturalising -(both by day and by night, when the other boys were -in bed) on Sheen Common, then wild enough to have snakes -and glow-worms and lizards, as well as newts and leeches, -and rich in insect prizes. I won this favour because he -accidentally discovered that I knew “Mangnall’s Questions” -and “Common Subjects” by heart. But though he -was Divinity Master, he never discovered that I knew my -Bible quite as well.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He also taught me to lie. I had never told a lie till I -went to Temple Grove. But as he prided himself on his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>acuteness, he was constitutionally unable to believe the -truth. It was too obvious for him. When I found that he -invariably thought I was lying while I still obeyed my -mother’s teaching, and was too afraid of God to tell a lie, -I suddenly made up my mind that I would humour him, -and tell whatever lie was necessary to this transparent -Sherlock Holmes. After this he always believed me, unless -I accidentally forgot and told him the truth. And I liked -him so much that I wished him to believe me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He did not injure my character as much as he might have -done, because I was born with a loathing for insincerity. -The difficulty came when he and Waterfield, the head -master, questioned me about the same thing, for Waterfield -mesmerised one into telling the truth, and he tempted one -to tell a lie. It reminds me now of Titian’s “Sacred and -Profane Love.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Temple Grove I acquired my taste for games and taste -for natural history.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In 1868, my mother, to whom I was passionately attached, -died. I used to dream that she was alive for months afterwards. -And the great theosophist to whom I mentioned this -sees in it an astral communication. To divert my thoughts -from this, the greatest grief I had ever had, I was sent to -stay with my cousin, Colonel Joseph Sladen, who had already -succeeded to Ripple Court, and was then a Gunner Captain, -stationed at Sheerness. He belonged to the Royal Yacht -Squadron, and had a schooner yacht in which we used to -go away for cruises up the Channel. I was a little boy of -twelve, and his two eldest sons, Arthur Sladen, now H.R.H. -the Duke of Connaught’s Private Secretary in Canada, and -Sampson Sladen, now the Chief of the London Fire Brigade, -were hardly more than babies, but I enjoyed it very much, -because I was interested in the yachting and in the firing -of the hundred-pounder Armstrongs, which were the monster -guns of those days. We went in my cousin’s yacht to see the -new ironclad fleets of Great Britain and France, and we went -over the <i>Black Prince</i> and the <i>Minotaur</i>, the crack ships of -the time.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A year after that, exactly on the first anniversary of my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>mother’s death, I went to Cheltenham College, where I had -taken a scholarship. I was at Cheltenham College six years, -and took four scholarships and many prizes at the school, -the most interesting of which, in view of my after life, was -the prize for the English Poem. I was also Senior Prefect, -Editor of the school magazine, Captain of Football, and -Captain of the Rifle Corps. I shot for the school four times -in the Public School competitions at Wimbledon, and in 1874 -won the Spencer Cup, which was open to the best shot from -each of the Public Schools. I was the school representative -for it also in 1873.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Cheltenham, I suppose, I laid the foundations of my -literary career, because, besides editing the school magazine -for a couple of years, and writing the Prize Poem, I read -every book in the College library. It was such a delight to -me to have the run of a well-stocked library. The books at -home were nearly all religious books. I was brought up on -the sternest low-Church lines; we went to church twice a day -on Sunday, besides having prayers read twice at home, and -hymns sung in the afternoon. The church we attended was -St. Paul’s, Onslow Square, where I had to listen to hour-long -sermons from Capel Molyneux and Prebendary Webb-Peploe. -The dull and long services were almost intolerable, -except when Millais, the great painter, who had the next -pew, asked me into his pew to relieve the crush in ours. -Millais sat so upright and so forward when he was listening -that my father could not see me, and I used to bury my -face in the beautiful Mrs. Millais’ sealskin jacket; I had -such an admiration for her that I did not go to sleep. Millais—he -was not Sir John in those days—did not make his children -go to church; I suppose he went because he was fascinated -by the eloquence of the sermons. Molyneux, Marston and -Peploe were all great preachers, though they bored an unfortunate -small boy to the verge of nervous prostration. -We were only allowed to read Sunday books on Sunday, and -the newspapers were put away, as they were to the day of -my father’s death in 1910.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After my mother’s death I always longed to get back to -school, because, though we had to go to chapel every day, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>and twice on Sunday, there was not that atmosphere of -religion which made me, as a small boy, begin to feel unhappy -about lunch-time on Saturday, and not thoroughly relieved -till after breakfast on Monday. I hated Sunday at home; -the two-mile walk to and from church was the best part -of it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have forgotten two other preparations for a literary -career which I perpetrated at Cheltenham. I and my -greatest friend, a boy called Walter Roper Lawrence (now -Sir W. R. Lawrence, Bart., G.C.I.E.), who afterwards rose -to a position of the highest eminence in India, wrote verses -for the school magazine, and I published a pamphlet to -avenge a contemptuous reference, in the Shotover Papers, -and was duly summoned for libel. The late Frederick -Stroud, the Recorder of Tewkesbury, who was at that time a -solicitor, got me off. I never saw him in after life, which -I much regretted, because he was, like myself, a great student -of everything connected with Adam Lindsay Gordon, the -Australian poet. He died while I was writing our life of -Gordon.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the beginning of 1875 I won an open classical scholarship -at Trinity College, Oxford, where I commenced residence -in the following October. At Oxford again I read voraciously -in the splendid library of the Union.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There my love of games continued unabated. I shot -against Cambridge four years, and won all the shooting -challenge-cups. I also played in the ’Varsity Rugby Union -Football XV when I first went up.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had delightful old panelled rooms on Number 7 staircase—a -chance fact, which won me a great honour and pleasure. -One afternoon, when I came in from playing football, the -College messenger met me, saying, “Grand company in your -rooms this afternoon, Mr. Sladen—the President, and all the -Fellows, and Cardinal Nooman,” and he added, “When the -President looked at your mantelpiece, sir, he <i>corfed</i>.” My -mantelpiece was strewn with portraits of Maud Branscombe, -Eveleen Rayne, Mrs. Rousby, and other theatrical stars of -that day—about a couple of dozen of them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Shortly afterwards the President’s butler arrived with a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>note, which I supposed was to reproach me with the racy -appearance of my mantelpiece, but it was to ask me to spend -the evening with the President, because Cardinal Newman -had expressed a desire to meet the present occupant of his -rooms.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Cardinal, a wan little man with a shrivelled face and -a large nose, and one of the most beautiful expressions which -ever appeared on a human being, talked to me for a couple -of hours, prostrating me with his exquisite modesty. He -wanted to know if the snapdragons, to which he had written -a poem, still grew on the wall between Trinity and Balliol; -he wanted to compare undergraduate life of his day with the -undergraduate life of mine; he asked me about a number of -Gothic fragments in Oxford which might have perished -between his day and mine, and fortunately, I had already -conceived the passion for Gothic architecture which pervades -my books, and was able to tell him about every one. He -told me the marks by which he knew that those were his -rooms; he asked me about my studies, and hobbies, and aims -in life; I don’t think that I have ever felt any honour of the -kind so much.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Oxford I spent every penny I could afford, and more, -on collecting a library of standard works, and I have many -of them still. I remember that the literary Oxonians of that -day discussed poetry much more than prose, and could mostly -be classified into admirers of William Morris and admirers of -Swinburne, and I think the Morrisians were more numerous. -All of them had an academic admiration for Matthew Arnold’s -poems, and could spout from “Thyrsis” and the “Scholar -Gipsy,” which was compared with Keats’ “Ode to a -Nightingale.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Thackeray’s daughter (Lady Ritchie) was at that time the -latest star in fiction, as I occasionally remind her.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had the good fortune to know some of the greatest of the -authors who lived at Oxford when I was an undergraduate—Max -Müller, Bishop Stubbs the historian, Edward Augustus -Freeman, Lewis Carroll, Dean Kitchin, Canon Bright and -W. L. Courtney.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Oxford in those days (as I suppose it does still) revolved -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>largely round “Bobby Raper,” then Dean of Trinity, a -man of infinite tact and kindness, swift to discern ability -and character in an undergraduate, and to make a friend -of their owner, and blessed with a most saving sense of -humour. When they had finished at Oxford, a word from -him found them coveted masterships, or secretaryships to -Public Men. He was the link between Oxford and Public -life, as much as Jowett—the “Jowler” himself—who sat -in John Wycliffe’s seat at Balliol. Lord Milner, St. John -Brodrick and George Curzon have gone farthest of the -Balliol men of my time. Asquith was before me, Edward -Grey after. Trinity ran to Bishops. Most of the men -who sat at the scholars’ table at Trinity in my time who -went into Holy Orders are Bishops now, Archie Robertson, -now Bishop of Exeter, being the senior of them, Bishop -Gore of Oxford, who had rooms on the same floor as I had, -and was one of my greatest friends in my first year, was the -Junior Fellow. He was a very well-off young man, and used -to spend huge sums on buying folios of the Latin Fathers, -and then learn them by heart. There is no one who knows -so much about the Fathers as the Bishop of Oxford. The -present Archbishop of Canterbury was at Trinity, but before -my time, and so was Father Stanton, who went there because -he came of a hunting family, and it was a hunting College, -and he was a Rugby man. Bishop Stubbs and Freeman were -also Trinity men, and generally at the College Gaudies, where -the Scholars used to dine at the same table as the Dons and -their guests. Sir Richard Burton came once to a Gaudy -when I was there, and told me that he was very surprised -that they had asked him, because he had been sent down.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I said, “You are in very good company. The great Lord -Chatham and Walter Savage Landor were sent down from -Trinity as well as you.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>But one well-known literary man of the present day holds -the record over them all, because he was sent down from -Trinity twice.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Although I was a classical scholar, I refused to go in for -Classics in the Final Schools. “Greats,” otherwise <i>Literæ -Humaniores</i>, as this school is called at Oxford, embraces the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>study of Philosophy in the original Greek and Latin of Plato, -Aristotle and Cicero, and Philosophy and Logic generally. -I was sick of the Classics, and I never could take the smallest -interest in Philosophy, so I knew that I should do no good -in this school, and announced my intention of going in for -the School of Modern History. This was too revolutionary -for my tutor. He said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Classical scholars are expected to go in for Greats, and -if you fail to do so, we shall have to consider the taking away -of your scholarship.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was astute in my generation; I went to Gore (the Bishop), -who was my friend, and always met undergraduates as if he -were one of themselves, and said to him, “Will you do -something for me, Gore?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“It depends on what it is,” he replied, with his curious -smile.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Tell the Common-room (<i>i. e.</i> the Dons, who used to -meet in the Common-room every night after dinner) that I -really mean to go in for History whether they take away my -scholarship or not, but that if they do take it away, I shall -take my name off the books of Trinity and go and ask Jowett -if he will admit me at Balliol. You were a Balliol undergrad; -you know the kind of answer that Jowett would -make to a man who was willing to give up an eighty pounds -a year scholarship in order to go in for the School which -interested him.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Jowett will take you,” he said, “but I will see what -can be done here.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>That night I received the most unpleasant note an undergraduate -can receive—a command to meet the Common-room -at ten o’clock the next morning. They were all present -when I went in. The President invited me to take a seat, -and my tutor (the Rev. H. G. Woods, now Master of the -Temple, of whom I still see something) said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Are you quite determined to go in for the School of -History, Mr. Sladen?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Quite,” I replied.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Then we hope that the degree you take will justify us in -assenting to such a very unusual procedure.”</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>Then they all smiled very pleasantly, and I thanked them -and went out.</p> - -<p class='c016'>They must have felt quite justified when, two years afterwards, -I took my First in History with congratulatory letters -from all my examiners, while all the scholars of Trinity who -went in for the <i>School of Literæ Humaniores</i> took Seconds -and Thirds. I should have got a Fourth, I am convinced.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Again I read voraciously. For the first year I hardly -bothered about my text-books at all. I read biographies, -books about architecture and art and literature, historical -novels, the writings of historical personages, everything -which threw brilliant sidelights on my subject. And in the -second year I learnt my text-books almost by heart, except -Stubbs’s <i>Constitutional History</i> and <i>Selected Charters</i>. I -simply could not memorise them—they were so dry, and I -hated the dry bones of <i>Constitutional History</i> almost as badly -as philosophy. I learned digests of them, which took less -time, and were no dryer, and proved equally efficacious in -answering the papers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In after years, when I was entertaining Bishop Stubbs -at a reception, which Montague Fowler and I gave in honour -of Mark Twain at the Authors’ Club, he roared with laughter -when I told him that I got a First in History without reading -his books, by learning the Digests of them by heart.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He said, “I know they are dreadfully dull. Did you find -my lectures very dull when you came to them?” He had -not forgotten that I had attended his lectures for a couple -of years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I said, “No, not at all.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Honestly, did you get any good from them?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Quite honestly?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He nodded.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I said, “Not in the usual way.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Well,” he asked, “how did you get any good from -them?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You must forgive me if I tell you.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Tell me; it cannot be worse than what you said about -my books.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Well,” I confessed, “the reason why I attended your -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>lectures was that you never bothered as to whether I was -there or not, and I hardly ever was there. I did not think any -lectures were any good, but my tutor made me attend sixteen -a week, and the time which I was supposed to spend at your -lectures, I used to spend in my rooms reading. You were -the only gentleman among my lecturers—all the rest used to -call the names, and report me to my tutor if I was absent.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was immensely tickled, and said, “You deserved to get -a First, if you took things as seriously as that.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>But Bishop Stubbs was very human. He always read the -lightest novel he could lay hands on before he went to bed, -to relieve his mind after working, and save him from insomnia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“They are so light,” he said, “that I keep other books -in front of them in my book-case.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>As an author, I have found the education I was given and -gave myself a very useful foundation. Those ten years I -gave to the study of Latin and Greek and classical history -and mythology were not thrown away, because I have -written so many books about Italy and Sicily and Egypt, in -which having the classics at my fingers’ ends made me -understand the history, and the allusions in the materials -I had to digest. It is impossible to write freely about Italy -and Greece unless you know your classics.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The two years of incessant study which I gave to taking -my degree in Modern History at Oxford have been equally -useful, because it is impossible to write guide-books and -books of travel unless you have a sound knowledge of history.</p> - -<p class='c016'>For a brief while my degree in history had a most practical -and technical value, for it won me the Chair of Modern -History in the University of Sydney, New South Wales.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Beyond a week or two in Paris, I had never left England -before I went to Australia in the end of 1879, a few months -after I left Oxford, but I knew my England pretty well, -because my father had always encouraged me to see the -parts of England which contained the finest scenery and the -architectural <i>chefs d’œuvres</i>, like cathedrals. Ireland I had -never visited, and of Scotland I only knew Dumfriesshire, -where my father rented a shooting-box and a moor for four -years; and where I had enjoyed splendid rough shooting when -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>I was a boy, in the very heart of the land of Burns. “The -Grey Mare’s Tail” was on one shooting which we had, and the -Carlyle cottage was right under our Craigenputtock shooting.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I left Oxford my father gave me three hundred -pounds to spend on a year of travel, and I chose to go to -Australia to stay with his eldest brother, Sir Charles Sladen, -K.C.M.G., who had been Prime Minister of the Colony of -Victoria, and was at that time leader of the Upper House, and -of the Constitutional Party in Victoria. I wanted to see if -I should like to settle in the Colonies, and go to the Bar with -a view to a political career. We were not rich enough for -me to think of the House of Commons seriously, and I have -always taken a very keen interest in politics.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Further, I wanted to go and stay on my uncle’s station -to get some riding and shooting, and to see something of the -outdoor life of Australia, of which I had heard so much. -And I wanted desperately to try living in a hot country. I -knew by intuition that I should like heat.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had not been staying with my uncle for a year before -I had made up my mind to live in Australia, a conclusion to -which I was assisted by my marriage with Miss Margaret -Isabel Muirhead, the daughter of a Scotsman from Stirling, -who had owned a fine station called the Grampians in the -Western District of Victoria, and had been killed in a horse -accident. As I had not been called to the Bar before I left -home, I found that I had to go through a two years’ course, -and take a law degree at the Melbourne University. This -I did, though the position was sufficiently anomalous. For -instance, I had to attend lectures by a Member of the Government, -the Solicitor-General. I knew him intimately at the -Melbourne Club and in private life, and we generally used to -walk down to the Club after the lecture. Sometimes we -went into a pub, to have a drink together, and we discussed -anything from the forthcoming Government Bills to Club -stories. He told me one day, before the public knew anything -about it, of the intention of the Government to bring -in a Bill to make sweeps on racing illegal. As much as forty-five -thousand pounds had been subscribed for the Melbourne -Cup Sweep the year before.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>I said, “It is no good making them illegal; it only means -that they will be carried on under the rose, and that a whole -lot of the sweeps will be bogus. You can’t stop sweeps; all -you can do is to put the bogus sweep on a level with Jimmy -Miller’s.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“What would you do, then?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Well, if you really want to stop them, you should legalise -them, and put a twenty-five per cent., or fifty per cent. for -the matter of that, tax upon them. You’d spoil the odds -so that sweeps would die a natural death; and if they didn’t, -you’d get a nice lot of money to save the taxpayer’s pocket. -You would be like the Prince of Monaco, who lives by the -gambling at Monte Carlo.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He duly put the suggestion before the Government, but -they thought that this would be paltering with eternal sin, -and passed their Bill to help the bogus-sweep promoter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This same man and I were asked one night to take part -in a Shakespeare reading at the Prime Minister’s. My friend -was late, and the Prime Minister, who was not a discreet -man, began talking about him. Somebody remarked what -a wonderfully well-informed man he was.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Yes,” said the Prime Minister, “my Solicitor-General is -one of those people who know nothing about everything. And -the way he does it is that he never opens a book; he just reads -what the magazines and papers have to say about books.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Suddenly the Premier felt that his remarks were no longer -being received with enthusiasm, and looking up, saw his -Solicitor-General waiting to shake hands with him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the Melbourne University I formed one intimate -friendship, which has lasted ever since. Among my fellow-students -was Dr. George Ernest Morrison, the famous <i>Times</i> -correspondent of Peking. He was famous in those days as -the finest football player in the Colony, and he began his -adventures while he was at the University. For months -we missed him; nobody knew where he was—or if his father, -who was head master of Geelong College, did know, he never -told. Then suddenly he turned up again, and said that he -had been walking from Cape York, which was the northernmost -point of Australia, to Melbourne. He had undertaken—and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>I don’t think he had any bet on it—to make his way -from Cape York to Melbourne, alone, unarmed and without -a penny in his pocket. In the northernmost part of his -journey, at any rate, there were a great many wild blacks, -and many rivers full of crocodiles to swim. But there are, -of course, no large carnivora in Australia, and a snake can -be killed with a stick. When he was swimming a river he -used to construct a raft, and put his clothes and his pack on -it; he carried a pack like any other sun-downer, and when -he got to a station, did his bit of work to pay for his bed -and supper, and when he left it, if the next station south -was more than a day’s journey, he was given enough food -to carry him through. This is, of course, the universal -custom in Australia when a man is going from station to -station in search of work, such as shearing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He had not a single misadventure. The reason why he -took so long was that his way from station to station naturally -took him out of the direct line to the south, and he made a -stay at some of them. The newspapers were so impressed -with his feat that, shortly afterwards, when the <i>Age</i> organised -an expedition to explore New Guinea, he was given command -of it. That was the last I saw of Morrison till we met a few -years afterwards at my house in London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I never practised for the Melbourne Bar, for no sooner -had I taken my law degree than I was appointed to the -vacant chair of Modern History in the University of Sydney.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had, since I landed in Australia, made my debut as an -author, and had already published two volumes of verse, -<i>Frithjof and Ingebjorg</i> and <i>Australian Lyrics</i>. During the -year that I held my chair, we had apartments in the Old -Government House, Parramatta, which had become a -boarding-house, and spent our vacations on the Hawkesbury -and in the Blue Mountains.</p> - -<p class='c016'>While I was at Parramatta I published a third volume of -verse, <i>A Poetry of Exiles</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Then occurred an event which deprived me of one of my -principal reasons for remaining in Australia, the premature -death of my uncle. This closed my short cut to a political -career; and I had long since come to the conclusion that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>Australia was not the place for a literary career, because -there was no real publishing in Australia. Publishers were -merely booksellers, who acted as intermediaries between -authors and printers; they took no risks of publication; -the author paid, and they received one commission as -publishers and another as booksellers. This did not signify -much for verse; the printing bill for books of verse is not -large, and poets are accustomed to bringing out their works -at their own risk in other countries besides Australia. But -a large prose work of a hundred or a hundred and fifty -thousand words is, at Australian prices, extremely expensive -to produce, and when it is produced, has only a small sale -because it does not bear the name of any well-known English -publishing house.</p> - -<p class='c016'>So I suddenly made up my mind to return to England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The five years I spent in Australia were fruitful for my -career as an author, though I have never published anything -about Australia, except my own verses, and anthologies of -Australian verse, and a life, and an edition of the poems, of -Adam Lindsay Gordon. The last was phenomenally successful; -I am sure that no volume of Browning has ever sold -so well. And one of the anthologies had a sale of twenty -thousand copies in the first ten years of its existence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Australia supplied exactly the right element for my -development. At Cheltenham I was the most prominent -boy of my time, and the prestige with which I came up from -school gave me a certain momentum at Oxford. So I went -out to Australia with a very good opinion of Public Schools, -and Oxford, and myself.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I soon discovered that nothing was of any importance in -Australia except sport and money. If Tennyson or Walter -Scott had gone to a bush-township, he would have been -judged merely by his proficiency or absence of proficiency -as a groom. Horsemanship is the one test of the inhabitants -of a bush-township.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In Melbourne and Sydney and on “stations” it was -different. Hospitality was prodigal, and there was a disposition -to regard with charity one’s shortcomings from the -Colonial point of view, and to accept with sympathy the fact -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>that one had distinguished oneself elsewhere. The Australian -man is very manly, and very hearty; the Australian woman -is apt to be very pretty, and to have a strong personality—to -be full of character as a lover.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The climate of Australia I found absolutely delightful. -It is a land of eternal summer: its winters are only cooler -summers. The unchanging blue of its skies is appalling to -those whose prosperity depends on the rainfall.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I went out to Australia, just after leaving Oxford, -I was enough of a prig to profit very greatly by being suddenly -thrown into an absolutely democratic community. I was -saved from finding things difficult by the fact that I was -born a Bohemian, in spite of my very conventional parentage, -and really did delight in roughing it. The free and easy -Colonial life was a great relief to me after the prim life in -my English home; and staying about on the great stations -in the western district of Victoria, which belonged to various -connections of my family, furnished the finest experience of -my early life. I spent most of my first year in Australia -in that way, returning, in between, to pay visits to my uncle -at Geelong. Being in the saddle every day never lost its -thrill for me, because I had hardly ever been on a horse -before I went to Australia; and wandering about the big -paddocks and the adjoining stretches of forest, gun in -hand—I hardly ever went out without a gun—had something -of the excitement of the books about the American -backwoods which I read in my boyhood. It is true that -I would rather have shot grizzly bears than the native bears -of Australia, mere sloths, and lions and tigers than kangaroos, -but a big “forester” is not to be sneezed at, and Australia -has an extraordinary wealth of strange birds—the cockatoos -and parrots and parakeets alone give a sort of tropical aspect -to the forest, and the snakes give an unpleasantly tropical -aspect, though, fortunately, in Australia, they shrink from -human habitations.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I married I went to live in Melbourne, close to public -gardens of extraordinary beauty and almost tropical luxuriance, -and soon became absorbed in the maelstrom of dancing -and playing tennis, and watching first-class cricket and racing.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>When we went to Parramatta it was easy to make excursions -to the marvellous gorges of the Blue Mountains, which -are among the grandest valley scenery in the world.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Everything was large, and free, and sparsely inhabited—most -expanding to the mind, and the glimpse of the tropical -glories of Oriental Ceylon, which I enjoyed for four days -on my voyage home, made me hear the “East a callin’” for -ever afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I found London desperately dull when we returned to it -in 1884. I had no literary friends, except at Oxford, where -we took a house for three months to get some colour into life -again. It was on the banks of the Cherwell, facing the most -beautiful buildings of Magdalen, and the Gothic glories of -Oxford were manna to my hungry soul.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The summer, spent in Devonshire and Cornwall and -Scotland, was well enough, and in the winter, which we -spent at Torquay, we had grand scenery and beautiful -ancient buildings, but the climate seemed treacherous and -cold after the fierce bright summers of Australia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I must not forget that I came very near not going to -Australia at all. I felt the parting with my father extremely, -and he was quite prostrated by it. I had, a few days before -starting, been introduced to the captain of the old Orient -liner <i>Lusitania</i>, in which I made the voyage—a hard, reckless -sea-dog—and he did me good service on that occasion. Two -letters came on board for me when we put in at Plymouth to -pick up the last mails and passengers. One of these letters -contained a letter from my father to the effect that if I wished -to give up the passage and return home I might do so. The -captain, for some reason or other, whether from having had -a conversation with my father, or what, suspected that the -letter might have some message of that kind—he may have -had the same thing occurring in his experience before—so he -did not give me the letter till the next day, when I had no -possible chance of communicating with England until I got -to the Cape de Verde Islands. By that time, of course, I -had thoroughly settled down to the enjoyments of the -voyage, and looked at the matter in a different light.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER II<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY LIFE (1886-1888)</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>About</span> this time I was struck with the idea that for a -person who intended to make his living by writing books, -Travel was a necessity, and while one had no ties, it cost no -more to live in various parts of the Continent than to live -in London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The desire materialised sooner than it might have done, -because Arthur Chamberlain, whom we had met when we -were sharing a house in Scotland with the Wilkies (wife and -daughters of the famous Melbourne doctor), wrote letters, -which would brook no refusal, for us to come and join him at -Heidelberg, where he was now a student, for the Quincentenary -of the Heidelberg University.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Before we went abroad we had a foretaste of the many -pilgrimages to archæological paradises which we were to -make. We spent six weeks at Canterbury, peculiarly delightful -to me, because my family have been landowners in East -Kent from time immemorial, which made the neighbourhood -of Canterbury full of landmarks for me, and Canterbury is, -after Oxford, fuller of the Middle Ages than any town in -England. Here, having the run of the Cathedral library -given me by its curator, Dr. Shepherd (I hope I have spelt his -name right), I commenced my studies of Edward, the Black -Prince—the local hero, who lies buried in the Cathedral. -This led to my writing the most ambitious of my poems, -“Edward, the Black Prince.” I wrote it among the ruins of -the old Cathedral Monastery at Canterbury, and the first -edition was printed in the Piazza of Santa Croce at Florence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Heidelberg, living for economy in a delightful pension -kept by Miss Abraham, who had been the Kaiser’s English -governess, we met the set who pass their years in wandering -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>from one pension to another on the Continent. Our immediate -future was marked out for us. One family booked us -for a favourite pension at Zurich, another for Lucerne, -another for Lugano, another for Florence, another for Rome, -another for Castellamare di-Stabia below Pompeii.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And so we began the great trek. We summered at Heidelberg. -Autumn in Switzerland was perfectly beautiful, -but the two or three months which we spent in Florence -formed one of the turning-points of my life. It was there -that we found a pension, which called itself an hotel, replete -with the atmosphere and charm and the little luxuries which -Italy knows so well how to give for seven francs a day. -There we met people who came to Florence year after year, -and knew every picture, almost every stone, in it—almost -every ounce of pleasure which was to be got out of it. They -initiated us, in fact, into Florence, which was more of an -education than anything in the world.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Florence is Renaissance in architecture, Gothic in feeling. -Its inhabitants, native and foreign, live in the past. It -was here that I, born with a passion for realising the Middle -Ages, acquired the undying desires which have taken me -back so often and for such long periods, and have inspired -me to write so many books about Italy and Sicily. From the -very beginning I plunged into the life of Florence and the -study of things Italian with extraordinary zest.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Going on to Rome for a month or two inspired me with the -same feeling for the classics as Florence had inspired in me -for the Middle Ages.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I own that, when I was persuaded to go on from Rome to -Castellamare, I did so with certain misgivings. There did -not seem to be the same chances in it. We were going to a -villa outside the town, whose sole attraction seemed to be -that it was six miles from Pompeii.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But when we got there, it had a profound influence on -our lives. It proved to be the villa where the Countess of -Blessington had entertained Byron and others of the immortals, -a beautiful southern house, standing on the green hill which -buries in its bosom the ashes of Vesuvius, and the ruins of -Stabiæ, a city which shared the fate of Pompeii. It had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>a vineyard round it; its quaint garden was overrun with sleepy -lizards, which you never catch asleep—the lizards in which -the genius of Italy seems to live.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We saw the sunset every night on the Bay of Naples and -Ischia, which all the world was talking about then because -of the earthquake which had lately ravished it. Every night -we saw a tree of fire rising from Vesuvius.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We used to spend our days in the orange groves of Sorrento, -or driving in donkey-carts to Pompeii, that city of -the resurrection of the ancient world. The weather was -somnolently mild; for the first time we were eating of the -fruit of the lotus, which we have eaten so often since, and -which has pervaded my writings.</p> - -<p class='c016'>If Castellamare had only done that for us, it would be a -milestone in my life, but it also planted the seeds of unrest—<i>die -Wanderlust</i>—in my veins. Some one we met there—I -don’t remember who it was now—had a craze for Greek ruins; -Roman ruins meant nothing to him, he said; there were -only two places for him, Athens and Sicily.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In Sicily it was Girgenti which won his heart, not Syracuse -or Taormina, and he almost persuaded us to go there. He -obviously preferred it, even to Athens. But the name meant -nothing to me; I had read of Agrigentum in the classics, -and he showed me photographs of the glorious Greek temples, -which are still preserved in the environs of modern Girgenti. -Athens, on the contrary, had been before my mind ever since -I was a boy. The literature of Greece is, with the exception -of Homer and Theocritus, roughly speaking, the literature -of Athens. I knew most of its principal buildings almost as -well as if I had seen them. I heard the call of Athens, and to -Athens we went from Castellamare.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Going there showed how comparatively cheap and easy -it is to get to distant places. We went through Taranto—Tarentum—to -Brindisi; from Brindisi to Corfu, in the Ionian -Islands, the earthly paradise of the fair Nausicaa, and the -empresses of to-day; from Corfu to Patras and Corinth; -from Corinth to Athens.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The moral effect began before ever we reached Athens; -it was so vivifying to a student of the classics to pass Tarentum, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>and Cæsar’s Brundusium, the Lesbos of Sappho, the -Ithaca of Ulysses, Corinth and the Piræus.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lesbos! Corinth! Athens! Sappho! Ulysses! there -was romance and undying poetry in the very names.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Greece of those days really was something out of the -beaten track. There were only two little railways of a few -miles each, and there was not an hotel worthy of the name -anywhere outside of Athens. Even in Athens, if you were -not at a first-class hotel, kid’s flesh, and sheep’s-milk butter, -black bread and honey of Hymettus, and wine which was -full of resin, were the staples of diet. But what did it matter? -We lived in a house and a street with beautiful classical -names—we lived in the house of Hermes. And when we -climbed up to the Acropolis at sunset, we were in an enchanted -land midway between earth and heaven, for we were in the -very heart of history surrounded by milk-white columns of -the marble of Pentelicus, and facing a rich curtain of sunset, -which hung over Ægina, and trailed into the waters of the -Bay of Salamis. Athens is gloriously romantic and beautiful, -and Time has laid its lightest fingers on her rocks and ruins, -whose names are the commonplaces of Greek history.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We spent some glorious weeks at Athens, made interesting -by the acquaintance of Tricoupis, the famous Prime Minister, -and the presence of the President of my college at Oxford—now -Bishop of Hereford, from whom I heard only the other -day. From Athens Miss Lorimer’s unappeasable hunger -to see the world swept us on, after several happy weeks, to -Constantinople—the outpost of the East in Europe. Constantinople -was one of the most delightful experiences of -my life. There is no call which I hear like the call of the East, -and in Constantinople you have the noblest mosques west of -India, and bazaars almost as barbarous as the bazaars of -North Africa, thronged, like the broad bridge of boats which -crosses the Golden Horn, with the mixed races of the Levant, -in their gay, uncouth costumes. The scene, too, is one of -rare beauty, for the great mosques are rooted in dark cypress-groves, -and rear their domes and minarets on the horizon, -and the calm waters of the Golden Horn and the Sea of -Marmora are dotted with fantastic <i>caïques</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>We spent all too short a time there, dipping into the -bowl of Oriental mystery, in perfect April weather, when -we were called home to meet a sister-in-law coming from -Australia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had, in the interval, published two more volumes of verse, -<i>A Summer Christmas</i> and <i>In Cornwall and Across the Sea</i>, -and I had printed at Florence <i>Edward, the Black Prince</i>, begun -during that long visit to Canterbury in the spring of 1886, -during which I steeped myself deeper and deeper in the study -of Gothic architecture, not yet realising what an important -part it was to play in my writing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we returned from Constantinople I had <i>The Black -Prince</i> properly published in England, and though its sales -were trifling, like those of <i>A Summer Christmas</i>, it met with -warm commendation from the critics.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Shortly after this we were inspired with the desire to visit -the United States in the autumn of 1888, and as we were -going so far, we determined so stay in one place while we -were in England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The place we chose was Richmond. I had always loved it -since I was a little boy at Temple Grove School in the neighbouring -village of East Sheen. It was sufficiently in the -country for us to pass a spring and summer there without -irksomeness, and sufficiently beautiful and old-fashioned -to satisfy my cravings.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Richmond we took a house in the Queen’s Road, and but -for the very large sum demanded for fixtures, we should have -abandoned our American trip, and taken the part of the Old -Palace which has now been restored at great expense by -Mr. J. L. Middleton, for which I had a great inclination. -Mr. Middleton is a friend of mine and I have been over it many -times with him. It stands right opposite my study window. -We liked Richmond as much then as we do now, except for the -long trail up from the railway station to the Queen’s Road -when we went to the theatre. We were in the Park or on -the adjoining commons every day, watching the operations -of Nature from the growth to the fall.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was a busy time, for I wrote <i>The Spanish Armada</i> on -the occasion of the Tercentenary of the immortal sea-fight, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>and I edited two anthologies of Australian verse, <i>Australian -Ballads</i> and <i>A Century of Australian Song</i>, for Walter Scott, -Ltd. The pleasure of compiling these two anthologies, the -first books by which I ever made any money, was enhanced -because I did them at the unsolicited invitation of the late -William Sharp, the poet and author of the rhapsodies of -“Fiona Macleod,” who afterwards became a dear and intimate -friend. He introduced me to Charles Mackay, the editor -of the famous <i>Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry</i>, -who adopted Marie Corelli as his daughter, and was father -of Eric Mackay. It was through him that I received the -invitation to do the Australian part of the <i>Slang Dictionary</i>, -edited by M. Barrére, the French Ambassador’s brother, for -which also I received some money.</p> - -<p class='c016'>These encouragements made me ask my friend, the late -S. H. Jeyes, who went to Trinity, Oxford, on the same day as -I did, and was at the time one of the editors of the <i>St James’s -Gazette</i>, from which he afterwards changed to the <i>Standard</i>, -whether he thought that I ought to go to America, or stay and -pursue my chances in England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He said, “Go; in America they will take you at your own -valuation, and when you get back, it will <i>be</i> your valuation.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>And so it came that we took our passages in the old -Cunarder <i>Catalonia</i> from Liverpool to Boston.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER III<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>I GO TO THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'>The only literary at-homes I had been to before I went -to America were Edmund Gosse’s in Delamere Terrace, -Louise Chandler Moulton’s in Weymouth Street, and W. E. -Henley’s in an old house in which he resided at Chiswick.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have written elsewhere how the Gosses used to receive -their friends on Sunday afternoons. Not many came, but -those who did come were generally famous in the world of -letters.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Moulton, on the other hand, often had a crowd at -her receptions. It was in her drawing-room that I first met -Sir Frederick Wedmore, Mrs. Alexander the novelist, and -Coulson Kernahan, and Theodore Watts. She herself was a -charming poet, and liked entertaining poets. I met her -first at Sir Bruce and Lady Seton’s, at Durham House, which -at that time contained the finest collection of modern -paintings in London.</p> - -<div id='i026f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i026f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE AUTHOR<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>It was fortunate that Henley’s friends were devoted to -him, because he was an invalid and could not get about. He -was already a great power in journalism. His paper, called -at first <i>The Scots Observer</i>, and later on <i>The National Observer</i>, -had taken the place of the <i>Saturday Review</i>, which was not -at that time conducted with the ability of the old <i>Saturday</i>. -The men who gathered round him were very brilliant. I -forget what evening of the week it was that he was at home, -but whatever evening it was he kept it up very late, with much -smoke and consumption of whiskey; and the conversation -was always worth listening to. Henley was a magnificent -talker, with a fund of curious knowledge, and he had a -knack of turning the conversation on to some strange kind -of sin or some strange kind of occultism, which was thoroughly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>threshed out by the clever people present. He rather liked -morbid subjects.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Edmund Gosse gave me introductions to H. O. Houghton, -head of the publishing firm of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., -and he and Henley and Katherine Tynan gave me introductions -to various authors. But my most useful introduction -I had through my chief American friend of that -time, Ada Loftus, who made the London correspondents -of the <i>New York Herald</i> and the <i>Boston Globe</i> give full-length -announcements of my approaching visit to America—as -long as they would give to William Watson now. They -labelled me in those announcements the “Australian Poet,” -and that label stuck to me during the whole of that visit to -the United States. They asked Mrs. Loftus, I suppose, what I -had done, and she told them that I had written several volumes -of verse about Australia. Be that as it may, those friendly -announcements resulted in so many hospitalities being offered -to us by American authors and literary clubs that we really -did not need our introductions, especially in Boston, where -Mrs. Moulton was waiting to welcome us, and where I had -old schoolfellows—the Peabodys—connected with most of -the leading families.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But I did present the introduction to Mr. Houghton—when -does an author neglect an introduction to a publisher?—and -he showed us innumerable kindnesses all the time we remained -in Boston. It was to him that I owed the invitations from -Oliver Wendell Holmes and Whittier, and Longfellow’s -family to visit them in their homes—inestimable opportunities. -We spent three months in Boston, seeing all the best of Boston -literary society and the University bigwigs at Harvard, -and then we went for a month to New York until it was time -for the ice-carnival season at Montreal. At New York, with -Edmund Clarence Stedman, the first of American critics, -as a godfather, the hospitalities of Boston were repeated -to us. But this was not our principal visit to New York.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Our first trip to Canada was intensely interesting to us, -because there we were in a new world, where the temperature -was below zero, and the snow several feet high in the streets, -and the ice several feet thick on the great river, up which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>ocean liners come from spring to autumn. The ice-palace -was already built, and rose like a mediæval castle of alabaster; -in the centre of the city the habitants were selling their milk -in frozen lumps in the market; all the world wore furs, for -the poorest could buy a skin of some sort made up somehow. -There were still buffalo-skin coats in those days in plenty, -at three pounds apiece, and those who could not afford a fur -cap to their liking, wore a woollen tobogganing tuque, which -could be drawn down over the forehead and the ears, just -as some of the younger women and the children wore their -blanket tobogganing coats.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was a new world, where nobody skated in the open, -because of the impossibility of keeping the ice free from snow, -and where skating was so universal an accomplishment -that in the rinks people danced on skates as naturally as on -their feet in a ballroom.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One soon took for granted the monstrous cold, learned to -swathe in furs every time one left the house, even if it was -only to go to the post, to wear thin boots, because they were -always covered with “arctics” when one went out, and thin -underclothing because one’s furs were so thick out of doors, -and the houses so furiously hot indoors; to have double -windows always closed, and hot air flowing into the room -till the temperature reached 70° and over.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is no wonder that ice-cream, as they call it, is a feature -at dinner in winter in a Canadian hotel.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Outside, all the land was white, and all the sky was blue. -Wrapped up in furs, people so despised the intense cold that -there was not one closed sleigh—at Montreal in winter all -the cabs were sleighs. By day we sleighed up the mountain -for tobogganing and came back in time for tea-parties; by -night we sleighed to dances or picnics. The merry jingle of -sleigh-bells was never out of one’s ears; and everything was -so delightfully simple—it was always beer and not champagne—and -every one took an interest in Australia and Colonial -poetry. The tea-parties were generally impromptus got up -on the telephone. Every one in Montreal had a telephone, -though it was only the beginning of 1889.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lighthall, the Canadian littérateur, came to call upon us -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>the very first afternoon that we were in Montreal, and he -introduced us to our life-long friends, the Robert Reids, and -the George Washington Stephens’s. Mrs. Reid and Mrs. -Stephens were sisters. Mr. Stephens, the Astor of Montreal, -shortly afterwards became Treasurer of the Colony. Lighthall -introduced us also to Sir William Van Horne, the President -of the great Canadian Pacific Railway, which led to -important results. We only stayed in Canada a month then, -but that was sufficient to convince me that I did not want to -live in a climate where the cold was as dangerous as a tiger. -It was brought home to me in an extraordinary way. I was -out walking with Mrs. Reid’s daughter, coming back from a -tea-party one evening. We saw a drunken man lying in the -gutter. She said, “We must get a sleigh and take that drunk -to the police-station. He will be dead in an hour if he lies -there.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>When roused, he was sufficiently coherent to tell us where -he lived, and we took him home. The cold was so intense -that she found one of her ears frost-bitten before she got home; -she had gone out in an ordinary hat instead of a fur cap, -because it was a tea-party and near home. The unexpected -delay in the open air to rouse the man, and driving him home, -made her pay the penalty of risking a frost-bite. We knew -that it was frost-bitten, because it had turned as white as if -it had been powdered. The policeman took up a handful -of snow, and rubbed it for her—another act of ordinary good -Samaritanism in Canada.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We went straight down from Canada to Washington to -see the change of Administration from President Cleveland’s -regime to President Harrison’s. The climatic contrast was -strong; Washington was as warm as Rome. Our arctics -and furs looked simply idiotic when we arrived in the -station.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The change of Administration in the United States is -invested with a good deal of magnificence. All the important -people in America, who can spare the time, go to Washington -for it. There were many functions during our visit. We -were President Cleveland’s guests at his farewell-party, and -went to all the Harrison functions. Mrs. Cleveland had a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>delightful personality; she was very pretty, very elegant, -very gracious, a tall woman, rather suggestive of the beautiful -Dowager Lady Dudley, with brilliant dark eyes and a -brilliant smile. Cleveland was not a pleasant man to meet. -When I knew him he was a very strong man who had -become very stout. Everything about him suggested power. -His face, in spite of its fleshiness, was very powerful. -He had a deliberate, rather ungracious way of speaking, -and his silences, accentuated by rather resentful eyes, were -worse. But a man who starts to sweep the Augean stable -for America needs these qualities; and he undoubtedly -improved the tone of the party opposed to him in the State -by giving them an opposition which they had to respect. -But he had no conscience in foreign politics.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The most interesting house we went to was Colonel John -Hay’s. Hay was a millionaire twice over, and had been -Abraham Lincoln’s private secretary. He was one of America’s -best poets, and no man in the country was more renowned for -his personal charm or his lofty character. He was afterwards -Secretary of State, and Ambassador to Great Britain, and -could have been either then, if President Harrison had been -able to overcome Hay’s rooted objection to office. And -Adalbert Hay, the American Consul-general, who did so much -for captive Britons in the Boer War, was his son.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Hay’s house you met alike the most famous politicians, -the most famous members of the Diplomatic Corps, and the -most famous authors and artists in America. There we met -all the most distinguished members, perhaps I might say the -leaders, of the Republican Party.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Washington will always be a bright spot in my memory for -another thing. Henry Savage Landor, the explorer, was -turned out of his room because the whole hotel was wanted -for President Harrison’s party, and as there was not a room -to be had in Washington, he slept for the remainder of the -time on a shakedown in my room. Both he and I used to -spend a great deal of our time with our next-door neighbour -in K Street, General William Tecumseh Sherman, the hero -of the famous march through Georgia in the Civil War—a -grand old man, with a hard-bitten face, but very human. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>I was present at his funeral in New York; thirty thousand -veterans—“the Grand Army of the Republic”—marched -behind the riderless horse, which bore his jack-boots and his -sword.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From Washington we went to New York, and stayed there -till the heat drove us back to Canada, where we had an extraordinarily -delightful holiday in store for us. Sir William -Van Horne had invited us to go as the guests of the Canadian -Pacific Railway right over their line from Montreal to Vancouver -and back, and as we had a month or more to spare -before the time we settled for our journey, we went first of -all to the land of Evangeline—Nova Scotia—and afterwards -across the Bay of Fundy to the valley of the St. John river -in New Brunswick, and thence to Quebec and Montreal, where -we were the guests of the Reids, and for a fortnight of the -Stephens’s, in their summer home on the shores of Lac Eau -Clair in the Maskinonge forest, and of Agnes Maule Machar -at Gananoque on the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This experience of Canadian summer life was an extraordinary -education in beauty. A more perfect summer -could not be imagined; the sky was always blue, the sun -was always vigorous, and there was generally a light breeze. -We half lived on the water, since all Canadians near a river -or lake have canoes and can manage them with the skill -of an Indian. The bathing was enchanting: we could catch -a hundredweight of fish sometimes, in that land of many -waters. The wild flowers and wild fruits of the meadows -and woods were as plentiful as buttercups and daisies in -England; it was a land of many forests, many lakes, many -rivers; mountains near or distant were always in sight.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Nor was this all. On the lofty shores of the Bay of -Fundy and the rock of Quebec, and under the “Royal Mountain” -at Montreal there were dear old French houses, built -in the days of the Thirteenth or Fourteenth Louis, and most -of them intertwined in the romance of Canadian history.</p> - -<p class='c016'>What a lovely and romantic land it was! And we saw it -to perfection, for Bliss Carman and Roberts, two Canadian -poets, were our guides everywhere. In all my years in -Australia I never had half the enjoyment out of the country-life -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>that I derived from those two or three months of a -Canadian summer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The wonders of our journey had hardly begun, though the -first sight of the old fortress of Quebec towering over the St. -Lawrence, and of the historic Fields of Abraham, are events -never to be forgotten.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Still, we felt that a new era in our lives was beginning on -that night in early autumn when we steamed out of the chief -station of the world’s greatest railway westwards on a journey -which would not terminate till we stood on the shores of -English Bay, and looked out on to the Pacific Ocean.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were so anxious to hurry out west to the new land -that we only spared ourselves a few days at Toronto to cross -Lake Ontario to Niagara, and spend an afternoon and evening -with Goldwin Smith and George Taylor Denison. They -presented such a contrast—Goldwin Smith, the Cassandra -whose voice was always lifted against his country, except -when he was among her enemies, and Denison, a descendant -of the famous Loyalist, and the leader of Canadian loyalty -to England. Denison was the winner of the Emperor of -Germany’s prize for the best book on Cavalry Tactics.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From Toronto we had not far to go by train before we -found ourselves at Lake Huron, and took a steamer of the -company, built like a sea-going vessel, to cross those two -vast lakes, Huron and Superior, to Port Arthur. They look -like seas, and have storms as violent, though they are fresh -water, and in Lake Superior, at any rate, you could immerse -the whole of the British Islands. From Port Arthur we -trained to Winnipeg, the city of the plains, where we only -stayed a few days before flying across the prairie—a limitless -plain as broken as the Weald of Kent, jewelled with flowers -in spring, and with game fleeing to the horizon when cover -is short.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After three days of eye-roaming, we woke to find our -view barred by the long wall of the Rocky Mountains, like -castles of the gods.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Banff, in the Rocky Mountains, we were to stay to -contemplate the finest open mountain scenery conceivable, -and at the Glacier House to contemplate a glacier, a forest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>and a stupendous peak threatening to overwhelm a mountain -inn. The scenery between the two was finer than anything -in the Apennines, with its torrents dashing between mighty -precipices, and its pine forests sweeping like a prairie fire -over mountain and valley, and its background of heaven-piercing -Alps.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We entered the Glacier House at a dramatic moment, for -Jim, the sports’ guide from Missouri, had just finished pegging -out on the floor of one of the sitting-rooms a trophy of his -rifle that took me straight back to the happy hours of my -boyhood which I spent with Captain Mayne Reid—the rust-coloured -skin of a mighty grizzly bear which had turned the -scale at twelve hundredweight. Jim the guide had on a -buckskin coat and breeches, much stained with killing or -skinning the bear: the spectacle was a most impressive one.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From the glacier we tore down the valleys of the Thompson -and the Fraser to Vancouver, then a new wooden town perched -on a forest clearing with the tree stumps still scattered about -its roads, but one of the great seaports of the world in embryo—Canada’s -Western Gate, the realisation of the dream of La -Salle.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We loved Vancouver, because here we were in a town and -country in the making, with a glorious piece of the forest -primeval preserved for ever as a national park. For a -month we lived there, going every day to see the sun set over -the ocean which divided us from the mysterious Orient—thinking -over all that we had seen of a country which is like -a continent, in that three or four thousand miles’ journey -on the newly-opened line.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Then one day a little old bull-dog of a Cunarder, in the -service of the great railway, ran up the harbour, and moored -herself to the wharf beside the railway station. A tall dark -officer, whose voice I heard across the telephone a few hours -before writing these lines, was leaning over the gunwale. -He and our party smiled pleasantly at each other, and he -invited us to go on board. The litter of the Orient was about -the decks. Chinese seamen and Japanese passengers were -talking the pigeon-English of the East to each other. And we -felt that here was the opportunity for stretching our hands -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>across to the East. I accepted the omen, and we booked our -passages to Japan—drifting on as we had drifted ever since -we landed at Boston a year before.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The stout old <i>Parthia</i> was going to lie a week or two in -port before she turned her head round for Yokohama and -Hong Kong, and we spent most of this time in an excursion -across the strait to Victoria, the capital of Vancouver’s -Island, a little bit of England in the West, with a dockyard -still in Imperial hands.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As we returned from Victoria early in November, we met, -on the steamer, Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, who -was about to be Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, -on his way back from a Big-horn expedition in the North.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Where are you on your way to?” he asked me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Japan,” I replied.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“What now?” he said; “you must be fond of bad -weather.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER IV<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>I GO TO JAPAN</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>The</span> Admiral’s prognostications were correct. We met -such heavy seas passing Cape Flattery that the ship seemed -to be trying to turn turtle. We were unable to sit on deck -from that day until the day that we sighted Japan, and once -we had to heave-to for eighteen hours. The worst of the -weather being so terrible was that the Captain was unable -to execute the Company’s instructions to take us to see the -Aleutian Islands, which only whalers know, and drop some -stores there for shipwrecked mariners.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But on that December morning, when we found ourselves -in smooth water and soft, summery temperature off the -flat-topped hills of Japan, surrounded by the billowing sails -of countless junks, the very first vessels we had seen since -Cape Flattery faded out of sight, we felt rewarded.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The East, the Far East, which I had heard “a-calling” -all my life, was right within my grasp. In a few hours’ -time I should be standing on the shores of fanciful and -mysterious Japan, able to remain there as long as I chose, -for we had no fixed plans. We were just drifting on—drifting -through our lives—drifting across the world. My heart -beat high; I might have written nothing but a few books -of verse which hardly anybody read, but, at any rate, I had -gone half round the world, and if I wished to stay and -dream for the rest of my life in the East, who was to say -me nay?</p> - -<p class='c016'>Whatever the causes, the effect was to give me the subject -for which I had been waiting to make my position as an -author. From the day that I published <i>The Japs at Home</i>, -I shed my label of the “Australian Poet,” and became -known as the author who has been to Japan.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>I even enriched the English language with a word—<i>Japs</i>. -It had long been in use in America, but no one had ventured -to put it into a book in England. Some thought it was -undignified; some thought that it would incense the -Japanese. I not only put it into a book, but on the cover of -a book, which has sold a hundred and fifty thousand copies. -Only to-day I discovered that Japan’s great poet, Yone -Noguchi, and the Japanese publicist, T. G. Komai, use it in -their books, which are written in English.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had, in Montreal, bought a No. 1 Kodak—a novelty -in those days—and with it I took several hundred photographs -in Japan—it was from these that Fenn, the artist, -of McClure’s Syndicate, afterwards drew his illustrations -for my articles, which were reproduced in the earlier editions -of the book. The “Kodaks” not only served as the basis -of the illustrations, they made a most admirable journal -for me to write from.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I commenced Kodaking and taking notes from the hour -that we entered the harbour of Yokohama, and kept it up -without flagging till the day that we left Yokohama for -San Francisco. It was to those snapshots with camera and -pencil that my books on Japan owed the lively touches -which gave them their popularity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were a winter and a spring and a summer in Japan—for -all except six weeks which we spent in China. I paid most -of my hotel bills in Japan by writing my <i>Handbook to Japan</i> -for the Club Hotel Company.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In Japan we spent our entire days in sight-seeing. If we -were not going over interesting buildings (and I over Yoshiwaras), -temples, castles, baths or tea-houses in marvellous -gardens—we were wandering about the streets or the country -in our <i>rikishas</i>, dismounting when there was anything to -photograph or examine or purchase. The <i>rikisha</i> is a most -convenient way of getting about for a person who is making -notes, because he can write as he goes along, and pull up -as often as he likes when there is anything which needs -his attention. Also, your <i>Jinrikisha</i> boy, if you choose -carefully, speaks enough English to act as an interpreter, -and, from having taken foreigners to the sights so often, is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>usually a tolerably efficient guide. Besides which, it is a -novel, pleasant and exciting method of locomotion.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We hired the best two <i>rikisha</i> men we could hear of by -the week, and never regretted the extravagance. They were -always there when we wanted them, and in a very few days -grasped exactly what we wished to do and see. One was -called Sada and the other Taro.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was in this way that I acquired my knowledge of the -Japan which can be seen on the surface, and which is all -that the average foreigner wishes to see, and gave myself -one of the three or four subjects with which my name is -identified.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We spent the first month in Yokohama, a much-maligned -place, for it had in those days an unspoiled native town at -the back of the settlement, and its environs were charming, -whether one went towards Negishi or towards Ikegami: -I found enough to keep me hard at work for a month.</p> - -<p class='c016'>On the last day of the year we went to Tokyo. We had -a reason for that; we wished to see the great fair in the -Ginza, which is one of the most typical sights of Japan. -Savage Landor, who had been in Tokyo for some time, -wrote that we must on no account miss it, and he took -rooms for us in the Tokyo hotel—which the Japanese called -<i>Yadoya</i>, “the hotel.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Tokyo hotel was an experience: it had originally -been the <i>Yashiki</i> or town-house of a feudal prince, in the -days when the Shogun reigned at Tokyo. It had a moat -(into which Miss Lorimer, who accompanied us on all our -travels, fell on the first night we were there, but which -fortunately contained more mud than water), and stood in an -angle of the outer works of the castle.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Just below it, small craft made a port of the outer moat -of the castle: in its courtyard carpenters were using up -the large amount of waste space which there is in a <i>Yashiki</i> -by nailing fresh rooms on to the Daimio’s house, to make -the hotel larger. It could not be called anything but nailing -on, because it was made of wood and paper, and was not -properly dovetailed into the existing building, but simply -tacked on. We learnt many upside-down notions by watching -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>the builders and carpenters, who did most things inside-out -or upside-down, according to our notions. Also the -Japanese manager, the Abè San who was murdered a few -months ago, borrowed my clothes to have them copied by -a Japanese tailor, and the waiters wore their European -clothes over their native dress, and wriggled out of them -behind a screen as soon as a meal was over. If you called -them at such a moment, whatever your sex, they might come -forward with their trousers half on and half off. The Japanese -have their own ideas of conventions between the sexes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Wandering through that fair at the Ginza took one into -the very heart of Japan: it is held to enable people to -settle their debts before New Year’s Day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Apart from the obituary parks of Shiba and Ueno, Tokyo -is not reckoned rich in temples, though it has a few very -famous temples in the suburbs, and more than a few within -a short excursionary distance. But Shiba and Ueno—and -especially the former—present an epitome of Japanese life, -art, scenery and history.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful than -Shiba, though the Japanese have a proverb that you must -not call anything beautiful till you have seen Nikko. The -fir woods in which it stands are on a low ridge commanding -an exquisitive view of the Gulf of Tokyo, and in this wood -are embosomed the mausolea of most of the earlier Shoguns -of the Tokugawa House, which came to an end this winter -with the death of the abdicated Shogun. Each mausoleum -has a beautiful temple beside the tomb. The presence of so -many temples has led the Japanese to exhaust their landscape -art on Shiba with lake and cherry-grove and cryptomeria. -Such natives as do not go there for religion are -attracted by the pleasure city, with its famous tea-houses, -like the Maple Club, its shows, and, above all, by its dancing. -Here you may see the <i>No</i>-dance, the <i>Kagura</i>-dance, and some -of the best Geishas.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But the chief charm of Shiba to me was its absolute -Orientalness compared to the rest of Tokyo.</p> - -<p class='c016'>No sooner are you inside the great red gateway of the -temples than you are in the world of fairy-tales. For temple -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>after temple opens up before you, low fantastic structures, -on which Oriental imagination has run riot in colour and form. -You are bewildered by the innumerable courtyards of stone -lanterns, the paraphernalia of drum-tower and bell-tower, -fountain and dancing-stage, which surround them. You -are sobered by the dark groves between the temples, which -contain the tombs.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Temple and tomb are thronged by streams of dignified -natives, some come to worship and some to see the sights. -Here you will find a service going on, with white-robed -priests kneeling on the mirrored floor of black lacquer, for -which you have to remove your boots. Outside the actual -temples the shows are in full blast, and picnicking proceeds -everywhere. All the Japanese are in their native dress. -Gay little musumes and gorgeous geishas flutter before you. -The grand tea-houses offer fresh visions of the Orient with -their Geisha dances and their fantastic gardens.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ueno has the added charm of a large lake, covered with -lotus-blossoms in summer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At no great distance from Shiba is the Shinagawa Yoshiwara, -which, for fantastic beauty, surpasses anything in -Japan. With these and the water life of the Nihombashi, -and the life of the poor going on all day in the streets—for -the poor Japanese takes the front off his house all through -the day to air it—I should have found good occupation for -my notebook and camera for years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>If we had not been urged by other foreigners, I do not -know when we should have left Tokyo. And we saw little -enough of them except at meal-times, or when we went to -the Frasers (Hugh Fraser was British Minister of Tokyo, -and husband of the well-known author, Mrs. Hugh Fraser, -Marion Crawford’s sister), or the Napiers. The Master of -Napier, the Lord Napier and Ettrick, just dead, was his -First Secretary. But at meal-times they talked so much of -Easter at Miyanoshita, and the cherry-blossom festival at -Kyoto, and the annual festival at Nikko, and the Great -Buddha at Kamakura, and the sacred shrines of Ise, that we -fortunately felt obliged to visit them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Miyanoshita, the favourite holiday-resort of the Europeans -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>in Japan, is high up in the mountains. The valley on the -right of the long ridge which leads up to it in spring is ablaze -with azaleas and flowering trees. It, itself, is perched on a -mountain-side, above a densely-wooded valley. Exquisite -walks can be taken from it, such as the trip to Hakone, the -beautiful village which stands on the blue lake at the foot -of Fujiyama, in which the immortal grace of the great -mountain is reflected whenever the sun or moon is above -the horizon. Miyanoshita is equally famous for its mountain -air and its mountain baths. The boiling water, highly -impregnated with sulphur, is brought down in bamboo pipes -from the bosom of the mountain to deep wooden baths sunk -in the floor of the hotel bathing-house. Life here is one -long picnic: the energetic take walks, the lazy are carried -in chairs over the hills: people fly here for week-ends in -spring, and from the heat and damp of the summer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Its great rival is Nikko, another mountain village, embosomed -in shady groves, with woods full of wild hydrangeas. -In June Nikko is crowded for the festival of Toshogu, the -deified founder of the dynasty of Shoguns, which was ended -by the revolution of 1868—the principal festival of Japan, -inaugurated with the grandest procession to be seen nowadays, -in which all who take part in it wear the ceremonial -dresses of three hundred years ago.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Nikko has the two most beautiful temples in the magic -land—those of Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa -dynasty, and his grandson, Iyemitsu. Here you see the -most perfect lacquer and carving in all Japan. And their -courtyards are exquisitely terraced on the mountain-side. -Here, too, besides these and other glorious temples, there -are the added charms of scenery, a foaming sky-blue river, -running beneath the sacred scarlet bridge, and between the -avenue of Buddhas, commons of scarlet azalea, and thickets -of wild wistaria.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Having seen Nikko, the sacred city of the Shoguns, one -must needs see Kyoto, the city of the Mikados, and Nara.</p> - -<p class='c016'>For seven centuries prior to the revolution in our own -day, Kyoto was the capital of the Mikados. Here they lived -like gods behind a veil, only penetrated by the hierarchy: -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>they never left the palace gates except in a closed palanquin: -they added little but tombs to the city, and their tombs -were never shown. But the Shoguns, who ruled in their -name, and others great in the land, adorned Kyoto with some -of the greatest and most interesting temples in Japan, -such as the temples of the Gold and Silver Pavilions, the -two Hongwanji temples, the temple of the Thirty-Three -Thousand Images, and the chief temple of Inari the Goddess -of Rice. And it being the ancient capital, we found the city -full of old prints and curios, and the old-fashioned pleasure -resorts of Japan.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Kyoto was a city of the pleasure-seeker of old time, as -capitals are wont to be. It has wonderful tea-houses in the -city; its temple grounds are like permanent fairs; and within -a <i>rikisha</i> drive is Lake Biwa, one of the most exquisite lakes -in the world, whose shores exhibit the <i>chefs d’œuvres</i> of -the Japanese landscape-creator. Nothing could be more -exquisite than the temple grounds on the shores of Lake -Biwa.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of the many old-time festivals of Kyoto, the most famous -survival is the Miyako-odori, or cherry-blossom festival, -held every year, when visitors flock to Kyoto to see the -cherry-groves in full blossom. The feature of the festival -is a wonderful ballet, for which the best dancers in Japan -gather in Kyoto. Even the Duke and Duchess of Connaught -came to Kyoto for it, when they were in Japan. We stayed -for a long time at Yaami’s when they were there, and when -the Duke learned from Colonel Cavaye, his private secretary, -that I was a journalist, he gave me permission to accompany -his party to any function or expedition which I wished to -describe. The most interesting of them was the shooting -of the rapids of the Katsuragawa, some miles from Kyoto, -where thirteen miles of cataracts are negotiated in huge -punts, built of springy boards. As we were buffeting down -the rapids, the Duke told me that our present King, then -Prince George of Wales, had said that shooting those rapids, -and the baths of Miyanoshita, where you have natural hot -water in wooden boxes sunk in the floor, were the two best -things in the world.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>In Kyoto, an antique city on a broad plain, embosomed in -hills, capped by temples, one has the very essence of old -Japan. We stayed there a long time, absorbing an atmosphere -which may soon pass away, never to return.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Within a day’s <i>rikisha</i> drive of Kyoto is Nara, with its -thousand-year-old treasury of the most notable possessions -of the Mikados, and its glorious temples, and its sacred -deer-park, and its acres of scarlet azalea thickets.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We visited all; we visited the two great cities of Osaka -and Nagoya, with their magnificent castles, and Kamakura, -with its gigantic Buddha and its ancient monasteries. We -visited all the most famous cities and points of scenery -in Japan; and the pleasure of our visit was heightened by -our going away to China for six weeks in the middle of it, -because when we came back our eyes were far keener to -observe and to appreciate, while we had the knowledge -acquired in our former visit to guide us.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were truly sorry to leave Japan. I should be quite -content to be living there still; but if we had remained there, -Japan would not have taken its part in my development as -a writer, for though I should doubtless have compiled a book -or books about Japan, they would have been sent home as -the productions of an amateur, and very likely have had -such difficulty in finding a publisher that they would have -been brought out in some hole-and-corner way, instead of -my selling <i>The Japs at Home</i> in the open market, and thereby -laying the foundation of my career as a travel-book writer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Japan supplied me with the material for several books, -not counting the handbook which I wrote for the Club -Hotel—<i>A Japanese Marriage</i>, next in point of sales to <i>The -Japs at Home</i>; <i>Queer Things About Japan</i>, which sold best -of all my books in guinea form; <i>More Queer Things About -Japan</i>, which I wrote with Norma Lorimer; <i>When We Were -Lovers in Japan</i>, a novel which was originally published under -the title of <i>Playing the Game</i>; and <i>Pictures of Japan</i>; while -I have written countless articles and short stories about the -country.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had almost forgotten that I had a book—my <i>Lester the -Loyalist</i>—published in Japan. Though it only contained -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>about twenty pages, it took two months to print. How the -result gratified me, I wrote in <i>The Japs at Home</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I forgot all the delays when I saw the printed pages, -they were so beautiful, and really, considering that Mr. -Mayeda was the only man in the establishment who could -read a word of English, the printing was exceedingly correct. -The blocks had turned out a complete success, though, of -course, the proofs of the covers did not look as well as they -would when mounted and crêped.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“The Japanese have a process by which they can make -paper crêpe book-covers as stiff as buckram.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“‘Well, Mr. Mayeda, how did your little boy like the -stamp-book you mended up for him so beautifully?’ I -asked one day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“‘Ah! it is very sad; he has gone to hell. But the -little boy, he has loved the stamp-book so that he has taken -it to hell with him. It is on his <i>grave</i>, do you call it?’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Mr. Mayeda was thinking of what the missionaries had -told him when he was learning English.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“A few weeks more passed. Mr. Mayeda brought us the -perfect book. He was so flushed and tearful that I poured -him a couple of bumpers of vermouth, which he drank off -with the excitement of an unemployed workman in England -when he makes a trifle by chance, and spends it right off -on his beloved gin.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“‘Is anything the matter, Mr. Mayeda?’ I asked.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“‘It is so sad. My other little boy has gone to hell, too. -And I am so poor, and I have to keep my wife’s uncle, and -my father is very silly, and so I get drunk every night.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“The books he had brought were exquisite. The printing -was really very correct, and the effect of the long hexameter -lines, in the handsome small pica type, on the oblong Japanese -double leaf of silky ivory-tinted paper, every page flowered -with maple-leaves in delicate pearl-grey under the type, -was as lovely as it was unique.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“The block printings on every single leaf were done by -hand—the leaf being laid over the block, and rubbed into -it by a queer palm-leaf-pad burnisher.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“The covers were marvels of beauty, made of steel-grey -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>paper crêpe, ornamented, the back one with three little -sere and curled-up maple leaves drifting before the wind, -and the front one with a spray of maple leaves in all their -autumn glory and variety of tints, reproduced to the life.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Across the right-hand end of the sprig was pasted a long -white silk label in the Japanese style. The good taste, the -elegance, the colours of this cover, fairly amazed me.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Our visit to China was taken at the instigation of friends -in Japan, who made an annual trip to the Hong Kong races. -I cannot say that it interested me as much as Japan; but -we only had time to visit Hong Kong, Shanghai, Canton and -Macao, and of these, Canton alone was absolutely Chinese. -Canton is as typical a Chinese city as one could desire—supreme -in commerce, a hot-bed of Chinese aspirations. -But it is very poorly off for fine old buildings; it is more -interesting for its huge water population, living in long -streets of boats, and for the wonderful gardens of some of -its merchants.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Macao is chiefly interesting as a very ancient outpost of -Europe in the East, old enough for Camoens to have lived -and written his immortal Lusiad there in the sixteenth -century. It has little to call for the attention of the stranger, -except nice old gardens with huge banyan-trees, and gambling -hells, where you learn to play <i>Fan-tan</i>. It only flourishes -as an Alsatia for rogues outside of British and Chinese -jurisdiction.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Shanghai is a fine European town, with luxuries and -conveniences, for which Hong-Kongers sigh, and a most -picturesque walled native town, which contains one of the -most beautiful tea-houses in the East.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Hong Kong is a gay city, because it is so full of British -naval and military officers. It is also rather a beautiful -place, having a mountain right over the town, which is the -sanatorium and summer-resort. I met many old schoolfellows -there, who took care that invitations should be sent -to us for all the Service festivities, which are so thick at -Race-time. And they also told me what to see in Hong -Kong and Canton and Macao.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But, knowing that I was only to be in China for a month -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>and a half, I made no effort to ground myself in knowledge -of everyday China, but gave myself up to enjoying the gaieties -and tropical luxuries.</p> - -<p class='c016'>China thus had no effect on my literary development. -Our stay there was a mere holiday, at which I had a fresh -and exhaustive round of military and naval festivities.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The island of Hong Kong is not a good place for studying -the Chinaman, except as an employé of the Englishman.</p> - -<p class='c016'>On our return from China to Japan we were fascinated by -the almost tropical beauty of the Japanese summer. There -was also a good deal of British gaiety, for the Fleet had moved -just before us from China to Japan.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER V<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>BACK TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>The</span> Pacific as we crossed it on our return from Japan -to America was very different to the Pacific of our outward -journey. Instead of being on a small ship, so buffeted by -the seas that we could not remain on deck, with hardly -another white passenger on board except missionaries, we -were on a large ship—the finest which crossed the Pacific -in those days—full of “Society” people returning from the -East, and the sea was like the traditional mill-pond.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We landed at San Francisco and stayed a week at the -Palace to see something of life in the Californian capital. -It struck me as very like life in Australia, especially in the -character of the buildings and the appearance of the people. -But the cold winds of the San Francisco summer have no -parallel in Australia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The chief effect of my visit to California in the development -of my writing was that, receiving a contract to write -a number of articles for the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>, my first -prose writing had to be lively enough to satisfy the lively -Californian audience. This was a good training.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From San Francisco we went up the Pacific coast to -Vancouver, with good opportunities for learning the humours -and vulgarities of Western America.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The tail-end of summer and the autumn we spent in -working our way back from Vancouver to Montreal, breaking -our journey wherever we felt inclined to try the joys of -wild life in Canada—at the head waters of the Fraser, the -Sicamous lakes in the Kootenay country, various spots on -Lake Nepigon and the wild North shore of Lake Superior, -Lake Nipissing, the Lake of the Woods, Trout Lake, and so -on, besides the chief towns like Winnipeg, and the regular -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>tourist stopping-places at Banff and the Glacier House. At -some places we had the opportunity of watching the life of -the Siwashes, or Coast Indians, of Esquimaux blood, who -live chiefly by catching and drying the salmon which we -saw coming up the Fraser like a river of fish in a river of -water. At others we saw the lordly Red Indian—Stony or -Blood or Blackfoot—and on the Rainy Lake we saw two -thousand Ojibways on the war-path—all cartridge-belts and -feathers—camped on the outskirts of a Canadian town -(without inflicting the smallest scare on the inhabitants), -while they were waiting to see if they should have to -go and support the Ojibways across the border in their -war upon a Baltimore Company, which had infringed their -rights.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Indians, in their shrewd way, first tried their luck in -the United States Courts, who decided in their favour, so war -was not declared.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Sicamous we saw eighty fresh skins of black bears, who -had been slaughtered while they were feeding on the salmon -stranded in shallow water, owing to the failure of the berry -crop. In their anxiety to spawn in shallow water, the salmon -crush their way up into tiny brooks and ponds where the -bears can catch them easily, and the farmers sweep them out -of the water with branches.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the Glacier House, Jim the guide’s slaying of the great -grizzly bear, when we were there before, inflamed my imagination. -I cultivated Jim. I climbed the great Assulkan -Glacier with him after the first fall of autumn snow, and -made a vow about glaciers which I have religiously kept; -and having a Winchester sporting rifle with me, I went out -with him to try and get a shot at a grizzly, whose track he -had seen. But we saw no more of that bear, which was, -perhaps, fortunate for me, for though I had won many -prizes at rifle-shooting, I had not been brought face to face -with any dangerous game, and a grizzly decidedly falls into -that category.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had splendid fishing all the way across, and delightful -camping out; and altogether had an experience of outdoor -life in Western Canada, which is very unspoiled and wild—a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>snakeless Eden, that certainly told in my development as a -writer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At last the autumn came to an end. We felt the first -breath of winter standing by the river side, where Tom Moore -wrote his famous <i>Canadian Boat Song</i>—the woods were a -glory of crimson and gold.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We said good-bye to Canada and turned our footsteps -to New York. There we met a warm-hearted American -welcome. Our numerous friends seemed to find an almost -personal gratification in the fact that we had been to the -Far North-West and to the Far East, to the Pacific Coast -and to Japan and China.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was now no longer exclusively the “Australian Poet,” -I was a sort of mild explorer, and people talked Japan to -me whenever they were not talking about themselves. -There was a good deal of this to do, because I had a -commission from Griffith, Farran & Co. to compile a book -on the younger American Poets, and nearly every one I -met seemed to be a poet.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was sitting next to H. M. Alden, the editor of <i>Harper’s -Magazine</i>, one night at dinner. Suddenly he pulled out his -watch. “It is now nine o’clock,” he said; “at this moment -there are a hundred thousand people in America writing -poetry, and most of them will send it to me.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of them was the English curate of the most fashionable -church in New York, and he was in a quandary. He wished -to be in the book, but he had heard that there was to be a -biography of each poet, giving his date of birth, parentage, -career, etc. He did not wish his date of birth to be known—he -thought that it would interfere with his prospects as a -lady-killer. “Was it compulsory for him to say how old -he was?” he whined.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You need not tell the truth about it,” I suggested.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the compilation of that book I saw a great deal of human -nature, because I met the poets, whereas in <i>Australian Poets</i>, -which I edited simultaneously, I had to do my work entirely -by correspondence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We spent a delightful winter and spring in New York, -because we had Miss Lorimer’s beautiful sister, Mrs. Hay-Chapman, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>one of the finest amateur pianists I ever heard, -staying with us all the time, so that we had a feast of music, -and as I was doing literary and dramatic criticisms for the -<i>Dominion Illustrated</i>, the leading weekly of Canada, we had -plenty of new books and theatre tickets. This, and the -articles on Japan I was writing for the American Press and -McClure’s Syndicate, kept me quite busy.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My sojourn in America had a most important influence -on my literary career, because it taught me my trade as a -journalist. Needing money, and having no connections, I -had to make my way as a journalistic free lance in the open -market, and I succeeded in making a fair income out of it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But I never tried to get a publisher (though one came to -me), for the simple reason that I never contemplated entering -the lists as a prose-writer. A large and well-known firm -bought editions in sheets of my various volumes of verse, -which surprised me very much, till they went bankrupt -shortly afterwards without paying for them. The purchase -was not of sufficient magnitude to be the cause of the -bankruptcy, as the ill-natured might suggest.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have often regretted that I did not form a close personal -connection with a single publishing house over there, instead -of having each individual book, as it was ready, sold to whichever -publisher the agent happens to do business with.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Also I blame myself for not learning the art of pleasing -the American novel-reader. Their book market is a much -more valuable one than ours, and unfortunately the worst -fault a novel can have in their eyes is its being “too British.” -A book like <i>The Tragedy of the Pyramids</i> is anathema to -them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The only prose book I published during my sojourn in -America was <i>The Art of Travel</i>, for which the publisher, a -Greek, forgot to pay me a single penny of what he contracted. -I afterwards turned into it an advertisement for -the North German Lloyd, and got something, about fifty -pounds, I think, out of them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I must not take leave of America without recording my -impressions of the other American cities which I visited -besides New York and Boston.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma and other western towns -were spoiled for me, because the working-classes in them -were so “swollen-headed” and rude that any educated or -gently-born person felt like a victim of the French Revolution -as he was making his way to the scaffold, surrounded by wild -mobs thirsting for his blood. The lower classes in the cities -of the Pacific Coast insult you to show that they are your -equals. And except as manual labourers, they never could -be anybody’s equals, because God created them so common. -It is these people and the unscrupulous speculators who -make money. The decent people get ground between the -upper and lower grindstone in a land where living costs out -of all proportion to the rewards of education.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We spent some time also in Washington, which is their -exact converse. Washington has its vulgar rich, who go -there to make a “season” of it, and its venal and lobbying -politicians who make the vast temple, which acts as the -American Capitol, a den of thieves, but they do not take the -first place in the public eye. The really fine elements in -the American nation are well represented at Washington, -and form a natural Court, in which the President may or -may not be prominent. That depends on whether he is -fit to be their leader. It is they, and not the President, who -keep up the traditions of their country before the eyes of -the various Embassies. Such a man was Colonel John Hay. -Their presence helps to make Washington a delightful city.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The American Government is extremely polite and hospitable -to visiting authors. I was such a small author in those -days that I felt positively embarrassed when, a few hours -after our arrival in Washington, President Cleveland’s -private secretary, Colonel Dan Lamont, called with an -invitation for us to go to supper with the President and -Mrs. Cleveland and be present at the last reception they gave -before they left the White House.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And when President Harrison came into office, Mr. Blaine, -the new Secretary of State, invited us to share his private -box to witness the inaugural procession.</p> - -<div id='i050f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i050f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>ISRAEL ZANGWILL<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>These were civilities beyond one’s dreams, and added to -them were the never-ceasing hospitalities at houses like John -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>Hay’s, and the Judges’, and the delightful receptions at which -one met the great scientists connected with the Smithsonian -Institute, and the chief authors and editors congregated at -Washington.</p> - -<p class='c016'>To witness a change of Administration at Washington and -partake in its hospitalities is extraordinarily stimulating and -interesting. It was a privilege far beyond my deserts to -meet the great public men of America.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER VI<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>LITERARY AT-HOMES AND LITERARY CLUBS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>The</span> literary at-home is an American institution. It -may not have been invented there, but it has certainly -flowered there. I did not visualise the literary at-home -at all until I attended the Sunday evenings of my dear old -friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, the author of <i>Swallow -Flights</i>, at Boston. Her house was the centre of literary -society there. She knew every one who was worth knowing -in literary circles in England and America, and she had a -passion for collecting them on Sunday nights.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There I learnt the essential simplicity and common-sensibleness -of American entertainments. No one went -for the refreshments; there were none except coffee and -various kinds of cakes. It was, in fact, afternoon tea, -with coffee instead of the drink which cheers without inebriating, -held at 9 p.m. instead of 5. Her evenings were -crowded.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I went to New York I found the New York literary -people collected every Sunday night in the hospitable home -of Edmund Clarence Stedman, the chief literary biographer -of his day. Laurence Hutton, too, the author of <i>Literary -Landmarks in London</i>, and editor of certain pages of <i>Harper’s -Magazine</i>, had a few people on Sunday nights. There was -always the same simplicity about eating and drinking, and -the same absence of any entertainment, except being introduced -to American celebrities, or occasionally listening -spellbound while one of them told a humorous story in the -inimitable American way.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Charles de Kay, the chief art critic in New York of that -day, was one of the few people who gave big afternoon teas -in the English style. De Kay belonged to one of the oldest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>literary families in New York, for he was the grandson of -Joseph Rodman Drake.</p> - -<p class='c016'>These were the private literary at-homes. They -yielded in importance to the story-tellers’ nights of the -various clubs, generally Saturday nights. Sometimes there -was a large house dinner at the Club, sometimes nothing -happened until the reception began, about nine, but in any -case, the procedure was the same. First of all, the most -brilliant men of the day told anecdotes, and then the assemblage -broke up into small groups, when the introduction of -strangers to each other was the feature of the evening. It -was in this way that I came to know nearly every important -American writer of that day. Sometimes two good anecdote-tellers -would be put up to banter each other, and the encounters -would be very witty. I remember one encounter -in particular between a Bostonian and a professor of the -University of Chicago. The professor alluded most feelingly -to the departed glories of Boston—Boston which considered -itself the hub of the universe—and dilated upon the new era -which was dawning for Chicago. The Bostonian got up and -agreed with every word he said.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I am surprised at my friend’s agreeing with this,” said -the professor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Not at all,” said the Bostonian. “I speak as one of the -owners of Chicago.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The audience rocked with laughter, recalling the fact that -this Bostonian had turned a respectable fortune into millions -by buying up a large area in Chicago when it was ruined by -the great fire.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At another such evening Mark Twain said the circumstance -which gave him the greatest satisfaction in his life was the -fact that Darwin, for a year before his death, read nothing -but his works. Darwin’s doctors, he added, had warned him -that he would get softening of the brain if he read anything -but absolute drivel.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sometimes there were discussions at these evenings, and -one of them was about the merits of a certain Society poetess, -whose poems enjoyed an unbounded sale without meeting -with the approbation of the critics. “Do you not admit,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>asked one of the lady’s admirers of the editor of the <i>Century -Magazine</i>, “that Miss Van —— is the poetess of passion?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Yes,” said the editor, “Miss Van —— is the poetess of -passion—of boarding-house passion.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I never came away from one of these evenings without -feeling that I had been partaking of intellectual champagne.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I was in America Eugene Field edited one of the -great Chicago dailies, and was the principal author of the -West. My first meeting with him was a characteristic one. -I was at an at-home in New York, talking to the editress -of a fashion paper, who had also written books of twaddly -gush about travel. The hostess brought up Field, and -introduced him to the editress.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Very glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said. “I think I -may say that I have read all your books with the greatest -interest.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Are you a writer, Mr. Field?” she asked. “I am sorry -to say that I have never heard of you.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Nor I you, ma’am; but you might have pretended, same -as I did.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>There used to be very large at-homes every Sunday -night at the flat of a wealthy old lady who owned an important -newspaper. Her guests were mostly authors and -artists, and she hardly knew any of them by sight, and never -gave any of them commissions to work for her paper. Sometimes -she did not even put in an appearance at her at-homes, -which went on just the same, as if she had been -there. Her guests came to meet each other, not her. She -was not at all literary; her only ambition was like Queen -Elizabeth’s—to be taken for a young and beautiful woman. -She was no longer either, but she dressed the part. Young -America used openly to make fun of her weakness on these -occasions, and I well remember the editor of <i>Puck</i> (a New -York comic paper), to whom she was showing a beautiful -copy of Canova’s nude statue of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline -Borghese, gravely pretending that he thought it was a statue -of herself, and complimenting her on the likeness which the -sculptor had achieved. His impudence carried him through; -his delighted hostess believed that he believed it, and explained, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>with genuine colour coming into her rouged cheeks, -that in spite of the likeness, it was not her, but “Princess -Pauline.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>As the refreshments at this house were on a very liberal -scale, it was a good place to meet the section of the Press -which is not satisfied with a mere feast of reason and flow -of soul. One also met fame-hunters, like the sculptor whom -I will call Vermont, who came to cultivate the Press. I was -introduced to him at this house, and I hoped that I should -never see him again, because he was such a colossal egotist. -One day, a few years afterwards, to my dismay, I met him -in Fleet Street. I said, “How do you do, Mr. Vermont?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He said at once, “Can you do something for me?” which -was his invariable habit.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I said “yes” cheerfully, meaning to wriggle out of it, for -I did not want to do it. I was under no obligation to him, -because I had been careful not to give him the opportunity -of offering me any hospitalities while I was over there. He -said, “I have never been in England before. Can you tell -me if I ought to use a letter-writer?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I said, “I think so; what is it—a new kind of typewriter?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He said, “No, it is a book which tells you the proper ways -for writing letters.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Remembering that the last letter I had received from him -began, “Mr. Douglas Sladen, Esq., Dear Sir,” I said I thought -he ought, and as we were in Fleet Street, recommended him -to go to Hatchard’s in Piccadilly. I was interested to know -the kind of impression he would make on Arthur Humphreys, -to whom I sent him with my card. I carefully gave him a -card without an address in the hope that I should not see -him any more. But he got my address from Humphreys, -and came to see me the next day. It appeared that he had -brought a large group of statuary with him, which he wished -to present to the City of London. Could I help him in this? -he wished to know. I said yes. I gave him an introduction -to the Lord Mayor, and to the editor of the <i>Illustrated London -News</i>, to both of whom I was a total stranger. He went -away very pleased with himself. The next time I met him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>was at the Lord Mayor’s Day banquet at the Mansion House. -I asked him how he had got on, and he said that he owed -more to me than any one he had ever met. The Lord Mayor -had accepted the sculpture, and given orders for it to be -erected somewhere in the Guildhall Library until its final -position could be decided on, and the editor of the <i>Illustrated -London News</i> was going to give the front page of his next -number to a reproduction of the immortal work. After this -I met him at every important function to which I received -an invitation.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER VII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>WE START OUR LITERARY AT-HOMES IN LONDON</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>I was</span> well known at authors’ clubs and authors’ receptions -long before I was known as an author. In fact, I doubt if -many of those who swarmed to our at-homes ever thought -of me seriously as an author, or even realised that I wrote. -They knew of me as the friend of authors, artists, and actors, -and people who were merely charming, and well enough off -to entertain, and enjoyed meeting the celebrities of Bohemia. -They credited me with a certain capacity as a host, who -always introduced the right people to each other.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had graduated in a good school for entertaining at Boston -and New York, where the hostess takes care that each of -her guests before they leave shall have been introduced to -the persons most worth meeting. If Oliver Wendell Holmes -was in the room at Boston or the American Cambridge, every -guest was presented to him. At a large literary at-home in -New York you were sure to have been introduced to a Mark -Twain, or a Howells, or a Stockton before you left. Americans -make a point of having a guest of honour at an at-home, and -I tried to keep this up as a feature of our at-homes at Addison -Mansions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was some time before we were able to start our Bohemian -at-homes in London, because when we arrived we had hardly -a single acquaintance in Bohemia, except Gleeson White, -and <i>his</i> author, artist and actor friends, like ours, were all -in America. Like ourselves, he had been three years absent -from England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The hundreds of English and American authors, artists -and actors who knew us at 32, Addison Mansions will recollect -chiefly a very narrow hall hung with autographed portraits -of celebrities, a room whose woodwork and draperies suggested -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>one of the old Mameluke houses at Cairo, a room whose -walls were covered with Japanese curios, and two other -rooms, one of which was lined to the height of several feet -from the ground with ingeniously-fitted-in book-cases, and -the other was a bedroom in disguise. These and a ten by -seven telephone room, likewise lined with book-shelves, -which only had enough chairs for a <i>tête-à-tête</i>, formed the -suite in which we held the weekly receptions in the American -style at which so many people, now famous, used to meet -every Friday night, regaled only with cigarettes, whiskeys-and-sodas, -claret cup, bottled ale and sandwiches.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There must have been some attractions about them when -actors like the Grossmiths, and authors like Anthony Hope, -and half-a-dozen R.A.s used to find their way out to these -wilds of West Kensington Friday after Friday towards midnight. -Perhaps it was that we never had any entertainment -when we could help it, and friends were able to make our flat -a rendezvous where they could be secure of having conversations -uninterrupted by music, and to which they could bring -a stranger whom they wished to introduce into Bohemia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Occasionally a stranger so introduced, who happened to -be a famous reciter, felt constrained, as a matter of returning -hospitality, to insist on reciting for us. But in the main, as -a large number of our guests were performers, they were glad -that no performances were allowed, for if they had had to -listen to other people, they would have felt bound, as a -matter of professional etiquette, to perform themselves. If -there are performances and you are a performer, it is a -reproach not to be asked to perform.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was Kernahan who first took us to the Idler Teas.</p> - -<p class='c016'>With Sir Walter Besant I had been in correspondence -before I left England, and on my return he wrote asking me -to join the Authors’ Club, with which my name was so -intimately associated for many years. But I did not meet -so many Bohemians there as I did at the Idler Teas and the -dinners of the Vagabonds Club, of which I became a member -because the circle of brilliant young authors whom Jerome -and Barr had enlisted for the <i>Idler Magazine</i> were many of -them “Vagabonds.”</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>At the Idlers and Vagabonds I met most of the rising -authors, and when the American rush to London commenced, -I took many distinguished Americans to the Idler -Teas, and to the receptions of people whom we met there. -In this way we soon had a very large acquaintance in Bohemia, -eager to meet our American friends, when we commenced -our at-homes on a modest scale to give our literary acquaintances -from the opposite sides of the Atlantic the opportunity -of meeting each other.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I met many authors as well as actors at the Garrick and -the Savage—in addition to the authors I met at the Authors’ -Club and the Savile, and as I was at that time a member of -the Arts, and the Hogarth, a very lively place, I met a great -many artists. Of black-and-white artists, at any rate, who -patronised the latter, I soon knew quite a number—Phil -May, Bernard Partridge, Dudley Hardy, Reginald Cleaver, -Ralph Cleaver, Hal Hurst, Melton Prior, Seppings Wright, -Holland Tringham, Paxton, James Greig, John Gülich, Louis -Baumer, F. H. Townsend, Fred Pegram, Chantrey Corbould, -Frank Richards, Bernard Gribble, Will Rothenstein, Aubrey -Beardsley, Willson, Starr Wood and Linley Samborne.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the same time we saw a good deal of such well-known -painters as David Murray, R.A.; Solomon J. Solomon, R.A.; -Arthur Hacker, R.A.; J. J. Shannon, R.A.; Walter Crane; -Llewellyn, the P.R.I.; Sir James Linton, P.R.I.; G. A. Storey, -A.R.A.; Sir Alfred East, R.A.; R. W. Allan; J. H. Lorimer, -R.S.A.; J. Lavery; Herbert Schmalz; Hugh de Trafford -Glazebrook; Yeend King; William Yeames, R.A., who married -my cousin, Annie Wynfield; and Alfred Parsons, A.R.A.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Various ladies’ clubs, and clubs to which both sexes were -admitted, contributed not a little to the extraordinary -amount of social intercourse which then was a feature of -Bohemia. The Pioneer Club, the Writers’ Club, and the -Women Journalists’ were, frankly, associations of working -women. And there were many members interested in -literature in the Albemarle and the Sesame, ladies’ clubs which -admitted men as guests. Once a week at the Writers’ Club, -and very often at the Pioneer, they had large gatherings at -which literary “shop” filled the air.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Thus in a short time we came to know hundreds of authors -and artists (male and female), actors and actresses, and kept -open house for them every Friday night.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Pioneer, the forerunner of the Lyceum, was a great -institution in those days. Rich women, interested in woman’s -work, established it and bore some of its expense for the -benefit of women workers. It had a fair sprinkling of well-known -authoresses, and the prominent women in all sorts of -movements. Its afternoon and evening receptions—the -latter generally for lectures—were most interesting affairs. -There was no suffragist movement in those days to overshadow -everything else. Women’s Rights were a joke like -“bloomers,” which are now suggestive of something very -different.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Writers’ Club was more frankly literary, more frankly -“shop.” You met non-writing workers too in those basement -premises in Norfolk Street, which have seen the birth -of so many reputations. I remember meeting there a -suffragist whose name is known all over the world now, but -when I was introduced to her it was only known to her fellow-workers. -She asked me what I thought of the suffragists. -Not knowing who she was, and not having thought anything -about them, I replied, “Oh, I’ve nothing against them -except their portraits in the halfpenny papers!” It made -her my friend, for she had suffered from rapid newspaper -reproduction that very morning.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I always enjoyed those gatherings of women workers very -much, though many of them had ideas for the betterment -of England which involved the destruction of all I cherished -most, and some were terrifying in their earnestness like the -she-Apostle of antivivisection, who had a hydrophobic glitter -in her eye, which reminded me of a blue-eyed collie I once -had, but had to give away because it bit.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This lady was the cause of my gradually dropping away -from those pleasant receptions. It was no good going to -them because no sooner had I been introduced to anybody -interesting, than she came up and wanted me to start enlisting -them for the cause, though I knew that I should never employ -an antivivisectionist doctor in the case of a serious illness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>any more than I should employ a homœopathist. She afterwards -became an <i>advocatus diaboli</i>—an apologist for the -outrages of the Militants, which she said were necessary to -draw attention to the wrongs of women.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In after days, when I had written a novel which became -very popular (<i>A Japanese Marriage</i>), I was asked to lecture -before the Pioneer Club on some subject connected with the -book. Noticing that their lectures were generally rather of -an abstract nature, and not having at all an abstract mind -myself, I chose for my subject, “The Immorality of Self-Sacrifice.” -The book was largely taken up with the unhappiness -inflicted on the hero and the heroine because she -was a good churchwoman, and his deceased wife’s sister, -and would not marry him, though she was desperately in -love with him, until long afterwards she was disgusted with -the narrow-mindedness of a clergyman cousin.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I gave that lecture in the innocence of my heart. I -imagined that the Club would be so anxious to pioneer for -the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, that I should carry the -audience with me. I made the mistake of being too abstract. -If I had contented myself with being “agin’ the Government” -and delivered a technical diatribe in favour of the -Bill, ladies with a mission on this particular subject would -have started up on every side.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As it was, speaker after speaker found my idea immoral. -Self-sacrifice was the order of the day; they preached self-sacrifice; -they plumed themselves upon self-sacrifice. They -did not approve of me at all. But what I objected to because -it was self-sacrifice, they objected to because they were -rebels, so the evening went off very well.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bohemian Club evenings in those days differed from those -of the present day because most of them were confined to -men. The Playgoers’ Club was almost the only one which -admitted ladies; and at that time it confined them mostly -to lectures. The ladies’ Clubs certainly welcomed men, but -the serious element was more conspicuous there. The idea -of having a literary club at which ladies and gentlemen -constantly dined together for pleasure had not been born.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The actors and actresses and well-known speakers of our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>acquaintance we met mostly at the old Playgoers’ Club, or -at Phil May’s Sunday nights in the stable which had become -his studio.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The old Playgoers’ was a most breezy place, where no one -was allowed to speak for more than a few minutes, unless -he could bring down the house with his wit. The ordinary -person making a good sound speech was howled down. The -chairman sometimes interfered to save a more distinguished -orator. I remember the chairman of the club saying at one -of the Christmas dinners to the section in the audience who -were far enough away from the speaker to be talking quite -as loud as he was, “Will those bounders at the back of the -room shut up?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The women writers very appropriately established themselves -as a Writers’ Club in the area flat underneath A. P. -Watt’s literary agency. There was no connection, but I -suppose it resulted in an illustrious man author occasionally -coming on from Watt’s to have a cup of tea at the Writers’ -Club. They had an at-home every Friday afternoon, which -was always extremely well supported.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I enjoyed going to these Writers’ Club teas very much, -and went often, and on one or other occasion met most of the -leading women workers of the day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Writers’ Clubbists did not take women’s theories so -seriously as the Pioneers, perhaps because they were not -subsidised, and had no fierce patron to keep them at concert -pitch, but they were more literary, and, until the rise of the -Women Journalists’, had almost the monopoly of working -women writers. The Sesame had some, and when it was -founded later on, the Lyceum became a regular haunt of -them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was only in our last days at Addison Mansions that we -joined the Dilettanti, a dining club of authors and artists, -run by Paternoster and his charming wife. It has only a -few score members, who once a month eat an Italian dinner -together, washed down by old Chianti, at the Florence -Restaurant in Soho, and listen to a brilliant paper by one of -their members, which they afterwards discuss, with a great -deal of wit and freedom. Henry Baerlein, Mrs. George -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Cran, and Herbert Alexander, are among its wittiest -members, and Mrs. Adam, daughter of Mrs. C. E. Humphry, -the ever-popular “Madge,” is quite the best serious -speaker. The speaking is more really impromptu than at -the Omar Khayyam, for the papers generally have titles which -do not convey the least inkling of what they are to be about, -and it is therefore impossible for people to prepare their -speeches beforehand.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Literary at-homes were a great feature of that day. There -was a large set of Literary, Art and Theatrical people who -used to meet constantly at the houses of Phil May, A. L. -Baldry, A. S. Boyd, Moncure D. Conway, Gleeson White, -Dr. Todhunter, William Sharp, Zangwill, Rudolph Lehmann, -E. J. Horniman, Joseph Hatton, Max O’Rell, John Strange -Winter, George and Weedon Grossmith, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, -J. J. Shannon, Mrs. Jopling, and Jerome K. Jerome. And -the more eminent authors and artists, at any rate, used to -meet a great deal at Lady St. Helier’s, Lady Lindsay’s, Lady -Dorothy Nevill’s, the Tennants’ and the H. D. Traills’.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sometimes they met in the afternoon, and sometimes in -the evening—more often the latter, because the artists came -in greater numbers, and the actors, when the Theatres were -closed. As I have said, there were very seldom performances -at any of them, because the people met to talk, and be introduced -to fresh celebrities, and whether the reception was in -the afternoon or the evening, the hospitalities were of the -simple American kind. They were <i>bona fide</i> meetings of -clever people who wished to make each other’s acquaintance. -Our friends came to us on Friday nights. At first, like Phil -May, we kept open house every week, but as the number of -our friends increased, we gradually tailed off to once a fortnight -and once a month, because we had almost to empty -the house out of the windows to make room for all who -came.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we ceased to receive every week, we sent out notices -to the friends we wanted to see most that we were going to -be at home on such an evening, and from this we passed to -giving each at-home in honour of some special person, whom -our friends were invited to meet. I cannot remember half -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>the special guests they were invited to meet, but among -them were Conan Doyle, Anthony Hope, Mark Twain, Mrs. -Flora Annie Steel, Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett, Maarten -Maartens, Hall Caine, H. G. Wells, W. W. Jacobs, Sir -Frederick Lugard (then Captain Lugard) when he came back -from his great work in Uganda, F. C. Selous when he came -back from his mighty hunting in South Africa, Zangwill, -J. J. Shannon, Frankfort Moore, Savage Landor and Dr. -George Ernest Morrison.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In a very short time, Bohemian at-homes, at which author -and artist and actor met, became the rage in the Bohemian -quarters of London—West Kensington, Chelsea, Chiswick, -and the North-west. There were many people who were -never so happy as when they went to an at-home every afternoon -and evening of the week. They were all workers, and -most of them too poor to use cabs much, so one wondered -when they found time to do their work. That they did it -was obvious, for most of them were producing a good deal of -work, and many of them were laying the foundations of not -inconsiderable fame.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At some of these receptions they had a little music, but at -most of them they had no entertainment. For the clever -people who went to these receptions did not go long distances -to sit like mutes while some third- or fourth- or fortieth-rate -artist played or sang; they went to meet other well-known -Bohemians—well-known men and charming women. The -most successful hosts were those who asked celebrities and -pretty people in equal quantities: the celebrities liked -meeting pretty people, and the pretty people liked meeting -the celebrities.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Some celebrities were quite annoyed if there were only -celebrities to meet them; they wanted an audience.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I remember Whistler the painter and Oscar Wilde being -the first two people to arrive at a reception at Mrs. Jopling’s -house in Beaufort Street, where I had been lunching. They -were intensely annoyed at having only the Joplings and myself -as audience; it was no good showing off before us, since we -knew all about them. They were quite distant to each other, -and more distant to us. But as the time wore on, and nobody -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>came, Wilde had time to think of something effective to say—he -never spoke, if he could help it, unless he thought he could -be effective.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I hear that you went over to the Salon by Dieppe, -Jimmy,” he sneered, “were you economising?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Don’t be foolish,” said Whistler. “I went to paint.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“How many pictures did you paint?” asked the æsthete, -with crushing superiority.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Whistler did not appear to hear his question. “How many -hours did it take?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You went, not I,” said Oscar. “No gentleman ever goes -by the Dieppe route.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I do, often,” said our charming hostess, who had this -great house in Chelsea, with an acre or two of garden: “it -takes five hours.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“How many minutes are there in an hour, Oscar?” -drawled Whistler.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I am not quite sure, but I think it’s about sixty. I am -not a mathematician.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Then I must have painted three hundred,” said the -unabashed Whistler.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was at this at-home later on that Whistler made his -often-quoted mot—not for the first time, I believe. A pretty -woman said something clever, and Wilde, who could be a -courtier, gallantly remarked that he wished he had said it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Never mind, Oscar,” said Whistler, who owed him one -for the gibe about the Dieppe route; “you will have said it.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>They were really very fine that afternoon, because they -were so thoroughly disgusted at not having more people to -show off before; showing off is a weakness of many authors -and artists and actors, though Bernard Shaw is the only one -that I remember who has had the frankness to admit it in -<i>Who’s Who</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We used to begin receiving at nine for the sake of people -who had trains to catch to distant suburbs—as Jerome -K. Jerome remarked, “other people always live in such -out-of-the-way places”—and kept the house open till the -last person condescended to go away, which was generally -about three. Any one who had been introduced to us was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>welcome to come, and to bring any of his friends with him, -and in this way we met some of the most interesting people -who came to the flat during our twenty years of tenancy. -For instance, Herbert Bunning, the composer, whose opera -<i>La Princesse Osra</i>, presented at Covent Garden, was -drawn from Anthony Hope’s novel by a permission which I -obtained for him, brought with him one night M. Feuillerat, -who married Paul Bourget’s delightful sister, and Madame -Feuillerat. M. Feuillerat in his turn brought with him Emile -Verhaeren, one of the greatest living Belgian poets. M. -Feuillerat himself was at the time professor of English -literature in the university at Rennes, and both he and -Madame Feuillerat spoke admirable English. On another -Friday they were going to bring Paul Bourget himself, but -he did not fulfil his intention of coming to England at the -time.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another distinguished foreigner who came about the same -time was Maarten Maartens, a Dutch country gentleman -whose real name is Joost Marius Maarten Willem van der -Poorten-Schwartz. Hearing so much of his beautiful chateau -in Holland, I asked him how he could tear himself away so -much as he did. His reply was that for nine months in the -year the weather in Holland was awful, and for the other -three generally awful. This great writer had an epigrammatic -way of expressing himself. He said that an eminent -critic, who constituted himself his patron when he was in -England, had warned him not to go to the Authors’ Club -(of which I was the Honorary Secretary), because most of -the people who went there were very small fry. He said -that he had taken no notice of the warning because he had -observed that his informant wore a piece of pink sarcenet -ribbon for a tie, and that he, Maarten Maartens, knew enough -of the Englishman’s idea of dress to be aware that the critic -could not be a judge of ties, and wear pink sarcenet ribbon; -and he argued that a man so self-satisfied and so ignorant -about ties might be equally self-satisfied and ignorant -about Authors’ clubs. I asked him if he had written any -books in Dutch. He said, “No, what is the good, when -there are so few people to write for? Only Dutchmen speak -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>Dutch. It was a choice of writing in English or German, -if I was to have an audience, and I chose English.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Georg Brandes, the great Danish critic, who had so much -to do with the recognition of Ibsen, told me when he came -to our flat and I asked him a similar question, that in his -later books he had taken to writing in other languages for the -same reason. He was extremely interested, I remember, in -Sergius Stepniak, the exiled Russian revolutionary, as was -the then permanent head of the Foreign Office, whom I -approached with some diffidence on the subject when they -were both dining at a Club dinner of which I had the arrangements. -Stepniak, whom I always found, in my intercourse -with him, a very amiable man, had all the stage appearance of -a villain, with his coal-black hair, his knotty, bulbous forehead, -his black Tartar eyes, black beard and sombre complexion.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of Zola, a studious-looking man with a brown beard, a -rather tilted nose, and pince-nez, I have spoken in another -chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Anatole France I never met till quite recently, at a little -party at John Lane’s. He was as abounding in <i>simpatica</i> -as Zola was wanting in it. He was rather short, and held his -head sideways like the late Conte de Paris, with his closely-cropped -beard buried in his chest. But he had unmistakably -the air of a great man, and extraordinarily bright and -sympathetic eyes—a captivating personality.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As I began with foreigners I will deal with them before -passing on to the many interesting Anglo-Saxons who -assembled in those rooms during those twenty years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>August Strindberg, the Scandinavian novelist and -dramatist, was to have come to see us when he was in England -in the ’nineties. He forwarded an introduction, but did -not follow it up owing to the distance of his sojourning place. -Before he left Scandinavia, he had asked a friend who was -supposed to know all about England for a nice healthy -suburb of London, far enough out for the air to be pure. -The friend suggested (without, I think, any idea of practical -joking) that Gravesend should be the place, and at Gravesend -Strindberg remained during the whole of his stay in London, -doubtless composing novels or dramas upon London society.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>Many well-known Frenchmen naturally came to see us, -like Gabriel Nicolet, the artist, and Eustache de Lorey, who -had been an attaché of the French Legation in Teheran, -and who afterwards collaborated with me in <i>Queer Things -about Persia</i> and <i>The Moon of the Fourteenth Night</i>. Since -his return from Persia he had become eminent as a composer. -He wrote the music of one of the most popular -songs in <i>Les Merveilleuses</i>, in addition to being the composer -of the opera <i>Betty</i>, which was produced in Brussels, -with Mariette Sully in the leading part. Melba herself contemplates -appearing in the leading rôle in his second opera, -<i>Leila</i>. De Lorey had made some most adventurous -expeditions, including one with Pierre Loti in Caucasia, and -he was such a brilliant raconteur of his adventures that I -asked him why he did not make a book of them. He replied -that the travel-book is not the institution in France which -it is in England, and that though he spoke English fluently, -he could not write a book in English. Finally we decided -to collaborate as related in a later chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had many Asiatic visitors, but no Africans, I think, -unless one counts Englishmen who had won their spurs in -the dark continent, like Sir Frederick Lugard. Decidedly -our most interesting Asiatic visitors were Japanese like -Yoshio Markino and Prof. Nakamura. Prof. Nakamura -was for three years a pupil of Lafcadio Hearn. He came -over to England for the Japanese Exhibition, and remained -here a few years, studying educational methods for the -Japanese Government.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He said that Lafcadio Hearn would see nothing of his -pupils because he was only interested in the Old Japan, and -was afraid of introducing modern ideas if he saw much of -any Japanese who were not absorbed in the same studies as -himself. I remember Bret Harte pleading much the same -objection to revisiting California.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Yoshio Markino has been one of our most intimate friends -for years. I cannot say in what exact year he first came to -32 Addison Mansions. I know that I first met him through -M. H. Spielmann, who wrote to me telling me all about Markino’s -powers as a black-and-white artist, and asking me to get -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>my editor friends to give him some work, of which he stood in -need. Not until he published <i>A Japanese Artist in London</i> -at my suggestion, and with a preface written by me, a few -years after, did I know how badly he stood in need of that -work; Japanese etiquette prevented him from intruding -his private affairs upon a stranger. I was successful in -getting him a little illustrating work, and I got him some -translating work, better paid, I suspect, than original contributions -of men like the late Andrew Lang to the great -<i>Dailies</i>. It came about in this wise: I was anxious to -include in <i>More Queer Things about Japan</i>, a translation -of a Japanese life of Napoleon, which had come into my -hands. There were five volumes of it with extremely amusing -illustrations. Neither I nor the publishers knew what a -small amount of words can make a volume in Japanese. -The publisher looked at the volumes and thought that he -was making a very shrewd bargain when he offered five -pounds a volume as the translator’s fee. Each volume -proved to contain about a thousand words, so Markino got -five pounds a thousand, when the publisher meant to offer -him about five shillings.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After this I lost touch of Markino for a long time, till Miss -E. S. Stevens, who had been my secretary, and was then -doing work as a literary agent, invited us to meet him at -her Club. Very soon after that I was at the annual soirée -of the Japan Society with Miss Lorimer and another girl, -and my cousin, Sampson Sladen, who was then only third -in command of the London Fire Brigade, when we ran across -Markino, who remained with us all the evening. He invited -myself and the members of our household to the exhibition -of the sketches which he had painted to illustrate <i>The Colour -of London</i>. From that time forward his visits were very -frequent till we left London, and on two separate occasions -he went to Italy with us for several months.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was on the first of these occasions, while we were all -staying at 12 Piazza Barberini in Rome, that he showed me -a letter which he had written to Messrs. Chatto & Windus -about the second of the volumes he illustrated, <i>The Colour of -Paris</i>. The letter was as brilliant, as interesting, as amusing, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>as one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s or Lafcadio Hearn’s. -I saw that he was a born writer, and from that time forward -did not rest until I had persuaded him to write his first book, -<i>A Japanese Artist in London</i>. I got him the contract from -the publisher for this book and wrote the preface.</p> - -<p class='c016'>While we were in Paris he brought us an invitation to -dinner from the brilliant Parisian who was afterwards our -dear friend, poor Yvonne, who died the other day after -months of suffering. When we arrived she had a terrible -headache, and we had to have our dinner without her, presided -over by her niece, a gay and pretty child of thirteen, -who made as self-possessed a hostess as any grown-up. We -talked a great deal that night over Italy, and a great deal -more when Markino came to see us at the little Cité de Retiro, -near the Madeleine, and the result was that he decided to -do a book on Italy with Miss Olave Potter, he supplying the -pictures, and she the letterpress—the book that took form -as <i>The Colour of Rome</i>, which Messrs. Chatto & Windus -promptly agreed to commission, and of which I shall have -more to say elsewhere. That winter and the summer of -another year we all spent together in Italy, and the painting -of the illustrations for <i>The Colour of Rome</i> led indirectly to -Markino’s writing <i>A Japanese Artist in London</i>, and the -beginning of his brilliant literary career.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Markino’s writings achieved such an instant popularity -with English readers that I feel sure that they will like to -know his habits of work, which I had the opportunity of -observing during the two long visits he paid with us to -Italy. For a painter of architecture and landscape his -method is unique. Take, for instance, the story of the -illustrations to Miss Olave Potter’s book, <i>The Colour of Rome</i>. -First of all, since he was a stranger to Rome, and knew -neither its beauty spots nor its most interesting monuments, -we took him walks to see all the most illustrable places. -He selected from them the number he had promised to paint. -Sometimes he took more than one walk to a place before he -commenced the study for his picture, but intuition is one of -his gifts, and he was seldom long at fault in discovering the -best standpoint.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>Having chosen this, he took his drawing-pad to the spot -and made a rough sketch of it with notes written in Japanese -of the colours to be used, and any special things he had to -remember. Sometimes, where there was a great deal of -detail, or of sculpture, he used paper with crossed lines on -it, so as to preserve his proportions. But Markino, beautifully -as he can paint detail, resents it, and prefers subjects -unified by a haze of heat or mist.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He never took his paints out with him, and never did a -finished drawing in the open air. He took his notes home -with him and ruminated over them, till the idealised picture -presented itself to his brain. Then he set to work on it, -taking little rest till it was finished—always absolutely -faithful to colour and effect, though the picture was painted -entirely indoors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That was his method of painting. He did no writing in -Rome. But he came constantly to our flat when he was -writing <i>A Japanese Artist in London</i>, <i>My Idealled John -Bullesses</i>, and <i>When I was a Child</i>. Sometimes he liked to -talk over his chapters before he began to write them, when -they were slow at taking shape. But more generally he -brought the chapters written in the rough to his Egeria, and -read them over to her. They had blanks where he could not -remember the English word which he wanted to use. It was -in his mind, and he would reject all words till he found the -word he was thinking of.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As he read the chapters aloud, the wise Egeria made -corrections where they were necessary to elucidate his -meaning—to clarify his style, but never treated any Japanese -use of English as a mistake, unless it made the sense obscure. -That is how the fascinating medium in which Markino writes -took shape.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Take, for instance, Markino’s omission of the <i>articles</i>. -The Japanese language has no articles. Markino therefore -seldom uses them, and his English is written to be intelligible -without them, just as a legal document is written to be -intelligible without punctuation. Again, if he used a word -in a palpably wrong sense—<i>i. e.</i> with a meaning which it -had never borne before, or was etymologically unfit to bear—she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>left it if it helped to express in a forcible way what -he intended.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The result of this respectful editing was to produce a most -fascinating and characteristic type of English, which has -won for Markino a public of enthusiastic admirers. He has, -as Osman Edwards said, <i>the heart of a child</i>, when he is -writing, and he combines with it a highly original mode of -thinking and expressing himself, but their effect would have -been half lost if he had not found in his Egeria an adviser -with the eye of genius for what should be corrected and -what should be retained of his departures from conventional -English.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When the chapters were corrected thus, Egeria typed -them out, making any corrections or additions which were -necessary to the punctuation, and generally preparing the -manuscript for the press.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I am encouraged to think that these details of the way -in which the books were edited will interest the public, -because J. H. Taylor, the golf champion, once cross-examined -me on the subject, as we were walking down the lane from -the Mid-Surrey golf pavilion to his house. He had been -reading <i>A Japanese Artist in London</i>, and was so delighted -with it that he wanted to know exactly how this wonderful -style of writing was born.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And there is no doubt that it is a wonderful style of writing. -It is not pigeon-English; the Japanese do not use pigeon-English, -they abhor it. It is the result of a deliberate -intention to apply certain Japanese methods of expression -(like the omission of the article) to the writing of English, -in order to produce a more direct medium, and the result -has been a complete success. Markino’s English is wonderfully -forcible. It hits like a sledge-hammer. He has a -genius for discovering exactly the right expression, and he -thinks on till he discovers it. As a reason why his English -is not broken English, but a medium using the capabilities -of both languages, I may mention that he has been living in -America and England for nearly twenty years.</p> - -<div id='i072f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i072f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE MOORISH ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS.<br />(<i>From the Painting by Yoshio Markino.</i>)</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Besides Japanese, we had many Indian visitors.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>OUR AT-HOMES: THE YOUNG AUTHORS WHO ARE NOW GREAT AUTHORS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Of</span> all the men who used to come to 32, Addison Mansions -from our having met them at the Idler teas, none were more -identified with the success of Jerome’s two periodicals <i>The -Idler</i> and <i>To-day</i> than Arthur Conan Doyle and Israel -Zangwill. Doyle had been writing for ten years before -he achieved commanding success. Be that as it may, -he was undoubtedly the most successful of the younger -authors who were familiar figures in that Vagabond and -Idler set. Doyle, who was the son of that exquisite artist, -Charles Doyle, and grandson of the famous caricaturist -H. B., and nephew of Dicky Doyle of <i>Punch</i>, ought to have -been granted a royaller road to success, for he had enjoyed -a very early connection with literature, having sat as a little -child on the knee of the immortal Thackeray. Thackeray’s -old publishers, Smith, Elder & Co., have been his, but he -had travelled to the Arctic regions and to the tropics and -practised for eight years as a doctor at Southsea before he -charmed the world with his famous novels <i>The White Company</i> -in 1890, and <i>The Refugees</i> in 1891, and astonished it with -the <i>Adventures of Sherlock Holmes</i> in the latter year. He -was a doctor at Norwood when I first made his acquaintance. -He was a little over thirty then, and a keen cricketer, -being nearly county form (indeed, he did actually play once -for Hampshire, and might at one time have played regularly -for Hampshire as an Association back). It was not until -late in life, however, that he found time enough to get much -practise at games. Then for some years he played occasional -first-class cricket, having an average of thirty-two against -Kent, Derbyshire and other good teams; in the last year he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>played for the M.C.C. That was after the war, when he was -over forty. He played a hard Association match in his -forty-fourth year.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From an early stage in his literary career he enjoyed -the admiration and the deepest respect of all his fellows in -the craft, and for years past has undoubtedly been morally -the head of the profession. Upon him has fallen the mantle -of Sir Walter Besant. In saying this, I am not instituting -any comparison between the merits of his various lines of -work, which in their own line are quite unexcelled, and -those of the other leading authors, but he is not only -among the handful who may be called the very best authors -of the day, he is the man to whom the profession would -undoubtedly look for a lead in any crisis.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Say, for instance, that the idea, so often debated recently, -of authors combining with publishers to fix the price of a -novel at ten and sixpence, and refusing to work for or sell -their goods to any one who would not abide by this decision, -were put to a vote in the literary profession, what Doyle -thought would count most. The profession as an army -would range themselves under his banner. Suppose -a question, like the insurance question which has been -threatening the livelihood of thousands of doctors, were to -arise for authors, they would look to Doyle for a lead. If -the decision which he made benefited authors as a whole, but -cost him half or three-quarters of his income, and a syndicate -approached him with a huge offer to abandon the camp, -nobody could suppose for one moment that Doyle would -listen to them. His moral courage, his loyalty, his generosity, -his patriotism, added to his wonderful literary gifts, have -confered upon him a commanding position. Of his gifts -I shall speak lower down. It is as the patriot that one must -always consider him first. He is not naturally a party man, -though he happens to have contested Edinburgh as a Liberal -Unionist, and the Hawick boroughs as a Tariff Reformer. -There have been moments when he has been openly opposed -to some measure of the Unionist Party. He really belongs -to the Public Service party. He made notable sacrifices -for his country at the time of the Boer War. First he gave -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>up his literary work to serve unpaid on the staff of the -Langman Field Hospital and afterwards to write the pamphlet -on <i>The Cause and Conduct of the War</i>, an attempt to place -the true facts before the people of Europe, which brought -him nothing but great expense and the undying gratitude -and respect of his fellow-countrymen. That he cares nothing -for popularity where principles are concerned is shown by -the attitude he took over the famous horse-maiming case, -or his acceptance of the Presidency of the Divorce Law -Reform Union.</p> - -<div id='i074f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i074f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>SIR A. CONAN DOYLE<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>His sturdy character is reflected in his physique, and there -are few people in London who do not know that unusually -big and strong frame, that round head, with prominent -cheek-bones, and dauntless blue eyes, the bluff, good-humoured -face: for his sonorous voice is frequently heard -from the chair of public meetings where some protest for -the public good has to be raised, or at a dinner-table on the -guest nights of clubs. Sir Arthur, for he was knighted in -1902, is a most popular speaker; hearty, engaging, amusing, -in his lighter moods, most trenchant and convincing in a -crisis, of all the authors of the day he merits most the title -of a great man.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The curious thing is that although every one knows how -much he respects Doyle as a great man, and every one is -aware that he is one of the most popular, if not the most -popular, of the authors of the day, not every one has analysed -the soundness of his literary fame. In my opinion, of all very -popular authors, Doyle deserves his popularity as an author -most. No man living has written better historical novels, -judged from the standpoint of eloquence, accuracy or thrill. -Doyle has carried the accuracy of the man of science into all -his studies, and his power to thrill with eloquence and incident -is beyond question. His detective stories are equal to the -best that have ever been written. His history of the South -African War is not only the best history of the war, but it -is a model of contemporary history, always the most difficult -kind to write, because only the eye of intuition can distinguish -respective values amid contemporary incidents. -He has been highly successful as a playwright too. His <i>House</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span><i>of Temperley</i> is the best Prize-Ring play in the language, as -his novel, <i>Rodney Stone</i>, which had no lady-love heroine, -was the best Prize-Ring novel, and his play on Waterloo, -produced by Sir Henry Irving, has become a classic. I have -alluded elsewhere to the dramatisation of his <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> -which has been played thousands of times. Doyle not -only was present at our at-homes at 32 Addison Mansions, -but, living out of town, once stayed with us there, as we -stayed with him at Hindhead on another occasion. But -owing to his living out of town, he was a great deal less -familiar figure at receptions than most of the other younger -authors of the first rank, except Rudyard Kipling and -J. M. Barrie, both of whom cordially hate “functions” of -any kind. Doyle, placed in the same circumstances as they -are, forces himself to go to many functions for which he has -less time than they have, for his literary output is infinitely -greater, and he has so many other duties to perform, and -always performs them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Doyle what first turned him to writing, he -said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“All the art that is in our family—my grandfather, three -uncles, and father were all artists—ran in my blood, and -took a turn towards letters. At six I was writing stories; -I fancy my mother has them yet. At school I was, though -I say it, a famous story-teller; at both schools I was at I -edited a magazine, and practically wrote the whole of it -also.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“When I started studying medicine, the family affairs -were very straitened. My father’s health was bad, and -he earned little. I tried to earn something, which I did by -going out as medical assistant half the year. Then I tried -stories. In 1878, when I was nineteen years old, I sent -<i>The Mystery of the Sassasa Valley</i> to Chambers. I got three -guineas. It was 1880 before I got another accepted. It was -by <i>London Society</i>. From then until 1888 I averaged about -fifty pounds a year, getting about three pounds a story. -My first decent price was twenty-eight pounds from the Cornhill -for <i>Habakuk Jephson’s Statement</i> in 1886. Then at New -Year, 1888, Ward, Lock & Co. brought out <i>A Study in</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span><i>Scarlet</i>, paying twenty-five pounds for all rights. I have -never had another penny from that book; I wonder how -much they have had? Then came <i>Micah Clarke</i> at the end -of 1888, which got me a more solid public. It was not until -1902 that I was strong enough to be able to entirely abandon -medical practice. Of course, it was the Holmes stories in -the <i>Strand</i> which gave me my popular vogue, but <i>The White -Company</i>, which has been through fifty editions, has sold far -more as a book than any of the Holmes books.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Kipling I regard as the genius of the junction of the nineteenth -and twentieth centuries, and England owes an incalculable -debt to his patriotism and eloquence. If Doyle -is the voice of the literary profession, Kipling is the voice of -the country. He speaks for the manhood of England in -a crisis. All through the African War a letter or a poem -from Kipling was the trumpet voice of national feeling. -No poet who has written in English has ever inspired his -countrymen like Kipling. His poems, though they have -not the poetical quality of those of our great standard poets, -have the prophetical quality, which is just as important in -poetry, in a higher degree than any of them. They are -Rembrandt poems, not Raphael poems, and they will remain -without loss of prestige, an armoury for every patriotic or -manful writer and speaker to quote from. I reviewed -Kipling’s poems when they were first published in America -for the leading Canadian paper. I am thankful that I -hailed them as the work of genius, and it was a proud moment -when I first shook hands with him in the early ’nineties. -Though his short stories are the best in the language, I always -think of him as a poet, because he is our <i>vates</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is best to mention Barrie, our other genius, here, though -I have little to say about him. On the rare occasions when -he speaks in public, he speaks admirably, and he enjoys -universal respect. As far as literature is concerned, no -man’s lines have been laid in pleasanter places. Unlike -Doyle, Anthony Hope, Stanley Weyman and others, Barrie -did not have to wait for recognition. It is notorious that -from the very beginning he never had the proverbial manuscript -in the drawer; in other words, that he always found -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>an immediate sale for whatever he wrote. He began as a -journalist.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Anthony Hope I first met at an Idler tea. He was one -of the brilliant band of younger authors whom Jerome was -among the first to recognise. In those days he kept the -distinction between “Anthony Hope” the writer, and -Anthony Hope Hawkins the barrister, most rigidly. Being -the son of a famous London clergyman, Mr. Hawkins, of St. -Bride’s, Fleet Street, a cousin of Mr. Justice Hawkins, a -scholar of Balliol, and an eloquent speaker, his prospects at -the Bar were very good. There was an idea that they would -suffer if it were known that he indulged in anything so -frivolous as writing love-stories. These were the days when -he was composing his immortal “Dolly Dialogues” for the -<i>Westminster Gazette</i>, and when he was just beginning the -succession of witty and delicate novels which made his fame. -He had, I have always understood, been writing for some -years, before he could make any impression on the public, -and even then he had no hope of making a living by literature. -I made one of his early novels my book of the week in <i>The -Queen</i>, in a most enthusiastic review, and incidentally -mentioned his real name. His friends, perhaps they were -officious, entreated me not to do it again, lest it should -injure his prospects. A year or two afterwards there was -no question off which profession he was to make a living, -though as he coquetted with politics, and contested a constituency -or two, he probably kept up the legal fiction of his -being at the Bar for some time longer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As he had enjoyed the distinction of being President of -the Oxford Union, he was a practised speaker before he -came to London. He had plenty of opportunities of exercising -his skill without waiting for briefs, for he became a -frequent speaker at Club dinners. The charm of his voice -and his delivery, the polish and wit of his speeches were -recognised at once, and his popularity as a speaker has been -undisputed from that day to this.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was noticed that, though he was so brilliant and fluent, -when making a speech, he was rather a silent man at receptions, -except where politeness demanded that he should -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>exert himself. But this is a common trait in the more considerable -authors. They are frequently not only rather -silent, but ill at ease. In those days one could count the -authors who were both brilliant socially and brilliant writers, -on one’s fingers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One legal habit Anthony Hope retained; he went to -chambers to do his writing as he had been accustomed, -and lived in other chambers, and was regarded as a confirmed -bachelor till he married. He came to Addison -Mansions very frequently in the ’nineties. The incident I -remember best was his loss of presence of mind when I tried -to save him from a terrific American bore, a middle-aged -lady. Somebody had brought her; I had not met her -before, and she was having a systematic lion-hunt. She -thought that A. H. H. was Anthony Hope, but she was not -certain, and said to me, “Is that <i>Anthony Hope</i>? I must -know <i>Anthony Hope</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Wishing to save him from the infliction, because he was -always rather distrait with bores, I said, “That is Mr. -Hawkins.” I didn’t think she knew enough about literature -to be aware of the identity, nor did she, but he had unfortunately -caught the words “Anthony Hope,” and smiled, -and started forward, and was lost. As he had unconsciously -convicted me of falsehood, I left him to his fate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Generous to needy brother authors, punctilious in the -performance of the duties to the literary profession, which -his eminence confers on him (in such matters as the Authors’ -Society and literary clubs), wonderfully patient and courteous, -an admirable literary craftsman, who never turns out slipshod -work, as well as a brilliant romancer and witty dialogist, -Anthony Hope Hawkins deserves every particle of his -popularity and success.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have not dilated on his plays, though he has achieved -great success on the stage, because dramatists tell me that -he is not going to write for it any more.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The popularity of our at-homes was at its height before -Frankfort Moore had decided to come over to England, -giving up the editorial post he held in Ireland, to devote all -his time to novel-writing. He and his delightful wife, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>sister of Mrs. Bram Stoker, took lodgings at Kew, and were -ready for many receptions, so that he might meet his fellow-authors -in London. As Bram Stoker had then for years -been Irving’s right hand, they had an excellent introduction -ready-made, but they brought letters of introduction to us, -and, up to the time of his leaving London, he was among -our most intimate literary friends.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frankfort Moore’s success in London was instantaneous, -as well it might have been, since he was a brilliant and witty -speaker, as well as a writer of brilliant, witty and very -charming books. Hutchinson eagerly took up the publication -of his works, and the literary clubs soon learned to -depend upon him as one of the best after-dinner speakers. -In about ten years he made a fortune, and retired to take -things in a more leisurely way at an old house in Sussex, -where he was able to adequately house his fine collection of -old oak, old brass, old engravings and old china, in which he -was a noted connoisseur.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His immediate success justified his giving up his lodgings -at Kew, and taking a nice, old-fashioned house in Pembroke -Road, which he soon began to transform with his panelling, -and his collections. His retirement from London left a -great gap in many social circles. He was a universal favourite—a -man of real eminence, although he regarded his achievements -so modestly.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the most valued of our visitors was the celebrated -Father Stanton, of St. Alban’s, Holborn, who introduced -himself to me when he was on his way to Syracuse with -F. E. Sidney, with whom he went to Seville on that expedition -which resulted in the publication of the latter’s <i>Anglican -Innocents in Spain</i>, the book which aroused such anger -among Roman Catholics. We were the only two occupants -of a sleeping compartment on the Italian railways. He was -not wearing clerical dress, and I had no notion who he was -until the conclusion of our journey, when Sidney, who had -joined us, informed me. We did a lot of sight-seeing in -Syracuse together, especially in the cathedral (built into an -entire Greek temple, ascribed to Pallas Athene). Both -Stanton and Sidney were experts in old gilt, in which Sicily -<span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>is very rich—the organ at Syracuse is an example. From -that time until Stanton’s death we constantly met at the -house of Sidney, who has the best collection of sixteenth-century -stained glass in England, and built a house in Frognal -with the proper windows to receive it. Though Stanton and -I did not agree in Church matters, we were yet staunch -friends, and I was an immense admirer of one who did so -much for the regeneration of the poor in one of the worst -districts of London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The greatest compliment we ever received at our at-homes -was when Lord Dundonald, who had known us for -some years, and had just come back from his famous relief -of Ladysmith with his irregular cavalry, came and spent the -best part of the afternoon with us. He looked worn and very -sunburnt, but it was one of the events of our lifetimes to hear -the stirring details of England’s greatest military drama in -this generation, direct from the lips of the man who had -given it its happy termination.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER IX<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>THE HUMORISTS AT OUR AT-HOMES</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Among</span> the crowd of humorists who honoured Addison -Mansions with their presence it is natural to mention first -the famous author of <i>Three Men in a Boat</i>. There is no -author for whom I feel a greater affection, though, as he -once said, “You and I are sure to have a diametrically -opposite opinion upon almost any point which may turn up, -because we were born the poles apart.” I was at the time -his chief and only book critic on <i>To-day</i>. I believe I was -called the literary editor, though all the patronage of the -position was exercised by himself. It is patronage which -constitutes an editor; the sub-editor can perform the duties. -I believe also that it was I who suggested the name <i>To-day</i>. -At any rate, it was I who helped him to formulate the paper, -and for the first year or so it was my duty to do all the -book reviews in it, and my duty to receive all the ladies -who came to see Jerome about the paper. Of course, they -mostly came in search of work or fame: those who wished -to be written about were very numerous, and expected to -succeed by making what is called the “Glad Eye” at him. -He was <i>terribly</i> afraid of the “Glad Eye”; it made him -turn hot and cold in swift succession. He was unable to -say “no” to a siren, and equally unable to say “yes” when -he meant “no.” He was also an intensely domesticated -man, entirely devoted to his family, and without the smallest -desire for a flirtation. So it fell to my lot to pick up the -“Glad Eye,” a very agreeable job, when you have not the -power to give yourself away. I had no patronage to bestow -upon them. The only thing I could do for them was to -write about them if they were sufficiently interesting, which -frequently happened in that age of personal journalism. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>And, if they were quite harmless worshippers, without any -ulterior designs, I occasionally induced Jerome to be worshipped -for a minute or two. I made many lady friends at -this period, especially from the Stage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome hardly ever answered letters. He used to say, -“If you keep a letter for a month, it generally answers -itself.” But he did not keep them. He tore them up directly -he had glanced at them. He knew at one glance—probably -at the signature—if he wanted to read a letter, and, if he -did not, he tore it up without reading it. He had a horror -of accumulating papers. He sometimes asked me to answer -letters, as he had faith in me as a soother. It was never -part of my duties to write “yes,” I had to gild “no.” He -prefered to word his own acceptances, so as not to say -more than he meant. He did not even want me to read the -manuscripts. He prefered to read them himself. It did -not take him long, because if he did not come across something -worth publishing by the second page, he did not read any -further. “You must grab your reader at the beginning,” -he used to say.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was a very pleasant man to write reviews for. He -believed in generous criticisms. “You can have a page or -two pages for your book of the week,” he said, “according -to its importance”—he decided that when I chose my book—“but -you can only have a page for the rest of the books -that come in, so you can’t afford to waste your space on -bad books. If you can’t say anything good about them, -you obviously can’t afford them any space. You can praise -things up as much as you like if you can be convincing about -it: don’t be afraid to let yourself go about the book of the -week: I am sick of the <i>Spectator</i> and the <i>Athenæum</i>, you -never get a full-blooded review out of them, unless it’s to -damn something. The more knowledge you can show about -the subject of the book you are praising, the better. But -above all things, recommend it in the paper just as you would -recommend it to a friend: use the same language as you -would to a friend: be natural. And, whatever you do, -beware of the Club Man. When I read an article or a story, -I always ask myself what a Club Man would think of it; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>and if I know that he would like it, I turn it down: his -opinions are dead opposite to the Public’s.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The likes and dislikes of the Club Man was one of the -matters in which my opinion was dead opposite to Jerome’s. -The Club Man and the Man in the Street between them fill -the ranks of the average patriotic citizen. It is they who -pull the nation through in a crisis, and the City of London -leads them. At ordinary times their voice is drowned by -the noise of the Radical Party, and the giant Middle-class, to -whom all appeals for national safety have to be addressed—the -blind Samson sitting chained in the house of his enemies—cannot -hear their warnings.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In any case, it is so hard for a book to be popular at clubs, -where people go to be interested and amused, that if it is -popular there, it will be popular anywhere, except with the -Nonconformist Conscience.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome had written <i>Three Men in a Boat</i> and <i>The Idle -Thoughts of an Idle Fellow</i> before I met him, and was consequently -in enjoyment of world-wide fame. He had established -in the <i>Idler</i> a monthly which had no equal then as -a magazine of fiction, and had a sale of a hundred thousand -copies a month, when he started <i>To-day</i>. He started it not -only to amuse, but to educate Public Opinion, when it had -secured attention by its brightness, for he had very strong -views which he was eager to preach.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was more of a Conservative than a Radical in those -days; he had not despaired of the Conservatives, then, -though he was baggy about beastly little nationalities. -Suffragism had not then begun its March of Unreason, and -we were all in favour of giving woman a vote. But I am -bound to register the conviction that, if Suffragism had been -a burning question then, the paper would have been full of -it, and enjoying a circulation of a million, or whatever -number the adult women suffragists run to. I can picture -Jerome, a man famous for his hospitalities, being reduced to -a hunger-strike by the ardour with which he would have -espoused the idea. He was always tilting against some -abuse, always asking for litigation. And he got it—or -I suppose he would be editing a newspaper now, instead of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>delighting both hemispheres with his plays. I say advisedly -“both hemispheres,” because he has a considerable public -as a dramatist in America.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the first books on which I let myself go, and wrote -an absolute appreciation, was that magnificent historical -novel of Stanley Weyman’s, <i>A Gentleman of France</i>. Jerome -was delighted with the way I handled it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Seeing Jerome so much in the office led to our being a -good deal at each other’s houses. He was living at that time -in one of the nice old villas in St. John’s Wood. The chief -thing I remember about it was its cattiness and its scrupulous -tidiness. When you stay with him in the country, you -cannot leave your stick and hat in the hall, handy for running -out, as you might at Sandringham or Chatsworth. They are -at once arrested, and are very lucky if they get off with a -warning from the magistrate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of my diametrical divergencies from Jerome is in the -love of cats. I cannot respect a cat. To me it is a beast of -prey, a sort of middle-class tiger, operating in a small way, -but at heart a murderer of the Asiatic jungle. Jerome loves -them, and makes dogs of them: he used to fill the <i>Idler</i> -with Louis Wain’s human deductions from cats. He has -a telephone to their brains. I agree with Lord Roberts, -who knows by instinct when there is a cat in the room, -though it may be wholly concealed, and cannot enjoy himself -until it is removed.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Like most real humorists whom I have known, and I have -known many from Mark Twain and Bill Nye downwards, -Jerome is not a “funny man” in ordinary life. He is, on -the contrary, except when he is on his legs, before an audience, -or taking his pen in his hand, apt to be a very serious man, -though his conversation is always illuminated by flashes of -wit. He is much more apt to air strong opinions about -serious questions. The Jerome you see in <i>Paul Kelvin</i> and -<i>The Third Floor Back</i> is the real Jerome. He is the loyalest -friend and most tender-hearted man imaginable. His kindness -and hospitality are unbounded. You cannot stay with -Jerome in his own house without being inspired by the deepest -respect and affection for him. He is an ideal husband and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>father, a friend of the struggling, a just and generous master. -Like Conan Doyle, though he has never shone in first-class -cricket or golf, Jerome is very athletic in his tastes. In spite -of his glasses, he is a fine tennis-player and croquet-player; -he is a fine skater also, and devoted to the river and horses. -It was partly a horse accident in which he and Norma -Lorimer were involved, and both showed extraordinary -courage, which made me feel for him as I do.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He is essentially an open-air man, whose thoughts are all -outside directly he has got through his statutory amount of -work with his secretary.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But though the serious man weighs down the humorist -in Jerome, you would not guess it from his personal appearance. -When he rises to speak, his bright eye, the smile -playing round his mouth, his cool confident bearing, the -very way in which he arranges his hair, which has not yet -a particle of grey about it, is more suggestive of the humorist, -the man who is accustomed to making hundreds roar with -laughter at his speeches, and scores of thousands with the -flashes of his pen.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome has no love for London, though he has a town -residence and enjoys Bohemian society, and is very popular -in it. For many years he has lived on the Upper Thames, -and he is in the habit of going to Switzerland for the skating.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I asked Carl Hentschel, who was one of the three who went -on the trip immortalised in <i>Three Men in a Boat</i>, to tell me -about it. He said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“It is rather interesting to look back to the days of <i>Three -Men in a Boat.</i> Jerome at that time was in a solicitor’s -office in Cecil Street, where the Hotel Cecil now stands, -George Wingrave was a junior clerk in a bank in the City, -and I was working in a top studio in Windmill Street, close -to where the Lyric Theatre now stands, having to look after -a lot of Communists, who had had to leave Paris. Our one -recreation was week-ending on the river. It was roughing -it in a manner which would hardly appeal to us now. Jerome -and Wingrave used to live in Tavistock Place, now pulled -down, and that was our starting-point to Waterloo and thence -to the river. It says much for our general harmony that, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>during the years we spent together in such cramped confinement, -we never fell out, metaphorically or literally. It -was Jerome’s unique style which enabled him to bring out -the many and various points in our trip. It was a spell of -bad weather that broke up our parties. A steady downpour -for three days would dampen even the hardiest river-enthusiast. -One incident, which, I believe, was never recorded, -but would have made invaluable copy in Jerome’s hands, -happened on one of our last trips. We were on our way up -the river, and late in the afternoon, as the sky looked threatening, -we agreed to pull up and have our frugal meal, which -generally consisted of a leg of Welsh mutton, bought at the -famous house in the Strand, now pulled down, with salad. -We started preparing our meal on the bank, when the threatened -storm burst. We hastily put up our canvas over the -boat, and bundled all the food into it anyhow. It got pitch -dark, and we were compelled to find the lamp and tried to -light it. After a while we found the lamp, but it would -not light; luckily we found two candle ends, and by their -feeble light began our meal. We had hardly begun our meal -when I said after the first mouthful of salad, ‘What’s wrong -with the salad?’ George also thought it was queer, but -Jerome thought there was nothing wrong. Jerome always -did have a peculiar taste. Anyhow, he was the only one who -continued. It was not till the next day that we discovered -that owing to our carelessness of using two medicine bottles -of similar shape, one containing vinegar and the other Colza -oil, the lamp and the salad were both a bit off.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Jerome what first gave him the idea of -writing he said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I always wanted to be a writer. It seemed to me an -easy and dignified way of earning a living. I found it -difficult; I found it exposes you to a vast amount of abuse. -Sometimes, after writing a book or play which seemed to me -quite harmless, I have been staggered at the fury of indignation -it seems to have excited among my critics. If I had -been Galileo, attacking the solar science of the sixteenth -century, I could not have been assaulted by the high priests -of journalism with more anger and contempt. But the work -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>itself has always remained delightful to me. I think it was -Zangwill who said to me once, ‘A writer, to succeed, has to be -not only an artist, but a shopkeeper’—and of the two, the -shopkeeper is the more necessary. I am not sure who said -that last sentence; it may have been myself.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You write your book or play while talking to the morning -stars. It seems to you beautiful—wonderful. You thank -whatever gods there be for having made you a writer. The -book or the play finished, the artist takes his departure, to -dream of fresh triumphs. The shopkeeper—possibly a -married shopkeeper with a family—comes into the study, -finds the manuscript upon the desk. Then follows the selling, -bargaining, advertising. It is a pretty hateful business, -even with the help of agents. The book or the play you -thought so fine, you thought that every one was bound to -like it. Your publisher, your manager, is doubtful. You -have a feeling that they are accepting it out of sheer charity—possibly -they knew your father, or have heard of your early -struggles—and yield to an unbusinesslike sentiment of -generosity. It appears, and anything from a hundred to -two hundred and fifty experienced and capable journalists -rush at it to tear it to pieces. It is marvellous—their unerring -instinct. There was one sentence where the grammar -was doubtful—you meant to reconsider it, but overlooked -it; it appears quoted in every notice; nothing else in the -book appears to have attracted the least attention. At -nine-tenths of your play the audience may have laughed; -there was one scene which did not go well; it is the only -scene the critic has any use for. Their real feeling seems -to be that the writer is the enemy of the public; the duty of -all concerned is to kill him. If he escapes alive, that counts to -him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I remember the first night of a play by my friend, Henry -Arthur Jones. There had been some opposition; it was -quite evident that the gallery were only waiting for him to -appear to ‘boo’ him, as if he had been a criminal on the way -to the scaffold. I was standing by the gallery exit, and the -people were coming out. Said one earnest student to -another, as they passed me, ‘Why didn’t the little——come -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>out and take his punishment like a man?’ ‘Cowardly, I -call it,’ answered the other. They knew what was in store -for him in the next morning’s papers; they knew that a -year’s work, perhaps two, had been wasted. I suppose that -it would be asking too much to suggest that they might also -have imagined the heartache and the disappointment. The -playwright who does not succeed in keeping every one -of a thousand individuals, of different tastes and views and -temperaments, interested and amused for every single -minute of two hours, must not be allowed any mercy.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Yet for a settled income of ten thousand a year, and no -worry, no abuse, and no insults, I do not think any of us -would exchange our job. I suppose we are all born gamblers—it -is worth risking the half-dozen failures for the one -success.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“And the work itself, as I said—one only wishes one’s -readers enjoyed it half as much; circulations would be -fabulous. <i>Three Men in a Boat</i> I started as a guide to the -Thames. It occurred to us—George, Charles and myself—when -we were pulling up and down, how interesting and -improving it would be to know something about the history -of the famous places through which we passed; a little -botany might also be thrown in. I thought that other men -in boats might also like information on this subject, and -would willingly pay for it. So I read up Dugdale, and a -vast number of local guides, together with a little poetry and -some memoirs. I really knew quite a lot about the Thames -by the time I had done, and with a pile of notes in front of -me, I started. I think I had a vague idea of making it -a modern ‘Sandford and Merton.’ I thought George would -ask questions, and Harry intersperse philosophical remarks. -But George and Harry would not; I could not see them sitting -there and doing it. So gradually they came to have their -own way, and the book as a guide to the Thames is, I suppose, -the least satisfactory work on the market.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I suppose, like Mrs. Gummidge, I felt it more. It must -have been about five years before I succeeded in getting -anything of mine accepted. The regularity with which the -complimenting editor returned my manuscripts grew monotonous, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>grew heart-breaking. But, after all, it was <i>The -Times</i> newspaper which accepted my first contribution. -Some correspondence on the subject of the nude in Art made -me angry, and I wrote a letter intended to be ironic. It -attracted quite a lot of comment, and, fired by this success, -I wrote to <i>The Times</i> on other topics. The <i>Saturday Review</i> -praised their irony and humour, and Frank Harris invited -me a little later to contribute. But we differed, I think, -upon the subject of women.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“<i>The Passing of the Third Floor Back</i> I wrote for David -Warfield, the American actor, and discussed the matter with -David Belasco in the train, when I was on a lecturing tour -in America. I read him and Warfield the play at the Belasco -Theatre in New York. It was after the performance was -over, and we three had the great empty theatre to ourselves. -Then we went to Lamb’s Club, and Warfield, I think, had -macaroni, and Belasco and I had kidneys and lager beer, -and discussed arrangements. Firstly Anderson was to -draw sketches of the characters, and it was while he was -doing this in his studio at Folkestone that Forbes-Robertson -dropped in for a chat. Percy Anderson talked to him about -the play, and Forbes-Robertson took up the manuscript -and read it. Belasco was a little nervous about the play. -I did not like the idea of forcing it upon him, and other -small difficulties had arisen, so, having heard from Percy -Anderson that he had talked to Forbes-Robertson about the -play, I thought I would go and see him. He, too, was nervous -about it, but said that he felt that he must risk it. We -produced it at Harrogate, for quite a nice, respectable -audience, and they took it throughout as a farce. One or -two critics came down from London, and commiserated with -Forbes-Robertson on his luck.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“It was the miners of Blackpool who put heart into us; -they understood the thing, and were enthusiastic. Then we -produced it at St. James’, and, with one or two exceptions, -it was besieged with a chorus of condemnation—deplorable, -contemptible, absurd, were a few of the adjectives employed, -and Forbes-Robertson hastened on the rehearsals for another -play. A few days later, King Edward VII, passing through -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>London on his way to Scotland, devoted his one night in -London to seeing the piece. He said it was not the sort of -thing he expected from Jerome, but he liked it. And about -the same time strange people began to come, who did not -know what the St. James’ Theatre was, and did not quite -know what to do when they got there, and they liked it, -too.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I first met Zangwill—Israel Zangwill—at one of the old -pothouse dinners of the Vagabond Club. He had not long -given up editing <i>Ariel</i>, and was already known for his biting -wit as a speaker. When the lean, arrestive figure of the -Jewish ex-schoolmaster craned over an assemblage, there -was always an attentive silence. He had not yet immortalised -himself by those inimitable etchings of Jewish life, -in which the graver and the acid were employed so ruthlessly—the -Tragedies and Comedies of the Ghetto. But he was -in sympathies already a novelist, for on that particular -occasion he was upbraiding Robert Buchanan for forsaking -literature for the drama. His own eyes have wandered to -the stage since then. The curly black hair—an orator’s -hair—the sallow complexion of the South, the pallor of the -student, the eagle nose, the assertive smile, the confident -paradox—how well I can recall them! He was a young -man in those days.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome was always a thorough believer in Zangwill. And -he showed his judgment by making him his first serialist -in <i>To-day</i>. He paid him five hundred pounds for the serial -rights of the first of those remarkable novels of Jewish life, -as much, I believe, as he paid for the serial rights of <i>Ebb-Tide</i>, -the book R. L. Stevenson wrote in collaboration with -his step-son, Lloyd Osbourne.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Zangwill was a very constant and much-appreciated -visitor at our at-homes, as was that encyclopædia of knowledge, -his brother Louis. And their sisters sometimes came -with them. They all lived together in those days at Kilburn. -I remember going to a party at their house to meet Sir -Frederick Cowen, the musician, which had a most comical -finish. There were six of us left, and only one hansom -between us. Three got inside, two sat on the splash-board, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>and Heinemann spread himself on the roof in front of the man, -and kept filling the skylight with his face, like a Japanese -Oni. Phil May sat in the middle inside. He was very -excited, and we were trying to keep him quiet, so as not to -draw the attention of the police to the fact that the hansom -was carrying more than it was licensed for. When we got -to the Edgware Road, he began to yell for the police, and -a stalwart constable signalled to the cabby to heave to. He -advanced to the side of the cab. “What is the trouble, -sir?” he asked, preparing to rescue the artist from the literary -men among whom he had fallen.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Phil gave one of his knowing smiles, and said, “I want to go -to Piccadilly Circus, and they are trying to take me home.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>But to return to our Zangwills. Louis Zangwill had not -yet shown his strength as a writer, but any one who had -tested it, marvelled at the width of his knowledge. In -those days Israel Zangwill favoured Slapton Sands for his -summer holidays. We met him there. He used to wander -about in a black coat and white duck trousers, gathering -inspiration. The sunshine and scenery inspired him to be -a perfectly delightful companion. We once met him yet -further afield—at Venice. Norma Lorimer and I came -upon him and Bernard Sickert, the artist, in the Casa Remer, -an adorable old palace, with an open courtyard and a processional -stair, on the Grand Canal. It was quite unspoiled -by repairs in those days. It contained a curio-dealer by the -water’s edge, and at the head of the staircase was a large -room in which a very beautiful young Jewish girl sat sewing -for some sweating tailor. We had landed and made an -archæological excursion up the staircase, when we discovered -her. She arose, and with proper presence of mind, and with -a total absence of <i>mauvaise haute</i>, conducted us to the curio -shop kept by papa. There we met Zangwill and Sickert. -We were all of us tempted by some very beautiful mediæval -iron gates, which would have been a glory in any nobleman’s -park, but as we none of us had a park, and even the six -hundred francs he wanted for them, added to the cost of -transport to England, would have been a considerable sum -for any of us, we denied ourselves, and Zangwill gave a dinner -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>in honour of the event, at a tiny restaurant on a screwy little -canal behind the Piazza of San Marco. The food and the -wine were excellent, and we sat on till the moon was high, -and Venice, on those small old canals, looked like a theatrical -representation of itself for <i>The Merchant of Venice</i>. Then -we wandered back to the Piazza to Florian’s, the café whose -proud boast it is that it has never closed its doors day or -night for four hundred years. If you are sleeping in Venice -on a summer night—and, in spite of its noise and its mosquitoes, -is there anything more adorable than Venice on -a summer night?—you will find that the habit is not confined -to Florian’s.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Florian’s we sat down to coffee. We could not get -a seat outside; the band was playing “La Bohême,” and the -municipality was throwing red and green limelight on San -Marco in honour of a royal birthday. There was no waiter -either, inside, and Sickert amused himself with drawing -an almost life-sized head of Zangwill with a piece of charcoal -which he had in his pocket, on the marble table. It was a -bit of a caricature, but far the best likeness I ever saw of the -great Jewish novelist. When the waiter did come, without -waiting to take our orders, he went to fetch a damp cloth to -clean the table. <i>Ars longa, vita brevis</i>—I would not let -him touch it, and told the proprietor what a prize he had -as I went out. I have often wondered what the fate of that -table was. Zangwill, the apostle of Zionism, has always -been intensely proud of his nationality, so he has never -minded cutting jokes about it. He brought the house down -at a Vagabond Christmas dinner, where he was taking the -chair, by remarking in his opening sentence, “It’s a funny -thing to ask a Jew to do.” This was the dinner at which he -introduced to English audiences the story which had lately -appeared in a German comic paper. A carpenter was in -a crowd waiting to see the Emperor pass. He had an excellent -position, but he was very uneasy because he had promised to -meet a conceited young brother-in-law, and the brother-in-law -had not turned up.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Will the Jackanapes never come!” cried the carpenter. -A policeman promptly arrested him.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>“I was speaking of my brother-in-law,” gasped the poor -carpenter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You said ‘Jackanapes’; you must have meant the -Emperor,” said the policeman.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Zangwill what made him turn to book-writing, -he said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I never ‘turned’ to book-writing, because I never -thought of doing anything else, and I have said all I have -to say on that subject in the chapter of <i>My First Book</i>, -published by Chatto & Windus, a book which should be a -sufficient mine to you for all your friends. I was told at the -Grosvenor Library that the middle-class Jews boycotted all -my books—in revenge for the Jewish ones—but the Jewish -‘intellectuals’ have always rallied round me, for I remember -that the Maccabeans gave me a dinner to celebrate the birth -of <i>Children of the Ghetto</i>—a dinner, by the way, at which -Tree announced, amid cheers, that he had commissioned -me to adapt <i>Uriel Acosta</i>. I never took the commission -seriously, but I gave him a one-act play, <i>Six Persons</i>, which -had a long run at the Haymarket (giving Irene Vanbrugh -her first good part), and still survives, twenty years after, -having been played quite recently at the Coliseum and the -Palladium by Margaret Halstan as well as by Miss Helen -Mar somewhere else.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“An anecdote I remember telling at this dinner was: -A man said to me, ‘My son has had typhoid, but he enjoyed -himself reading your book.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“‘Where did he get it from?’ I asked, because it was -the old three-volume days, and I knew he could not have -bought it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Thinking of the typhoid, he replied, ‘From the drains.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“This theory of the origin of my book is, I believe, favoured -in high ecclesiastical quarters.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I knew Mark Twain very well. He and Bret Harte were, -I suppose, the two most famous American authors who ever -came to our at-homes at No. 32. Bret Harte, though he -was such a typically American writer, spent all the latter -part of his life in England. I first met him at Rudolph -Lehmann’s hospitable dinner-table. No one could fail to be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>struck with Bret Harte. He was so alert, so handsome, and -though his plumes—his hair was thick and sleek to the day he -died—were of an exquisite snow-white, he had a healthy, -fresh-coloured face, and a slender, youthful figure, always -dressed like a well-off young man. He used to come to our -house with the Vaudeveldes. Madame Vaudevelde, herself -an authoress, and the daughter of a famous ambassador, kept -a suite of rooms in her great house in Lancaster Gate for -his use, whenever he was in London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Don’t you ever go back to California nowadays?” I -asked him once.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“No. I dare say that if I saw the new California, with -all its go-aheadness and modernness, I should lose the old -California that I knew, whereas now it has never changed for -me. I can picture everything just as it was when I left it.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He retained his vogue to the end. Any magazine would -pay him at the rate of a couple of pounds for every hundred -words. They used to say that the Bank of England would -accept his manuscripts as banknotes. He never failed to -charm, whether he was telling some story at a dinner-party, or -talking to some undistinguished woman, young and beautiful -or old and plain, who had asked to be introduced to him as -a celebrity—and a celebrity Francis Bret Harte certainly -was, for he founded a whole school in English literature.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mark Twain was also very kind, but when I was in New -York he was living at Hartford, the capital of the adjoining -State of Connecticut. He described himself to me as a -“wooden nutmeg,” in allusion to a former thriving industry -of the State. I met him when he was engaged to entertain -a ladies’ school at New York. That did not cost nothing. -The idea seemed to me very American, that an author at the -height of his fame, as Mark Twain then was—for he was -fifty-five years old, and it was twenty-one years since he -leapt into fame with <i>The Jumping Frog</i>, should accept an -engagement to “give a talk” in a private house. The -school received good value for its fee. He not only gave them -an hour’s entrancing address, but he stayed on till quite a -late train, having anybody and everybody introduced to -him, and being cordial to them all. Nor was his cordiality -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>short-lived. I had done nothing then, except publish a few -books of verse. Yet we became and remained till the day of -his death, twenty years later, familiar friends. This was -before I received that memorable invitation from Oliver -Wendell Holmes to be his guest at the monthly meeting of -the Saturday Club at Boston, where Mark Twain proved -that the English were mentioned in the Bible.<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c011'><sup>[2]</sup></a> He told -story after story in that address, but I don’t remember any -of them. They were all good in tendency, that was one -thing; there was no making fun of anything that was good -or noble or sincere with him. He was, like our own humorist, -Jerome, intensely serious in his soul, and he was projecting -a big book about the Bible—as a publisher, for he was -already in the publishing firm of Charles L. Webster & Co., -who were producing the huge <i>Library of American Literature</i>, -of which E. C. Stedman was joint editor.</p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f2'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. </span>When challenged to prove it, he read out the text, -“For the meek shall inherit the earth.”</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>In order to make all great men authors, it had the idea to -give the most famous sayings of historical Americans, where -they had not written anything. In this way Abraham -Lincoln became an author. I expect that it was that -encyclopædia which years afterwards brought the house of -Charles L. Webster & Co. down, though it was sold “on -subscription,” with thousands of copies ordered before the -book was begun. Mark Twain found himself responsible -for debts of fifty thousand pounds. I met him soon afterwards, -and began condoling with him on his losses as a -publisher. He replied, “I am no publisher, nor ever was. -I only put the money up for them to play with.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>To make up his losses to him, a leading American firm—I -seem to recollect that it was the Harpers, but I may be -wrong—made him a gigantic “syndicate” proposal for all -rights, which brought in large sums of money.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I met him then, he had just come off ship-board. -I asked him how he was.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Better’n I ever was in my life. I’ve gotten a new lease.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“How?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Well, it’s a long story. You must know that when I am -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>staying in a hotel, or on board ship, I can’t go to bed while -there is one person left to talk to in the bar. This habit, -I don’t know what ways exactly, gave me a cough that I -couldn’t get rid of, till an old Auntie from Georgia told me -to try drops of rum on sugar. It took away my cough, and -I liked it fine. I went on taking it after my cough had gone; -it grew to be a habit, and before I knew where I was my -digestion had gone. I tried all the doctors I could hear of, -at home, and in England, and in Germany, including Austria, -to cure that. But it was not possible; all they could do -for me was to find out what I liked best to eat or drink, and -tell me to do without it. I was wasting to a shadow, so -I sent for my own doctor, and said to him, ‘Doctor, I can’t -stand this any longer; life isn’t worth living, what there is -going to be of it, and that doesn’t seem to be much. I am -going to commit suicide.’ ‘Maybe it is the best thing to do,’ -he said. ‘Do you know what is the most painless form of -death?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘I am going to eat and drink everything -I like best for a week, and according to all of you, it -ought to take much less time than that.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“So I did, and I assure you, Mr. Sladen, before the week -was up, I was as well as ever I had been in my life.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He could reel off this sort of story by the hour, with that -slow drawl of his, which was so mightily effective.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frank Stockton, the kindliest and most delicate humorist -of America, I knew very well, and any one who knew him -intimately could not help regarding him with affection. -He was a little man with a club foot, and rather a timid -expression, which he made use of when telling his immortal -after-dinner stories; he emphasised the timidity until the -point came, and his face was wreathed with smiles. Stockton -was a great gardener. His garden out at the Holt near the -Convent station in New Jersey was large and beautiful, and -the product of his own imagination. It seemed incredible -that a garden like that should have no kind of a hedge or -fence, but he explained that in America to put a fence round -your garden is considered an insult to the democracy, who -by no means always deserve to be trusted in this matter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Stockton was so good-natured that his wife used to say -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>he would never have done any work at all if he had not had -a dragon at his side to guard him. She was not much like -a dragon. But on one point she was inexorable; when the -time had really come for him to set about fulfilling a contract, -she insisted on his going into New York to a hotel with as -blank an outlook as possible, so that he should not waste -time over gardening; he could not trust himself within sight -of a green leaf.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Stockton was a wood-engraver to start with, and was -thirty-eight years old before he abandoned it to do editorial -work. A year later he became assistant-editor of <i>St. Nicholas</i>, -the American children’s magazine. It was not until 1880 -that he gave it up to devote himself entirely to book-writing. -Up till 1879, the year in which he published <i>Rudder Grange</i>, -he only wrote children’s books, and he did not publish his -next book for grown-ups, <i>The Lady or the Tiger</i>, for another -five years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another old member of the Vagabond Club, always a -very intimate friend of Jerome’s, who was often at our -at-homes was Pett Ridge, the humorist whose knowledge -of the East End of London is sometimes compared to -Dickens’s; indeed, many consider him unequalled as a writer -of Cockney humour and an interpreter of Cockney humanity. -Unlike Jerome, Pett Ridge, who also has very earnest convictions -and has done a world of good, has the humorist -in him always near the surface. He used to be a constant -speaker at literary clubs, and most popular for his never-failing -fund of humour, which was heightened by his demure -delivery.</p> - -<div id='i098f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i098f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>JEROME K. JEROME<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>With Pett Ridge, it is natural to mention W. W. Jacobs, -our best sea humorist. People used to be surprised that -the small, slight, youthful-looking man, who was known -to them as a clerk in the General Post Office, should be the -delineator of those inimitable captains and bo’suns and hands -before the mast of little sailing-craft which ply round our -coasts. He was one of the men to whom the members of -the general public, who strayed to literary dinners, were most -anxious to be introduced. Their admiration made him shy, -and it was a long time before he grew accustomed to do himself -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>justice in his public speeches, for he is one of our most -genuine humorists. He owed his unique knowledge of -coasting-craft and their navigators to the fact that his -father owned a wharf on the Thames, and that it was one -of his chief pleasures as a boy to go down to the wharf and -make friends with the sea-dogs. After his marriage he went -to live in Essex, but, as a bachelor living in London, he -was a very familiar figure at our at-homes. To those who -frequented literary gatherings in the days of which I am -speaking, it is natural to think of H. G. Wells with Pett -Ridge and Jacobs, but Wells was much less seen at these -gatherings, because he lived out of town at Worcester Park. -He was already married when I made his acquaintance, and -had got through the first marvellous part of his career, on -which he draws for so many of his books.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He and his wife found a great difficulty in coming to our -at-homes, because they were such very late-at-night affairs. -Once they stayed with us, sleeping at the Temperance Hotel -round the corner, called rather inappropriately the “London -and Scottish,” because all our bedrooms were turned into -sitting-rooms for the night. The pair of them looked ridiculously -young. Wells was very boyish in those days; he -was slight in figure and youthful in face, with thick, rebellious, -fairish hair, and a charmingly impulsive manner. It seems -odd to think now that then he suffered from such very bad -health that he was not expected to live long. Those were -the days in which he used to write about flying men and -scientific millennia, most brilliant books which told the -British public that a genius had dropped from heaven, -whose crumbs were picked up by Mr. John Lane. Wells -became a Vagabond at a very early date, but he disliked -making speeches, and, in point of fact, hardly ever did make -one in his early days, so his wonderful literary gift was not -recognised so quickly as it would have been if he had been -constantly making speeches before literary clubs and other -large audiences.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A feature of Wells’ writing is his marvellous versatility. -He will make a hit on entirely fresh lines, indulge the public -with a few other books on these lines, and then, before they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>have time to tire of them, break out in another fresh vein. -It is hard to believe that the same man wrote <i>Select Conversations -with an Uncle</i> and <i>Marriage</i>, though it is true that -seventeen years elapsed between their publication, and there -were many changes of style between the two. In those -days he was only a brilliant novelist; now we recognise in -him a profound thinker, a solver of social problems, even if -we ourselves are Conservatives.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the <i>New Machiavelli</i> and <i>Marriage</i> there is intuition -in every page and almost every line. You can read them -with sheer delight for the writing alone; they do not depend -on the story, however excellent.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another humorist who was a constant visitor was Max -O’Rell—the genial and irascible Frenchman who, as Paul -Blouet, the name to which he was born, was principal French -master at St. Paul’s School. Max O’Rell lived in a house -with a garden at St. John’s Wood. We were very fond of -him and his pretty wife, and much shocked when the two -blows fell so quickly upon one another. Max O’Rell fought -for France against the Germans, and he always looked a -fighting man, with his strong figure and belligerent moustache. -He was a fine fencer, and had, I am sure, fought duels in his -time; with his temperament he could not have kept out -of them; he was up in arms in a moment. I remember -how fiercely he turned upon Norma Lorimer for using the -expression, “The British Channel.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Why British?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But he was quite floored by the repartee, “Because of -the weather.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Max O’Rell was always quick at repartee himself—except -in America. Of America and Americans he always spoke in -public with his tongue in his cheek, but in private he was -“screamingly funny” about them. He should certainly -have left a posthumous volume of unpalatable truths about -America. It would not have hurt him in the Great Beyond, -and it would have convulsed the English-speaking world. -He must often have felt in America as he felt at Napier, New -Zealand, where the audience at the Mechanics’ Institute, or -some such place, would have none of him.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>“I am good enough for London and Paris,” he said, -speaking to me about it afterwards; “I am good enough for -New York, Boston and Chicago; I am good enough for -Melbourne and Sydney. But I am not good enough for -Napier, New Zealand—Napier, with its five thousand -inhabitants, etc., etc.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He had the same staccato style in his lectures and after-dinner -speeches as he had in his <i>John Bull and His Island</i> -and his other famous books, and he easily drifted into it in -his conversations.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Other humorists of the little circle—it is to be noted -how many there were—were Robert Barr, Barry Pain and -W. L. Alden. Barr, as co-editor of the <i>Idler</i>, was a pivot -of literary society like Jerome. But his home for a considerable -portion of the period was a long way down in -Surrey, too far for his friends to pursue him to it. This was -not without design, for he was a man so fitted to shine in -literary society, that his one chance of writing his delicate -and delightful novels was to bury himself in the country.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He made his reputation as “Luke Sharp,” the most -brilliant humorist of the <i>Detroit Free Press</i>, at that time the -most-quoted paper in America, and he was very American -both in appearance and speech. His brusqueness and -pugnacity were at times terrifying, but underneath them lay -a gentle nature and a most affectionate heart. He was a -man who inspired and returned the warmest affection. His -grim humour was famous: it suited the handsome features, -marred with smallpox, the close-trimmed naval officer’s -beard, the sturdy frame, the strong American accent, much -better than his dainty love-stories did. There was no more -popular speaker; his influence among his fellow-journalists -was unbounded. He and his pretty and charming wife, an -excellent foil for his pugnacious exterior, were frequent hosts -at the Idler teas, and frequent guests at our flat. Barr was -very biting about England’s national foibles, but they -never moved him to such outbursts of righteous indignation -as the intermittent immoralities of the United States -Government.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He remained faithful to his birthplace till his premature -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>death, for he called two successive homes of his in the South, -Hillhead, after the district of Glasgow in which he was born. -In his later days he was so much the editor, so much the -novelist, that one forgot the humorist, except when he was -convulsing a knot of friends, to whom he was talking at a -reception, or the audience he was addressing across a dinner-table.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Barry Pain and W. L. Alden, on the other hand, were -always humorists. Alden, who had a most whimsical mind, -had been the American Consul-General at Rome, and had, -in consequence, been made a Cavaliere by the Italian Government. -His title was part of his humorous equipment. It -seemed so droll that a typical, middle-class American like -Alden, should be a cavalier. Both he and his wife were -kindly and agreeable people, but most of his personality -went into his writing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Barry Pain, on the other hand, had a forceful personality. -Whenever you meet this cheery cynic, with his bright dark -eyes, you know that you are in the presence of a man who -was born to be editor of <i>Punch</i>. He was a constant speaker -at literary clubs, though I don’t think that he liked speaking -at first. His speeches were full of the same brilliant paradoxes -as his books. His cynicism was tempered by overflowing -good-nature. He was always such a hearty man. He was -another of the people who soon flew into the country to get -away from parties, and have time for his numerous contributions -to weekly journals. But while he lived in London -he was very often at our house. I made his acquaintance -at the Lehmanns’—he married Stella Lehmann—soon after -he had come down from Cambridge. At Cambridge he had -been R. C. Lehmann’s bright particular star in Granta, and -Lehmann, who had wealth, good looks, and a brilliant -athletic record to back up his very great abilities as a writer, -had at once become influential in London journalistic circles.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER X<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>THE POETS AT OUR AT-HOMES</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>To</span> use the famous expression applied by Dr. Johnson to -his College at Oxford, we had quite a nest of singing-birds -at 32 Addison Mansions, for, to mention only three of them, -William Watson, John Davidson and Richard le Gallienne -were at the same time habitués of our at-homes, and Bliss -Carman, the Canadian, was constantly with us when he was -over here.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Lewis Morris, who was considered likely to succeed -Tennyson as laureate at a time when those young poets were -in the nursery, sometimes walked down from the Reform -Club to call on us, but he always came on odd afternoons, a -tall man, with a gaunt red face, who in those days was inclined -to put his poetical triumphs behind him, and be the Liberal -politician. Personally, I much preferred the poems of Lord -de Tabley, a delightfully dignified, gentle and affable personage. -His poems have never received full justice; for -Graeco-Roman atmosphere he must be classed with those -who come just below Shelley, Keats and Matthew Arnold—above -Horne’s “Orion,” I think.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Edmund Gosse, who introduced me to Lord de Tabley, -introduced me also to the late H. O. Houghton, at that -time head of the eminent publishing firm of Houghton, -Mifflin & Co., the John Murrays of America, and to the -late Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the <i>Century Magazine</i>, -two men at whose houses I met all the most famous authors -of Boston and New York respectively. Gosse, who had for -his brother-in-law the late Sir Alma Tadema, lived in those -days at Delamere Terrace, and at his house on Sunday -afternoons you always met authors of real distinction, men -like Lord de Tabley, Maarten Maartens, Austin Dobson, or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>Wolcott Balestier, Kipling’s brother-in-law, the type of -genius in a frail body. Edmund Gosse, besides being one -of those poets, rare nowadays, who preserve the traditional -grace of form, the distillation of thought which characterises -the poetical masters of the “Golden Treasury,” was instrumental -in giving England Ibsen and the other Scandinavian -giants of the generation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Austin Dobson, a man who has the mild and magnificent -eye of Browning’s <i>Lost Leader</i>, the Horace of lighter English -poetry, began life, like Gosse, as a Civil Servant, and, like -Gosse, is as felicitous in his essays and his criticisms as in -his poems. But, since he lived at Ealing and had five sons -and five daughters, he was very little to be seen at literary -gatherings in the days of which I speak.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is natural to mention Andrew Lang with them. They -were the three best lighter poets of their generation, but Lang -had the advantage over the others of being one of the most -brilliant scholars of his time—no man since the mighty -Conington displayed such a mass of classical erudition, -combined with a genius for popularising it, especially in the -direction of translation. Lang’s prose translations can be -compared with Conington’s rhymed versions of Virgil and -Horace. He had also a passion for the occult, and was one of -the best scholars in comparative occultology and mythology.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His tall, lean figure, mop of grey hair, and screwed-up -scholar’s eyes, were as familiar among golfers and anglers -as at the Savile Club, and other literary coteries, which he -deigned to honour with his presence. He reduced rudeness -to a fine art, and never showed his heart to any one old enough -to understand it. But he was nearly a big man as well as a -big scholar.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One cannot think of Lang without thinking also of -Frederic W. H. Myers, whom I met far earlier. As a child he -was remarkable; at thirteen, on entering Cheltenham College -(where I was educated long afterwards), so precocious was -his scholarship that he was placed with boys of seventeen -and eighteen. I doubt if there ever has lived another English -boy who learned the whole of Virgil by heart for his own -pure delight, before he passed the school age. He won the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>senior classical scholarship in his first year at thirteen; -besides gaining the first prize for Latin lyrics, he sent in two -English poems in different metres, and both were the best -and came out top!</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the university few men have won more honours. Myers -was to Cambridge as Lang was to Oxford—and more also. -He was greater in pure scholarship, and far greater as a -poet, for he wrote “St. Paul,” almost the finest quatrain -poem in the English language. His later volume of poems, -entitled <i>The Renewal of Youth</i>, is perhaps less well known, -but this was the poem that he himself cared for most, and its -compressed force and intensity of feeling and wonderful beauty -of expression have gained it a steadily increasing public.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In his later years he became more absorbed in psychical -research. The success of his famous work, <i>Human Personality, -and its Survival of Bodily Death</i>, is well known. The -epilogue, pp. 341-352, has become almost a classic, and -the book has now been translated into nearly all European -languages. This would have surprised Frederic Myers -enormously. He wrote to a friend in 1900, “I am occupied -in writing a big book which I don’t expect any one to read, -but I do it for the satisfaction of my own conscience.” -He laboured in this field up to his death, with the same ardour -and strenuousness that he threw into all his work.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was a wonderful personality—no one who ever saw -his unforgettable eyes, and beautiful majestic head, and heard -his marvellously eloquent voice, could ever forget him. -Myers is buried just where he should be buried—by the side -of Shelley and John Addington Symonds in the new Protestant -cemetery at Rome, under the ancient cypresses which top -the city wall. Close by, this wall of Aurelian is pierced by -the gate through which St. Paul was led to his martyrdom. -The people who stood on the wall where the author of “St. -Paul” lies buried, could have seen the Saint pass out.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Myers and H. M. Stanley married two sisters. I always -though it so appropriate that Stanley’s brother-in-law, one -of the greatest scholars Cambridge ever nursed, should have -been so great an explorer in the Universe. A mutual friend -told me that when Myers was on his deathbed, Henry Sidgwick, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>the philosopher, quoted to Mrs. Myers some lines in “The -Renewal of Youth,” the poem which Myers himself, and many -of his Cambridge friends, thought the best of all his work—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c024'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ah, welcome then that hour which bids thee lie</div> - <div class='line in1'>In anguish of thy last infirmity!</div> - <div class='line in1'>Welcome the toss for ease, the gasp for air,</div> - <div class='line in1'>The visage drawn, and Hippocratic stare;</div> - <div class='line in1'>Welcome the darkening dream, the lost control,</div> - <div class='line in1'>The sleep, the swoon, the arousal of the soul!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c025'>Sidgwick thought these lines, and indeed, the whole poem, -wonderful, far finer than “St. Paul.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of the younger generation of the poets, four of the most -noted, William Watson, W. B. Yeats, John Davidson and -le Gallienne, were at one time almost weekly at our flat. -Watson, whose powerful clean-shaven face always reminded -me of Charles James Fox, before that inventor of irresponsible -Liberalism lost his looks by dissipation, I see still sometimes. -It was only last year that he and his beautiful young wife -asked me to visit them at their house in the country.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The sturdy Yorkshire stock of which he came is reflected -in his poems. He is accustomed to think and write upon -large national and international movements, and he has a -splendid gift of sonorous and epigrammatic diction. I did -not share the views he expressed, but that did not prevent -me from admiring the way in which he expressed them. In -my mind, there was no question but that the laureateship -lay between him and Kipling. But at Oxford Bridges already -had a reputation as a poet while I was an undergraduate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When Yeats first came to our house he was a shock-headed -Irish boy of twenty-six, without any regard for his personal -appearance. He did not care whether he had any studs in -his shirt or not, and once he came in evening dress without a -tie. But we knew then that he was a genius, and the world -knows it now. He has a fairy-like muse, whose quill is dipped -in pathos. He had then only just given up the idea of being -an artist, like his father. He was an art student for three -years. His poems and plays will live.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Yeats was very naïve. I remember his complaining to me -in the early days of the Irish Literary Society that it suffered -under a grave disadvantage; its authors were unable to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>write as “nationalistically” as they would have desired, -because the Irish never bought books, and the brutal Saxon -would not buy them if they went too far in denouncing him. -Those were not his exact words, but they give the substance -of them. One might fancy that these young men and young -women, falling between the devil and the deep sea, took -refuge in playwriting, because the Englishman will go and -see a play which is sufficiently pathetic or sufficiently funny, -no matter how disloyal to himself its sentiments may be; -but his purse-strings are tighter with regard to displeasing -books. Yeats was always highly appreciated. When he -published <i>John Sherman</i> it was thought that he had a career -as a novelist before him, but he did not follow this up.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another Irishman whom I may mention here is Dr. Todhunter, -though he already had some silver in his beard twenty -years ago, and was the <i>doyen</i> of our poets, and at the beginning -the most considerable in his accomplishments. He had made -his name with “The Black Cat” and the “Sicilian Idyll,” -and belonged to an older generation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>English literature is much the poorer by John Davidson -having taken his own life, in despair at the scantiness of the -rewards which his genius could earn. Davidson was a man -I liked very much. His robust personality was reflected in -his brilliant eyes and colouring. His heartiness and sincerity -were transparent and he was a very vital poet. He came -often. Davidson was inspired; there are lines of white -fire in “The Ballad of the Nun.” His cheery, courageous -face and blithe smile did not in the least suggest a man who -would commit suicide; they were much more suggestive of -the bloods who lived in the piping times of King George III. -He was another Lane discovery, I think, and I suspect that -Lane brought him to our house, as he brought Beardsley -and many another man destined to be celebrated, W. J. -Locke among them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Le Gallienne I knew better than any of them. He and his -brother-in-law, James Welch, were conspicuous features at -our parties, Welch because he was irresistibly funny, and in -the habit of exercising his wonderful gift of mimicry at odd -moments—we all believed in his future eminence.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>Le Gallienne was even more conspicuous for his personal -appearance and frank posing. He had a face like Shelley, -and the true hyacinthine curls, if hyacinthine curls mean -the rich, waving black hair which one associates with the -Greeks of mythology. He was really a rather vigorous and -athletic man, and he used to say in the most captivating way, -“You mustn’t mind me letting my hair grow, and living up -to it—it is part of my stock-in-trade. People wouldn’t come -to hear me lecture without it.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Undoubtedly his picturesque appearance made him one -of the most striking figures in any literary assemblage, but -he also had splendid gifts as a poet. I have always thought -that his version of Omar Khayyam is one of the most beautiful, -and has never received justice in comparison with other -versions. Like Fitzgerald, he was unable to translate from -the original, but that did not signify, because hardly any one -in England, in or out of the Omar Khayyam Club, can understand -the original, and the most popular version of the -Rubaiyat is valued, not for what Omar put into it, but for -what Fitzgerald put into it. Huntly McCarthy, who was -only in our house once or twice, did, of course, actually make -a translation of the Rubaiyat, but he is a literary marvel -who has not yet come into his own, author of exquisite poems, -and of some of the most brilliant and delightful historical -novels by any living writer. His father, the genial leader -of the Home Rule Party, who loved Ireland without hating -England, and wrote history blindfolded to prejudice, that -grand old man, Justin McCarthy, was a much more frequent -visitor. I can see him now, with his long beard, and eloquent -Irish eyes behind very conspicuous glasses, leaning on his -daughter Charlotte, and I can hear his rich brogue. It was a -great honour to be admitted to the intimate friendship of -Justin McCarthy, and when he grew more infirm, and went -to die at Westgate, where he lived on for a surprising -time, he never failed to remember me with a line at -Christmas.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I ought to mention Oscar Wilde here, who had a wonderful -gift of poetical expression, and whom I met when we were -both undergraduates at Oxford, where he used to call himself -<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>O. O’F. Wills Wilde—Oscar O’Flaherty Wills Wilde. He -was always known as Wills Wilde.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But our parties were too crowded for him; he prefered to -come to see me on a chance afternoon, like Lewis Morris. -He hated having people introduced to him, until he had -expressed the desire that they should have the honour, and -in meetings so Bohemian he could not have escaped it. He -took a scholarship at Oxford, and won the University prize -for the English poem, and I rather think he got a First Class, -but one did not think of him <i>dans cette galère</i>. He had, -even in those days, a desire to be conspicuous, and in those -days æstheticism pranced through the land. Garments of -funny-coloured green baize, with a Greek absence of any -pretence at dressmaking, were the badge of the æsthetic -female, who to take first prize was required to have red hair -and green eyes, and a mouth like a magenta foxglove. And -the idea was that men should wear black velvet knickerbocker -suits, with silk stockings and black velvet caps like pancakes. -I never saw them doing it, except in an æsthetic pottery -shop in the Queen’s Road, Bayswater, where they sold -Aspinall’s enamels, and on the stage, where Gilbert and -Sullivan’s <i>Patience</i> took the place now occupied by works -of genius like Bernard Shaw’s <i>Chocolate Soldier</i>. Wilde never -wore the dress at Oxford, but he was quite courageous in -adjuncts. At one time he banished all the decorations from -his rooms, except a single blue vase of the true æsthetic type -which contained a “Patience” lily. He was discovered by -the other undergraduates of Magdalen prostrated with grief -before it because he never could live up to it. They did -what they could to revive him by putting him under the -college pump.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But they applauded his wit, at the coining of a famous -example of which I was privileged to be present. We were -both in for a Divinity exam. at the same time. There was no -Honour school in Divinity; it was simply a qualifying exam. -to show that we had sufficient knowledge of the rudiments -of the religion of the Church of England to be graduates -of a religious university; we used to call the exam. “Rudiments” -for short.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>I went to the exam., like a good young man, at the advertised -hour, nine o’clock; Wilde did not arrive till half-an-hour -later, and when Spooner, the Head of New College, who was -one of our examiners, asked him what he meant by being -so late, he said, “You must excuse me; I have no experience -of these pass examinations.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was the morning of the <i>viva voce</i> examinations, and his -being late did not really signify because W is one of the -last letters in the alphabet. But the examiners were so -annoyed at his impertinence that they gave him a Bible, -and told him to copy out the long twenty-seventh chapter -of the Acts. He copied it out so industriously in his exquisite -handwriting that their hearts relented, and they told him -that he need not write out any more. Half-an-hour afterwards -they noticed that he was copying it out as hard as ever, and -they called him up to say, “Didn’t you hear us tell you, -Mr. Wilde, that you needn’t copy out any more?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Oh yes,” he said, “I heard you, but I was so interested -in what I was copying, that I could not leave off. It was all -about a man named Paul, who went on a voyage, and was -caught in a terrible storm, and I was afraid that he would -be drowned, but, do you know, Mr. Spooner, he was saved, -and when I found that he was saved, I thought of coming to -tell you.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>As Mr. Spooner was nephew of the Archbishop of Canterbury, -the insult was of a peculiarly aggravating nature, and -he ploughed him then and there. As my name also came -low down in the alphabet, I was a witness of the whole -performance.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Herbert Trench, the poet, who, when he became a theatrical -manager, discovered the “Blue Bird,” often came, a very -handsome Irishman of the blue-eyed and black-haired type. -I met him when he and I were fellow members of the House -Committee which discussed the poorness of the dinners at -the old Authors’ Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frederick Langbridge, the charming poet, who was joint -author of Martin Harvey’s evergreen “Only Way,” only -came once or twice, because, like Dean Swift, he was exiled -by an Irish preferment. He is Rector of Limerick.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>Wilde once brought a friend with him, whose name was -Barlass. He wrote poetry which Wilde admired, though it -had no market, and claimed to be a descendant of the -Katherine Douglas who barred the door with her arm when -the bolt had been stolen, to save King James III of Scotland -from his murderers, and was nicknamed Katherine Barlass. -I have a volume of his poems still, but the thing I remember -best about him was an episode which happened when we -were both at Wilde’s house in Tite Street one day. Upstairs -in the drawing-room he had asked Wilde, “What do you think -of George Meredith’s novels?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Wilde, having nothing effective to say at the moment, -appeared not to hear him. But as he was going out of the -front door, he said, “George Meredith is a sort of prose -Browning,” and when Barlass was halfway down Tite Street, -he called after him, “And Browning also is a sort of prose -Browning.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bliss Carman wrote some of the most delightful poetry -of them all. Born in Canada, where they have eternal -sunshine in summer, and brought up in those parts of the -Maritime provinces where little mountains and little lakes -and little rivers and little forests combine with a bold coastline -to make Acadia an Arcady, it was only natural that he should -be able to transfigure in his poems the Old World Arcady, -with Pan, Faun, Syrinx and Adonis, and all the lovely rabble -of mountain, sea and woodland nymphs.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Carman could write from a typical Canadian inspiration -also. He could make you see Grandpré, and the lives of -the men who won Canada from the wilds and maintained a -seignorial grace of life in the new France, which was born -in the days of the Roi Soleil, and lived under the white flag -till it went down in the glorious sunset on the heights of -Abraham. Carman’s poetry is rich in romance, and he was -a romantic figure, for with his great stature and fair hair, -and blue eyes, he looked as if he might have been one of the -Norsemen led to the far north of the continent by Leif, the -son of Erik, a thousand years ago, whose descendants were -discovered roaming in the Arctic only the other day. As a -matter of fact, he was descended from one of the most famous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>men among the United Empire loyalists, who left the -United States when they could no longer live there under the -British flag, and gave Canada her unconquerable backbone.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I should have mentioned ere this two dear friends of ours -who are both dead—William Sharp and Gleeson White. -White was one of my oldest literary friends. We knew him -when we were living at Richmond before we went to America, -and saw a lot of him during the three years we were -there. We came home, I think, just before him. William -Sharp introduced him to us. Sharp, who was the friend of -nearly every well-known author of his time, began life as -poet and critic. As general editor of the “Canterbury Poets,” -his name is a household word. There was no wider-minded -critic, none who had a wider knowledge of the poetry and -other verses of his day. But his chief contribution to literature -consisted of the works of “Fiona Macleod,” which -were never acknowledged as his during his lifetime, though he -never denied their authorship to me. We saw him frequently, -not only at Addison Mansions, but abroad, for, like ourselves, -he was an insatiable wanderer over Italy and Sicily.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Gleeson White did not write much verse himself, but he -edited a volume of society verses under the title of <i>Ballades -and Rondeaux</i>, in the “Canterbury Poets,” which had a -really public effect. It collected the best examples of the -ballades and rondeaux, and verse in other old French forms, -written by Gosse and Dobson, and Lang, and other well-known -writers, in such a convenient form, and gave the -rules for writing them so clearly, that everybody who had -any skill in versifying set to work to write ballades and rondeaux, -and bombard the magazines and newspapers with -them. There was a rage of ballade-writing which can only -be compared to the limerick competitions of <i>Pearson’s Weekly</i>. -Of Gleeson White’s accomplishments as an art critic I have -spoken elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Edgar Fawcett, the New Yorker who was so often at our -parties on both sides of the Atlantic, was one of the best -American writers of ballades, though thousands of American -writers, according to the sardonic Miss Gilder, turned them -out by machinery.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>Sharp himself was more inclined to the sonnet, as was our -mutual friend, Theodore Watts (now Watts-Dunton), who -lived with Swinburne at the Pines, Putney, and will always -be remembered as Swinburne’s greatest friend. Watts’s -sonnets in the <i>Athenæum</i> became as well known to literary -people as Dr. Watts’s hymns. They were among the best -sonnets of the day. Watts was Swinburne’s companion -on his famous swimming excursions. Like the matchless -poet who refused the laureateship, he was a magnificent -swimmer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Hall Caine was at that time the chief authority upon the -sonnet, as he was one of the chief literary critics of the -<i>Athenæum</i> and the <i>Academy</i>. He gave me about that time -his <i>Sonnets of Three Centuries</i>, which I still keep.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Two other followers of the Muse who came to our parties -were Mackenzie Bell and Norman Gale.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Adrian Ross—Arthur Reed Ropes—who so long carried -on a dual literary life—a Fellow of King’s, an Examiner to -the University, and writer of text-books at Cambridge, while -he wrote the songs for George Edwardes’s musical comedies -in London, was a friend of ours before he came to live in -Addison Mansions, partly, I believe, because we lived there. -He is an amazingly clever man; his general knowledge is extraordinary. -He took various ’varsity scholarships and prizes at -Cambridge and was the ablest of the clever journalists with -whom Clement Shorter surrounded himself for his great move. -He may also fairly claim to be W. S. Gilbert’s successor as -a writer of really witty and scholarly songs (which have also -been amazingly popular) for the principal musical comedies -from <i>A Greek Slave</i> till the present day. Adrian Ross, -who is a Russian by birth, looks like a Russian with his big, -burly form, and fair beard and glasses, when you see him -taking the chair at some feast of reason like the Omar Khayyam -Club. He is one of the chief Omarians, and might, if -he devoted himself to it, write just such a poem as Fitzgerald’s -“Rubaiyat” himself, for he has the gift of form, the wit, -and the width of knowledge, to draw upon. In the same -way, if he had been born early enough, he would have written -some of our best ballades and rondeaux. There, in addition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>to his extraordinary facility, he had the advantage of being -one of the best-read men in England on French literature, -and one of the chief authorities upon it. He married Ethel -Wood, an actress as clever as she is pretty, who, if she -acted more, would be one of our most successful character-actresses.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Rowland Thirlmere was another dual personality. When -he came to see us at Addison Mansions he was Rowland -Thirlmere the poet, literary to his finger-tips; when he was -at home at Bury he was John Walker, a Lancashire cotton-mill -manager, an ardent Conservative politician, a “Wake -up, England!” man. Did he not write <i>The Clash of Empires</i>, -a classic on the German peril?</p> - -<p class='c016'>Douglas Ainslie, the poet of the Stuarts, who has now -established for himself a solid reputation in Philosophy, was -still a diplomat when he first used to come to see us.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had not so many poetesses. The chief of them was -Lady Lindsay, whose <i>In a Venetian Gondola</i> went through -many editions, a poetess of the same order and rank as the -Hon. Mrs. Norton a generation before. Her poetry was -strengthened by sincere piety and morality. They gave it -the mysterious quality which attracts us in the old Sienese -pictures.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Among the younger poetesses who came to us, two stood -out—Ethel Clifford, Mrs. W. K. Clifford’s daughter, who -married Fisher Dilke, and Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The charm of Mrs. Dilke’s poetry is universally admitted, -but Miss Hall’s has not yet received anything like the recognition -which it deserves.</p> - -<p class='c016'>She is a step-daughter of the famous musician, Albert -Visetti, and much younger than any of the others. To see -her, even to speak with her, one would think that she thought -more of her hunting-box and her horses than of abstractions -like poetry. At the time when I first met her, her winters -were equally divided between travelling and hunting, and -she appears to have gathered inspiration from both of these -sources. Her outdoor life in one of our most beautiful -counties has given her a deep love and appreciation of the -country pleasures only to be found in England. There is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>no one I know who writes more from inspiration. I reviewed -her first book, <i>’Twixt Earth and Stars</i>, with real enthusiasm. -Since then she has published <i>A Sheaf of Verses</i>, <i>Poems of the -Past and Present</i>, and <i>Songs of Three Counties and Other -Poems</i>. Of these three volumes, <i>Poems of the Past and -Present</i> shows her at her best.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Visetti was born a Dalmatian, but he has for thirty years -been a British subject—and a very patriotic British subject. -He had the celebrated composer, Arrigo Boito, for a fellow-student -at the Conservatoire at Milan. An even greater -composer, Auber, introduced him to the splendid court of -the third Napoleon. Dumas père wrote a libretto for him. -He was Adelina Patti’s musical adviser for five years, and -wrote “La Diva” for her. He was admitted to the personal -friendship of both the late King Edward and the late Duke -of Edinburgh. He was the first professor appointed to the -staff of the Royal College of Music. He has written lives -of Palestrina and Verdi.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Dolly Radford,” a writer of delicate and sympathetic -verse, and her husband, Ernest Radford, used to come to -us in those days. So, very occasionally, did two Irish -poetesses, Mrs. Shorter and Katherine Tynan. The former, -wife of the editor of the <i>Sphere</i>, has won herself an assured -position by Celtic ballads of a highly imaginative order. -She is Yeats’s closest rival.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I first met Mrs. Clement Shorter when she was staying -with Miss Katherine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson) at Ealing, where -Shorter first met her. Mrs. Hinkson thus recalls Miss Dora -Sigerson, as she was then, in her <i>Reminiscences</i>—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I was the means of introducing Dora some years later to -Mr. Clement Shorter, whom she married.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“We were all possessed with the common impulse towards -literature. We were all making our poems and stories. Dora -Sigerson, who was then a strikingly handsome girl, was -painting as well, making statuettes and busts, doing all sorts -of things, and looking like a young Muse. Dr. Sigerson was, -as he is happily doing to-day, dispensing the most delightful -hospitality. His Sunday-night dinners were, and are, a -feature of literary life in Dublin, chiefly of the literary life -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>which has the colour of the green. At the time there was -no Irish Literary Society, as there is now, with Dr. Sigerson -for its President. The best of the young intellect of Dublin -was to be found at Dr. Sigerson’s board.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Shorter has written several volumes of poetry, one -with an introduction by George Meredith, novels and short -stories. She also still paints in oils, and models; her country -garden at Great Missenden has many examples of her talent -in this direction.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Shorter’s poetry has an ample range. Some of her -ballads are pitiful tragedies, told with a delicate sense of -ballad simplicity, and an exquisite ear for the broken music -which is so essential to ballads; and, at the other end of the -gamut, she can also write songs in a lighter vein that deserve -a composer like Bishop to set them to music—such songs as -the poem called “The Spies” in her <i>Madge Linsey</i> volume.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Katherine Tynan, who had married H. A. Hinkson before -we ever met personally, though years earlier she had given -me introductions to Louise Imogen Guiney, the American -poetess, and other valued friends among the writers in America, -is the author of short lyrics, human and graceful, which ought -to find a permanent place in our anthologies, as well as a -popular novelist, and has lately written a charming volume -of her <i>Reminiscences</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have left Sir Edwin Arnold, Thomas Hardy and W. E. -Henley to the end of this chapter. Arnold, whom I used to -see daily when we were both living in Tokyo, was too infirm -to come to us much in Addison Mansions in his last days.</p> - -<p class='c016'>While he was in Japan, he lived in a native house in Azabu -outside Treaty limits, receiving permission to do so under -the legal fiction that he was tutor to the daughters of the -wealthy Japanese who lent him the house under a similar -fiction. It was just outside the Azabu Temple, a favourite -resort for holiday-makers, and had delightful bamboo-brakes, -which rustled rhythm to Arnold in his garden. -The house had its proper paraphernalia of shifting wooden -and paper shutters, thick padded mats of primrose straw, -flat cushions to kneel on, flat quilts to sleep on, tobacco-stoves, -finger-stoves and kakemonos. It was so native that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>you always had to take off your boots when you went to see -him. Here he wrote the <i>Light of the World</i>, and he used to -read it to me batch by batch as he finished it. His manuscript -was most edifying; he wrote a beautiful scholarly -hand, full of character, rather like the hand of Lanfranc, -who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of William -the Conqueror. He did very little sight-seeing or bargaining. -His time was taken up with receiving Buddhist abbots and -the sages who, by extraordinary abstinence and striking -concentrations of mind and will, had acquired supernatural -powers, just as Hall Caine used to see the leading Mohammedan -<i>ulema</i> in Egypt. They had a profound respect for -him. I always fancy that Arnold had in his mind some -<i>magnum opus</i> on those Eastern superhumans, which he never -gave to the world. He wrote a good deal of poetry in those -days besides the <i>Light of the World</i>, chiefly translations, -adaptations and imitations of the Hokku and other Japanese -forms of verse, in which he excelled. He not only had the -natural charm, he could put his mind on an Eastern plane -of thought. He looked quite Oriental when he was in -Japanese dress; his dark skin, his Oriental type, the deep -reserve which lay behind his affability, all suggested the child -of the East.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Thomas Hardy (who honoured us with his presence very -rarely) I must mention in this context as a poet and not as -a novelist, though he is the head of the novelists’ craft to-day, -undoubtedly. I am not certain that he is not also our truest -living poet, except Kipling. He has certainly come nearer -to finding a new poetical form than any modern poet except -Yone Noguchi, the marvellous Japanese, who has written -some of the finest contemporary poetry in our language, -for Walt Whitman’s psalm forms are not suited for any -country but America, or for any writer who is not one of the -people working with his hands. His crudities would not be -tolerable in an educated man. But Hardy struck out entirely -fresh forms. Hardy shook off the ancient trammels of rhyme -and metre, while preserving a rich rhythm and a scholarly -elegance, in poems inspired with a broad humanity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Henley, who, like Gray, wrote a few gems, which will find -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>their place in every anthology, was never in our flat at Addison -Mansions, though he was a friend of mine; he could not have -climbed so many stairs if he had tried.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I remember two sayings of his specially. In those days -I wrote verses; and he was good enough to read my books of -verse and advise me on them. He said there was some hope -for me because I wrote short pieces, and, in his opinion, the -perfect poem should never contain more than three stanzas. -But I have long since abandoned verse writing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The other was a thing which he said to me when he was -giving me some introductions, on the eve of my departure for -America. I thought it was a joke then, but subsequent events -threw a light on it. He was urging me after I left America -to go on and see Stevenson at Samoa. He said that Stevenson -would be my inspiration, and as he was handing me the -introduction he said to me, with what I considered unnecessary -emphasis, “And when you see him, tell the beggar that -I hate him for being so beastly successful.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Years afterwards Henley wrote of Stevenson with an -acidity which his friends regretted very much, and which -proved to me that what he had said to me as we were parting -was one of those outbursts of candour for which Henley was -famous.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It required a big man like Henley to confess that he was -envious, and perhaps there was good reason why he should -be, for considering the way their careers began, and Henley’s -magnificent intellect and gift of expression, one would not -have prophesied in the beginning that Henley would only -be appreciated by the critical few, and Stevenson by all the -world, gentle and simple.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I never did see Stevenson. We meant to have taken Samoa -on our way back from Japan to San Francisco, but the -Japanese boat which should have taken us there broke down, -and we could not wait for the next.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XI<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>LADY AUTHORS AT ADDISON MANSIONS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>The</span> great “Miss Braddon,” who is now one of the most -valued of my friends, and a not infrequent visitor, never -came to 32 Addison Mansions. She achieved fame before -any living novelist. She had published <i>Aurora Floyd</i> and -<i>Lady Audley’s Secret</i> more than half a century ago, in 1862, -while Thomas Hardy did not write <i>Under the Greenwood -Tree</i> and <i>A Pair of Blue Eyes</i> till ten years after that. Her -powers are undiminished. Her <i>Green Curtain</i>, published -fifty years later, is one of the finest books she ever wrote.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Nor did I ever meet Miss M. G. Tuttiett, who, since she -wrote her great <i>Silence of Dean Maitland</i>, has been known -to all the world as “Maxwell Gray,” until I became her -neighbour at Richmond. These lost years have deprived -me of a great pleasure, because, apart from my admiration -for her novels, I share two of her hobbies—her enthusiasm -for her garden and her enthusiasm for Italy.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I used to esteem it an honour and a privilege when dear -old Mrs. Alexander—Mrs. Hector was her real name—used -to toil up the stairs to our parties. Her books were delightful, -and she was one of the earliest of my literary friends, -for I met her at Louise Chandler Moulton’s before I went to -America.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Still more, on account of her infirmity, did I appreciate -it when Mrs. Lynn Linton came. My intimacy with her -arose from two facts. When my novel, <i>A Japanese Marriage</i>, -came out, she wrote to me in the warmest terms about it. -She not only was enthusiastic about it as a novel, but thought -it an unanswerable piece of advocacy for the relief of the -Deceased Wife’s Sister (now happily accomplished). After -that I was a frequent visitor at her flat in Queen Anne’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>Mansions, and later we met as fellow-guests at Malfitano, -the beautiful villa of Mr. and Mrs. J. J. S. Whitaker at -Palermo. She looked the grande dame, and she was a -great woman as well as a great writer, admired in both -capacities by all the great writers of her day, which was a -long one—long enough to include Walter Savage Landor. -Her championing of <i>A Japanese Marriage</i> came as a very -complete surprise to me, because she was noted for severity -as a moralist, and the marriage of the hero and the heroine -by the American Consul, after the clergy had refused to -marry them, in the eye of the Law was no marriage at all, -since neither of them was an American subject—it was a -mere manifesto that they meant to live together as man and -wife. That letter of hers was the beginning of one of my -most delightful friendships.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I don’t remember when I first met Mrs. Croker or Mrs. -Perrin or Flora Annie Steel, though they have all been -valued friends for many years. As they are all Anglo-Indians, -I suppose that I must have met one of them through -some member of my family in the Indian Army or Indian -Civil Service, and the others through her. My family have -been much connected with India. To mention only two of -them, my cousin, General John Sladen, was a brother-in-law -of Lord Roberts, and actually kept house with him in India -for a year, and his brother, Sir Edward Sladen, was the -British resident who played so great a part in Burmah, and -whose statue has the place of honour in the Burmese capital.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of one thing I am certain, that the marriage of Mrs. -Croker’s beautiful daughter—the belle of Dublin—to one -of the Palermo Whitakers, was not the introduction, for -Mrs. Croker has never been to Palermo, and I remember her -asking me all about the Whitakers’ famous gardens in Sicily. -Captain Whitaker did not live there; he was with his -regiment.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is natural to mention Mrs. Steel, Mrs. Perrin and Mrs. -Croker together, for they long divided the Indian Empire -with Rudyard Kipling as a realm of fiction. Each in her -own department is supreme.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the days when we first knew her, and she was living -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>in Ireland, it used to be like a ray of sunshine when pretty -Mrs. Croker, with her blue eyes and her bright colour and -her delightful Irish tongue, paid one of her rare visits to -London. As I write these words, I am about to pay a visit -to her in her Folkestone home. She is exactly the type you -would expect from her irresistible books.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Mrs. Croker what first gave her the idea of -writing, she said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“My very first attempt at writing was in the hot weather -at Secunderabad. When my husband was away tiger-shooting, -and I was more or less a prisoner all day owing -to the heat, I began a story, solely for my own amusement. -It grew day by day, and absorbed all my time and interest. -This was <i>Proper Pride</i>. With reluctance and trepidation -I read it to a friend, and then to all the other ladies in the -regiment—under seal of secrecy. Emboldened by this -success, I wrote <i>Pretty Miss Neville</i>, and when I returned -home with the Royal Scots Fusiliers, I had two manuscripts -among my luggage. These went the usual round, but at -the end of a year I received a small offer for <i>Proper Pride</i>. -It came out in August 1892, without my name, and was -immediately successful—principally owing to long and -appreciative notices in <i>The Times</i> and <i>Saturday Review</i>, -both on the same day. Three editions went off in a month, -and I must confess that no one was as much surprised by -this success as I was. Subsequently I sold the copyright of -<i>Pretty Miss Neville</i> for one hundred pounds, and though now -a lady of thirty, she still sells, in cheap editions. I attribute -my good fortune to the fact that my novels struck a new -note—India and army society—and that I received very -powerful help from unknown reviewers. I like writing, -otherwise I could not work. I believe I inherit the taste -from my father’s family, who were said to be ‘born with a -pen in their hands’!” Mrs. Croker tells me that it was I -who first introduced her to London literary society. I consider -this one of the most charming successes of my literary -career.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Perrin, on the other hand, since she came back from -India, has played a continuously prominent part in London -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>literary life. She has been a leading figure at literary clubs -and receptions, and has been a pillar of “the Women -Journalists.” As story-teller and psychologist combined, -she has no superior. Those of her wide public who know her -in private life know a brilliant and charming woman of the -world, with a proved capacity for managing literary affairs.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Mrs. Perrin what started her in a literary -career, she said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I think I took to writing from sheer need of occupation. -When I married my husband in India, as a girl of eighteen, -we were sent to a place in the jungle where he had charge -of an enormous aqueduct which was under construction. -He had several Coopers Hill assistants under him, not one -of whom was married, and I was the only English woman -in the locality. There was no station—or permanent settlement; -our houses were temporary erections of mud, and -we were miles from the railway. The landscape consisted -of a sea of yellow grass about the height of a man, and there -was only one road, which lay behind our bungalow—the -grand trunk road that is the backbone of India. I began -to write here, just to amuse myself, and then when we went -to less isolated spots, I gained confidence and used to send -little articles and turn-overs to the <i>Pioneer</i>—the principal -Indian daily paper. These were nearly always accepted, -and so I took courage and wrote a novel called <i>Into -Temptation</i>, which ran through that prehistoric magazine -<i>London Society</i>, long ago defunct. The book came out in -two volumes and had very fair notices. Then I wrote -another called <i>Late in Life</i>, which ran serially in an Indian -weekly, off-shoot of the <i>Pioneer</i>, and in England through -the <i>Belgravia</i>, and then came out in two volumes. So you -may imagine—or rather, realise—how long ago I began! -Both these novels are now to appear revised and corrected -in Messrs. Methuen’s 7<i>d.</i> series.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“However, I did not receive the financial encouragement -I had hoped for from these first efforts, and I lost heart. -For nearly ten years I wrote nothing but a few Indian short -stories. Then when my husband was offered an appointment -at home, and we retired before we had ‘done’ our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>full time in India, I collected these stories, and they came -out under the title of <i>East of Suez</i>. The book was a success -and since then I have written and have been published -steadily.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I am deeply interested in India, in the people and their -religions, and histories and social systems, and as I was -sixteen years in the country I had an opportunity of receiving -lasting impressions, and of gaining invaluable experience. -I come of a family which has been officially connected with -India for five generations. My great grandfather was with -Lord Cornwallis, on his staff, at the taking of Seringapatam, -and the surrender to Lord Cornwallis of Tippoo Sahib’s two -little sons as hostages. He was afterwards Chairman of the -old East India Company—known in those days as John -Company.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I cannot think of anything more anecdotal in my -experience as a novelist—I can only remember the disappointments -and the difficulties of what success I have -made, at which, perhaps, I may now bring myself to smile, -but I do not think they would be interesting if related!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>A few years ago Mrs. Steel was also one of the most -prominent figures in London literary society. She had -written <i>On the Face of the Waters</i>, one of the finest historical -novels in the language; she was a hard and earnest worker -in all sorts of movements, and as a fighting speaker there -were few to match her. She could make a good set speech, -but her set speeches were nothing to the oratory of which -she was capable if, when she was totally unprepared, indignation -stung her into springing to her feet to denounce -the offender. Then her words came as blows come from a -man who hits another man because he is incensed beyond -endurance. A face full of life and expression added force -to her words.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Since Mrs. Steel settled down on an estate in Wales, she -has been little in London. But in those days she had a -sort of country house on the Notting Hill slope of Campden -Hill. She is a keen politician, and not long ago sold the -opening page of <i>On the Face of the Waters</i> as her subscription -to the Women’s Cause.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>Another author lost to London is Sarah Grand. She used -to be our neighbour; she shared a flat in the Abingdon Road -with her step-son, Haldane McFall, the art critic, and author -of that remarkable novel, <i>The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer</i>. -I met her soon after the success of <i>The Heavenly Twins</i>—a -young woman with indignant blue eyes, very reserved, but -with a rare charm of manner behind her reserve. I was -introduced to her, I think, by Heinemann, who was often -at our at-homes. He had, as I understood, purchased <i>The -Heavenly Twins</i> from her ready printed, copyright and all -for a hundred pounds, but when the success came had torn -up the agreement, and substituted a royalty agreement, -paying the royalties from the beginning. She had already, -I gathered, received twelve times the original sum in royalties.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Alfred Walford often came to see us—his wife, Mrs. L. B. -Walford, more occasionally, since she was the mother of a -large family as well as many books, and they lived in Essex. -Alfred Walford used to chaff himself about his connection -with literature being to produce the paper on which it was -printed. He was a paper-maker; and she, at that time, -was the favourite novelist of the Colonies. She was the -daughter of that Colquhoun of Luss who wrote that famous -book <i>The Moor and the Loch</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The gentle-faced “Miss Thackeray,” the great novelist’s -daughter, now the widow of Sir Richmond Ritchie, I did not -know in those days, but I used to meet her afterwards at -Lady Lindsay’s. There was a time when her <i>Old Kensington</i> -was my favourite novel.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And here I must say something about my old and dear -friend, Lady Lindsay, who has so recently passed away, and -whose lameness prevented her from toiling up the stairs to -our at-homes very often. For many years I was constantly -at her house, both at her famous dinner-parties and running -in to have a talk about books when I was sure of finding her -alone, for she was good enough to be much interested in my -work.</p> - -<div id='i124f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i124f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>“MISS BRADDON”<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The daughter of a Cabinet Minister, the Right Hon. -Henry Fitzroy (son of the first Lord Southampton), a -descendant of Nathan Meyer de Rothschild, who founded -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>the fortunes of his House, and sister-in-law of the Loyd -Lindsay, V.C., who became Lord Wantage, she knew nearly -every noted person of her time, and those whom she did not -know, she generally could have known but for some prejudice -against them. At her dinner-parties you met men like -Tennyson and Gladstone and Layard of Nineveh—great -politicians, great nobles, great authors, great painters, but -hardly any one from the theatrical world. I was nearly -always the least important person present. Eight was her -favourite number, though sometimes there were a dozen -at her famous round table. The conversation used to be -brilliant; the company was arranged with a view to that—naturally -the chief guest often got possession of the table, -and we sat and chronicled the historic scene in our hearts.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Afterwards, when one went up into the drawing-room, -our eyes rested on pictures by Sandro Botticelli and Titian, -sixteenth-century Italian wedding-chests, and other inheritances -of the great. She wrote more than one volume -of poems which went into several editions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is natural to mention beside her another great lady who -was in touch with all the notabilities of her time, Walpole’s -descendant, Lady Dorothy Nevill, who married a descendant -of Warwick the Kingmaker’s elder brother, the Baron of Abergavenny. -Her husband was at one time the heir-presumptive -of the Marquis of Abergavenny. She happily gave her -reminiscences to the world, as Lady Lindsay always meant -to do, so readers know her connections, though she was too -modest to show how Disraeli leaned upon her advice. Among -the most interesting things which I remember in her house -in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, were the unique mementoes -of her ancestor, the tremendous Sir Robert Walpole, the -Asquith of the eighteenth century. It was she who told me -that Nelson was called Horatio because Horace Walpole -presented his father to the living of Burnham Thorpe, which -is still in the gift of the Earls of Orford.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lady St. Helier, another great London hostess, at whose -house I have met some of the most celebrated people of the -day—Lady St. Helier and her daughter, Mrs. Allhusen, never -came to see us till we had left Addison Mansions for the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>Avenue House, Richmond. No woman has been more -integrally a part of the life of her time than Lady St. Helier, -who wrote an admirable volume of reminiscences. Mrs. -Allhusen has the inspiration of owning a house where one of -the masterpieces of literature was written—Gray’s <i>Elegy</i>. -For the house in which Gray wrote it after the inspiration, -which came to him as he was leaning over the gate of Stoke -Poges Churchyard, has been enlarged into Stoke Court, and -the room in which Gray wrote out the <i>Elegy</i> forms part of -Mrs. Allhusen’s writing-room.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Marie Corelli, like Hall Caine, has a dislike of literary -receptions. I cannot remember if she ever came to Addison -Mansions, though we have been friends for many years, and -I remember going to brilliant dinner-parties at her house -in Longridge Road. Her stepfather, Charles Mackay, who -adopted her, was one of my earliest literary friends.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Her stepbrother, Eric Mackay, author of the famous -<i>Love-letters of a Violinist</i>, lived with her, and he came to our -at-homes so frequently that I think she must have come with -him sometimes. They were a very musical family. It is -always said that Marie Corelli, had she so chosen, could have -won as much fame in music as she has in literature. Her -books illustrate Hall Caine’s axiom that the greatest novels -are those which deal with the elemental facts of human -nature. Her grasp of human nature has won her countless -readers in both hemispheres.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is not universally known that Marie Corelli is an -admirable speaker—so lucid, so convincing, able by perfect -elocution to reach the furthest corner of the large hall of -the Hotel Cecil without raising her voice. Though she -lives at Stratford-on-Avon, and is identified with all its -functions, she is frequently to be seen in London at places -like Ranelagh or dancing at the great balls at the Albert -Hall.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Almost alone of the chief lady novelists of that time, -Mrs. Humphry Ward was never at Addison Mansions. -The most interesting thing I remember in conversation with -her was her confession to me one day when we were at Mrs. -W. K. Clifford’s that she enjoys handling the character of a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>person who is a failure better than the character of a person -who achieves success. Heroes apparently do not appeal to -her.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. W. K. Clifford was often at Addison Mansions. She -is a very old friend of mine, and a great personality. Mrs. -Clifford is an admirable example of the modern woman, -breezy, wholesome, warm-hearted, clear-visioned, lucid in -expression, interested in all questions of the day, and withal -one of our best novelists. Early in life she suffered a -loss which would have overwhelmed most women, for she -lost her husband, Prof. W. K. Clifford, F.R.S., who was -already reckoned the third mathematician in Europe, at the -same age as Wolfe fell at Quebec, thirty-three, when they -had only been married four years, and she was still a girl. -He was the most brilliant Fellow of Trinity (Cambridge) of -his day, and the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society. -There is nothing he could not have done and would not have -done if he had lived, for there was no side of life which did -not appeal to him. People of every rank and of every shade -of thought came to see him, and no matter how little they -agreed with him, they were always hypnotised for the hour.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He had wonderful dark-lashed blue eyes, like his daughter, -and a wonderful soul seemed to be looking out of them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But she did not allow her loss to prostrate her, and she -has lived to see her house one of the Meccas of literature -in London, and her daughter, Mrs. Fisher Dilke, a recognised -poetess.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Talking of Mrs. Clifford reminds me of the chequered -career of <i>The Love-letters of a Worldly Woman</i>. It was -published just twenty years ago, and though the first edition -sold out immediately, no second edition was published in -England, but in America, where it was non-copyright, it -sold enormously. There were a dozen pirate editions of it, -including a marked edition, which means one with the most -popular passages indicated. Such a height of popularity did -it reach that it was actually sold at street-corners in New -York! But I have heard that Mrs. Clifford only got fifteen -pounds royalties off the whole dozen editions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The first batch of love-letters in this volume appeared -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>anonymously in the <i>Fortnightly</i>, and were generally attributed -to Oscar Wilde. As a piece of poetical justice when Housman’s -<i>An English-woman’s Love-letters</i> were published seven -years later, they were attributed to Mrs. Clifford. <i>The Love-letters -of a Worldly Woman</i> was a remarkable book, and fully -deserved its American popularity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Clifford is, above all things, an idealist and a lover -of good work. She has said, in one of her books, “in good -love and good work lie the chance of immortality for everything -that is worth having or being; and yet, though I’ve -aimed at the sun, and longed to put into the beautiful world -something worthy of it, I have never hit higher than a gooseberry -bush, or achieved anything that gave me satisfaction. -And I’ve been so full of enthusiasms and dreams ... perhaps -one of the dreams will come true some day—who knows? -For if I live to be ninety, I shall still feel, as I do now, that -the soul of me is as young and fresh as ever; and it is a sense -of the beauty of things, of the kindness that underlies human -nature, even when it’s choked with weeds at the top, that -gives one courage, and helps one to do.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Beside Mrs. Clifford I should mention Margaret Woods, -whom I first met when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, -and her husband, the present Master of the Temple, was my -tutor, engaged to her while I was his pupil. I remember -his asking me and other undergraduates to meet her in his -rooms. I do not think he told us why, but we knew. She -was one of the few charming women that the monastic -Oxford of that day contained. Her father, afterwards the -famous Dean of Westminster, was master of University -College; I used to go to his Socrates lectures. He was dissatisfied -with the progress we were making, and boldly—it -was very bold at Oxford—charged us with paying too much -attention to athletics, and it was then that he made his -famous mot, that he had never taken any exercise in his life, -except by occasionally standing up when he was reading. -I have heard that it is equally true of Mr. Chamberlain, but -it was Dean Bradley who said it. The Bradleys were an -excessively clever family. The Dean had a brother or a half-brother -a great philosopher, a don at Merton, and another, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>Andrew Bradley, a Fellow at Balliol, who became Professor -of Literature at another University. I forget what his sister, -Emma Bradley, did, but she was famous. Three of his -daughters, Mrs. Woods, Mrs. Birchenough, Mrs. Murray -Smith, are authoresses, Mrs. Woods being one of the best -novelists of the day, and in my opinion the best of all poetesses -in the English language. When Tennyson died there was a -movement in favour of her being made the laureate, and no -woman has ever had such claims for the post. She made -her mark very young with <i>A Village Tragedy</i> and <i>Esther -Vanhomrigh</i>, and has written notable books ever since. -Beautiful workmanship, singularly broad humanity, and -truth to life are the characteristics of her prose. In poetry -she has the gifts of both Brownings. She lives in an ideal -home, the panelled Master’s House at the Temple, which -has, however, one drawback, that the only way out of it to -a cab on a wet night is to be carried in a sedan chair; a -sedan chair of the eighteenth century is kept in the hall for -the purpose, and passes from one Master of the Temple to -another.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Charles Kingsley’s daughter, Mrs. St. Leger Harrison—the -“Lucas Malet” of fame—used to come to us sometimes -before she went back to live at Eversley, immortalised by her -father; and once her cousin, the famous African explorer, the -other Mary Kingsley, came. Lucas Malet is all that one -might expect of Charles Kingsley’s daughter and the writer -of <i>Sir Richard Calmady</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It seems natural to mention the author of <i>Concerning -Isabel Carnaby</i> beside the author of <i>Sir Richard Calmady</i>. -The two books made a stir about the same time, and the -public mixed their titles with great impartiality. The -author of the former, Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, now the -Hon. Mrs. Felkin, with her sister, Edith Fowler, was a good -many times at Addison Mansions. I have told the story of -her becoming an authoress in my chapter on the Idlers and -Vagabonds.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I should have mentioned Beatrice Harraden before. When -you see this small, slight, delicate-looking woman, with her -bright eyes, you are forcibly reminded of the invalid heroine -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>of <i>Ships that Pass in the Night</i>. But Beatrice Harraden is a -public school woman; she was at Cheltenham College—the -ladies’ College—and has taken the liveliest interest in all -the interests of women since. She was cured, I fancy, of -some pulmonary disease by going to California. She now -has one of the most unique flats in Hampstead. I do not -remember how I met her, but it was a long time ago, and I -was very elated, because I always thought <i>Ships that Pass -in the Night</i> one of the best-written short novels in the -language.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Helen Mathers has for many years been a dear friend of -ours. She was another of the authors whose acquaintance -it elated me to make. Although she is much about the -same age as myself, she made her two successes with <i>Comin’ -Through the Rye</i> and <i>Cherry Ripe</i> when I was a boy at school. -Her husband, Henry Reeves, the eminent orthopædist, was -one of the very first doctors to make practical use of the -X-rays. She had a son in the army who promised to be -her worthy successor in literature had he lived, as the writing -which he achieved proved. Her real name was Mathews. -She was a cousin of the Estella Mathews who married my -near neighbour, George Cave, K.C., M.P., who was in my -team, as was Mr. Justice Montague Shearman, when I was -Captain of the Public Schools Football Club at Oxford, and -who now occasionally plays golf with me when he can get -a day off from the Courts, and from the case against Home -Rule.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frances Hodgson Burnett I first met in Washington, where -she was the wife of a well-known doctor, and the mother of -two beautiful boys in velvet Patience suits, locally called -Fauntleroy suits, in honour of her book <i>Little Lord Fauntleroy</i>. -But she was not an American; she was an Englishwoman -born in Manchester, who had made her fame with a book -about the north of England, called <i>That Lass o’ Lowrie’s</i>. -Eventually she came back to live in her native England, first -of all in a house in Portland Place and afterwards in a manor -house in Kent. Her gigantic success with books and plays -did not turn her head; she was always the same gracious -human woman she had been when she was making her way.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>John Oliver Hobbes, on the other hand, though she lived -so much in England, and wrote all her books over here, was -an American-born, the daughter of John Morgan Richards, -who was at one time Chairman of the American Society in -London, and had as much to do with <i>entente cordiale</i> between -England and the United States as any American Ambassador -at the Court of St. James’. He was, as it were, a sort of -social ambassador. The great house in Lancaster Gate in -which he lived till he retired from business was a focus of -entertainment for both branches of the Anglo-Saxon race.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Craigie was a friend of our present Queen. She was -extraordinarily clever and extraordinarily charming. She -always gave every one to whom she was talking the knowledge -that for the time being nobody else existed for her. -In intellect she was the equal of any contemporary woman -writer; added to this, she was very pretty, very engaging, -very well dressed, and certainly proved the truth of the -proverb “Whom the gods love, die young.” She had the -gift of bringing out the wit as well as the best qualities of -others.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another American authoress who has spent most of her -life and done all her writing in England is Irene Osgood, -who came here as a very beautiful young bride of fabulous -wealth, and rented a house which was one of the shrines of -English literature—Knebworth, the home of Bulwer Lytton. -She did not write <i>Servitude</i>, the book by which she will be -remembered, there, but at Guilsborough, in Northamptonshire, -another seat which she took for the hunting.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Yet another American authoress, who was also young and -beautiful when she came to England, was Amelie Rives, who -was at that time wife of J. A. Chanler, a great-grandson of -the original Astor, but is now Princess Troubetzkoi. The -daughter of a Virginian country gentleman, she simply leapt -into fame with a book called <i>Virginia of Virginia</i>, which -took the Americans by storm. She was irresistibly clever, -and very striking-looking, with her pale gold hair, clear -dusky complexion, and big blue eyes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Gertrude Franklin Atherton, a remarkable-looking Californian -with the same pale gold hair and rather the same -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>complexion as Amelie Rives, whose mother was a great-grandniece -of Benjamin Franklin, was at one time a very -frequent visitor of ours. She was a long time getting her -recognition, and then suddenly leapt into her full fame. -But those who used to meet her socially knew from the first -that she was a woman of commanding intellect. She had -an odd trick of wearing a quill thrust through her hair.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mr. and Mrs. C. N. Williamson are among my oldest -literary friends. I made Williamson’s acquaintance when -he was sub-editor of the <i>Graphic</i>, and asked me to write an -illustrated article on Adam Lindsay Gordon. Alice Livingston -was an American girl, who came over to England to -spend a year with some friends, and has never been back in -her own country for more than three months at a time since. -She had a letter of introduction to C. N. Williamson, who -introduced her to a number of London editors, and thus -gave her a chance of success in story-writing. After their -marriage she wrote many serial stories, some of which appeared -in book form; but the first great “Williamson -success” was <i>The Lightning Conductor</i>, suggested by their -earliest motoring adventures in France and Italy. C. N. -Williamson having expert knowledge as a mechanical -engineer (he intended to be one, before he determined to -become a writer), it was easy to mingle amusing mechanical -details of motoring with the story, a feature which appealed -to lovers of automobiles in the days, ten or eleven years ago, -when the sport was an uncertain adventure.</p> - -<p class='c016'>They both love story-telling—Mrs. Williamson used to -“print” stories when she was six years old, before she could -write—and have written a good many popular travel novels -since <i>The Lightning Conductor</i>. They love also to see the -far corners of the world, though they contrive to spend two -or three months each winter in their Riviera house, and a -month or two in summer among their friends in London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Next to travelling, they love to build houses, and make -them beautiful. If they see some land on a hillside with a -splendid view, they can hardly resist buying it, and planning -exactly the sort of house which ought to exist there. This -means that they sell their last house, and begin another, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>with a different sort of garden, but there must always be a -bull-dog in it, rejoicing in the name of Tiberius, or “Tibe.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Madame Albanesi, one of the most successful novelists of -the day, and wife of the well-known musician, is an old -friend of ours. She had long been one of the most successful -writers of serial fiction in popular journals, but it was not -until after her marriage with Signor Albanesi that she turned -her attention to novels—one of the earliest of these books -receiving remarkable reviews. She conceived the idea of -advertising these reviews herself, with the result that she was -approached by a number of leading publishers for her next -book, and happily followed with the book which established -her name—<i>Susannah and One Other</i>, a book which has been -running for over ten years, and is still selling. The book-reading -public only required to have its attention adequately -drawn to her novels, to see what admirable stories they -were—faithful to life, pulsing with human nature.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I asked Madame Albanesi what first made her write. She -said that she could not remember when she had not tried to -write in some form or other, and that happily for her, when -she was quite a girl circumstances threw her into a circle -where her gift of imaginative writing was warmly encouraged, -and opportunities were found for turning this gift to the most -satisfactory results. I remember Madame Albanesi telling -me that an interesting fact in connection with her earlier -writing was that her imagination was so fertile that she -used—before she was twenty years old—to keep three or -four serials running at the same time. She never had less -than two going at once, and wrote them in instalments from -week to week, and never took a note. Everything was -published anonymously, and a new serial would begin before -the old one was finished. Madame Albanesi regards her -serial work as being the very best training for telling a good -story.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I ought to have mentioned earlier, since she belonged to -that generation, John Strange Winter, a shining light in -Bohemia at the epoch of which I am writing. She made -her first success when I was at Oxford, with <i>Bootles’ Baby</i>, -and <i>Hoop-la</i>, but she had lost her vogue before we went to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>live at Addison Mansions, though her name remained a household -word, and she continued to publish a number of popular -books. She was then living in an old house at Merton near -Wimbledon, but shortly afterwards came to live at West -Kensington, because she found Merton too far out.</p> - -<p class='c016'>She was a woman of inexhaustible energy, and had a -very kind heart. She was exceedingly good to young -authors and journalists; she made their cause her own; -she welcomed them to her house, and visited theirs. She -was a sister-in-law of George Augustus Sala. She was unfortunate -in losing her public; she would have it again if she -were alive now. But at that time a wave of preciousness and -morbidness, which left her stranded, was passing over the -country.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“George Egerton” and “Roy Devereux,” very pretty and -clever women, were at the top of that wave among women, -the former with books like <i>Keynotes</i>, the latter, and George -Egerton’s beautiful sister, Miss Dunne, with brilliant and -virile journalism in the <i>Saturday Review</i>, the <i>Pall Mall</i> and -elsewhere. Lane was their publisher, Beardsley was their -illustrator, H. G. Wells headed the list of their male rivals, -followed by Arthur Machen, H. D. Lowry and others. I -have all their books—such slim books for novels. Fisher -Unwin had another school of them, headed by John Oliver -Hobbes, as daring from the sex point of view, but lighter in -touch, which he published in long slim books with yellow -paper covers at eighteenpence each. <i>Some Emotions and -a Moral</i> came out in this series, which I heard some one ask -for at Smith’s Library quite seriously as <i>Some Morals and a -Reputation</i>. These were Wells’s <i>Time Machine</i>, <i>Stolen Bacillus</i>, -and <i>Wonderful Visit</i> days.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I asked George Egerton, who was in camp at Tauranga -during the Maori war as an infant, and as a child was in -her uncle Admiral Bynon’s fleet while he was bombarding -Valparaiso, and who I knew was intended for an artist, what -had made her turn writer. She told me—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Why I wrote? Because I had to. Why I wrote as I -did? Because I felt woman could only hope to do one thing -in literature—put <i>herself</i> into it. Write not in breeches, but -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>in corsets. That I took the name of George Egerton was -partly because I did not think any publisher would take -stories of that kind written by a woman, partly to see if my -sex would make itself felt. <i>Keynotes</i> went into seven languages -in two years. I am not dead abroad. At the Goethe -Centenary in Weimar the Dr. Professor who gave the lecture -on literature of the century, spoke of Rudyard Kipling and -George Egerton as the two who had introduced a new note, -a new method, into English literature ‘in our time.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I gave up writing books when I found that authors are -‘unsecured creditors’—not worth the candle unless one can -reel off popular stuff. I can’t. I go to America with plays. -I make any money I make there. I shall arrive here too. -I am doing a big book now, and I am starting a book of -recollections. If one attaches credence to the fortune-tellers, -I am to live to be an old woman. It might be amusing, -if only to demolish the men and women of straw one has seen -lauded to the skies, in one’s memory.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Marie Belloc, who had not then married Lowndes of <i>The -Times</i>, was a constant visitor. She belonged very much to -the Idler and Vagabond set of which we saw so much, and -was already longing to write novels, though many years were -to go by before she was able to fulfil her wish. She is a sister -of Hilaire Belloc, the free-lance M.P. of the last Parliament, -one of the wittiest writers of the day, who has the further -distinction of having been a driver in a French artillery -regiment and a Scholar of Balliol afterwards. It should -be added that he was twenty-three when he went up to -Oxford.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Marie Stuart Boyd, of the same set, the wife of the well-known -<i>Punch</i> and <i>Graphic</i> artist, did not begin to publish -her delightful books till nearly ten years later, though she -was a regular contributor to important Reviews.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Frankau (“Frank Danby”), who came with her -sister, Mrs. Aria, had at that time dropped writing for engraving, -and did not resume it till some years later. <i>Pigs in -Clover</i>, and her other successes in fiction, belong to a much -later date.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the most daring and witty of women writers, Violet -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>Hunt, was constantly at our at-homes. With a father who -was a well-known artist, a Fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, -and a friend of Gladstone’s, and a mother who wrote novels -of repute; and brought up in the brilliant set which gathered -round Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown, it was no wonder -that she should be extraordinarily clever, and no one was -surprised when she produced scintillating books like <i>The -Maiden’s Progress</i> and <i>A Hard Woman</i>. South Lodge, their -house on Campden Hill, was a Mecca for distinguished -literary people. It was there that I first met Andrew Lang, -Robert Hichens, Somerset Maugham, Katherine Cecil -Thurston in a crowd of writers of high calibre. It was one -of the few houses where Lang was natural without being -rude.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I now come to a group of able women writers whom I -met at clubs like the Pioneers and the Writers’, though they -mostly came often to our at-homes afterwards. First -among them I may place that brilliant and delightful writer, -Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick, who published her early novels under -the pseudonym of “Mrs. Andrew Dean.” Her husband, -Mr. Alfred Sidgwick, is the author of well-known works on -logic, and one of the earliest of the modern school of philosophers, -known as the Pragmatists. He is a cousin of Mr. -Henry Sidgwick (d. 1900), the distinguished Professor of -Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, who married Mr. A. J. -Balfour’s sister, the guardian spirit of Newnham.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Sidgwick’s novels have always been full of verve. -She has steeped herself in the literature of three countries, -and until she married knew the world better from the -Continental point of view than from the English. But her -marriage took her amongst English people, so that she has -had unusual opportunities of understanding two nationalities -intimately. In those days we saw a good deal of her because -she lived at Surbiton, but for many years past she has lived -in Cornwall.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the same club I met Miss Montrésor, whose delicate -health has prevented her seeing much of London literary -society, though she lives in South Kensington. With her -<i>Into the Highways and Hedges</i> she leapt into fame at a single -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>bound. Miss Montrésor is a genius. Her intuition enables -her to describe with fidelity phases of life with which she -cannot have had any acquaintance. When she wrote <i>Into -the Highways and Hedges</i>, my friend Sheldon, who was the -London manager of D. Appleton & Co., gave me five -pounds to write a careful opinion of it, to see whether his -firm, to whom it had been offered, should publish it or not. -I gave them a long opinion, in which I told them that they -could not possibly refuse such a book. But they did refuse -it, because almost any American publisher will refuse any -novel which is not by a novelist who has already made a -great name. Some other New York firm took it, and it -was the book of the year in America.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At a club, too, I met Annie Swan (whose husband, Dr. -Burnett Smith, was last year Mayor of Hertford), twenty -years and more ago, a woman completely unspoiled by -success, which came to her early and without stint, and -remained. She stands at the very head of the writers of the -wholesome school of fiction. In those days she lived at -Hampstead, in a house called “Aldersyde,” after the novel -which gave her her fame. She is one of those people whose -obvious sincerity charms you the moment you meet them. -I don’t know whether she is interested in spiritualism, but -I did on one occasion meet Florence Marryat and Dora -Russell together at her table.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of Florence Marryat (Mrs. Francis Lean), the daughter of -the immortal Captain Marryat, I saw a good deal at one -time. She was a very regular attendant at a dining club -called the Argonauts, which Frankfort Moore and I got up -because the Vagabonds would not then admit ladies to their -banquets. Spiritualism played an immense part in her life. -She was also a very voluminous writer. I remember her -telling me that she had written more than seventy novels. -She was a tall, striking-looking woman, whose eyes suggested -intimacy with the occult.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Leightons, who are among my most valued friends, I -certainly met at some club—Marie Leighton is the best -newspaper serial writer of the day—a story-teller born, and, -like her husband, a great authority on dogs. One at any -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>rate of her thrilling stories has been dramatised and others -are sure to follow, as the managers of the melodrama theatres -recognise how immensely dramatic her stories are.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Lucas Cleeve,” another frequent visitor at our house, -wife of Colonel Kingscote, and daughter of Sir Henry -Drummond Wolff, M.P., who made with Mr. Balfour, Lord -Randolph Churchill, and Sir John Gorst the celebrated -Fourth Party, had an extraordinary facility for writing -novels of a certain merit, and, like her father, was a great -linguist and traveller. Sir John Gorst introduced me to -her. I met him at Castle Combe, which now belongs to him, -and then belonged to his brother, the late Edward Chadwick -Lowndes. I was staying with my brother-in-law, Robert -Watkins, the agent of the estate, which is one of historical -interest, for its archives prove it to have been irretrievably -wasted by Sir John Fastolfe, Knt., Shakespeare’s Falstaff, -who had married the widow of the last of its Scroop owners, -and managed the estate for her. He built the chancel -arches in the church, fine and early Perpendicular. The -Scroop and Falstaff house has long since disappeared, while -the Cromlech of a British Chief, and a Roman Camp, continue -almost perfect. I was often the guest of Sir John’s eldest -son, Sir Eldon, when I was in Egypt, and his younger son, -Harold, and his charming wife, have been our intimate -friends for many years. Mrs. Harold Gorst, who was a Miss -Kennedy of the famous Shrewsbury School family of scholars, -has an extraordinary knowledge of the life of the poor in -London, and her novels reflect it with a fidelity which should -have won them ten times their circulation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Quite a prominent place among the authoresses who used -to assemble on those evenings at Addison Mansions is occupied -by novelists who began as my secretaries, and whom I -trained to write.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have been singularly fortunate in my choice of them. -Not only have they given me so much satisfaction as secretaries -that I have only had to send one away for inefficiency, -and none for any other reason, but they have made such -good use of the opportunities they had for observing the -ways of book-writing, that in the twenty-seven years since -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>the first came to me, they have between them had more -than twenty-seven books published and paid for by leading -firms like Hutchinson, Heinemann, Methuen, Hurst & -Blackett, Constable & Co., Chatto & Windus, Eveleigh -Nash, Mills & Boon and Stanley Paul.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My first secretary was Norma Lorimer, who came to us -in her teens, before our memorable journey to America, -Canada and the Far East. She has accompanied us on -every important journey we ever made in Europe, Asia, -Africa and America since I returned from Australia. When -typewriting came in, she ceased to be my secretary, because -she was never a typist, but she continued to live with us, -and act as hostess, since my wife’s health has never permitted -her to undertake the strain of managing the large -literary, artistic and theatrical receptions which we held -weekly for a good many years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>During that period Miss Lorimer made an immense circle -of friends, which included practically every one in our -acquaintance. Men like Fisher of the <i>Literary World</i>, and -Robert Barr urged her to write a book for years before she -could persuade herself to put pen to paper, though seeing -so many of my books put together, and transcribing when -they were finished, had familiarised her with the process -of book-making, and though she had assisted me at every -stage, in sight-seeing with an armful of guide-books, in -making copious notes, in studying all the available authorities -on the subject, and in digesting and arranging the information -if it was a travel-book, or in giving her advice about the -story if it was a novel. She must have been with us quite -ten years before she published her first book, <i>A Sweet Disorder</i>. -Since then, besides the two books in which she collaborated -with me, <i>Queer Things about Sicily</i> and <i>More Queer Things -about Japan</i>, she has brought out <i>Josiah’s Wife</i>, <i>Mirry-Ann</i>, -<i>By the Waters of Sicily</i>, <i>Catherine Sterling</i>, <i>On Etna</i>, <i>By the -Waters of Carthage</i>, <i>The Pagan Woman</i>, <i>By the Waters of -Egypt</i>, <i>By the Waters of Italy</i>, <i>The Second Woman</i>, <i>A Wife out -of Egypt</i>, and <i>By the Waters of Germany</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It gives me great satisfaction to think that she was my -pupil in writing, for most of these books will stand reading -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>again and again for the admirable sayings and analyses of -life with which they are strewn, as well as for their stories, -and the knowledge displayed in them. They are redolent -with the atmosphere of the Isle of Man, Japan, Italy, Sicily, -Tunis and Egypt, and one of them, <i>Josiah’s Wife</i>, contains -a brilliant picture of America, where she lived with us for -nearly three years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Miss Lorimer comes of a very clever family. Her uncle, -James Lorimer, was Professor of International Law in the -Edinburgh University, and wrote some of the standard -books upon the subject. He was a man of international -reputation. His hobby was the restoration of Kellie Castle -in Fifeshire, which he acquired from Lord Kellie and Mar, -and, as the Latin inscription sets forth, “rescued it from the -bats and the owls.” Living at Kellie was the inspiration of -three of his clever children. His youngest son, now Sir -Robert Lorimer, has become the most famous living Scottish -architect. He had the high honour of building the Chapel -of the Knights of the Thistle in St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh. -His second son, J. H. Lorimer, the Scottish -Academician, is recognised as one of the soundest painters -of the day. One daughter, Lady im Thurn, caught the trick -of the beautiful moulded plaster ceilings at Kellie, done by -a wandering band of Italian artists in the seventeenth -century, and was entrusted with the execution of the moulded -plaster ceilings which Lord Bute had made for his House of -Falkland. Another daughter is an author, and the other -married Sir David Chalmers, the only man who ever earned -two pensions as Chief Justice of two tropical colonies.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My next secretary was Miss Maude (Mary) Chester Craven, -who had quarrelled with her stepfather, and was seeking to -make her own way in the world.</p> - -<p class='c016'>She was a singularly clever girl, very much interested in -literature, with a great sense of humour, and a great idea -of “copy.” Had she come to me later, when I was writing -the various volumes of <i>Queer Things</i> series, I should have -been able to make better use of her help. She was most -generous and self-sacrificing, and when she had thrown -herself into the subject, you could hardly get her away -<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>from the papers. And she was very well read on certain -subjects.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A few years after she left me she wrote an excellent book -called <i>Famous Beauties of Two Reigns</i>. Since then she has -found a niche all to herself in book-producing—teaching -people who have led interesting lives, and have good stories -to tell, but have had no literary experience, how to put their -biographies together and editing them herself. The books -produced in this way have proved some of the greatest -sensations of our times. Lady Cardigan led off, followed -by the adventurous ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, and Lord -Rossmore’s racy recollections came as an <i>entr’acte</i> to the -drama of Meyerling as narrated by Countess Larisch.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Editing these books has made Miss Craven—she is now -Mrs. Charles ffoulkes, wife of the Master of the Armour of -the Tower of London—an admirable raconteur, and she told -me that the late M. Charles Sauerwein, directeur of <i>Le Matin</i>, -had offered her a large sum to write her reminiscences of -her “sitters,” but conscientious scruples prevented her from -accepting the tempting offer, as to disclose all she knew -would have caused trouble in London and elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The ex-Crown Princess of Saxony, for instance, was a -most ingenuous person, who would have written a chapter, -had Miss Craven permitted her, on “why the royal honeymoon -bored her to tears,” and much more that would have caused -endless scandal and heartburnings to the Saxon court.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Our Louise,” as she was termed by her subjects, had a -positive mania for cleanliness, and she told Miss Craven that -once when she was travelling with her mother the water -supply gave out and she was in despair how to wash her -hands. But necessity originated a brilliant idea, and at -the next stop Louise rushed to the buffet, and returned with -a waiter staggering under many bottles of mineral water, -with which she performed her ablutions. “Surely,” remarked -the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, “there is no -accounting for your vagaries, Louise!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Miss Craven asked the Princess what she most desired to -do when the dullness of palace life obsessed her. “To post -a letter in a pillar-box like any one else,” was the reply. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>Once, coming from the Continent, she overheard some fellow-passengers -discussing her rather freely, and entering into the -spirit of the adventure, Louise joined in the conversation, -and for once saw herself as others saw her. “Well,” said -she, as the train slowed into Charing Cross, “you’ve had an -opportunity of meeting that terrible woman—I am the -ex-Crown Princess,” and when the horror-stricken occupants -of the compartment saw her name upon her small luggage, -they realised that the pretty, vivacious, fair woman was none -other than the former wife of the King of Saxony.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lady Cardigan (whose recollections “Labby” described -as a classic) disliked the blue pencil, for she saw no reason -why you should not say what you like in a book. She was -a most brilliant anecdotist, and Miss Craven said she could -tell good stories for a fortnight without repeating herself. -One, which related to a well-known Bacchanalian member -of the aristocracy, is worth recalling. The gentleman in -question once kissed a pretty housemaid, who made a decidedly -original protest. “I wonder, my Lord,” said the girl, “that -a nobleman like you don’t drink champagne. Brandy do -colour your breath.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lady Cardigan held the opinion that sauce for the goose -was sauce for the gander. “Men fall in love with ballet-girls, -barmaids and servants,” she once remarked, “so why -shouldn’t women fall in love with men of inferior station if -it amuses them?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Maude Craven could tell of flutterings in the dove-cotes of -Mayfair, and of many skeletons in ancestral cupboards whose -bones must have rattled in dread of what Lady Cardigan’s -marvellous memory could have recalled about them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The lady who followed Miss Craven had only been with us -for a short time when the doctors told her that she could -not live in England. She went to California and got married. -Miss Marie Ivory, who followed her, married a famous artist.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Miss Ethel Phipps, the next, was with us for several years, -and accompanied us to Italy and Sicily, and inaugurated the -system of tissue-paper scrap-books, which I have found so -useful in collecting the materials for my books of travel. -And she was an excellent typist, the first excellent typist -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>we had had, though I took up the use of the typewriter quite -early. The first I ever had was a Remington which I bought -in 1883 in Sydney from a man named Cunningham who -reported law cases for the <i>Sydney Morning Herald</i>. He -sold it to me for half the price he had given for it (I paid -him about fifteen pounds, I think), because the judges would -not look at his notes when they were in typewriting. He -had bought the instrument under the idea that the extra -legibility would be received with acclaim. The judges -thought that the machine might not write down what the -reporter meant it to—they credited it with the powers of a -planchette, which was then very fashionable.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Miss Phipps wrote a very amusing little book called -<i>Belinda and Others</i>, which Warne bought from her and -published both in England and America.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When she left us because she was needed at home, her -place was taken by a very clever and interesting girl fresh -from school, who has made a great name for herself in fiction—Miss -Ethel May Stevens, whose pen-name is Ethel Stefana -Stevens. We took her to Sicily almost directly she came to -us, and Italianised her surname into the nickname Stefana, -by which even her own relations grew to call her.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The moment I saw her I was struck by her brilliance and -intelligence, and I did not require to learn that she had -carried everything before her at Miss Douglas’s famous -school in Queen’s Gate, to know that she was much the -ablest of the ladies who answered my advertisement when -Miss Phipps had to leave us.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At various times she travelled all over Italy and Sicily -with us, and visited Tunis and Carthage. She was with us -for several years, and a great worker. On her fell the almost -incredible labour of typing out and keeping sorted the -immense mass of materials accumulated chiefly from Italian -sources, for the Encyclopædia called <i>Things Sicilian</i>, which -forms the bulk of my <i>Sicily, the New Winter Resort</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>She had studied a great deal before she came to us, and -besides a good knowledge of French and German and music -(she played the violin charmingly), had a strange accomplishment—she -spoke Romany, the Gipsy language, so fluently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>that when she made up a little, even gipsies took her for a -gipsy. She had learnt it in the New Forest, which was near -her home. She began before she had been very long with -us the gipsy novel, which now, after many years, she has -taken up again. It was a story with a strong love interest -in it, but it gave no promise of the admirable gift of writing -which she has shown in her published works like <i>The Veil</i> -and <i>The Mountain of God</i>. In the large amount of reviewing -which she did for me—against time, it was true—she -had a habit of introducing stock phrases and introductory -periphrases, such as “the worst of the whole matter was -that,” “that redoubtable,” “the venerable form of.” -Her criticisms of books were in judgment very good, but -in expression they were verbose and lacking in distinction. -She was always studying in the fine library which -I had collected as a reviewer. Besides gipsy-lore and -music she was especially interested in everything connected -with occultism and amulets, and the Black Art -generally, and everything connected with the Orient. It -was in the three excellent chapters which she wrote for my -<i>Carthage and Tunis</i>, where they are signed with her own -initials, E. M. S., instead of the E. S. S. she uses now, that -Miss Stevens first showed what she could do when she tried. -The chapters are Chapter VI, Volume I, “The Lavigerie -Museum at Cairo”; Chapter XVIII, Volume II, “Superstition -in Tunis”; Chapter XX, Volume II, “A Tunisian -Harem, and the Tombs of the Beys.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was when she was visiting Tunis with us that she first -heard the “East a-callin’.” She found it absolutely irresistible. -In the short time that we were there she began to -learn Arabic, and acquired quite a good knowledge of Arab -amulets, and the Egyptian amulets in the museum at Carthage. -She afterwards paid another visit to Tunis before she -wrote her memorable book, <i>The Veil</i>, one of the most successful -novels of its year.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In search of a fresh Oriental subject, she next went to -Haifa, the Syrian seaport, where she was lucky enough to -live in the little colony which surrounded the present head -of the Bahai movement, and to see a great deal of the inner -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>working of that movement, which is said to count half the -Shia Mohammedans (chiefly Persians) among its secret -adherents. So high an opinion did Abbas Effendi form of -her abilities, that he invited her to stay in his house and -gave her a special course of instruction, which lasted over -many months, in the philosophy of the sect.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Her stay at Haifa also supplied her with the materials for -her second novel, <i>The Mountain of God</i>. Since then she has -published several able and successful books, just as <i>The -Earthen Drum</i>, <i>The Long Engagement</i>, <i>The Lure</i> and <i>Sarah -Eden</i>, for the material of which she paid two visits to -Jerusalem.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My next secretary, who was with me for seven years, has -also had three books published by leading firms.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is not by any means an uncommon thing for authors’ -secretaries to become authors. One of the most conspicuous -examples is Mary E. Wilkins, now Mrs. Freeman-Wilkins, -who was for a long time secretary to Oliver Wendell Holmes. -I well remember the day when he stopped me in the street in -Boston (U.S.A.), to say, “I have a hated rival. My secretary, -Mary Wilkins, has just published a novel—a much better -one than I ever wrote.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>LITERARY CLUBS: MY CONNECTION WITH THE AUTHORS’ CLUB</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>When</span> we came back from the United States in 1891, -besides our wide American circle, most of whom were in the -habit of frequently visiting England in the season, we soon -found ourselves in the heart of a Bohemian society, which -met almost daily at one or other club or reception. Receptions -had become the order of the day among London literary -people, artists and actors. The epidemic came over from -America at the same time as the habit of personal -journalising. Certain popular newspapers devoted columns -and columns every week to giving every species of good-natured -gossip about the biographies and home-lives of well-known -people. It was this movement which culminated -in the production of <i>Who’s Who</i>. Interviewing was a feature -of the day. From living like hermit-crabs, English authors -suddenly began to realise the value of publicity in the sale -of their wares.</p> - -<p class='c016'>They had always in a decorous Victorian way met at the -Athenæum Club, but that did not open its doors at all. The -pleasant Garrick and the Savile had an almost equal dread -of literary burglars. The National Club had only a select -few authors who liked its fleshpots. But their younger -rivals saw in receptions a fresh element of interest to attract -and benefit members. The Arts Club, the newly founded -Authors’ Club, the Hogarth, the Savage, the Vagabonds, -and the Playgoers, to all of which I had been elected, were -free and fearless in their hospitalities, and here, and through -friends I met in these clubs, I acquired the friendship of many -of the world’s workers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Arts Club in those days was a jolly place; charming -and distinguished men could be found dining there almost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>every night, and after dinner you played pool with the Royal -Academicians, or talked scandal about the way that artists -were elected, and pictures selected, to the Royal Academy. -These were most enjoyable evenings.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the Hogarth, not far off, the artists who were not in -the Academy or in the Academy set, used to assemble. It -is the artist’s habit to work till daylight is gone, and then to -waste his time in conversation or the billiard-room. The -talk, when it was not shop, was all what they call in theatrical -circles “gag.” Some of their shop was quite interesting, -because it ran upon new men and new methods. I liked -the latter best. Artists, unlike authors, are generally more -ready to detract than to praise. They wish to mount over -the bodies of the slain; they do not hold out a hand to those -who are lower down the hill. But they were very kind to each -other with money, though they were so unkind to each other’s -work, and none of them seemed to stay at home to read after -they had done their work.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Authors’ Club had been established recently enough -for me to come in as an original member. The Vagabonds -Club, which had been in existence for a good many years, -had not yet expanded into the New Vagabonds Club, nor -had the White Friars organised banquets. The old Playgoers -had a good many literary members, chiefly dramatists -or would-be’s. The Arts, the happy hunting-ground of -famous artists, had a few; the Hogarth, the favourite meeting-place -for less favourite artists, had a few more; the Savage, -in spite of its traditions, and the Garrick not many more; -and the editors of the <i>Idler</i> were in the habit of giving teas, -which practically constituted a tea club without a subscription. -I never was at the Yorick.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Authors’ Club at that time took the lead in receptions. -Sir Walter Besant, who founded it, made it his mission in -life to bring authors together, both for the enjoyment of -each other’s company, and for the defence of their common -interests. For these purposes he originated both the Authors’ -Club and the Authors’ Society, which had, in 1891, the same -secretary, and himself for chairman of both, but which were -technically unconnected.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>The Authors’ Club owed its success, and especially the -success of its meetings, to Oswald Crawfurd, not less than to -Besant himself. Crawfurd had written a book or two, but -he had no eminence in literature, beyond having put enough -money into Chapman & Hall to become chairman of the -company and editor of its review, the <i>Fortnightly</i>. But -Crawfurd was rich, and at Eton, and as a Consul-General, -he had won the friendship of half the well-known people in -London. He used his influence, his energy and his money, -prodigally, in making the new Club go. He entertained -possible members both at the Club, and in his own home and -at favourite restaurants; he wrote an enormous number -of persuasive letters; he kept the thing going generally. -The Club was his protégé as much as Besant’s.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Besant, with whom I had been in correspondence before I -went to America, at the moment that he recruited me for the -Club, was interested in introducing American methods at its -meetings, and as I had just returned from America, the -directors made me honorary secretary for this purpose.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I spent three years in America, and during that time enjoyed -the hospitality of all the leading literary and Bohemian -Clubs in New York, Boston and Washington. Washington, -as far as I remember, had only one of any importance, but -Boston and New York were rich in them, and I brought -over ideas from them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I explained to Besant what seemed to me the best features -of American literary gatherings, and he evolved from them a -programme for our weekly dinners at the Authors’ Club; but -he thought that reading a paper, followed by a discussion, or -entertaining a great author, whose health was proposed and -who had to make a reply, was more suited to an English -audience than telling anecdotes. I think he was right; -telling anecdotes is not an English art. The American -expects boundless patience from his audience while he elaborates -the gist of the story; the longer he prolongs the agony, -the better his audience likes it. He has made a fine art -of story-telling, and does it well enough to take the place of a -curtain-raiser at a theatre. The Englishman only does it -in private—generally to the distress of his family—or introduces -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>it incidentally into one of his speeches. Except -barristers, and politicians, and clergymen, most Englishmen -are afraid of the sound of their own voices in public, though -Englishwomen often do not suffer from this disability. There -is really some justification for the story of the man who was -asked to give a definition of <i>woman</i>. He began, “Woman -is, generally speaking....” “Stop there!” said his -friend. “If you went on for a thousand years you would -never get so near it again.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Englishwomen as a class are much better speakers than -Englishmen.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We got along comfortably at the Authors’ Club with entertaining -eminent persons, and expecting them to speak in -recognition of the compliment, until Sir Augustus Harris -was asked to propose the health of Isidore di Lara, whose -opera he had just presented at Drury Lane. Harris made a -long speech, in which he told us all that he had done for grand -opera, how much money he had spent, what singers, male and -female he had discovered and the rest of it, and was very -pleased with himself, and after about half-an-hour sat down -without making the slightest allusion to di Lara. Oswald -Crawfurd, I think it was, who noticed the omission, and, -springing to his feet, proposed the toast.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After this it was felt that we ought to do something to -strengthen the programme, and Besant proposed a form of -entertainment which had come up in the United States since -I had lived there. A man with the eminent name of Luther -had hit upon an idea for giving authors a fourth profit on -their works, and making them all contributors to his own profit. -He called it “Uncut Leaves.” Under this name he offered -all the most eminent authors in America a generous price -if they would read their productions in a lecture hall before -they were published serially, so that they received money -for recitation as well as for serial rights, book rights and -dramatic rights. I believe it went very well in America for -a while, but in London it was impossible to persuade a Meredith -or a Hardy to listen to such a proposal. To start with, only -a funny man had a chance of getting an English audience -to listen to him reading his own productions.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>Later on we did try the anecdotes with some success at -informal dinners.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In any case the Authors’ Club dinners and entertainments -became a great success. It was the most popular literary -institution of the day, both at its temporary first home in -Park Place, and afterwards at its proper house in Whitehall -Court. Some of the most eminent men were its guests. -Among them, besides great authors, were great prelates, -great generals, great admirals, great politicians, who enjoyed -being entertained by the Authors’ Club better than at public -banquets, because they only had to speak to fifty or a hundred -men instead of addressing huge assemblies, and the formal -part of the proceedings lasted such a short time that they -might chat afterwards in the smoking-room or the billiard-room -with their hosts, who always had among them men -whose books they had been admiring for years. While -Besant lived he was a great inspiration, and when he died his -place was taken by others who had sprung to the forefront -of literature in the interval.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Authors’ Club differed from the original Vagabonds -Club because only the Speaker or Speakers of the evening -spoke, and the dinner was a more luxurious one. Most -of the literary Vagabonds went to the Authors’ Club too, but -at the Authors’ you met a fair sprinkling of the older authors -like Sir Walter Besant, and, occasionally, Thomas Hardy. -The gatherings were much larger. The Club contained many -more members, and the bringing of guests was much more -usual. Besant and Oswald Crawfurd brought a great many, -generally distinguished men.</p> - -<p class='c016'>If the names of everyone present at some of those dinners -were published now, people would be astonished to see what a -high percentage of them have become household words.</p> - -<div id='i150f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i150f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>CHARLES GARVICE<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>Among them were John Hay, the greatest man the United -States ever sent us as an Ambassador; the old Lord Chancellor; -the old Lord Chief Justice; Lord Avebury, who -invented the “bank-holidays” known as “St. Lubbock’s-days”; -Lord Strathcona, the father of the Canadian Pacific -Railway, and the synonym for patriotic munificence in these -latter days; Lord Wolseley, then Commander-in-Chief; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>Sir Ian Hamilton, who won the important battles of Wagon -Hill and the Diamond Hills in the South African war; Sir -Edward Seymour, the great Admiral, who won as much -reputation by daring to be a failure on his march from Tientsin -to Peking as he did by all his successes; Admiral Sir -William Kennedy, the wittiest speaker in the navy; Admiral -Sir Hedworth Lambton, now Sir Hedworth Meux; and -Admiral Sir Percy Scott, who saved the situation in the -South African war by converting his 4·7 ship guns into -field guns to meet the Boers’ “long Toms”; Bishop Creighton, -and Bishop Ingram, of London; Bishop Gore, then of Worcester; -Sir Robert Ball, the astronomer; Sir Leslie Stephen, -the father of <i>The Dictionary of National Biography</i>; Sir -Alma Tadema; Sir George Otto Trevelyan, Macaulay’s -nephew, who wrote two of the greatest biographies in the -language, <i>The Life of Macaulay</i> and <i>The Life of Fox</i>, and has -sons who rival him; Sir William Ramsey, F.R.S.; two famous -brothers, the late Rt. Hon. Alfred Lyttleton, the greatest -of all the giants of sport on record except C. B. Fry (who made -the same impression on Parliament as he had made on his -Eton schoolfellows by his loftiness of character), and his -brother Edward, almost equally great in cricket, the head -master of Eton; with authors like Rudyard Kipling, Ian -Maclaren, Doyle, Barrie, Anthony Hope, Augustine Birrell, -and Henry Arthur Jones. There are others equally eminent, -if I could only remember them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The greatest favourite we ever had among our guests at -the Authors’ Club was “Ballahooley”—Robert Jasper -Martin of Cromartin, better known as Bob Martin—a magnificent-looking -Irish squire of the Charles Lever type, who -bubbled over with natural wit.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bob Martin was a brother of Violet Martin of Ross, and -cousin of Edith Œnone Somerville the lady M.F.H., who -collaborated in <i>Some Reminiscences of an Irish R.M</i>. and -other famous books of Irish life and character, and though -he did not write much, he had the same limitless fund of -humour.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The first time that ever I took him to the Authors’ Club -the late Lord Wolseley was the guest of the evening, and an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>admirable guest of the evening he was—illustrious, interesting, -urbane, a brilliant talker. He and Martin were old friends, -and after Lord Wolseley’s health had been proposed and he -had responded in a speech which told us all about his literary -work—like Moltke, he was an author by instinct—Martin -got up to tell us some of his inimitable Irish stories. The -first was one about Lord Wolseley himself. In the days -when he was only a colonel, a sergeant-major came to him -for a day’s leave to help his wife in doing the Company’s -washing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I’ve been speaking to your wife, Pat,” said Colonel -Wolseley, “and she begged me, whenever you came to me -for leave on her washing-day, to refuse you because you get -in her way so.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The man saluted, and turned to leave the room, but when he -got to the door he turned round and saluted again, and asked, -“Have I your leave to say something, Colonel?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Yes, Pat.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Well, what I wish to say, sir, is that one of us two must -be handling the truth rather carelessly, because I haven’t -got a wife.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>True or untrue, Lord Wolseley did not deny the impeachment.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That same night “Ballahooley” told us of his first experience -of the Castle at Dublin. He was asked to stay there -the first time he ever came to town, and he was not used to -town ways. When his jaunting-car pulled up at the door of -the Castle, he told the footman to give the coachman a drink, -which was the custom of the country at Cromartin. The -footman stared at him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Didn’t you hear what I said?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Yes, sir, I heard,” said the footman slowly, and disappeared -to fetch the drink because Martin swore at him so. -When he came back, he brought a liqueur-glass of Benedictine -on an immense silver tray. The coachman took the glass -and smelt it—doubtfully.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“It’s all right, Pat, it was made by the Holy Fathers.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Thus encouraged, Pat drank it off. He made a wry -face.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>“Don’t you like it, Pat? It’s very good.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Oh, it’s good enough,” said the Jehu, “but what I’m -thinking is that the man who blew that glass was mighty short -of breath.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>That same evening he told us of the first election to a -District Council which was ever held on his estates. The -place was a hotbed of Nationalism, and Bob Martin was very -anxious to have a friend of his, who was a Conservative, -elected on to the Council. So he assembled all his tenants, -and said to them, “I wish you’d elect this man. I’ve never -asked you to do anything for me before, and I’ve made more -money out of one rotten song (‘Ballahooley’) than out of -the whole blessed lot of you ever since I came in for this -place.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Their Irish minds were so struck by this piece of special -pleading that they returned his candidate unopposed.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bishop Creighton was a very entertaining guest. Just -because he was so great and so potent as an administrator, -he could be perfectly natural when he was dining with a couple -of score of authors. One could not imagine the present Bishop—whom -I remember in the days when he was at Keble—he -was a very plucky player at football, which he had learned -at Marlborough—blurting out like his predecessor that the -first thing he asked about a parson who was recommended -for a living in his gift was “Is he a hustler?” Nor can one -imagine him fencing with the late Father Stanton of St. -Alban’s, Holborn, over the use of incense.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I wish I had not forgotten the name of that club to which -he and Balfour and I forget what others of the greatest in -the land, a dozen or twenty in all, mostly great politicians -or prelates, belonged, who dined together at the Grand -Hotel once or twice a month, and quietly enjoyed themselves -like the <i>Dilettanti</i>. I suppose that it exists still.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bishop Gore was delightfully human the night that we -entertained him at the Authors’ Club. He said that he felt -quite shy of replying to the toast of his health—that generally, -when he was speaking, he was addressing an audience upon -subjects on which he was entitled to speak with authority, -and upon which his audience were very anxious to hear what -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>he had to say, but that on this occasion he was going to talk -about a subject which interested no one, meaning himself, -and he was quite at a loss what to say.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Evelyn Wood, one of the few men who have ever won -the V.C. both as a sailor and a soldier—he was a midshipman -before he was a soldier, and made a famous ride with dispatches—and -he has been called to the Bar since—supplemented -his speech in reply to the toast with a selection of rattling -anecdotes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Ian Hamilton, the General who saved Ladysmith by -his victory at Wagon Hill, described the touch and go of -his battle, which saved Ladysmith, in the slang of ordinary -conversation, which made it extraordinarily impressive. It -was very appropriate, too, for slang was the language of the -brief council of war which Sir Ian held with the Colonel of -the Devons before they launched the charge which saved the -day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the most interesting dinners we ever had was the -dinner we gave to Zola in the Whitehall Rooms. We had -other guests, varying from Stepniak, the Nihilist, to Frank -Stockton and Bill Nye, the American humorists. Stockton -told one of his characteristic American after-dinner stories -of the “lady or the tiger” sort. Nye was really wonderful. -He said that he himself belonged to an old French family—that -the Nye family used always to spell their name Ney, -but they changed it because one of the family was unfortunate. -This allusion to the bravest of the brave brought the house -down, but it took about a quarter of an hour to explain it -to Zola.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Henry Arthur Jones was extraordinarily interesting—Jones, -if you catch him in the right mood, can make a really -fine speech, full of imagination.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One man whom I first met at the Authors’ Club, and whom -I afterwards got to know better, though I have not seen him -for many years—Lucien Wolf, had an extremely original way -of working. Besides his ordinary press work, once a month he -contributed a presentation of the foreign politics of the world -to one of the principal Reviews. As foreign editor of a daily -paper, he had the subject at his fingers’ ends, but it troubled -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>him in a subject so full of tangled threads to break off his -work for meals and to go to bed. Writing that article took -about forty-eight hours, and during that time he hardly left -his study; he did not go to bed at all; like the Admiral who -gave them their name, he had sandwiches brought to him -where he sat. He apparently felt no ill-effects from this -tremendous effort of will-power and industry, though, of -course, he looked very tired. His articles on foreign affairs -in the monthly Reviews took the premier place.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Poulteney Bigelow was a character at the Authors’ Club -in those days. The son of an American Ambassador—minister, -as they were then called—he was, for some reason -or another, an intimate personal friend of the German Emperor, -with whom he constantly stayed, and of whom he treasured -many anecdotes. He once nearly persuaded the Emperor to -dine at the Authors’ Club. He disappeared for a while, and -went out West in the United States again, from which he -came back very full of the shooting exploits of Theodore -Roosevelt, another of his friends.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bigelow always maintained that the Spanish-American -war was the best thing which ever happened for the relations -between Great Britain and the United States. He said that -the garrison, who died like flies in the Philippines, were mostly -drawn from the South-Western States, where the hatred -of England had been liveliest, and their colonial experiences -made them understand how considerate the English were to -subject peoples, and how very inconsiderate subject peoples -were apt to be to their rulers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had quite a bevy of leading editors among our members, -some of whom put in an appearance pretty constantly, but -it never was a very active editor’s club; I think they were -too afraid of would-be contributors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>William Sinclair, the Archdeacon of London, who was the -principal figure at London functions for nearly a generation, -was a pillar of the Club. He was a constant attendant at -its house dinners, and apart from his influence and position, -was a brilliant raconteur. Sometimes, like a true Scotsman, -he told a story against himself, as when he told us why he was -such a popular preacher at the Guards’ chapel—because the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>men said that he was the only person who ever preached to -them with a voice like a sergeant-major.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sinclair had met everybody of any importance in his time. -He had one beautiful story of a Scotsman who suddenly became -a Cabinet Minister on four or five thousand a year, and sported -a butler. Sinclair, who was staying with him, in all innocence -asked what the man’s name was, and his hostess said, -“I don’t know; we always call him waiter.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>After Besant’s death, the two men who were most prominent -at the Authors’ Club were certainly Conan Doyle and Anthony -Hope—Doyle especially, because he was for a long time chairman -of the Club, and a frequent attendant at the dinners. -I wish I could remember only a tithe of the interesting and -amusing things he said at that dinner-table, for Doyle always -says something memorable in his speeches. But once I was -so interested that I kept a note of what he said written down -on my menu card. It was about his famous pamphlet—<i>The -War; its Causes and its Conduct</i>. He told his audience -that it came to him in an instant, like all great things in -life, which hit on the head like a bullet. He was reading -some peculiarly diabolical misrepresentations by the German -editors. “Yet these men,” he told himself, “were, in the -ordinary affairs of life, honest men. Many books have been -written from our standpoint; but, in the first place, a German -editor cannot buy a book which costs six shillings or more, -and in the second place, he has not got time to read through -it. The only thing is to give him free of cost something -which he can read in an hour. My materials were all to -hand. I know how humane Tommy Atkins was to his -enemies, and I had been flooded with letters on the subject -in reply to an advertisement I had inserted in the newspapers. -Half-a-dozen things which have occurred to me in my life -must have been foreordained.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“At a small dinner that night I sat next to ——. I -explained my project to him. ‘How will you get the money?’ -he asked. ‘From the public.’ ‘Well, I’ll get a thousand -pounds for you.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Chance had thrown me against the man who knew everything -I wanted to know. He could even tell me the names of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>the people who could translate it into the various languages. -Five months later I had the book on my table in twenty -languages. Rich men gave their fifty pounds to the scheme, -poor people scraped together their half-crowns to do their -widow’s-mites’ worth for England. I sent that pamphlet -to every man in Europe whose opinion counted. Leyds gave -me the cue. It is astonishing how few people govern the -public opinion of the world. In two countries an honest -second edition was called for—Hungary and Portugal. In -the latter, our old ally, there was a most kindly feeling for -us, a genuine anxiety to learn the true facts of the case. -In Germany the whole twenty thousand copies were distributed; -twelve thousand of them gratis, and eight sold. The -Swiss actually printed an edition for themselves.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He told us this on the night that we entertained him and -Gilbert Parker in honour of their knighthood, and he told -us how that morning a letter of congratulation from his -gunsmith had arrived, addressed to “Sir Sherlock Holmes.” -The best thing he ever told us about <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> was -its fate when he made a play of it, and sold it to a famous -actor. The actor stipulated that he should be allowed to -alter it as much as he liked, and when Doyle went to the -rehearsals, he found that there was practically nothing of -his play left except the title. That was all the actor really -wanted to buy; he had made his own play out of the Sherlock -Holmes stories before he went to Doyle.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was at an Authors’ Club dinner that Hall Caine made -his awful disclosure about Londoners’ insides. He said that -no family could live in London for more than three generations -unless its members went away for a change of air, and that -the smoke-charged state of the atmosphere turned their insides -from a healthy red to a slaty black. It was that same night -that he recited his poem “Ellan Vannin” to us.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I remember, in the early days of the Authors’ Club, J. M. -Barrie telling the Club a story in the American story-teller’s -fashion. I don’t suppose for an instant that it had actually -happened. I expect it was just a <i>ben trovato</i>, but it was none -the less amusing. He apologised for being late. He had been -to the wrong club. He had never been to the Authors’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>Club before, he said (though he was a member of the committee), -so he asked a policeman the way. From the way -in which he pronounced the word, the policeman thought -he meant Arthur’s, which was quite near the Authors’ Club -when it was in its temporary premises in Park Place. When -he got there he found it a very grand place, he said. The -club porter looked him up and down, and said “The servants’ -entrance is round the corner.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It took the moral courage of a Scotsman to tell that story—true -or untrue. It was inimitably funny, told in the broad -Doric of <i>The Little Minister</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome actually had an experience of this sort in New York. -But it was not due to the obtuseness of the club porter. -He received a straight-out invitation from the servants of -one of the great New York clubs to spend the evening with -them. I suppose they have their story-tellers’ nights like -the members. He said that he never enjoyed himself more -in his life.<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c011'><sup>[3]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f3'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. </span>The Authors’ Club, before it was reconstructed, contained a number of very -representative members. Among them were Sir Walter Besant, Conan Doyle, -Frankfort Moore, Hall Caine, Lindsay Bashford, R. D. Blumenfeld, F. T. -Bullen, W. L. Courtney, S. R. Crockett, Sir Michael Foster, secretary of the -Royal Society, J. Foster Fraser, Sydney Grundy, Charles Garvice, F. H. -Gribble, H. A. Gwynne, the editor of the <i>Morning Post</i>, Major Arthur Griffiths, -Rider Haggard, Cutcliffe Hyne, Anthony Hope, Clive Holland, Joseph -Hocking, E. W. Hornung, Sir Henry Irving, J. K. Jerome, Henry Arthur -Jones, Edward Jenks, who wrote that famous book <i>Ginx’s Baby</i>, and was -once M.P. for Hull, Rudyard Kipling, Otto Kyllman, Archdeacon Sinclair, -Norman McColl, editor of the <i>Athenæum</i>, Prof. Meiklejohn, father of the V.C. -who was killed in putting a horse that could not jump at some railings in the -Park to avoid running over a child; A. W. Marchmont, Bertram Mitford, -J. Eveleigh Nash, Gilbert Parker, Barry Pain, J. M. Barrie, Max Pemberton, -Sir J. Rennell Rodd, British Ambassador at Rome, Morley Roberts, Algernon -Rose, who reconstituted the club, Bram Stoker, M. H. Spielmann, Prof. Skeat, -the great etymologist, H. R. Tedder, the librarian of the <i>Athenæum</i>, Herbert -Trench, Horace Annesley Vachell, W. H. Wilkins, Percy White, Lacon Watson, -Horace Wyndham, and others.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>But the Club could never rise much above three hundred -members. Many a time have G. Herbert Thring, the -secretary, and I discussed with our board, consisting from -time to time of Besant, Oswald Crawfurd, Lord Monkswell, -Tedder, the literary executor of Herbert Spencer, Conan Doyle, -Anthony Hope, Hall Caine, Frankfort Moore, Morley Roberts, -and Percy White, projects for bringing in more members. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>The change from the temporary premises in Park Place -behind St. James’ Street, to the pleasant rooms overlooking -the river, did something for us. But we were faced by a -dilemma, which was that we had to widen the basis of our -membership to get enough members to pay the huge rent of -the premises, which we had taken for a term of years. If, -instead of having these premises, we had hired a reading-room, -and a smoking-room, and a dining-room in a hotel, we could -have got the accommodation for a hundred a year, and as -only a tithe of the Club ever used it, except on the nights -when they were brought together by notice for the Club -dinners, any premises would have been large enough; the hotel -would always have lent us a room of any size which we could -fill for a dinner. The Whitefriars principle would have suited -us admirably, and the Hotel Cecil would have made a good -venue. But we had these premises on our hands, and we -wanted a larger membership, not to fill them, but to make -financial arrangements easier. I myself in my time enlisted -no fewer than a hundred members for the Club. But that did -not fill up the wastage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Thring saw the need of widening our basis as clearly as -I did, but we never could carry our board with us to make an -enlargement of the franchise sufficiently drastic, because they -wished to be guided by the feeling of the men who used the -Club most, and their feeling was decidedly against it—mainly, -I believe, because they thought that the extra members we -wanted to relieve the finances would make the Club too full -to be restful. So in one way and another the old Club was -drifting on to the rocks when Algernon Rose (with Charles -Garvice as his chairman, and Cato Worsfold as honorary -solicitor) took the matter in hand as honorary secretary. -I did not see the throes. I was out of England on one of -my wander-years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Rose, with a clear-sighted policy, boundless energy and -self-sacrifice, and inexhaustible tact, not only pulled the Club -out of the fire, but has made it one of the most flourishing -organisations in London, with two hundred town members, -three hundred suburban members, five hundred country -members, and six hundred oversea members. He could -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>easily have a thousand town members if he wanted them, -but the town membership is strictly limited to two hundred, -and the suburban to three hundred, because that is the limit -of habitués which the premises can accommodate. Unfortunately -you can’t have five-day members at an Authors’ -Club like you do at a Golf Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And nowadays members use the Club in a way they never -did when I was the honorary secretary and we exhausted our -ingenuity in efforts to make the club more inhabited through -the week. The increase of attendance at the Monday night -dinners is one of the most wonderful things of all. Week -after week they have enormous dinners, and Rose provides -a brilliant succession of famous guests of the evening. The -other Tuesday I read a report of an Authors’ Club dinner in -the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> which filled three columns.<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c011'><sup>[4]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f4'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. </span>Among the guests of the evening at the Authors’ Club since Rose took it -over have been musicians like Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Sir Walter Parratt, -Sir Frederick Cowen, Mr. William H. Cummings, Sir Hubert Parry; supreme -scientists like Sir George Darwin, F.R.S., Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S., Sir -William Ramsay, F.R.S., Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., Prof. Schäfer, F.R.S.; -great lawyers, like Lord Chancellor Halsbury, the late Lord Chief Justice, -and Lord Justice Fletcher Moulton; men who have been great outside the -Empire like Sir Robert Hart, and Dr. G. E. Morrison of Peking, and Mr. F. C. -Selous, the mighty hunter; great politicians, like Lord Milner, and Lord -Wemyss; great explorers, like Sir Ernest Shackleton; great artists, like the late -Sir Hubert von Herkomer; distinguished foreigners, like the American Ambassadors, -Whitelaw-Reid and Page; well-known literary men, like Harold Cox, -secretary of the Cobden Society, Maarten Maartens, Sir Owen Seaman, Sir -Sidney Lee, W. B. Maxwell; and great actors, like Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The Club retains practically all its old outstanding names, -including that of Thring. Thring for many years was the -Authors’ Club personified. He not only conducted its business; -he peopled the club. Men went to lunch there because -they knew they would meet Thring. They dropped in after -business hours because they knew that Thring, at any rate, -would be there. He kept the social life of the Club, as typified -in the Club pools, and so on, going, and he was the friend of -all the members, except those who desired to remain unsociable. -And, in consequence, he always had his finger on -the pulse of the Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The questions of club discipline which came up before the -board in its early days were some of them of the most extraordinary -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>nature. One man hated hearing clocks tick, and -whenever he was left alone in a room always stopped the -clock. Somebody else wished to have him turned out of -the Club, but the Chairman said he did not see how it could -be regarded as ungentlemanly behaviour, and proposed that -no action should be taken, but that we should take it in -turns never to leave the honourable member alone!</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Rev. John Watson, who, under the pen-name of -“Ian Maclaren,” suddenly burst into fame with <i>Beside the -Bonnie Brier Bush</i> when he was forty-four years old, was a -Liverpool clergyman, the minister of the Sefton Park Presbyterian -Church. He had long enjoyed a reputation in his -circle in Liverpool for story-telling and as a public speaker. -His speeches were as good as his stories, and admirably -delivered. His personal charm was as great as the respect -in which he was held. He was very humorous. He told us -one night, when he was our guest at the Authors’ Club, that -his boy at Rugby had said to him, “Father, I suppose that -your books are all right to some people, or you would not -be able to do so much for us. But couldn’t you write something -which would be good enough for me to show the other -chaps?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>One wonders if this was the boy who is now the head of -Nisbet’s great publishing house. If it was, how pleased he -would be to have the publication of some of the books that -were not good enough “to show the other chaps!”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XIII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>LITERARY CLUBS: THE IDLERS AND THE VAGABONDS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>At</span> the beginning the Authors’ Club had no exact rivals, -but there were two institutions, very much intertwined, which -came near it in a way—the Vagabonds Club and the Idler -teas. The Vagabonds Club, in its conception, had been a little -coterie of authors who met in the rooms of their friend, the -blind poet, Philip Bourke Marston; but before I came back -from America Marston was dead, and the coterie had been -turned into a small dining club, which used to take eighteen-penny -dinners at cheap restaurants, and in theory drank beer -and smoked clay pipes. The committee included Jerome, C. N. -Williamson and F. W. Robinson, and the Club had among -its members, besides those just mentioned, Conan Doyle, -Israel Zangwill, Anthony Hope, Bernard Partridge, Dudley -Hardy, Phil May, Hal Hurst, Rudolph Blind, Pett Ridge, -Joe Hatton, Robert Barr, Coulson Kernahan, W. L. Alden, -Hall Caine, Sir Alfred East, E. W. Hornung, Sir Gilbert -Parker, J. M. Barrie, Barry Pain, Arthur Morrison, Solomon -J. Solomon, and, of course, George Burgin, the original and -indefatigable secretary.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of these people Jerome and Barr were editors of the <i>Idler</i>, -Burgin was sub-editor, Doyle, Zangwill, Pett Ridge and -Anthony Hope were its favourite contributors. The <i>Idler</i>, -in those days published by Chatto & Windus, was edited -in a flat in Arundel Street, Strand, and there every week, on -Wednesday afternoons, as far as I remember, the editors -gave a tea at which they welcomed their contributors, and -any friends whom contributors chose to bring with them, and -the friends of these friends thereafter. It was like the snow-ball -system of selling umbrellas in the United States.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The teas were of the simplest. I do not think we had anything -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>except bread and butter and tea, but nobody wanted -more; it was sufficient that here was the common meeting-ground -for men and women, where you might, and often did, -meet the ablest young authors of the day. I should say that -the Idler teas were the first literary gatherings in London -attended by Weyman and Crockett, and they certainly were -the first attended by Anthony Hope, W. W. Jacobs and -Frankfort Moore.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We received the warmest welcome at the Idlers, because -there were many literary Americans in London just then, -and both Jerome and Barr were insistent that I should bring -as many as possible of them to their teas.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At those teas the principal occupation was introducing -every freshcomer to as many people as possible, as the hosts -do at American at-homes; and Jerome made a good many of -his arrangements for articles and illustrations with the people -who came to the teas. It was characteristic of the Idler and -Vagabond gatherings to talk shop and do business without -any pretence of concealment.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Hal Hurst and Dudley Hardy were two of Jerome’s -favourite illustrators. Other artists who were there a great -deal were Robert Sauber, John Gülich, Lewis Baumer, Fred -Pegram, James Greig, Paxton, A. S. Hartrick, Louis Wain, -who almost always drew cats with human expressions, a -little man named Martin Anderson, who called himself -“Cynicus,” and had an allegorical vein of humour. He won -himself undying popularity here by bringing to one of those -teas a charmingly pretty young American, who was soon to -feel her footing as a writer. She had not yet written <i>The -Barn-stormers</i>. This was Alice Livingston, who is now -known to all the world as Mrs. C. N. Williamson. Townsend, -the present art-editor of <i>Punch</i>; Chris and Gertrude Hammond, -who were among the most charming book-illustrators of that -day; Seppings Wright, the naval war correspondent; Holland -Tringham, Melton Prior, Fred Villiers and many other -artists came constantly.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The great advantage of those Idler teas was that women -as well as men could be present, and in those days women -were not considered worthy to be admitted to authors’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>banquets, except at the annual function of the Authors’ -Society. Of course, you had the chance of meeting women -authors at the at-homes of the Pioneer, Writers’, and Grosvenor -Crescent Clubs, because they were all ladies’ institutions. -But at their entertainments you met only a very -few men of any importance, and not particularly many -women of literary importance, other than journalistic. They -were more interested in women’s movements—the Pioneer -might almost be called the ancestor of the Suffragettes.<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c011'><sup>[5]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f5'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. </span>Among the eminent women whom I remember seeing at the Idlers were -Marie Corelli, Mona Caird, Mrs. Sidgwick (Mrs. Andrew Dean), Mrs. Campbell -Praed, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mrs. Alexander, Mrs. Meynell, -Miss Montrésor, Lucas Malet and Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>The conversations at the Idler teas were very shoppy. I -remember being introduced to Ellen Fowler as the woman -whose witty sayings had long been the delight of the exalted -circles in which she moved, and who had been induced by the -various leading authors whom she knew to write a book. -This is the sort of laudation which we professional authors -often hear and usually distrust. But the book happened to -be <i>Concerning Isabel Carnaby</i>, and when I learned that the -circle which she had dazzled was the circle in which the -Liberal leaders moved, since she was the daughter of Sir -Henry Fowler, M.P., afterwards Lord Wolverhampton, I -understood that she certainly would have received an encouragement -to write books from the authors and critics who -were admitted to Front Bench Liberal dinners.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mona Caird, whom we met often at the Women’s Clubs -afterwards, did much for the emancipation of women in -those days, for she was not only clear-sighted and convincing -in what she said and wrote, but she had a winning personality -which commanded the sympathies of those who were not -predisposed to share her views.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was at an Idler tea that I first met George Bennett -Burgin, with whom I was to be so intimately connected for -so many years as joint Hon. Secretary of the New Vagabonds -Club. He was the sub-editor of the famous <i>Idler Magazine</i>, -and his tact and geniality were constantly in requisition, for -the pugnacity of his chiefs was proverbial, and some of the -best contributors were equally pugnacious.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>I forget if it was a recognised part of the proceedings at -the Old Vagabond dinners to have a set subject for discussion. -Some one always did get up and make a short speech, and in -a club which had men like Jerome and Zangwill and Barry -Pain to draw on, the speaking was always witty, unless the -subject forbade it. The chief difference was that people did -not discuss the speech by getting on their legs to fire witticisms -at the speaker. They discussed it where they sat, sometimes -talking to each other about it (or anything else), sometimes -raising their voices to question the man who had been speaking, -or to argue with him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There was much less discussion of the subject than there -was talking of shop. The point of the gatherings was that -a number of brilliant young authors and artists dined together -fraternally once a month.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was a great boon to me suddenly to be received into the -intimacy of some of the busiest and best-known authors and -editors and black-and-white artists of the day, to hear and -take part in their “shop.”<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c011'><sup>[6]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f6'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. </span>This Idler and Vagabond set included, besides those mentioned above, -Anthony Hope, Frankfort Moore, Israel Zangwill, Eden Phillpotts, C. N. -Williamson, F. W. Robinson, Joseph Hatton, Coulson Kernahan, George -Manville Fenn, G. A. Henty, W. Pett Ridge, H. G. Wells, Frederic Villiers, -Henry Arthur Jones, Francis Gribble, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur A. Beckett, -William Watson, John Davidson, H. Breakstad the Norwegian, and Carl -Hentschel, the founder of the old Playgoers Club.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>Burgin, the hon. secretary of the Old Vagabonds Club, who -was once private secretary to Sir Samuel Baker in Constantinople -and Asia Minor, and has been a great traveller in recent -years, was sub-editor of the <i>Idler Magazine</i> until 1899. -Since then he has given himself up to novel-writing, gardening -and the control of literary clubs. One of his novels, <i>Shutters -of Silence</i>, has been through thirty editions. His books -are distinguished alike by uncommon vivacity and by exceptional -skill in using local colour. They are very good indeed, -and if they had their rights would be among the most popular -books of the day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have made several attempts to discover when the original -Vagabonds Club was actually started, and the best account -I have had of it was from Kernahan, one of the oldest members. -I certainly did not join it till about five years later.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>He writes—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Marston died February 14, 1887, Valentine’s Day. Yes, -I was one of those who visited his rooms, 191 Euston Road. -When he founded the Club I do not exactly know. I -fancy it had only just been started when, at his invitation, I -joined in 1886. We dined at Pagani’s and then adjourned -to his rooms, keeping it up very late. After he died the -Club practically ceased, as it was he who ran it. Then I -think Herbert Clark proposed that we should continue meeting -and call ourselves the Marston Club—not a good name, as I -always held, for it gave the idea that it was like the Browning -club or society, for the study of his poems, whereas it was -merely a gathering of Marston’s old friends. All the same, -lots of interesting men came to it. His father, Dr. Westland -Marston, for one. So things went on for a long time, and the -thing was dropping to pieces for want of some one to work it, -until you came along, put us in the shop window, and, lo and -behold, the old Club became a new force.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was not so very long after I joined the Club that it fell -on evil days, not, I hope, because I joined it, but because -it contained Socialists, who are apt to wreck things. The -course they took was most revolutionary. There were two -of them on the committee, and they insisted on having -committee meetings, which insisted on having a voice in the -management of the Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Club would not stand it; it transformed itself into a -New Vagabonds Club without the offending members. I -took a leading part in the transformation. I became associated -with Burgin in the honorary secretaryship because -I persuaded a hundred well-known men, like Crockett and -Weyman and Reginald Cleaver, to join the Club, and we -retained the old committee, minus the impossibles, and -strengthened by the inclusion of Frankfort Moore and Joe -Hatton. And this was a well-behaved committee, because -I do not think it met once during its whole existence of not -far short of twenty years. Burgin and I were the honorary -secretaries and managers, and we used to decide everything, -without even thinking of the committee, who, as reformed, -had only one idea in their heads, which was that they were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>not to be bothered unless there was some real necessity -for it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Our most successful dinner, at which about six hundred -people were present, was held in honour of Field-Marshal -Lord Roberts—the idol of the nation. Lord Roberts has a -wonderful memory, not only for faces, but for the records -which go with the faces. When I met him the other night -at the Authors’ Society dinner, of which likewise he was -the guest, he took me by the arm, and whispered, “Isn’t -<i>Who’s Who</i> getting very fat?” which was his way of showing -that he remembered that I was the author of <i>Who’s Who</i> -in its present form—or, rather, in the form which it bore from -1897 to 1899, when its figure was not so middle-aged.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That Vagabond dinner to Lord Roberts was in honour of -the publication of his celebrated <i>Forty-One Years in India</i>, -and the Authors’ Society dinner to him was also in its honour, -though so many years later.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome took the chair to Lord Roberts at the Vagabonds. -He was very interested in <i>Forty-One Years in India</i>. He -had commissioned me to write the long review of it in the -<i>Idler</i>, and I am sure that he and the Field-Marshal, V.C., -though looking at everything from an exactly opposite -standpoint, got on like a house on fire.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The dinner to Lord Roberts was the very largest we ever -had, though the lunches to Sarah Bernhardt and to Sir -Henry Irving were about as numerously attended. Irving -made himself perfectly charming, but when he came to reply -to the toast to his health, the audience were confronted by -the curious phenomenon that the first actor in Europe was -totally unable to make himself heard even half-way across -the hall, and if they could have heard what he said, they -would have been confronted by the equally curious fact that -he was no speaker. That, however, is nothing—very few -actors can speak, always excepting my friend, Tree, who, if -he is in the mood, brings the house down time after time with -his naïveté.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There were few eighteen-carat dramatic celebrities whom -we did not entertain at the Vagabonds—Irving and Sarah -Bernhardt, Wyndham and Mary Moore, the Trees and Mrs. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>Patrick Campbell, the Bourchiers and the Maudes, the young -Irvings, and Lena Ashwell, occur to me first.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sarah Bernhardt’s appearance was a very memorable one. -Mr. Balfour was in the chair. He was Prime Minister at -the time, and had important business at the House of Commons -that afternoon. Sarah was three-quarters of an hour -late. I, who had charge of the guests, while Burgin was -making sure that all his orders for a banquet of five hundred -people had been carried out, felt more nervous than I had -ever felt in my life at the slight which was being offered to -so great a man. I racked my brain for adequate apologies, -but Mr. Balfour said, with his perfect manners, “Please don’t -worry yourself about that, Mr. Sladen. Tell me about -Japan.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>If Sarah was as great as he was in other respects, she -certainly was not as great in this respect, for a day or two -afterwards, T. P. O’Connor asked Sarah and Mortimer Menpes, -and Norma Lorimer and myself, to have tea with some -M.P.s on the terrace of the House of Commons. We duly -arrived—even Sarah was fairly punctual—and were herded -in the lobby of the House, like people waiting to see the -editor in a newspaper office, while a search was made for -T. P. O’Connor. He could not be found anywhere, and a -long time passed. I do not know how long it was, but it -seemed years, because Sarah was so angry. She had expected -to be met at the door with due ceremony—perhaps the leaders -of both parties, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker—but -nobody met her at all, and none of us could speak French -well enough to understand the unmeasured language she was -using about O’Connor. Finally, she lost her temper altogether, -and though she had told me on several occasions that -she could not speak English, she was quite equal to telling -us in our own language what she thought of T. P. Finally, -some wholly unsuitable member of the Irish party—Dillon, -or somebody just as gloomy—came, waving a telegram. -O’Connor, it appeared, had been caught in a railway accident -coming back from the Henley Regatta, miles from a telegraph -office. As soon as he got to a place where he could telegraph -from, he did telegraph, but Sarah was not appeased, even -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>though Menpes offered to go to her island off the coast of -Brittany and arrange a Japanese room for her.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I remember a similar contretemps, almost equally amusing, -when George Cawston, one of the directors of the Chartered -Company, gave a great supper at Willis’s rooms in honour -of a South African millionaire. He invited a number of -eminent people to meet him—politicians, soldiers, authors, -actors, artists and public people generally, most of whom -knew each other. The millionaire, who was very “swollen-headed,” -was shamelessly late. So, finally, Cawston decided -to begin without him. The people made up parties, and -sat down at the various little tables, and enjoyed the munificent -supper, and finally went away not knowing or caring -whether the millionaire had been there or not. They had -most of them never heard of him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sarah came to us a year later to a huge afternoon reception, -which we got up in her honour, and she honoured us by -giving us a long and magnificent recitation from <i>L’Aiglon</i> -(which she had just produced), in which she was supported -by her leading man.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We entertained other famous soldiers besides Lord Roberts, -such as Lord Dundonald, when he came back from the great -exploit of his life, the relief of Ladysmith, and Sir Ian Hamilton. -Cecil Raleigh, I remember, took the chair to Sir Ian Hamilton, -and showed his versatility by making a really admirable -speech. I do not remember who it was who took the chair -to Lord Dundonald, but he told a characteristic story of Lord -Dundonald in his earlier service in Egypt.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When the news of the fall of Khartum reached the army -which might have relieved Khartum, if Sir Charles Wilson had -pushed on, taking the risks as Lord Roberts would have taken -them, after the victory of Abu Klea, the General asked for an -officer to volunteer to carry the dispatches to Sir Redvers -Buller at the base. It was necessary to have some one with -a knowledge of astronomy, because he had to find his way -across the desert, to avoid the great loop of the Nile above -the Second Cataract. There were many men who would have -risked the dangers of meeting wandering parties of dervishes, -but there was only one of the force who was not only prepared -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>to take the risk, but possessed the requisite astronomical -knowledge, and that was Lord Cochrane, a subaltern in the -2nd Life Guards, the future Lord Dundonald. He carried -out his mission, and in an incredibly small number of hours -presented the dispatches to Sir Redvers, whom he found sleeping -under a palm tree. As soon as he had delivered them, -he collapsed with exhaustion.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He is a grandson, of course, of the immortal frigate Commander, -the fighting Lord Cochrane, the Almirante Cochrane -who was the liberator of South America, and is a distinguished -inventor. He invented the pocket heating apparatus for -soldiers to carry when doing sentry work in cold climates, -the extra light carriages used for machine-guns in the Boer -War, and the apparatus for enabling cavalry soldiers to turn -out ready for duty as quickly as firemen.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From time to time we entertained distinguished ecclesiastics -such as the late and the present Bishops of London and the -ex-Bishop of Ripon. Creighton was much the best guest of -the three, for he had a most saving gift of humour.</p> - -<p class='c016'>For some reason or other, on the night that he was with us, -at the conclusion of his speech returning thanks for the -way in which his health has been proposed, he had to propose -the toast of journalism, coupled with the name of the editor -of <i>The Times</i>. He said, “I do not know much about newspapers; -I read so few of them. I have only one test for -them, and that is their suitability for wrapping up shooting -boots. And, judged by this standard, <i>The Times</i> is the best -newspaper.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was not easy to get the better of Creighton, with his -humour to back up his wisdom and firmness. But my dear -old friend, the late Father Stanton, who was a frequent -visitor to Vagabond entertainments with F. E. Sidney, once -got the better of him, and he was very amusing in telling the -story of it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Creighton, it appears, went to a service of Stanton’s, -because he wished to wean him from certain ritualistic practices. -After the service was over, they had a talk in the -vestry, which was quite cordial, because Creighton knew -the essential greatness and goodness of Stanton’s character. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>Stanton, who was very astute and tactful about getting his -own way, and yet avoiding trouble with his Bishop, adroitly -kept the conversation away from dangerous points, and -finally the Bishop gave up, and called for his carriage. Stanton -escorted him to the carriage door, and as he was driving off, -Creighton got out what he had come to say.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I don’t like that incense of yours, Stanton.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Nor do I, my lord, it’s wretched stuff—only three and -sixpence a pound, but I can’t afford any better.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Do without it, Stanton, do without it altogether,” said -the Bishop.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lord Charles Beresford was another of our guests, and so -was Admiral Lambton. Both of them made a violent attack -on <i>Bridge</i>, which they said was sapping the energy of the -nation by the awful waste of time to which it led.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Beresford was very amusing. He said, “The Navy is -the finest thing in the world for a man. If I hadn’t been in -the Navy, I should have been in prison.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I only once saw Beresford seriously put out, and that was -when he had to speak after that great man, Seddon, the -Premier of New Zealand, whose patriotic attitude about the -Boer War counted for so much in making the democratic -colonies support the mother country so splendidly against the -Boers. Seddon, like other New Zealanders I have known, could -make a great speech, but did not know when he had used up -all he had to say. In the first part of that speech for the -Vagabonds, he began with great éclat, and then maundered -on and on about “Womman,” as he pronounced her generic -name, while Beresford grew so impatient that when his -turn came to speak he excused himself with a few witty -sentences about their having heard so much good speaking.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Seddon brought two charming daughters with him, and one -of them made a felicitous retort to a maladroit person who -condoled with her on her father’s not having been knighted -like the leader of the Conservative Opposition in New Zealand, -Sir William Russell, whose name had appeared in the Gazette -of the day before.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I don’t mind,” she said; “Billy’s a darling.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Norman Angell, the apostle of peace, in books like his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>famous <i>The Great Illusion</i>, and also the <i>Daily Mail</i> correspondent -of Paris, was our guest on one occasion.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The most unexpected turns happened at times. One -night we had an athletic dinner, with C. B. Fry and Eustace -Miles for our chief guests, and Pett Ridge in the chair. There -was hardly a word talked about athletics the whole evening, -for Pett Ridge is most interested in work among the poor, -and so are Fry and Miles, and the speeches related almost -entirely to the serious side of the humorist and the athletes. -The world at large did not know how earnest Fry is about -good works until he refused to go to Australia in the all-England -Eleven because he could not leave his work on -naval training for boys until a certain sum was raised for the -training-ship. In those days it regarded him merely as one -of the greatest batsmen ever seen, and the only man who had -ever had five blues at the university, and been captain or -president of the university in three different kinds of games. -Some of them remembered too, that he was a Scholar of his -College, and got a First. None of them, I am quite sure, -knew that he would have been unable to go to Oxford at all, -because he had no money to go on, except his scholarship at -Wadham, if he had not borrowed the money, and repaid it -out of his own earnings after he left the university. Could -anything be more magnificent than that the man who holds -the record of all Englishmen, and for that matter, that of all -recorded men, for achievements in games, should have paid -for himself at the university? Yet there were some people -in the Club that night who expressed their disapproval to me -at the Club’s entertaining a mere athlete!</p> - -<p class='c016'>But there were many more who expressed their disapproval -of our entertaining Christabel Pankhurst as our guest of the -evening—most of them ardent Radicals, who disliked the -practical jokes of the suffragettes upon Cabinet ministers. -We Conservatives felt no more sympathy for people who do -idiotic damage, but were more tolerant. I did not propose -the toast, although I was in the chair, and have always -desired to give the vote to women with the proper qualifications. -I called upon an old friend, a very successful barrister, -whom I suspect of being an ardent Liberal, though he is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>an ardent suffragist—Fordham Spence—to propose it. He -made the kind of points which could not fail to enlist the -sympathies of a popular audience—asking which of the men -who were present would have the pluck to go to prison and -starve themselves for a principle, as these women did. He -pointed dramatically to our guest, a pretty, slim girl, who -hardly looked out of her teens, and told us what she had done. -He was the clever advocate all through; he begged the question -almost as flagrantly as Miss Pankhurst herself, when -she got up to reply to the toast.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I prefer to hear the arguments of the suffragists stated in -the dispassionate way in which Mrs. Fawcett states them, -pure appeals to reason and justice, stated without any attempts -to draw red herrings across the trail—in fact, stated -by a judge, instead of pleaded by an advocate. I think they -would be difficult to resist. The weak point of the militant -suffragettes is that they not only do things of which moderate -people cannot approve, to attract the public attention, but -they have no consideration for our commonsense; they talk -to us like Socialists talk to a mob in Trafalgar Square, not -as a great Scientist, like Lord Kelvin, would address the -British Association. That is the convincing way.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I do not know if Miss Pankhurst made many converts to -the cause that night; she certainly made many personal -friends. An hour or two later I met her at a supper given by -Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Mappin at the Savoy, and had the good -fortune to sit next to her once more. She was off duty then, -and saying that she really must begin to play games again to -keep her “fit” for her work.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Two of the most successful dinners we ever had were to -Captain Scott, the Antarctic explorer, and Ernest Thompson -Seton. At the Scott dinner the great hall of the Hotel -Cecil was packed to its utmost limits, though it was not due -to any premonition that he might not come back. Before -Scott perished the world had got into the idea that Arctic -and Antarctic exploration was not really so dangerous as -going out with a friend who was learning to drive a car. But -Scott had such an irresistible personality; he looked the very -type of man whose courage and resourcefulness and indomitable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>endurance would get him and those who depended on -him out of the tightest place. And he would have got his -party through if the supplies in the hut had been left at their -proper strength. Scott was one of those blue-eyed men -who can meet any danger with a smile, and are absolutely -devoid of fear. I never knew a man for whom I had a more -instinctive liking, or to whom I should so naturally turn for -support when facing death. Few men are such an asset to -their race as he was.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ernest Thompson Seton held his audience as no other -Vagabond guest has ever done. The born naturalist and the -natural orator are combined in him. He made a lecture, -which had probably done duty several times as a lecture, do -duty for his personal reply to the proposal of his health; it -did not betray its origin, and yet it was a moving plea for the -whole brute creation; he invested the lower animals, probably -unjustly, with all sorts of human traits and human feelings, -and made the audience feel for them as they feel for the -hero or heroine in a tragedy. It was really wonderful; I -never heard such a mixture of ingenuity and eloquence, or -a speech more thrillingly delivered. He is the apostle of -animated Nature.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was abroad when the Club entertained Lord Curzon and -Winston Churchill and Lord Leighton, but I was present -when Lord Willoughby de Broke made such a popular guest. -The position was rather a difficult one; not having noticed -the views which Jerome had been expressing on the House -of Lords to the local yokels, I asked him to take the chair, -because he was the most successful playwright in the club—he -had just produced <i>The Third Floor Back</i>—and our guest -was one of the best amateur actors. Jerome’s speech was -not marked by his usual verve; like Balaam, he had come to -curse, and he was so won over by the splendid manliness of -the guest that he was unable to do anything but bless. Lord -Willoughby de Broke would doubtless have given us a much -more entertaining evening if Jerome had spoken of him to us -as he spoke of his fellow-peers to the yokels, for no one is so -ready with a retort. Who does not remember his retort at -the meeting which he was addressing in favour of Mr. Balfour. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>He was saying something in praise of him, when a voice at -the back called out “Rats!” He smiled sweetly—“I was -speaking of Mr. Balfour,” he said, “not of the first Lord of -the Admiralty.”</p> - -<div id='i174f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i174f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>G. B. BURGIN<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>Later on, at that same meeting, a heckler asked him where -he got his title, and was told “just where you got your d——d -ugly face—from my father.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He gave us some pretty flashes of wit that night, but not -of the scathing order which makes him one of the protagonists -who fight against Home Rule. With his physical strength -and activity, his dauntless courage, and his power of swaying -great assemblages with his speeches, he is a born leader.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There were few well-known literary men and women in -the London of the time who were not guests of the Vagabonds -Club. The best speech we ever had from a woman author -was, I think, from Flora Annie Steel, who, contrary to the -habit of most speakers, explained to start with that she was -likely to make a very good speech because we had taken her -unexpectedly, and she was very angry with the last speaker—whom -she proceeded to mince.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But charming Mrs. Craigie, “John Oliver Hobbes,” made -us a very fascinating one when she was our guest of the -evening. That was the night on which she complained that -people persisted in identifying her with her heroines, especially -with the kind of heroine whom a woman does not wish -to be suspected of drawing from herself, like her “Anne” -(I think in <i>The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham</i>).</p> - -<p class='c016'>Anthony Hope, who was the next speaker, complained that -he had never had such luck, that he had been hoping ever -since he wrote <i>The Prisoner of Zenda</i> that somebody would -confuse him with Rupert of Hentzau, but that no critic had -ever obliged him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Once, at any rate, he was the guest of the Club, and he -occupied the chair, I should say, nearly every year during -its existence. I wish I had kept a record of the <i>bons mots</i> -which never failed to adorn his speeches. One of them comes -to my mind as I write these words; he said that the reason -why England and the United States were not better friends -arose from their inability to understand each other’s humour.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>He and Conan Doyle were the mainstays of our chair at -the New Vagabonds. Doyle may have taken it even oftener -than he did. He was the chairman we instinctively chose -for a great occasion, like that on which we had Lord Roberts -for our guest, though he did not actually take the chair that -night, for we could rely upon him to say the generous and -dignified words which would express the feelings of the Club, -as he did in proposing the health of Lord Roberts at the -Authors’ Society dinner, when he said that Lord Roberts -was the one guest who, short of royalty, must always take -the first place in any gathering of his countrymen, the first, -not only in rank and distinction, but in the grateful love and -veneration of Englishmen.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Doyle was in the chair at the farewell dinner which the -Club gave in honour of Burgin and myself at the Connaught -Rooms, and said just exactly the right things to make us -feel very proud, and to voice the regret of the Club at meeting -for the last time. The Club did not exactly die, because it -was amalgamated with the O.P. Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Carl Hentschel was a very prominent member of both clubs, -and when Burgin and I were unable to carry on the Vagabonds -any longer, he very kindly came forward, and was willing either -to take over the honorary secretaryship of the Vagabonds, or -to amalgamate the two clubs. Finally, seeing that Bohemians -had more dining clubs than they had the leisure to attend, we -decided in favour of amalgamation, and there is some talk -now of the Playgoers combining with them both.</p> - -<p class='c016'>George Grossmith was one of our best members. We had -him as a guest, and he often gave us an entertainment. One -of his most felicitous efforts was when he proposed his own -health, and was very sarcastic about himself. But that -was a favourite vein of humour with him. Those who were -at the great party which he and Weedon gave at the Grafton -Galleries will remember the story of the clergyman’s wife -who was getting up a bazaar, and suggested that they should -ask George Grossmith to give them a performance, because -he was such a fool—“You can always get him to do things for -nothing,” she explained, and added, “The best of him is -that he can be humorous without being funny.”</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>She was right about his being generous; that was always -characteristic of George Grossmith.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bill Nye distinguished himself in an equally original -manner when he was the guest of the evening. It was -Independence Day, and he had enjoyed such a reception -from the American colony that he was sleepy, to say the least -of it, before he reached the New Vagabonds. Not one word -could the chairman get out of him during the dinner, but no -sooner had the chairman said, “Gentlemen, you may smoke,” -than Nye got up and returned thanks for all the handsome -things which had been said about him. He spoke at great -length, and with the greatest fluency, and it was only with -considerable difficulty that he could be stopped. He is the -only man I ever remember to have come to one of the dinners -so tired, though I have seen others unbend as the evening -grew old; and it was entirely due to the accident of his arriving -in London on Independence Day. And, as poor Phil May -said, of course, your tongue does sometimes run away with -you, when you are on your legs.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Arthur Diósy (the son of that Martin Diósy who was -secretary of the Hungarian Revolution), who was chairman of -the Japan Society for years, had talked so learnedly about -Japan, and had mouthed the Japanese names so lovingly, -that every one imagined that he had been in Japan for at -least half his lifetime. Most people went further, and, not -knowing that the Hungarians were Mongols who conquered -parts of Europe a thousand years ago, imagined, from the -Mongolian type in his features, of which, as a Hungarian, he -was so proud, that he was a Japanese. Even the name did -pretty well if you spelt it wrong. When he did go to Japan -for the first time, and received an enormous welcome from the -Japanese authorities as the founder of the Japan Society, -and the practical originator of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, -we, his fellow-members of the Vagabond Club, gave him a -dinner in honour of the event.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I am an original member of the Japan Society, and had the -honour of giving them their opening address in the season of -1912.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had a very interesting guest in Sir George Scott Robertson, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>the doctor who was knighted for his successful defence -of Chitral when the combatant officers were all <i>hors de combat</i>. -Robertson not only wrote his name on the golden roll of the -besieged who have endured to the end and who have prevailed, -but he gave us one of the best speeches we had ever heard -at the Club. He told us marvels of his other claim on his -country—his exploration of Kafiristan, a country which -had kept its population pure from other strains, and had -preserved unique monuments until, in our own generation, -the Afghans began to absorb it, and he proved himself a -great orator, with a well of biblical English flowing into his -impromptu speech.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Edward Ward we entertained for his share in another -and yet more memorable defence, for it was to him, more -than anybody else, that England owes the preservation -of Ladysmith. He foresaw what was coming, and before it -was too late got on the track of everything edible and potable -in Ladysmith; he made the horses, which were not going to -be of any use, into chevril, a horsey form of Bovril, and if -the siege had gone on much longer, he would have found a -way of making <i>suprêmes</i> out of old boot-soles. He made -the provisions last by his foresight and administrative capacity, -and he was almost as invaluable with his indomitable pluck -and cheeriness. He was for years Permanent Secretary of -War, and it is a mighty pity that he is not Secretary -of State for War, for which his unparalleled knowledge -of Army administration and his robust commonsense would -make him the ideal appointment. No detail is too small -for Ward to attend to it; no person is too small for him -to listen to courteously and patiently. He made a great -impression on the Vagabonds, for he has an Irishman’s wit -in speaking, and is most soldierly looking, a man of Herculean -build.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir George Reid, the High Commissioner of Australia, is -one of the best speakers we had at the Club; he is very witty -when he is witty, and from time to time turns serious with -marked effect. I had known him many years before he came -to the Vagabond dinner; I made his acquaintance in the -early ’eighties, when I held the Chair of History in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>University at Sydney, and he was the only Free-trader of -any influence in Australia. Since then he has been the -Premier of Federated Australia, and now most worthily -represents the Commonwealth, for he has impressed on the -Government that he is a force to be reckoned with, even -where the colonies are only vaguely affected.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In decided contrast to him was the Princess Bariatinsky—Lydia -Yavorska, the Russian actress who married a cousin -of the Czar. We entertained her as a recognition of her -splendid acting in Ibsen’s <i>Doll’s-House</i>, where her foreign -accent was no drawback, and her tragic power had scope.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There are other Vagabond dinners which, I remember, -went off with much éclat, though I cannot recall their incidents—dinners -to great sailors like Lord Charles Beresford -and Lambton, now Meux, and Shackleton of Antarctic fame, -dinners to great soldiers like Sir Evelyn Wood; dinners to -great artists like Lord Leighton and Sir Alma Tadema and -Linley Sambourne, all, unfortunately, now dead, and J. J. -Shannon, still with us and still young; dinners to great -actors like Ellen Terry and Tree, Wyndham and Mary Moore -and the younger Irvings and the Bourchiers and the Asches -and Forbes-Robertson and Lena Ashwell; and dinners to -great authors like Doyle, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Hall Caine, -H. G. Wells, Mrs. Burnett, Jerome, W. L. Courtney and -Robert Barr. They were all great occasions, with two, three -or four hundred present, but readers will wish to be spared -the details of dinners to perfectly well-known people unless -they brought out some fresh trait, or some priceless anecdote.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is to be hoped that the Vagabond dinners will come to -life again, not on the huge and expensive scale which is going -out of vogue, but little meetings of really eminent people -gathered at some restaurant in Soho, to eat a dinner which -reminds them of joyous Bohemian days in Paris or Italy, and -to enjoy the pleasures of a general conversation upon the -topics of Bohemia, such as we used to have in the days when -we met as men only (which we will never do again), before -we were reformed Vagabonds.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Argonauts, a little dining club which Frankfort -Moore and I founded, before the Vagabonds allowed ladies -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>at their dinners, to dine every Sunday or every other Sunday -at Mrs. Robertson’s tea and luncheon rooms in Bond -Street, where we had our club-room, would give a good -example to follow. We seldom had a guest or speeches. A -number of well-known people used to dine together for the -pleasure of each other’s company. We left our places as -soon as we had finished dinner, and broke up into little knots -to converse. There you really could see your friends, and -introduce interesting people to each other.<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c011'><sup>[7]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f7'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. </span>The members of this club, as far as I can remember, were: Conan Doyle, -E. W. Hornung, Justin McCarthy, M.P., J. K. Jerome, S. R. Crockett, Anthony -Hope, Gilbert Parker, Oswald Crawfurd, W. H. Wilkins, J. Bloundelle-Burton, -Frankfort Moore, Moncure D. Conway, Rudolf Lehmann, Edward Heron -Allen, Barry Pain, Arthur Playfair, Arthur Diósy, Reginald Cleaver, G. A. -Redford, Lewis Hind, Herbert Bailey, Walter Blackman, G. W. Sheldon, -Edward Elkins, Edgar Fawcett, Louis F. Austin, Bernard Partridge, John -Charlton, Sir James Linton, Mortimer Menpes, Basil Gotto, Emerson Bainbridge, -M.P., Sir J. Henniker-Heaton, M.P., Penderel Brodhurst, C. N. Williamson, -Arthur A’Beckett, H. B. Vogel, Horace Cox, Grant Richards, Joe Hatton, -Percy White, Clarence Rook, Henry Arthur Jones, Adrian Ross, Herbert -Bunning, Judge Biron, Grimwood Mears, Rudolph Birnbaum, Ben Webster, -Mrs. C. N. Williamson, Flora Annie Steel, John Oliver Hobbes, Florence -Marryat, “Iota,” Mrs. Campbell Praed, Annie Swan, Arabella Kenealy, -George Paston, Norma Lorimer, “Rita,” Mrs. Stepney Rawson, Violet -Hunt, May Whitty, Rosalie Neish, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Mrs. C. E. Humphry, -and Mrs. Oscar Beringer. To these I must add one of the two famous Greenes -who were singers; I cannot find the initial. It will be observed that there -was hardly a person in the club whose name was not well known.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>At these Vagabond dinners, the ordinary procedure was -for two or three or four hundred members, male and female, -to assemble to do honour to a famous guest. As soon as -dinner was over, the chairman proposed the health of the -King, and made the stereotyped joke about any lady, who -wished, being permitted to smoke. He had this excuse at -the Vagabonds, that many of the men smoked before they -had received permission. Then he proposed the health of -the guest, and the guest replied. All guests made the same -jokes about the name “Vagabonds.” I rather think that -they must have been supplied to them by the toast-master -at the Hotel Cecil, who always “prayed silence” with special -gusto for “Mr. Hanthony ’Ope,” because no other name -gave him the same chances.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When the guest had finished his speech, which was usually -a very good one, because we chose them for their speaking, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>unless they were very eminent, we retired into the adjoining -hall for an entertainment of singing, story-telling and conjuring, -which I always thought spoilt the evening, much as -I appreciated the performances of men like Churcher and -Harrison Hill and Bertram, or Willie Nichol, or Reggie -Groome, for when you had a number of eminent people -collected together, far the best form of entertainment was -to introduce them to each other. I remember the positive -pain I felt at Lady Palmer’s, when, a few minutes after she -had introduced me to George Meredith for the first time, -Johannes Wolff, the violinist, played a thing of Beethoven’s -which was as long as a sermon. I wanted to hear George -Meredith so much more than him, having regarded him as -one of the greatest masters of literature all my life, and wishing -to surrender to the extraordinary charm of his way of speaking. -I sympathise with a famous tenor, who told me that the first -time he heard Handel’s <i>Messiah</i>, when they came to the -<i>Hallelujah Chorus</i>, he said, “Let’s get ‘oot,’ there’s going -to be a row.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Personally, I used to try and induce the most interesting -people present, except the guest of the evening, to stay -outside, and have whiskies and sodas. They generally -hadn’t the good taste to prefer singing to whiskies and -sodas; I hadn’t, either, though I don’t drink whisky.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But the Hotel Cecil, where we held the Vagabond dinners, -was not as bad as the Savage Club. In the old days there, -if you did not wish to spend your evening glued to one chair, -listening to singing, you had to stand in a tiny bar, the size -of a scullery, and hear the same jokes from the same steady -drinkers, just as you would have heard the same songs every -Saturday evening if you had stayed in the room all the -time. The Savage is a much more literary club now, and the -accommodation is better arranged. I do not want to say -anything against the old Savage. Those performances were -good enough for anybody to listen to once, even King Edward -VII, who, when he was Prince of Wales, dined there, and -said that he had never enjoyed himself so much in his life. -What I objected to was the constant repetition of the same -performance Saturday after Saturday, without having any -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>place for members to sit and talk if they did not want to -hear the music. But I have been to many Bohemian -dinners in my time, and I have not met many men, except -Walter Besant, who confessed that performances made him -feel, as they make me, that he would have a nervous breakdown -if he listened to them for half-an-hour longer. I have -noticed that most men, when they go to a club of this kind, -where there are a number of really eminent people in the -room, have no objection to listening to one vapid song after -another, instead of being introduced to, we will say, Lord -Kelvin, or Tennyson, or Sir Henry Irving, and this though -they could have an equally good performance any night of -their lives by paying for a seat in the promenade of a music-hall. -When will people understand that the two sorts of -entertainments ought to be kept separate—that the great -object of a literary dinner is for one to meet men who write, -or the people whom all the newspapers are writing about? -You can go to a concert by paying for it; you cannot meet -these people by any other means except introduction, and -the hour or two after you have done eating at a public dinner -is all too short a period for the chance of introduction to the -world’s workers.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XIV<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>LITERARY CLUBS: THE SAVAGE CLUB</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>I was</span> for a number of years a member of the Savage Club, -and I was an honorary member there for a long time at an -earlier period, when I first came home from Australia and -the waiting list was full.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I sometimes hinted to the then secretary that I had out-lived -my month of honorary membership several times over. -His answer was invariably the same: “Rules are intended -to be enforced against disagreeable people.” I remained -an honorary member till I went away to America in 1888. -Some years afterwards, when I returned from America, I -became an ordinary member.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At first I loved the Savage. There were not many author-members, -it was true, who ever put in an appearance, except -Christie Murray and Patchett Martin—Barrie was a member, -but he was never there. The Club did not run to authors. -What celebrities there were were chiefly actors and artists. -But it was a club that consisted more of the admirers of the -arts than their professors, men who packed the dinner-table -every Saturday night, and made an enthusiastic audience -for the actors and musicians and reciters, who did “turns” -to amuse the company and get their names known to the -public, if they were not already popular favourites, like -W. H. Denny, Fred Kay, Odell, Willie Nichol and Reggie -Groome.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have known the Savage Club long enough to remember -Brandon Thomas and Seymour Hicks being regarded as -brilliant amateurs, who never would be anything more. -But both were very favourite performers at giving sketches -accompanied by the piano. Penley was often there, but -never would perform. One of the favourite <i>jeunes premiers</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>of musical comedy—I forget which—used to sing “I’ll sing -thee Songs of Araby” every Saturday night.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Before I went to America, while I knew hardly any one -in Bohemia, and it was all new to me, I loved those Saturday -nights. We had a bad half-crown dinner, in which I generally -sat between quite uninteresting people—well-off furniture -dealers and that kind of thing, who were most of them, -however, keen and intelligent patrons of music and the -drama, and belonged to the Savage for that reason. Most -of them, too, were old members, with a large number of -friends at whom they fired good-humoured banter across the -tables. I found them willing to take one into their good-fellowship -in the readiest manner, and occasionally one was -rewarded by finding oneself near an affable celebrity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But the conversation was seldom in the least bit intellectual. -Books were treated as non-existent in the Savage -of that day. There were hardly any, even in the library, -except poems given by the poets themselves. I was always -heartily glad when the dinner was over, and the fusillade -of ordering drinks was over, and the performance began.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The club-house was situated then, as now, in Adelphi -Terrace, a fine row of Georgian houses standing on a sort of -marine parade above the bank of the Thames. If you looked -over the railings on the opposite side of the road, you would -expect to find a beach like Brighton’s. I have never yet -looked over these railings, so I don’t know what there is -below, but there must be vaults, which are used for something, -under the road, in such a valuable locality.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The room where we held the dinners and these brilliant -club concerts was only separated by a wall from David -Garrick’s dining-room. He made the mistake of living in -the wrong house.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The theory why we dined at 6.30, was that popular actors -and singers could dine with us, and give us a turn before -they went to their theatre. In practice, they very seldom -came, unless they were having a holiday, voluntary or -otherwise. But there were always enough of them “resting” -to give us a brilliant evening.</p> - -<p class='c016'>For some little time after dinner the Club did not settle -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>down sufficiently to make its favourite performers willing -to give their turns. It made too much noise over diluting -whisky with soda, and manœuvring to get the waiter’s -attention. This gave the new aspirant his chance. If he -was timid and low-voiced, he did not always get the attention -of the room, but it was not difficult to get the chairman to -call on him. I know by experience how difficult it was to -get any old “hand” to sing first. I called upon the bores -first, when I was in the chair. There were several of them, -whom the Club had grown into the habit of tolerating every -Saturday night, so they had earned a right to be called on. -They all said that they had colds, and afterwards, when the -performance was at its height, sent round notes that they -felt better, and would try to give a turn if I called upon them -now. But I ignored the notes so long as I had any one else -to call on. They were mostly reciters; almost any kind of -song will go in a club which takes up a chorus.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Some of the humorous reciters were very good. The club -was never tired of hearing Robert Ganthony give a scene in -a Metropolitan Police Magistrate’s Court; or that youthful -octogenarian, Fitzgerald, the artist, mimicking a rehearsal -at Astley’s in the old days; or Odell, the idol of the Savage, -going through his wonderful repertoire. Early in the evening, -Walter Hedgcock, the Crystal Palace organist, would -give us the song he never could publish, because he was -blocked by an earlier setting—Kipling’s “Mandalay.” It -was delightful music, and was eventually published as the -“Mousmee,” with words which I wrote for him in the metre -of “Mandalay.” Hedgcock did not mind coming on early, -because he could always pick up the audience with the first -bars of “Mandalay.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Townley, who was Registrar of Births and Deaths at -St. Pancras, I think—except on Saturday nights and Sundays—was -our funniest singer; he was a natural comedian. The -Club always insisted on its favourites singing the same songs. -He had to sing a song called “Hoop-la,” or something of the -kind. Willie Nichol had to sing “Loch Lomond”; Cheesewright -had to sing “The Three Jolly Sailor-Boys”; Denny, -who was afterwards our honorary secretary, did generally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>give us something recent from the music-halls. But the old -“hands” eyed him half resentfully while he did it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I soon came to regard Odell as an oasis, because, though -the Club made him sing and recite the same things Saturday -after Saturday, he had a blessed gift of gag. In the midst of -his ballad about the Fleet, the one Warham St. Leger wrote -for <i>Punch</i>, he stopped one night to tell us how he lost his -last engagement. It was in a piece based on the wreck of the -<i>Princess Alice</i>, the Thames steamer in which so many lives -were lost. Odell played the part of captain of the steamer, -and all went well till one night, as he expressed it, just at -the fatal moment, when the people in the stalls were taking -off their coats because they were so perspiring with excitement, -he could stand the tension no longer, so he took out his -watch and said, “It’s just five o’clock. I wish I had gone -back by the penny ’bus.” The audience rose in their places, -and stoned him with whatever came handy, and he pretended -that after that he never could get an engagement.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As I don’t drink after dinner, and don’t smoke at all, -I began to find these concerts very tiring as soon as I knew -all the performances by heart. But there was no other -place of meeting except the bar. We badly needed a smoking-room, -adjoining the dining-room and the bar, where those -who had brought interesting people with them could introduce -them to interesting Savages, without losing touch with the -evening, as they did if they went up to that melancholy -library, which has probably been given over to some legitimate -purpose, like <i>Bridge</i>, long ago.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I frequently agitated for this smoking-room, and I believe -that they got it eventually. The bar did too good a business; -you did not see people getting intoxicated; its habitués -carried their liquor too well. But I have seen one man -drink as many as thirty-three whiskys-and-sodas in a single -evening, and I saw him the other day—twenty years afterwards—looking -as fit as possible.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Gradually I came to the conclusion that as there were -so many other interesting things happening on Saturdays, -it was not wise to give my Saturday evenings up to the -Savage, and there was “nothing else to” the club in those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>days. It had not then become the favourite lunching-place -of the great editors, an important venue for authors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>So I retired from the Savage, as I retired from the Devonshire -a few years afterwards. When one of the committee -of the Devonshire asked me why I retired from it, I said -that I only used it for funerals, and that I was retiring -because they had made that an extra. This was a fact. -The windows of the Devonshire Club are one of the best -places for seeing a royal funeral—or, of course, any other -royal procession. The committee discovered this, and put -on a charge of ten pounds a seat, to pay for the decorations -of the Club. So many people wanted these seats that they -had to be balloted for. The action of the committee was -justified. But, as I had not used the Club since the funeral -of Queen Victoria, when I found that I could not see the -funeral of King Edward from its windows without balloting -for the privilege of paying ten pounds for it, I sent in my -resignation, and paid a guinea for a seat from which I could -see the funeral for the whole length of Oxford and Cambridge -Terrace. I went with Norma Lorimer and Markino, who -painted a wonderful picture of it. The people on whose -roof we hired the seats from the contractor, asked us to -lunch, and became quite intimate friends. They proved -to be Mr. Sanderson Stuart and his daughter—the youthful -genius of sculpture.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We used to get most notable guests at the Savage—was -not the list headed by Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. I -was in the chair the night that Nansen was the guest of the -evening. It was on the eve of his departure for the North -Pole, and I hammered the table and asked the Club if they -would allow me to invite our guest to write his name on the -wall behind his seat, to remain there till he came back again. -They assented with rapturous applause, and the name is -there still, glazed over. I have told in another chapter what -he said to the “Savage” who wished to accompany him to -the Arctic Circle.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Savage Club is, undoubtedly, one of the institutions -of London, and every literary visitor to these shores should -see one of its Saturday nights.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XV<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY CONNECTION WITH JOURNALISM</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>I must</span> allude briefly to my long connection with journalism.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I settled in London in 1891, I had already done a -good deal of journalism in New York and San Francisco. In -the latter my writing had chiefly lain in travel-articles on -Japan, to which San Francisco, as the Pacific Capital of the -United States, naturally looks. In New York I had written -on travel—much of my <i>Japs at Home</i> appeared in travel-articles -for the McClure Syndicate. But I also wrote a -number of literary and personal articles for the <i>New York -Independent</i>, the <i>Sun</i>, the <i>World</i>, and so on, such as my -<i>Reminiscences of Cardinal Newman</i> told in the first person. -In doing this I found that what America demanded was the -personal reminiscence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I came to England, I naturally sought work on the -same lines, and had no difficulty in finding editors who saw -the opening for this comparatively fresh line in British -journalism.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I turned first to Fisher, of the <i>Literary World</i>, whom I -had met at the Idler teas, and who had invited me to do some -reviewing for him. He had <i>Table-Talk Notes</i> as a feature, -and here my first journalism appeared.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I was helping Jerome to formulate <i>To-day</i> in 1893, -I suggested to him that we should have a book of the week, -in which we told as much about the author as we knew, and -that biographical gossip about authors and artists and actors -should be one of our chief features. He was completely in -favour of it, and I wrote a good deal for him, especially about -authors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>About the same time, Lewis Hind became editor of the -now defunct <i>Pall Mall Budget</i>, and I carried out the same -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>idea for him in a regular <i>causerie</i>, to which we gave the name -of the <i>Diner-Out</i>, and which I signed “St. Barbe”—the -family name of my maternal grandmother.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Between these three papers I was pretty fully occupied. -But my mind was turning towards a more congenial form -of journalism—the travel-article. Percy Cox, a son of -the Horace Cox whose name appeared on the <i>Queen</i> as its -publisher for so many years, was anxious to develop its -travel side, and while the late Sievers Drewett was organising -the wonderful travel department, which now has its annual -<i>Queen Book of Travel</i>, he employed me to write a series of -articles on my travels in Greece and Turkey, and a regular -travel-serial on the trans-continental journey across Canada, -which I amplified and brought out as <i>On the Cars and Off</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>While I was doing these, Clement Shorter, who had been -a sort of literary editor to the <i>Queen</i>—all the important -books being sent to him, and he writing a sort of <i>causerie</i> -about them—became too busy with his offspring, the <i>Sketch</i>, -to do any more work for the <i>Queen</i>, and I was offered his -place. My suggestion that we should have a signed “book -of the week” for the most important book—unsigned minor -reviews to be worked in anywhere about the paper—and -that I should do my <i>Diner-Out</i> column for the <i>Queen</i>, instead -of the <i>Pall Mall Budget</i>, was accepted, and I began my -literary connection with the <i>Queen</i>, which lasted for so many -years. I kept the <i>Diner-Out</i> for biographical gossip about -authors chiefly, and for announcements of forthcoming -books, which could be made interesting by personal gossip. -Actual reviewing I kept as far as possible out of that column. -In those days, though the <i>Queen</i> was and always had been the -chief ladies’ paper, it had not nearly so many departments -of feminine interest as it has now, so there was plenty of -space for book-reviewing, which became a very important -feature of the paper. I was only responsible for the <i>Book -of the Week</i> and the <i>Diner-Out</i>, though I did perhaps a -page of unsigned minor reviews, which were never attributed -to me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had one faithful reader in her late Majesty, Queen -Victoria. I learned this quite incidentally. I had taken -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>a <i>manoir</i> in Brittany for the summer, and at the house of -Mrs. Burrowes, a niece of the late Lord Perth, met the lady -who filled the post of reader to Her Majesty; Queen Victoria -prefered having books and newspapers read aloud to her. -This lady informed me that Her Majesty had my <i>Diner-Out</i> -column in the <i>Queen</i> read to her every week, and was most -amused by it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As the woman’s side of the paper developed, the space for -reviewing became more and more restricted, and the <i>Diner-Out</i> -became simply a column of small reviews, without any -of its own features, and finally, I think, the name itself very -often dropped out.</p> - -<p class='c016'>While I was doing the reviewing for the <i>Queen</i>, we were -travelling a great deal in France, Italy, Sicily and Egypt. -The books which I published on these countries were, as -far as the travel portion of them was concerned, largely -drawn from these articles in the <i>Queen</i>—beginning with -<i>Brittany for Britons</i>. Some of them, such as the Normandy -articles, I never did re-publish, and I contributed to the -<i>Queen</i> enough articles on Italy to form another volume, -besides those which have already appeared in my books on -Italy and Sicily.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I still do some reviewing for the <i>Queen</i>, but I do little other -journalism now, except when I am approached by some -newspaper to do an article on a subject upon which I have -special knowledge.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The fact is, that in recent years I have employed my -journalistic faculties on the preparation of books like <i>Who’s -Who</i>, <i>Sladen’s London and Its Leaders</i> and <i>The Green Book -of London Society</i>, which need much the same kind of gifts -as personal journalism does.</p> - -<div id='i191f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i191f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>SIDNEY LOW<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'><i>The Green Book</i> was a sort of one-line <i>Who’s Who</i>, which -only mentioned the leading people in each walk of London -life, except the bearing of a title. The selection of the chief -personages and experts in each line—say, for instance, -shooting or fishing or golf or writing books—was not made -by any correspondence with the people themselves, but was -entrusted to the chief expert in each line. Golf was by a -runner-up for the Amateur Championship, fishing by the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>fishing editor of the <i>Field</i>, exploration by the secretary of -the Royal Geographical Society, and so on.</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>Who’s Who</i> itself must form the subject of a separate -chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have no older friend in journalism than Sidney Low. -We went to Oxford, I think, on the same day—he was a -Scholar of Balliol and I was a Scholar of Trinity—and we -certainly knew each other very well there, and have been -intimate friends ever since. His ability received early -recognition. Before he had left Oxford ten years, he was -editor-in-chief of a great London daily, and he has written -books which have become standard works, like the <i>Dictionary -of English History</i>, which has been through half-a-dozen -editions. Since he gave up editing he has represented the -leading papers on the most important special missions. He -has been an alderman of the London County Council, and he -has been one of the chief forces in literary society. If I -were asked who had introduced me to the largest number of -eminent persons, I should say Sidney Low—without hesitation. -No man passes saner or more moderate judgments -on the great questions of the hour. Indeed, I should say -that Low stands in journalism for what a man who was at -Oxford with both of us—George Cave, K.C., M.P.—stands -in politics—for moderation in statement, combined with -great firmness of principle and judgment.</p> - -<p class='c016'>With Low’s name I must couple that of the late Samuel -Henry Jeyes, who was his colleague both on the <i>St. James’s -Gazette</i> and the <i>Standard</i>. He was a beloved friend of us -both, but my intimacy with him began much earlier. He -was my greatest friend at Trinity, Oxford, and one of the -Oxford men of whom I saw most in after life. We were -elected Scholars of Trinity on the same day; we had rooms -on the same staircase; we went to all the same lectures till -we passed mods., and I taught him to play billiards. It -was the only game of manual skill which he ever did play. -He lashed the adulation for sport which prevails at Oxford -with the gibes of which he was such a master. When we -had only been up at Oxford for a few days, A. J. Webbe, -who was the special idol of Trinity because he was captain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>of the ’Varsity Eleven, asked all of us Trinity freshmen -to meet some of the lions of the Oxford Eleven. All of us -except Jeyes were vastly elated. We all, except Jeyes, -talked our best cricket shop to make a good impression on -the demigods. At last he could stand it no longer, and, -waiting till there was a dead pause in the conversation, he -said, “This b——y cricket!” I can remember the tableau -still.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His reputation as a wit came up with him from Uppingham. -All Uppingham men could remember how, when he was -caught cribbing with a Bible on his knee at a Greek Testament -lesson, and his class-master had said to him triumphantly, -“What have you there, Jeyes?” he said, “A book, -sir, of which no man need be ashamed,” and how when -Thring, the greatest head master of his time, had asked him -how he came to be ploughed in arithmetic for his Oxford -and Cambridge certificate, he replied from Shakespeare, -“I cannot reckon, it befits the spirit of a tapster”—a -readiness which Thring would have been the first to appreciate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Among the best things I remember him saying at Oxford -are his definition of the Turks in a great debate over the -Bulgarian atrocities, as a people “whose morals are as loose -as their trousers, and whose vices are as many as their -wives.” And it was he who said, “I don’t want to go to -Heaven, because Gore (now Bishop of Oxford) is the only -Trinity man who will be there, and I’d rather be with the -rest.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jeyes never spoke at the Union—he despised it—or he -would have been as great a success as the miraculous -Baumann or Freeman, now Rector of Burton-on-Trent. -I never remember hearing Cave speaking at the Union, -though perhaps he did.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of Jeyes’ wittiest retorts was to “Bobby” Raper, -at that time Dean of Trinity, who was “hauling” him -for some meretricious disregard of College discipline. The -glib excuse was not wanting, but Raper was stern. “No -no, Mr. Jeyes, that won’t do. You told me the exact -opposite of that last term.” “I know I did, Mr. Dean, -but that was a lie.”</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>He owed the Dean one, for the first thing he did when he -went up to Trinity had been to go and call on the Dean and -tell him that he had conscientious scruples against going -to chapel.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Morning chapel, you know, Mr. Jeyes,” said the Dean, -“is a matter of discipline and not of religion, but if you -really have conscientious objections, I’ll put on a roll-call for -you at 7 a.m.”—Chapel was at 8 a.m., so Jeyes swallowed -his nausea.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But Jeyes’ wit was tireless. He was a fine scholar—he -made his pupils write wonderful Latin prose when he became -a don at University—I presume during the undergraduacy -of Lord Hugh and Lord Robert Cecil. But he tore himself -away to be a journalist, and became in time an assistant-editor -of the <i>St. James’s Gazette</i>, and later of the <i>Standard</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As a journalist he was distinguished by incorruptibility -of no common sternness. Though he had always spoken as -a Liberal at Oxford (very likely out of malice, because all his -friends were Conservatives), he was one of the pillars of -Conservative journalism. He knew all the chiefs of the -Conservative party, and enjoyed great influence with them. -He was so rugged and unbending. I never knew a harder -editor to “work.” He wrote a Spartan life of Chamberlain, -for whom he had a great admiration, except in the matter -of Tariff Reform.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He married an old friend of ours, the beautiful Viva -Sherman, an American nearly related to the Senator-Vice-President -and the General. Both before and after his -marriage he was a frequent visitor at our house, and we often -met at Ranelagh and elsewhere. He enjoyed a discussion -with Norma Lorimer. Her wit provoked his, and their -conversations were most brilliant to listen to.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At last poor Jeyes was struck down with cancer—aggravated, -I believe, by cigar-smoking, in which he was a noted -connoisseur. He bore it with magnificent fortitude, and -for a long time kept it a secret. Even I did not know that -he had been mortally ill till he was dead. But I was one of -the three old Oxford friends who stood by his grave—his -oldest friend, except H. B. Freeman, who read the service. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>Sidney Low was the other. Charles Boyd was there too, -but he belonged to a much younger generation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>If Jeyes had known that his life would be so short, he -would perhaps have devoted more time to book-writing. -It is a pity—except for his country and the Conservative -party—that he gave up so much of his life to necessarily -ephemeral journalism. I always heard that but for a flaw -in a will he would have been owner of one of the greatest -provincial journals in England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Peace be to his ashes. He was a merry soul, and if the -theosophists are right about our astral bodies meeting the -spirits of the departed, there is no one with whom I should -so much enjoy an astral conversation as Jeyes. He would -be such a volatile spirit. I can imagine the naïveté with -which he would describe his experiences.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Rev. Herbert Bentley Freeman—the Rector of Burton-on-Trent—a -cousin of the historian, and a descendant, I -believe, of the mighty Bentley of Phalaris renown, came up -to Trinity from Uppingham in the same term as Jeyes. -Freeman and A. A. Baumann, who was afterwards Conservative -M.P. for Peckham, were the two most brilliant -speakers at the Union in my day. The undergraduates -said that both wrote their speeches beforehand, and learned -them by heart and practised their delivery.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Years afterwards I met Baumann when he had given up -his safe seat at Peckham and unsuccessfully contested a seat -in the North, I think at Manchester.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“What made you give up Peckham?” I asked. “They -would have gone on electing you there as long as you lived.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“My dear chap, life isn’t worth living when you are -member for Peckham. I live in South Kensington, and -while I was member for Peckham I used to find my hall -full of constituents by the time I came down for breakfast, -and by lunch-time you’d have thought that I was having -an auction of my furniture.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>But of all the men who were at Oxford with me, no one -has been so prominent, then and now taken together, in -intellectual circles as W. L. Courtney. Courtney was then -a rather young New College don, who had the distinction -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>of being married to an extremely smart-looking wife. That -would have been a distinction by itself in the Oxford of -that day, for few were married in a way suitable to impress -undergraduates. Added to that, he cut the most eminent -figure in athletics of any don in Oxford. He was the -treasurer of the University Boat Club, while the dons respected -him as the ablest man in Oxford at philosophy. -I was not there when he gave it all up to come to London -and be literary editor of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> and editor of -the <i>Fortnightly Review</i>, but I can imagine the consternation -which fell upon that ancient seat of learning when their -bright particular star, the admiration alike of don and -undergraduate, “chucked it,” as they say, for journalism. -Of course he did wisely, for in an incredibly short space of -time he had as distinguished a position in London as he had -had at Oxford. His influence on literature has been immense. -He has stood for the combination of scholarliness and up-to-dateness. -His own books range from essays on the verge -of fiction to some of the most important works on philosophy -published in his generation. Incidentally, the creator of -<i>Egeria</i> is our best dramatic critic, and a writer of plays.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Both the late and the present editors of the <i>Field</i>, William -Senior and Theodore Andrea Cook, came to our Addison -Mansions receptions. That delightful man, William Senior, -the “Red Spinner” of fishing journalism, and his wife -came very often to us. Theodore Andrea Cook is the ideal -editor for a great sporting paper like the <i>Field</i>, for he had -not only been editor of a great daily, but he had rowed in -the Oxford boat, and been a Scholar of his College, and he -had captained the all-England team in the international -fencing matches at the Olympic games which were held -at Athens. He has also written very sound books on an -unusual variety of subjects (one of which, his book on -<i>The Spiral in Nature and Art</i>, was most widely discussed); -and is one of the most delightful writers we have of travel-books -on France. Of course, everything which he has written -upon sport is <i>ex cathedra</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Walter Jerrold, who lives a little higher up the river than -I do, in an old house with a great garden, a very old friend, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>and a much older Vagabond than I, often came with his -wife to us at Addison Mansions. Jerrold is a grandson of -the famous wit, Douglas Jerrold. He was for more than -a dozen years sub-editor of the <i>Observer</i>. But fortunately -he found time for editing of another nature as well, which -will help his own books to give him a permanent place in -our literature. He is one of our best editors of nineteenth-century -classics; his biographical and bibliographical introductions -are the most useful of their kind—just what you -would expect from the grandson of a man who was a star -in the firmament of which he writes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Clement Shorter, who married the Irish poetess, and was -editor of the <i>Illustrated London News</i> when we met at -Rudolph Lehmann’s in the “nineties,” is another editor of -books as well as papers. The Brontës are his special protégés. -He is the acknowledged Brontë expert, and every one has -read his new book on George Borrow. He has been great at -founding—he not only founded the <i>Sketch</i>, the <i>Sphere</i> and -the <i>Tatler</i>, but he was one of the founders of the <i>Omar -Khayyam Club</i>, beloved of Radical litterateurs, though it -deals not with English politics, but English Persics. Here -you are always sure of good speaking—Mr. Balfour and -Mr. Asquith, and all the important Cabinet Ministers and -ex-Cabinet Ministers have spoken there on occasion. I have -never heard Shorter speak himself, but I understand that -he is a very good political speaker, and I can picture him -telling a Lincolnshire audience how wrong it is to have an -income not half as great as his own, for Shorter has been -deservedly prosperous. He is a great journalist—one of -the pioneers of modern journalism. He was a Civil Service -clerk when in 1890 he became editor of the <i>Illustrated London -News</i>, and only a couple of years had passed before he -started the <i>Sketch</i>, the model of a new class of paper, for the -same office, and continued to edit both papers till 1900. -Then he thought that he would like to have a paper of his -own, and raised a hundred thousand pounds to found the -<i>Sphere</i> and the <i>Tatler</i>, with which he has been associated -ever since, as editor of the former and director of both. -They are rightly among the most popular illustrated papers -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>of the day, for they have reduced the handling of the personal -element to a science, and Shorter always was a brilliant -editor. His success has been largely due to his colossal -energy and industry. He has taken a minute interest in -every detail of the production of both papers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the midst of all his journalistic labours, Shorter has -found time to write some admirable books, and has made -himself with two books a specialist on Napoleon in his period -of exile at St. Helena.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Herbert White, the present editor of the <i>Standard</i>, is one -of the best informed of all the English newspaper editors -about Continental politics, because he went through such -an arduous schooling in Austria and Germany, and knows -German as well as he knows English. He married the -niece of an Austrian political leader, and after war-correspondenting -in the Græco-Turkish war of 1897, represented -leading English, American and French newspapers at Vienna -from 1897 to 1902, and Berlin from 1903 to 1911. Besides this -he has taken twenty special journalistic missions in every -country of the Continent except France and Russia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I should be accused of sycophancy if I said all I should -like to say of Robertson Nicoll, of whom I saw a good deal -before we were both such busy men. But there are some -things about Nicoll to which nobody can be blind, besides -the position of respect which he enjoys in the literary community. -He makes a <i>bona fide</i> attempt to educate his party -in politics, and his public in a spirit of commonsense and -toleration instead of appealing to their prejudices, and no -man has done more in the way of securing the publication -of the books of unknown authors of merit, who have justified -his expectations and given the world great books. Nicoll -has been the sincere and enthusiastic friend of merit. I can -say this without prejudice, because his firm have published -nothing of mine.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Similarity of name, and their common friendship with the -A. S. Boyds, makes me mention here James Nicol Dunn, -whose editorship of the <i>Morning Post</i> was marked by such -an advance in the political weight of that paper. Dunn was -managing editor of the <i>National Observer</i> in its prime. For -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>solid efficiency as a journalist, he had no superior in the -country. It would have been a bad day for England when -he left it to edit the <i>Johannesburg Star</i>, if it had not been so -important that the chief organ of the Transvaal should be in -such brave, moderate and judicious hands, at such a critical -period in the history of South Africa.</p> - -<p class='c016'>T. P. O’Connor is a very old friend of mine. I met him -first when we were both in America in 1888-1889, and we have -been on terms of Christian names ever since. Though we -differ strongly in politics, it has never affected our friendship, -for T. P. is very fair to his enemies, except when he happens -to have a special hatred for them. He has founded four -papers—the <i>Star</i>, the <i>Sun</i>, <i>T. P.’s Weekly</i> and <i>M. A. P.</i>—but -I am not sure as to how far he is still interested in any -of them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>T. P. is to me a fascinating personality. He is so generous -and genial. The swift recognition, the ready smile, the -warm affectionate manner, have endeared him to hosts of -friends, and every one recognises that he has a golden pen -which invests everything he touches with interest, and an -acute intelligence—acute enough to sift even the Humbert -mystery and present a clear analysis of it, as witness his -<i>Phantom Millions</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He is a golfer too, and once upon a time used to play with -W. G. Grace, who, it seems, in spite of his being the best -cricketer that ever lived, always hits his shot along the ground -except from the tee, though he drives and puts pretty well. -I got this egregious piece of journalism from him when we -were sitting next to each other at the dinner given by -M. Escoffier, at that time, and probably still, cook at the -Carlton Hotel, who gave a gourmet’s feast on the occasion -of the publication of his book on cookery, published by -Heinemann. Heinemann invited me. The chief thing I -remember about the feast is that the wine Escoffier selected -was <i>Pommery Naturel</i>, and that the <i>tour de force</i> was lamb -stuffed with sage and onions to replace the usual mint -sauce.</p> - -<p class='c016'>John Malcolm Bulloch, the editor of the <i>Graphic</i>, who -gave me such immense assistance when I was writing <i>Adam</i> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span><i>Lindsay Gordon and His Friends in England and Australia</i>, -is an author whose father and grandfather were authors -before him. His specialities are the ancient University of -Aberdeen, of which he is an M.A., and the great house of -Gordon. He edited the <i>House of Gordon</i> for the New Spalding -Club, and has written many pamphlets on Gordon genealogy -besides his book on <i>The Gay Gordons</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I happen to enjoy the friendship of the editors of both -the <i>Bookseller</i> and the <i>Publishers’ Circular</i>. George H. -Whitaker, who is a doctor by profession, saw a good deal -of the world as a ship’s doctor when he was a young man. -Now the world sees a good deal of him as head of the firm -which publishes <i>Whitaker’s Almanack</i>, as well as editor of -the <i>Bookseller</i>—famed, as a trade-organ ought to be, for -the justice of its reviews.</p> - -<p class='c016'>R. B. Marston, who edits the <i>Publishers’ Circular</i>, edits -the <i>Fishing Gazette</i> also. He founded the Fly Fishers’ Club. -The Marstons are famous fishermen—his father, Edward -Marston, who has just died at a Nestor’s age, had been one of -Izaak Walton’s chief followers both with pen and rod. R. B. -is, besides writing books on fishing and photography, one of -the chief writers on our food supplies in war, an energetic -and patriotic public man.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My oldest acquaintance in journalism, except Sidney -Low, is Penderel Brodhurst, the editor of the <i>Guardian</i>. -We used to meet at Henley’s in the days before I went to -America, which was in 1888. He was in those days the walking -encyclopædia of the <i>St. James’s Gazette</i>, and afterwards -edited the long-defunct <i>St. James’s Budget</i>. He was, as he -is, a man wrapped up in his work: he could, if he had chosen, -have been a personage in literary society on his very historical -name, for he is a descendant of the Penderel who saved King -Charles II in the oak at Boscobel, and enjoys a pension -therefor, probably one of the oldest pensions still running -in England, and he is, though he does not use his title, an -Italian marquis (Penderel de Boscobel, created 1782).</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lindsay Bashford, being literary editor of the <i>Daily Mail</i>, -has only had time to write one book—<i>Everybody’s Boy</i>—but -that was a very good one. But he has a sufficient -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>literary record apart from that, for he was lecturer on English -literature at a French university.</p> - -<p class='c016'>J. A. Spender, the editor of the <i>Westminster</i>, is another -author-editor. I have known him for many years. He -comes of a brilliant family, for he is a son of Mrs. J. K. -Spender, and brother of Harold Spender. He was an -Exhibitioner of Balliol, and Harold was an Exhibitioner -of University College, Oxford. Both of them are authors -of half-a-dozen books, and both of them are wonderfully -clever and well-informed men, real powers in journalism.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Owen Seaman, of <i>Punch</i>, who was Captain of Shrewsbury -School, and took a First in the Classical Tripos, and -the Porson Prize at Cambridge, can best be described as the -modern Calverley, for no one since Calverley has written such -brilliant satirical lyrics. He was the “O. S.” of the <i>National -Observer</i>, and who does not remember “The Battle of the -Bays,” “In Cap and Bells” and “Borrowed Plumes”?</p> - -<p class='c016'>H. W. Massingham, of the <i>Nation</i>, the most conspicuous -political journalist on the Liberal side, one of the few Liberals -who dare to try and lead their party against its will, has only -written a couple of books, both rather technical, <i>The London -Daily Press</i> and <i>Labour and Protection</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sidney Paternoster, the assistant-editor of <i>Truth</i>, is well -known as a novelist, as is Adcock, of the <i>Bookman</i>, but, taken -as a whole, editors of great newspapers are not writers of -books.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ernest Parke, director of the <i>Daily News</i> and <i>Leader</i> and -the <i>Star</i>, was at one time a regular attendant at the Vagabond -banquets, as was his sub., Hugh Maclaughlan. Parke -and I saw the Coronation together from a seat in the triforium -of Westminster Abbey right over the little square -of Oriental carpet on which His Majesty King George V -was crowned, so we had a splendid view of the Archbishop -of Canterbury and the Garter King-at-Arms, addressing -the North, South, East and West as witnesses, and of the -Dukes of Beaufort and Somerset, towering above Lord -Kitchener as he walked between them, an object lesson -which I suppose was not unintended. Parke is a great -journalist, and made the <i>Star</i> a force in literature. Leonard -<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>Rees, of the <i>Sunday Times</i>, who shines as a literary critic -as well as a musical critic, with whom I have had much -correspondence, I have never met personally. But Vivian -Carter, who was on the staff of the Institution of Civil -Engineers till only a dozen years ago, and has in the last -five years edited the <i>Bystander</i> with such conspicuous success, -is a mutual friend of the C. N. Williamsons and myself. -We meet there.</p> - -<p class='c016'>J. S. Wood, the founder and managing director of the -<i>Gentlewoman</i>, and one of the real founders of the Primrose -League, was often from the beginning at our at-homes, -with his pretty Italian wife, and his daughters as they grew -up. We used to meet them in the season at Ranelagh, too. -Wood has been much more than a founder and editor of -newspapers, for he has been connected with the management -of several of our most important charities, and has himself -been instrumental in raising a quarter of a million for them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>All the Kenealys (Arabella and Annesley, both authors, -Edward and Noel, both editors) were frequent visitors at -our flat, except Alexander Kenealy, the editor of the <i>Daily -Mirror</i>, who was in America for twenty years before he became -news editor of the <i>Daily Express</i>, and, later, editor of the -<i>Mirror</i>. More than any of the others, Alexander Kenealy -inherits the splendid abilities of his father, the famous -Dr. Kenealy, Q.C., M.P., one of the greatest lawyers of his -time, who took up the case of the Tichborne claimant -when others had abandoned it as hopeless, and almost -pulled him through.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another of our editor friends was Edwin Oliver, at that -time editor of <i>Atalanta</i> and subsequently of the <i>Idler</i>, and, -since 1910, of the widely influential <i>Outlook</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I cannot conclude my chapter on journalism without -reference to Sir Hugh Gilzean-Reid, whose pet plaything -was the Institute of Journalists. He used often to come to -our house with his charming daughters. Sir Hugh, who -had made a considerable fortune out of journalism, large -enough to let him live in Dollis Hill, the house near Willesden -which Lord Aberdeen lent to Mr. Gladstone, never forgot -the working journalist, and it was he who engineered the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>agitation which defeated the intention of two of the great -London dailies to issue Sunday editions like the American -<i>Sunday World</i> and <i>Sunday Sun</i>. As Herbert Cornish was -the creator, he was chief founder and first President of the -Institute of Journalists also. He used to give large garden-parties -at Dollis Hill, chiefly to people who appreciated its -having been consecrated by the residence of Mr. Gladstone, -though there were others, like ourselves, who went because -we liked his family so much. He was a philanthropic man, -and did an immense amount of good.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The first paid journalism I ever did was writing articles -on public school life for the <i>Educational Reporter</i> when I -was a boy at Cheltenham. About the same time I wrote a -story for <i>Bow Bells</i> called “Douglas Thirlstaine’s Wooing,” -which was not paid for, and soon after that I supplied unpaid -notes about Cheltenham College to a Cheltenham paper, -which had never been able to get them, as a favour to the -late Frederick Stroud, who had got me out of the libel action -brought by the editors of the <i>Shotover Papers</i>. I wish I -could find that libel now. It was a small pamphlet of a few -pages, published under the title of <i>Overshot</i> by a printer in -Turl Street, Oxford. I saw about the printing of it when -I was up in Oxford competing for a scholarship at Trinity -or Balliol, lodging with Ray, who was afterwards to be my -scout, in one of the sixteenth-century cottages which now -form part of Trinity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In Australia the only money I made in journalism was -five pounds which I received from the <i>Queenslander</i> for the -serial rights of a novel which I have never re-published, -and a guinea which I received from the <i>Illustrated Australian -News</i> as a prize for the best poem on Federation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I got back to England, the first paid journalism -I did was for the <i>Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News</i>, -edited by A. E. T. Watson, who now edits the <i>Badminton -Magazine</i>, and who projected and edits the <i>Badminton Library</i>, -and is a member of the National Hunt Committee—one -of the chief sportsmen in journalism. The subjects on -which I wrote were Australian cricket and Australian poetry, -like Gordon’s, and on both subjects I was the chief authority -<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>until I went to America, odd as it may seem now. I also -wrote on Gordon for the <i>Graphic</i>, and had a long historical -article in the <i>Cornhill</i>, and a serial novel—<i>Trincolox</i>—in -<i>Temple Bar</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I went to America, I wrote a good deal for papers -and magazines, but almost entirely in verse, except a series -of articles which I had to telegraph from Montreal about -the Carnival to a great American daily. I remember thinking -that the telegraphing was such a useless expense for such -unimportant stuff.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In Japan I wrote a good deal for the <i>Japan Gazette</i>, but -my contributions were gratis, because there the editor, -Nuttall, now one of the editors of the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, was -expected to write the whole paper himself. I used to help -him, and he exerted himself to get various permissions for -me. He was a very capable man, who kept his paper -interesting though he had to make his bricks without straw.</p> - -<p class='c016'>However, when I got back to America from Japan I -commenced journalism in real earnest. I wrote a good many -articles at four pounds a column for the <i>San Francisco -Chronicle</i>, and, as I have said, wrote for many papers in -New York, and when I returned to England I introduced -the American biographical journalism to many papers, and -at one time was fully occupied with it, until I diverted the -capabilities I used for it to the founding of <i>Who’s Who</i>.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XVI<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS: PART I</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>My</span> active literary career dates from my return from -America. Hitherto, with the exception of the <i>Handbook -to Japan</i> and the potboiler for the North German Lloyd, and -a shilling shocker, published anonymously, and the two -series of articles on Japan executed for the <i>San Francisco -Chronicle</i> and McClure’s Syndicate respectively, my literary -aspirations had all been poetical. I had published volumes -of my own verse entitled: <i>Frithjof and Ingebjorg</i>, <i>Australian -Lyrics</i>, <i>A Poetry of Exiles</i>, <i>A Summer Christmas</i>, <i>In Cornwall -and Across the Sea</i>, <i>Edward the Black Prince</i>, <i>The Spanish -Armada</i>, <i>Lester the Loyalist</i>, and four anthologies, <i>Australian -Ballads and Rhymes</i>, <i>A Century of Australian Song</i>, <i>Australian -Poets and Younger American Poets</i>, one of which, -<i>Australian Ballads</i>, had a very large sale, though I only had -ten pounds for doing it.</p> - -<div id='i204f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i204f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE DINING-ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS.<br />(<i>From the Painting by Yoshio Markino.</i>)</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>But in America I had been under the necessity of making -money, because my private income was unequal to the -increased expense of living in America. The articles for -McClure and the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> were the outcome -of this necessity, and having found that I could add materially -to my income by writing about travel when in America, I -conceived the idea of making my articles on Japan, a country -then but little known in England, into a book. I went to -Mr. A. P. Watt, then not many years established, and he -procured me a commission from Hutchinson & Co.—the -first of a series of commissions which has gone on from that -day to this. That book was <i>The Japs at Home</i>, the most -successful, in point of sales, of all my books, for not less -than a hundred and fifty thousand copies of it have been -sold by various publishers. Hutchinson & Co. brought out -editions of it at eighteen shillings (two), six shillings, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>three-and-six, and then, having got through four editions of -it, and believing the sale at an end, gave the book up to me. -Another publisher sold fifteen thousand copies of it at half-a-crown, -and then exchanged the book rights with me for -the serial rights, and since then there has been a shilling -edition, an enormous sixpenny edition, and a threepenny-halfpenny -edition; the shilling and the threepenny-halfpenny -editions are selling still.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Following <i>The Japs at Home</i> came <i>On the Cars and Off</i>, -the success of which was ruined by having illustrations which -took six weeks to produce. It was a guinea book, and a -first edition of a thousand copies was sold directly. But the -second edition was not ready till nearly two months later, -and by that time the interest in the book was dead.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My next book of travel was <i>Brittany for Britons</i>, published -as one of the familiar little half-crown guides of A. and C. -Black, of which a great number of copies were sold. I cannot -say how many, because I parted with the copyright.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After this my energies were diverted from travel-books -for a while, because I wanted to try my hand at novel-writing. -The result was <i>A Japanese Marriage</i>, which, after <i>The Japs -at Home</i>, has been my most successful book in sales. About -ten thousand copies of it were sold in octavo form, and as a -sixpenny various publishers have sold a hundred and twenty -thousand.</p> - -<p class='c016'>For two years after our return from America we confined -ourselves to short excursions to the milder parts of England—Hampshire, -chiefly round Norman Christchurch; Devonshire, -in the nook of Dartmoor round Drewsteignton, and on -the gloriously wild coast round Salcombe; and the woods of -the Isle of Wight. During this period I finished <i>The Japs -at Home</i>, and wrote <i>On the Cars and Off</i>, which was not -published till 1895, about our double journey across America -from Halifax to Vancouver’s Island.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Then a new interest came into my life—we were persuaded -in 1895 to spend a summer and autumn at St. Andrews, and -there I acquired the inevitable taste for golf, which has kept -me interested and amused and healthful and unaging. Certainly -this was one of the most fortunate inspirations we ever -had for a holiday, since, after being devoted to games at school -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>and College and in Australia, I had left off football and cricket -and tennis, and even shooting, as soon as I settled in London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Poor old Tom Morris never had a worse pupil, for I play -everything wrong, and owe the prizes and medals I have -won at golf to the straightness of eye which helped me to -win every shooting challenge cup at Cheltenham and every -shooting challenge cup at Oxford. At St. Andrews I not -only had a glorious spell of golf, but fell deeply in love with -romantic and historical Fifeshire. There are few places -which combine so many attractions as St. Andrews. It is -the capital of golf; its cliffs capped with old houses, and its -ancient port, are beautiful enough for Sicily, and its great -ruined castle and its immemorial cathedral make it architecturally -the most interesting place in Scotland after Edinburgh -and Stirling. Nor does it yield to many in historical -interest. I should live there if it had a climate like Naples.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It gave us such a hunger for old architecture and romantic -scenery that in the following summer we went to the old -Breton towns on the Gulf of St. Malo. We stayed at St. -Servan in a seventeenth-century <i>manoir</i> called La Gentillerie, -which we had from the chaplain, my school-friend, William -Vassall, who stayed with us as our guest in his own house.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From a point close by we could look across the harbour -to St. Malo, with its mediæval walls and crane’s-bill steeple, -and on the other side were no further from Dinan. From -St. Servan we went on for a month in Normandy, which I -much prefer to Brittany. Towns like Rouen and Caen, -Coutances and Bayeux, Evreux, Lisieux and Falaise, are -citadels of mediævalism.</p> - -<p class='c016'>During this holiday I wrote my third travel-book, published -in England, <i>Brittany for Britons</i>, issued a year later, and put -the final touches on my first acknowledged novel, <i>A Japanese -Marriage</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was my two books on Japan, <i>The Japs at Home</i> and -<i>A Japanese Marriage</i>, which helped me to gain a literary -position; both went into several editions in their first year. -Between them they have sold more than a quarter of a -million copies.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But I was on the verge of a book-success of another kind, -which could hardly be called a literary success, though more -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>people connect my name with this than with any of my -books. Messrs. A. & C. Black, who had published <i>A -Japanese Marriage</i> and <i>Brittany for Britons</i>, approached me -to know if I would expand <i>Who’s Who</i>, of which they had -just purchased the copyright.</p> - -<p class='c016'>They showed it to me, and asked me if I could turn it -into a book of reference—a sort of cross between the old -<i>Who’s Who</i> and <i>Men of the Time</i> was the idea which shaped -itself from our discussion.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The two visits which we paid to Salcombe in Devon, the -second of them with Reginald Cleaver, have not yet furnished -me with any subject for writing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The year 1896, in which I compiled the new <i>Who’s Who</i>, -was also a notable year for me from the travel point of view. -At last I faced the exertion of taking my family to Sicily, -which had been my ambition for exactly ten years. It was -not such a stereotyped journey as it is now. I began to -make inquiries about it when we reached Naples, and could -not find an Englishman in the place—even the Consul-General—who -had ever been to Sicily. But the Consul-General -made inquiries, and said that he did not think -travelling in Sicily was very difficult or dangerous. He, -however, asked me if I had a revolver, and recommended -me not to take out a licence for it at the Consulate, because -in Sicily a licence is not available for the whole island, but -only for one province, and there are seven provinces. He -also told me that he was quite sure that no Sicilian ever -took out a licence, though they all carried firearms. As for -malaria, he did not know; he never troubled about it; he -always spent the summer in or near Naples, and never felt -any the worse for it. This Consul was my great friend, -Eustace Neville-Rolfe, who had lately sold his ancestral -estate of Heacham in Norfolk. Nelson students will remember -allusions in the great Admiral’s letters to his uncle Rolfe -at Heacham. But my friend hated the climate of Norfolk, -and hated its politics, and settled at Naples, where a good -many years afterwards they made him Consul-General for -the unconstitutional reason that he knew more about Naples -than any living Englishman. He had the unique distinction -of joining the Consular Service as a Consul-General.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>When we got to Sicily we found it perfectly easy and safe. -The Whitakers of Palermo, to whom he gave us an introduction, -at once became our friends, and told us all we ought -to see and all we ought to do in the island. On that trip -we paid fairly exhaustive visits to Palermo, Taormina, -Syracuse, Girgenti, Marsala, Trapani, Selinunte, and Segesta, -and flying visits to Catania and Messina.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sicily is an adorable country. Grass, flowers and fruit-trees -grow right down to the edge of the sea, where there -is any soil, for half the island is rock. There are no brigands -on the sea-coasts, and nearly every monument worth visiting -is in sight of the sea. There is not a place in the island from -which you cannot see a mountain. It is the land of the -orange and the lemon; and possesses the rare charm of -ancient Greek and mediæval Arab architecture.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sicily inspired me to write the largest of all my books, -<i>In Sicily</i>, and inspired a publisher to produce it in an <i>édition -de luxe</i>, whose two volumes weighed fourteen pounds, and -contained four hundred illustrations. I called it <i>In Sicily</i> -because it was not until several years afterwards that I -considered that I knew enough about the island to write a -book with the more pretentious title of <i>Sicily</i>. A great -French author paid me the compliment of appropriating my -title, and a good deal of my information, a few years afterwards. -I began to write <i>In Sicily</i> in 1896, but it was not -published till 1901.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We spent the spring of 1896 in Sicily, and the summer at -Lulworth, on a little round cove in South Dorset. We went -there partly because it was said to be the mildest place in -England, partly because Thomas Hardy told me that he had -laid the scene of one of the chief episodes in <i>Tess of the D’Urbervilles</i> -in an old farmhouse near the station which served -Lulworth; it had a hopelessly unromantic name—Wool.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the following summer we went to Ostend for the season, -because I wanted to see the gambling and the fashions. The -morals of the Ostend of that day may be gathered from -this. A friend of mine who was staying at the principal hotel -with her husband, was asked by the proprietor if they were -properly married. She was most indignant, and said that -of course they were.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>“Very well,” he said coolly, “then I think you ought to -go to some other hotel, because you are the only people in -mine who have been married.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>That same hotel manager considered that things were no -longer what they were, for an Indian Maharajah had that -morning complained at being charged two pounds for a -chicken—that the English and Americans were no longer -fools, and, in fact, that the only fools left were the Austrians.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The late King of the Belgians was in residence at the -chateau, and had not one, but three, notorious French -actresses staying with him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Apart from its <i>plage</i> and its gaming-tables, I should have -found Ostend a dull place if it had not been for Henry Arthur -Jones, who was there, off and on, writing a new play, and -ready to discuss it. He had had a play at the St. James’s -which had not gone too well, and he asked me if I could account -for it. I suggested that allowing a hospital nurse to frustrate -an elopement was more calculated to gratify the gallery than -the stalls, and that the St. James’s was a stalls theatre.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jones had one curious habit—whenever he felt at a standstill -in writing his play he used to say he must have a change -of air, and then fly away to Homburg or some other place -which took many hours to reach. He was much interested -in gambling, though he did not gamble seriously. I imagine -that he found the gaming-tables full of “copy.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the winter we went to Sicily again, and in the summer -to Salcombe again.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the following winter my connection with <i>Who’s Who</i> -ceased. My agreement with the publishers was only for three -years in case the book was a failure, and the publishers -pronounced it a failure.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Almost immediately afterwards I had an attack of jaundice, -brought on, or not brought on, by the incident, and after a -short stay at Brighton, went to recruit my health at Nice, -from which I paid many visits to Monte Carlo, though I did -not gamble much.</p> - -<p class='c016'>On our way back from Nice we did what not one Englishman -in a hundred, among the thousands who winter in the -Riviera, does, got off at Tarascon, and wandered about the -cities of Troubadour-land, such as Tarascon, Arles, Nîmes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>Avignon and Les Baux, the deserted capital of a dead -principality, where the houses, instead of being built, are -hewn out of the face of the rock. Provence is full of ancient -Roman buildings, and of Romanesque buildings, hardly to -be distinguished from them; and, in our day, in spite of the -law against it, they used the Roman amphitheatres for the -modern equivalent of gladiatorial games—bull-fights. Bull-fighting -always began on Easter Sunday.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I registered a resolve, which I have never kept, to write -a book about Provence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That summer we spent at Cookham on the Thames. -Since we were unable to go abroad, we went on the river, -as being the most frankly “Continental” place in England. -We had perfect weather, and Ostend itself did not give us -more pleasure than the reach of the river between Cookham -and Maidenhead. I found lying in a punt outside the lock -at the Cliveden end conducive for finding incidents for fiction.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And I had not done sufficient creative work since I began -<i>Who’s Who</i>. Indeed, <i>The Admiral</i>, my novel of the love of -Nelson and Lady Hamilton, which I finished at Ostend, had -been nearly my whole output, for <i>Trincolox</i> had been written -ten years before, and published in <i>Temple Bar</i>. I was, of -course, working at the materials for <i>In Sicily</i> all the time, -and in the spring of 1900 we paid another three months’ -visit to Sicily to see that all my facts were up to date.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were at Syracuse during the darkest days of the Boer -War. About half the people in the house were Germans, -who were openly pleased at the succession of disasters -which had befallen the British arms before they could get -proper forces out to South Africa, to fight an enemy who -was prepared in every single detail before he forced on the -war. It seemed as if the disasters never would stop, and -these amiable people told us so every day. But one fine -day a British battleship, one of the largest then afloat, steamed -into the great harbour of Syracuse, and anchored in the -waters where the Athenians were annihilated in their last -sea-fight against the Syracusans. We were down on the -quay, and so was nearly every other foreigner in Syracuse, -when a launch put off from H.M.S., and made towards us. -The Captain, a typical sea-dog—it was Callaghan, now one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>of our chief Admirals—was in the stern. As he stepped -ashore he said: “We have just had a wireless from Malta—Kimberley -is relieved.” It was most dramatic to have the -news brought to us by the biggest battleship in the Mediterranean, -how French had introduced a new feature into warfare -by raising a siege with a dash of five thousand cavalry riding -all day as hard as they could. I shall never forget it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We returned to Rome in time for the Papal Jubilee, the -sixth centenary of the original Jubilee established by Boniface -VIII in 1300. Some of the ceremonies were extraordinarily -interesting, and the procession of Leo XIII in St. Peter’s -was one of the most impressive things I ever saw. I think -it was that which inspired me to write <i>The Secrets of the -Vatican</i>, though I did not complete it for publication till -nearly seven years afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That summer again we went to Cookham, which had -serious results, for my son was thrown into contact with -some charming boys who had just passed into the Army, -and were spending their vacation from Woolwich at Bourne -End, a mile up the river from Cookham. Nothing would do -for him after this but to go into the Army. I did not oppose -it, because he was an absolutely idle boy at school, and it -seemed such a good thing that he should want to pass any -exam., and further, I was almost as much under the glamour -of those dear boys—poor St. John Spackman, who was -afterwards killed in the polo-field, was one of them—as he was.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That inspired me to write <i>My Son Richard</i>, which is a -story of river life and boys who want to serve their country. -I took him to Captain James, the leading Army crammer, and -said that he wanted to get into the Army. In a few home -questions, James discovered that he had never done any -work at school, and said he had better go into the Artillery—he -could not get into the Line. I looked incredulous, and -he explained that in the Artillery exams. there are papers -in more subjects which boys do not learn at school, so that -a boy who has not done any work has not lost time over -this—such things, for instance, as “fortification” and -“military topography.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>My son amply fulfilled his prognostications by securing -ninety per cent. of the marks in the military subjects, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>only sixteen marks out of two thousand in Latin. Still, he -passed, but, to his great disappointment, was not allowed to go -out to the war which had just begun, because he was too young.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In this year, 1901, in which both my big book <i>In Sicily</i> -and my novel <i>My Son Richard</i>, first saw the light, I -had plenty to do, for I was finishing and attending to the -publication of <i>Queer Things about Japan</i>, which was the -best received of all my books of travel. It owed its success -largely to the timely moment at which I wrote it. Knowing -Japan well, I was convinced that there was going to be a -Russo-Japanese war, and Sidney Dark, the brilliant literary -editor of the <i>Daily Express</i>, as alive a journalist and critic as -there is in London, was at that time manager of the firm -of publishers to whom I offered the book, because they had -recently taken over the publication of the sixpenny edition -of <i>A Japanese Marriage</i>. It was not hard to convince him -that there was war in the air for Japan, and he commissioned -the book with the happiest results. Much of it appeared -serially in the papers connected with the Tillotson Syndicate, -which at that time had Philip Gibbs for its editor. He -accepted my offer to write him eight long instalments about -Japan for the Syndicate. Just as I had finished and dispatched -them, he wrote to tell me that he did not think -that Japan was a sufficiently live subject, and asked me -not to write the articles.</p> - -<p class='c016'>No sooner had he written the letter than he received the -articles. He read them and thought them so good that he -sent me a telegram cancelling his letter, and used them. -They form the backbone of the book. He had asked me to -be as humorous as possible. Other editors thought them -very amusing, and when the approach of war made Japan -the topic of the day, showered commissions on me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Norma Lorimer, who was all through Japan with us, was -of great assistance to me in recalling our life there, and I -got her a good many commissions for articles, which were -afterwards collected with some of the articles that I wrote -during the war into <i>More Queer Things about Japan</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In this same year, 1901, Hutchinson & Co. published -<i>My Son Richard</i>, which, as I have said above, was a novel -about boys who had just passed into the Army, and girls of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>the same age, spending the summer on the river at Cookham. -As an instance of rapid printing, I may mention that -Hutchinson got me all the proofs of this book in seven days, -but he recently, in 1913, eclipsed this by making the printer -give me all the proofs of <i>Weeds</i> in six days.</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>My Son Richard</i> was very popular. A Duchess wrote to a -newspaper which was collecting statistics about the popularity -of books, that this was the nicest book she had ever read, -and when it came out as a sixpenny, the village grocer at -Cookham ordered hundreds and told me that every maidservant -for miles round was buying it. I wish they would -buy all my other sixpennies. To reach the servant class is -a most difficult achievement.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As Miss Lorimer had broken her leg that year and still -could not move about much, we went for August to -Baveno on Lago Maggiore, to an hotel with a garden on -the lake, where she had a room looking right over the -exquisite Borromean Islands, Isola Bella and Isola dei -Pescatori. Italy has always been her favourite subject for -writing. She corrected the proofs of her <i>By the Waters of -Sicily</i> here, which is as popular as ever, though it has been -out for twelve years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Baveno had the happiest effect on her. The air is lovely, -and her window looked right over the finest sweep of Lago -Maggiore, with the islands in front and the snow-tipped -Alps behind. Heavy square-prowed barges with junk sails -used to glide slowly across the eye-line, and light high-prowed -fishing-boats with hoods like Japanese sampans -darted about near the shore, which had long pergolas overhanging -the lake and Passion-vines sweeping over every shed.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A month’s rest at Baveno made her leg quite well, and -then we were able to spend a fascinating September in the -mountain city of Bergamo; Brescia, with its history and -monuments of a thousand years; and Venice, which is always -most adorable in summer. The Feast of the Redentore in -July is the crown of the year at Venice. We had learnt, and -we have often made use of our knowledge since, that Italy -is at her best in summer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I do not seem to have published any books in 1902 or -1903, though I was writing steadily all the time, and had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>a couple of serials running in a magazine, but I was collecting -materials hard for the biggest piece of work I have ever -accomplished. Those who take up <i>Sicily, the New Winter -Resort</i>, a small octavo, and <i>In Sicily</i>, two immense quartos, -will be surprised to hear that the smaller book contains a -far greater amount of reading matter than the larger—half -as much again, I should say—though the one costs five -shillings net and the other three guineas. The Directors of -the Rete Sicula, for whom I compiled the smaller book, -stipulated that it was to be cheap in price and handy in -form. This book is an encyclopædia of Sicily. It itemises -every monument of any importance, every custom, every -piece of scenery noted for its beauty, every railway station, -and gives information about every name which comes -prominently into the history or the mythology of the island. -It also gives directions how every monument and beautiful -piece of scenery is to be reached.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Nineteen hundred and two was the last summer which -we spent at Cookham. My son was then at Woolwich, and -we stayed at Cookham so that he could have his week-ends -on the river. That winter and spring we again spent in -Sicily and Italy. But that summer we spent at Tenby for -the first time, because my son had now been gazetted to a -Company of Artillery which was stationed at Pembroke Dock. -Tenby I consider one of the most beautiful coast-places in the -United Kingdom. It stands on a rock over the sea, and still -retains a considerable portion of walls and towers built in the -reign of the third Edward, and restored during the Spanish -Armada scare in 1588. It has also a magnificent Gothic -church, and one Gothic house. Its position is hard to beat, -for its rock stands between two splendid stretches of sand, -and when the wind blows on one side you are out of the wind -on the other. On the north sands is a green bluff. If you -walk inland it is easy to find deep woods, and if you walk -across the golf-links (there is very good natural golf) you come -on to noble downs with gorgeous precipices sheering down to -the sea, and rich in the ruins of historic and prehistoric -men—literally historic, for there is Geoffry of Monmouth’s -castle of Manorbier, and far beyond, my ancestor Aylmer -de Valence’s castle of Pembroke, which, like the castle of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>the Carews, rises out of the windings of the great haven of -the West.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Such is Tenby, round which, under the name of Flanders, -I built a romance in my novel, <i>The Unholy Estate</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The golf-links served both Tenby and the naval and -military officers at Pembroke Dock. Nearly every day I -used to meet the Gunner and Infantry subalterns and captains -disporting themselves on the links, and I was often over at -Pembroke in the barracks. It was there that I picked up -my knowledge of young soldiers, which I put into use in -<i>The Unholy Estate</i>, <i>The Tragedy of the Pyramids</i> and <i>The -Curse of the Nile</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The winter we generally spent in Italy, except the winter -and spring of 1906, when we were once more in Sicily, and -went across from Sicily to visit Tunis and Carthage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In 1904 I was busy putting the finishing touches on two -books about Japan, <i>More Queer Things about Japan</i>, the -book in which I collaborated with Norma Lorimer, and -<i>Playing the Game</i>, which in the cheap editions has had its -name changed to <i>When We Were Lovers in Japan</i>. This -book has been running serially in <i>Cassell’s Magazine</i>. It -never had half the popularity or circulation of <i>A Japanese -Marriage</i>, though it had much more value as a study of -Japan and the Japanese, for it deals with the transition of -Japan from a weak Oriental nation to one of the great -powers of the world, and gives an acid picture of the futility of -the diplomats to whom Great Britain entrusts her interests.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In this same year, 1904, Methuen brought out <i>Sicily, the -New Winter Resort</i>. In 1905 I turned my attention to Sicily -once more, working up the serial which had appeared in -<i>Cassell’s Magazine</i> into the volume which the publishers -insisted on christening <i>A Sicilian Marriage</i>, to try and lend -it some of the popularity of <i>A Japanese Marriage</i>, which it -never acquired, and the world never discovered that it was -an excellent popular guide-book to Palermo, Girgenti, Syracuse -and Taormina.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the same year I brought out <i>Queer Things about Sicily</i>, -a companion volume to <i>Queer Things about Japan</i>, with -Norma Lorimer.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XVII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS: PART II</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>In</span> 1906 I was busy writing two books into which a good -deal of history came, <i>Carthage and Tunis, the Old and New -Gates of the Orient</i>, and <i>The Secrets of the Vatican</i>, the former -of which I published at the end of that year, and the latter -at the beginning of the following year.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were hovering between Italy in the winter, and Tenby -in the summer, and taking uncommonly little out of our rent -at 32 Addison Mansions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had always been mightily interested in Carthage. I -hated Carthage being beaten by Rome, partly, perhaps, -because history has invested the career of Hannibal and the -fall of Carthage with such undying romance. When we -were in Sicily in 1906 we suddenly made up our minds to go -to Tunis, of which Carthage is practically a suburb, just -as when we were at Vancouver we suddenly made up our -minds to take a trip to Japan.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Carthage is disappointing to those who wish to see Punic -remains. Of the mighty walls described by Polybius, there -remains hardly one stone upon another. Its impregnable -naval harbour and arsenal have dried up into mere ponds—in -fact, there is nothing Punic about it, except subterranean -tombs, which you can only reach by being lowered in a -basket, and the gorgeous coffins and ornaments which came -out of them, and are preserved in the museum of the White -Fathers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But of Roman Carthage there are plenty of remains—an -amphitheatre, and a theatre, and mighty underground cisterns, -and the foundations of immense churches. In that -amphitheatre a most interesting lot of saints were martyred, -St. Perpetua herself among them.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>No ruins have been discovered connected with the career -of St. Augustine, the Carthaginian to whom the White -Fathers attach so much more importance than to Hannibal -or Hamilcar; and all memories of Dido have hopelessly -disappeared. Any remains that there might have been of -the citadel so desperately defended against Scipio, have -been obliterated by the erection of a cathedral on the site, -the consummation of the life-work of Cardinal Lavigerie. -That there is not one human being for a congregation, except -the White Fathers in the monastery, does not appear to -signify at all. The cathedral is there, just on the spot where -you want to forget it most, and think of the tremendous -human tragedy to which that hill is sacred.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I loved wandering about the site of Carthage, ruminating -upon history; I found the study of the saints of Carthage -fascinating, and gave a good deal of my book to them when -I came to write about Carthage, in which I also gave translations -of the very extensive passages which Virgil devotes -to it, without apparently having possessed any antiquarian -knowledge at all upon the subject.</p> - -<p class='c016'>History is very ironical here. You sometimes meet -wandering, or encamped about the site of Carthage, Berbers, -lineal descendants of the aborigines dispossessed by Dido -and her Phœnicians when they founded Carthage, who lasted -as a race to see Phœnician Carthage perish, and the Christian -and Roman Carthage, which rose upon its ashes, perish -likewise before the invading Arabs, and the Arabs, after -temporary subjugation by this or the other invader, finally -conquered by the French. Their language, too, has survived, -though it was in danger of extinction till French scholars -made its preservation and study a hobby.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It must not be forgotten that when Carthage came to life -again she had her revenge on Rome, for the Vandal King -of Carthage captured Rome, and carries its empress in chains -to Carthage, with the Table of the Shewbread, the Ark of -the Covenant, and the Seven-branched Candlestick captured -by Titus—trophies to which the Romans had ever since -attached superstitious importance.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the last half of 1906 and the spring of 1907 I was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>unusually busy. We spent the summer for the fourth year in -succession at Tenby. Eustache de Lorey was there with me -collaborating in <i>Queer Things about Persia</i>. I planned the -outline of the book; I suggested subjects for the chapters; -I extracted some of them by cross-examination; I wrote -down others when he was in an anecdotal vein. And some -he wrote in French, and we translated them together. Had -he been able to accumulate a book in English unaided, there -was no reason why he should not have written it all himself. -His careful, slightly foreign English was very effective. But -I may take this credit to myself, that the book would never -have been conceived without me, and even had it been conceived, -it would neither have been begun, nor, having been -begun, would it have been finished, without my professional -industry. I enjoyed writing it very much indeed. De Lorey -was such a delightful companion, and I learnt so much about -Persia by writing a book on it. This sounds like a paradox, -but it is a universal truth.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Simultaneously I was engaged on finishing my own book -on Carthage and Tunis. In this book I had to rely almost -entirely on French materials, because the two main sources -of information are the official publications of the French -authorities, and commercial firms interested in the exploitation -of Tunis, and the publications of the White Fathers out -at Carthage, about its site and its remains.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was also finishing a book upon which I had been at work -for some years—<i>The Secrets of the Vatican</i>, in which I enjoyed -the assistance of his Eminence the Cardinal-Archbishop of -Westminster, in the chapter which dealt with the Church -crisis in France.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I went to ask him to help me, he asked me what I -was going to call my book. I replied, <i>The Secrets of the -Vatican</i>. He said, “Doesn’t it sound rather——”—instead -of giving me the word, he gave a sniff. I shall never forget -that sniff—it expressed the whole situation. I hastened to -explain that the Secrets were all archæological secrets, and -he handed me the materials for my chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Some time before this, he had asked our mutual friend, -Cortesi, Reuter’s agent at Rome, to tell me a story of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>Pope, in connection with my <i>Sicily, the New Winter Resort</i>. -Cardinal Bourne had taken a tour in Sicily, using my <i>Sicily</i> -as his guide. When he got back to Rome, he showed an -anecdote in the book to the Pope. The anecdote was about -Cardinal Newman, who had told me an extraordinary experience -he had had in Sicily. It was at Castrogiovanni, where -he lay for some weeks between life and death, suffering from -a fever, which was the result of his being totally robbed of -sleep by fleas when he was making a tour round Etna. The -greatest affliction with which he had to contend was the -incessant ringing of church bells—Castrogiovanni, the Enna -of Ceres and Proserpine, has more churches for its size -than any city in Sicily. Poor Newman’s only chance of -sleep, which meant life to him, was to keep his head under -the bedclothes in that semi-tropical climate. The inhabitants -went about aghast, saying that he had a devil. The -Pope thought the idea of the future Prince of the -Church (Protestant though he was then) having a devil, -was ludicrously funny, and laughed till his sides ached, -like an ordinary man. When Newman did recover from -the fever, and was on his way from Sicily to Sardinia in -a fruit boat, he wrote his famous hymn, “Lead, kindly -light.”</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>The Secrets of the Vatican</i> formed one half of a book which -I began as a commission from Eveleigh Nash some years -before. The numerous changes in non-papal Rome, and the -important excavations of its pagan monuments, which were -announced, but postponed and postponed, made me despair -of ever getting the book finished, and finally I decided to -publish the part which related to the Vatican in a volume -by itself. This, after going through three editions, has -been, for further publication, divided into two parts. The -personal matter about the present Pope, and the information -about the ceremonies which relate to the election, coronation, -death and burial of a Pope, and about the composition of -his court, are still published by Hurst & Blackett, with -certain additional information on the subject, under the -title of <i>The Pope at Home</i>, while the part which relates to -the history, architecture and collections of the Vatican, is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>now published by Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., under the -title of <i>How to See the Vatican</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>The Secrets of the Vatican</i> was published in 1907, a few -months before we began our memorable expedition to Egypt, -which has played such an important part in my writings -ever since.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Having to study economy in our travels, we determined -to break the journey to Egypt in Italy, and with that idea -went to Lake Como in the last days of July 1907.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Anything more beautiful than Lago di Como in August it -is difficult to conceive. All the way up its west side the lake -is fringed with crimson oleanders in full blossom. Though -the days are cloudless, and the nights encrusted with stars, -by perfect summer weather, there are no mosquitoes. It is -a land of peaches, and of old villas with gardens, which look -as if they had come down from the ancient Romans, with -their vases and pavilions and terraces and broad flights of -steps leading down into the clear water of the lake—this is -the lake from Arconati to Cadenabbia.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Here we spent a month under the acacia and tulip trees, -revelling in fruit and flowers, before we went south to Como -City; and east to Sermione, in the reedy shallows of Lago -di Garda, dominated by the castle of the Scaligers, which -loses not one ray of sunshine from sunrise to sunset; to -storied Mantua in its marches; to Verona, half ancient Roman, -half Gothic, and wholly romantic, and to Venice the matchless.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Venice is a stone city conjured up from the sea. In the -city proper there is no more earth than you might have in -roof-gardens. There are no horses, no motors. You seem -to be living on the roof of the sea. The palaces, which rise -from the water in such unending succession, were mostly -built in the Middle Ages, when Venice had the sea-trade of -the world. The finest of them line the Grand Canal from -side to side for a mile from its mouth, and at its mouth are -the most beautiful buildings in Europe, which have been -standing there three and four and five hundred years at the -head of the stately flight of steps where the world once -came to the feet of Venice—St. Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, -and the Library, surrounding that Piazetta of smooth white -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>flagstones. You feel that they are too beautiful to be true, -that they must be the airy fabric of a vision, which will -presently pass away, and leave not a wrack behind.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I never go to Venice without wondering why I can live -away from it. Yet I have never published my tribute to it, -except in periodicals, and in the pages about it which come -into my <i>How to See Italy</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have to say the same of Florence, to which we moved -from Venice on our progress through Italy to Egypt. Like -Venice, I have visited it many times, and I find Florence -one of the most inspiring cities in the world. The Venetian, -unless he be a guide or a gondolier, is silent to foreigners; -he takes no account of them; there are few foreigners living -in Venice. But in Florence there are five thousand foreigners, -who talk about the glories of Florence every day, and all the -inhabitants seem to be children of the Medici Florence, who -think that every foreigner’s mind should be in the Florence -of the Middle Ages. You talk pictures or history all day -long.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From Florence we went on to Rome and Naples, where -we were to take ship for Egypt. Of Rome I have written -much in <i>How to See Italy</i>, as well as in <i>The Secrets of the -Vatican</i>, which contained the fruit of years of study. I have -also published in periodicals enough to fill another book -about the parts which belong to the kingdom of Italy, as -the Vatican belongs to the Papacy. To Rome I go back -regularly. About Rome I intend to publish a book like -<i>How to See Italy</i>, and <i>Sicily, the New Winter Resort</i>, combined, -to make use of my street by street study of the Eternal -City. I know Rome far better than London. Rome has -always appealed to my historical enthusiasm, in the one -point where Florence leaves me cold, for Florence was, as -it were, at the back of the door while kingdoms were being -carved out of the unformed mass of Europe during the -Middle Ages, while Rome gave the world laws, language -and civilisation, collated from the wisdom of the ancient -world.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Naples itself is not an inviting town, but it slopes up from -one of the most beautiful bays in the world, and it is rich in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>outstanding objects—Capri in front, Vesuvius on the left, -the hill of Posilippo on the right, and the three great castles, -St. Elmo, del Ovo and Nuovo, which make the points of -a vast triangle from the sea to the mountain-top, while in -the centre is the rock of Parthenope, now called the Falcon’s -Peak, the site of Palæpolis, the old city, which came before -Neapolis, the new city.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The outskirts of Naples are of the highest interest, for on -the south side the disinterred ruins of Pompeii and Herculanæum -lie under their destroyer, Vesuvius, the most interesting -volcano in the world; and on the other are Cumæ, -the first settlement of the Greeks in the virgin lands of -Italy, which was their America; and all the volcanic phenomena, -which furnished Roman mythology with the details -of its Hades.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Pompeii is of undying interest to me, especially since the -new custom has come in of leaving any fresh treasures which -are discovered, <i>in situ</i>. There is no place where, if you study -it in conjunction with the collections in the museum of Naples, -you can so easily picture the life of the Greeks and Romans -as at Pompeii. I have many times thought of writing upon -Pompeii.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XVIII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>THE WRITING OF MY BOOKS: PART III</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>It</span> was Benton Fletcher, one of the “identities” of Egypt, -equally well known as an artist who does valuable work in -connection with excavations and does delightful landscapes, -which are the fashion with “winterers” in Egypt, who first -put into my head the idea of visiting that matchless country. -Egypt is literally matchless; there is no country in the world -which has such a winter climate, and no country in the world -which has monuments so ancient and so perfect, so close -together and so accessible. Every monument which is not -in an oasis is on the Nile, and the Nile in Egypt is like a -railway in other countries.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Fletcher not only worked up my enthusiasm to the point -of going there, but met us on our arrival in Cairo, and initiated -me in the secret beauties of the Arab city. But for him -<i>Oriental Cairo</i> would never have been written.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was also much influenced by the photographs published -by Leo Weinthal in <i>The African World</i> and <i>Fascinating -Egypt</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We sailed from Naples to Alexandria in the November of -1907. We did not delay an hour there, but took the next -train to Cairo.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Alexandria Egypt is Roman, and the monuments which -have yet been excavated are not, with the exception of one -marvellous late tomb, very interesting. But Alexandria -is an unexcavated Pompeii, and when some Schliemann -among its leading merchants decides to devote his energies -and his fortune to excavating the vast mounds which still -bury Roman Alexandria, we may expect finds of astonishing -interest. In the desert, about thirty miles from Alexandria, -is the city of St. Menas, an early Christian Pompeii, where there -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>has already been excavated a wonderful Basilica founded -by the Emperor Arcadius.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Except for a few articles in the <i>Queen</i>, I did little writing -in Egypt beyond taking copious notes. But these I did -more completely than I ever had done before, and as my -secretary was with us, they were typed out every evening, -and are now bound together into a sort of diary-journal of -our entire visit. To make them more complete as journals, -I took eight hundred photographs, and certainly bought as -many more, and as complete a collection of postcards as I -could form. Therefore I was in a very sound position for -writing my various books upon Egypt after I had returned -home. The first book I wrote upon our visit was <i>Egypt and -the English</i>, consisting partly of what we saw while we were -staying in Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Assuan, the Fayyum, -the Great Oasis, and while we were journeying up the Nile -to the second cataract, and down the Nile to its Rosetta and -Damietta mouths, and over the Desert Railway into the -Sudan; and partly of the result of my inquiries about the -political condition of Egypt. When the book came out, -many reviewers took up the attitude that what I said was -too alarmist, but when Mr. Roosevelt repeated it to the letter, -the Government took the warnings seriously, and appointed -the best possible man, Lord Kitchener, to take the place -of Sir Eldon Gorst, whose policy of scuttle and kowtow may -have been dictated by the Government which appointed him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I knew that my facts were sound, because I had not only -sucked as much information as I could out of British officials -and editors, and the Leader of the Egyptian Bar, but also -from the leading Syrians and Armenians, who see much more -behind the scenes than the English, because Arabic is their -business language, and the Arabs associate with them freely -in private life. Among Syrians especially I had repeated -conversations with Dr. Sarrûf and Dr. Nimr, the proprietor -and editor of <i>El Mokattan</i>, the most important Arab paper -in Egypt, to whose opinions Lord Cromer had always attached -the greatest importance, and they had told me how to meet -such of the Nationalist leaders as spoke English. These -were actual Egyptians, so <i>Egypt and the English</i> did give -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>native opinion both directly from the mouths of Egyptians, -and indirectly through Syrians and Armenians.</p> - -<div id='i224f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i224f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>HALL CAINE<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>I wrote <i>Egypt and the English</i> for a commission to write -<i>Queer Things about Egypt</i>. The then chairman of Hurst -& Blackett, when he saw the political chapters in the -book, considered them so interesting and important that he -asked me to hold over the humorous chapters for another -book. Which I did. But in the interval he sold the business -of Hurst & Blackett to my old friends Hutchinson & Co., -who published my real first success, <i>The Japs at Home</i>. -They were quite ready to take another book on Egypt from -me, and we decided to make these chapters the nucleus of -that book to be published under the original title of <i>Queer -Things about Egypt</i>. This book gives the humours of the -native city in Cairo, and the humours of travel on the Nile. -The parts of the book which attracted most attention were -those which dealt with Arab life in Cairo in the native quarters -round the Citadel, and with Arab architecture and art, so -Hutchinson asked me to do another large volume on Egypt, -devoted entirely to <i>Oriental Cairo—the City of the Arabian -Nights</i>. For that part of Cairo is almost as much an Arab -City of the Middle Ages as was Granada in the days of the -Moors, and the stories of the Arabian Nights were made into -a book by a Cairene in the sixteenth century.</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>Egypt and the English</i> was published in 1908, <i>Queer Things -about Egypt</i> in 1910, and <i>Oriental Cairo</i> in 1910.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In 1908 I also wrote, and Hurst & Blackett published, -<i>The Tragedy of the Pyramids</i>, which has been one of the most -successful of my novels. It was written as a counterblast -to Hall Caine’s <i>White Prophet</i>, which at that time was running -as a serial in the <i>Strand Magazine</i>. I considered that Caine -was giving an entirely incorrect impression of our army in -Egypt. The book is now in its ninth edition, and was an -imaginary picture of the revolution which would have overtaken -Egypt, if Sir Eldon Gorst’s scuttle and kowtow policy -had been persisted in. I had a great deal to say about the -Senussi in this book—the battle of the Pyramids was fought -against a great host of invading Senussi. The British public -had then heard little of the Senussi. But in the Turko-Italian -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>war the Senussi have proved a far more dangerous -enemy to Italy than the Turks, as they are very hardy and -move with great rapidity. They are said to own many zawia, -or convents, in Egypt, and to have established a network of -wells at twenty-four hours’ distance from each other all over -the great desert of the Sahara—also to have twenty-five -thousand swift camels accumulated against any invasion of -their country, which is almost conterminous with the great -desert. Boyd Alexander, the famous explorer, is considered -to have fallen a victim to his intrusion upon their territory, -which they openly forbid to Christians, on pain of being assassinated. -But their Prophet refused to join forces in any way -with the Mahdi when he had possessed himself of the Egyptian -Sudan.</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>The Tragedy of the Pyramids</i> was published in 1909, <i>Queer -Things about Egypt</i>, and <i>Oriental Cairo</i>, in 1910, the same -year which saw the publication of <i>The Moon of the Fourteenth -Night</i>, the romance which I wrote in collaboration once more -with Eustache de Lorey. As it had so much of the travel-book -about it, it was not brought out in the form of a novel. It -was, in fact, the biography of a dashing young French attaché, -who is still alive, pretty faithfully told. He had no objection -to our using it if we killed him off in the book, to throw the -girl’s relations off the track, in case they should try to kill -him in real life. The public never realised that it was actually -reading a romance of real life, that there had been such a person -as Bibi Mâh, that the escapades of Edward Valmont were not -imaginary, but episodes in a career of gallantry. The book -comes very near to being a journal of life in the Persian -capital at the beginning of the revolution.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the autumn of 1908 we went back to Italy to spend the -six cold months in Rome, hoping that we should have one -of those winters which you sometimes get in Rome, as full -of sunshine as spring—only cold when you are in the wind and -out of the sun. Yoshio Markino spent that winter with us at -12 Piazza Barberini. I got my friend Percy Spalding, -one of the directors of Chatto & Windus, to give him a commission -to do the illustrations for <i>The Colour of Rome</i>, and -as I knew Rome so well, I conducted him to nearly all the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>beauty-spots which furnished the subjects of his illustrations. -I showed him many others which did not appeal to him, for -Markino will not begin a picture until some <i>motif</i> in the -locality has appealed to his artistic temperament. He is an -artist to the finger-tips. His fidelity is all the more extraordinary -when you take into consideration his method of -painting a landscape.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In those days he had written nothing but a short chapter -in <i>The Colour of London</i>, and <i>The Colour of Paris</i>, but he -used to show me the letters he wrote to Spalding and Ward, of -Chatto’s, about the book,—most brilliant some of them were, -and I saw that he was a born writer. I suggested to him as -early as this that he should write his life in Japan—I had not -then grasped what a story he had to tell of his life in England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He felt the cold in Rome very severely. He used to consume -quantities of the childish substitutes for fuel provided -in Roman hotels.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In that first visit which he paid to Italy, he was not much -interested in the architecture or the art, just as he never -visited the Louvre while he was in Paris painting <i>The -Colour of Paris</i>. And the scenes of historical events interested -him little more, though often they played an important -part in the history of the world. He was absorbed in the -novel lines of buildings; the gay colours of Italy; the strangeness -to him of the atmospheric effects of Rome; the subtle -and ceaseless humours in the life of the Italian poor. And -their clothes delighted him, with their gay, faded colours, -their rags, and the fine abandon with which they were worn.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were in Rome collecting materials for my book on -<i>How to See Italy</i>, and I was writing the <i>Tragedy of the Pyramids</i> -mostly in bed, before I got up in the morning. Between -five and eight a.m. is a favourite time for writing with me. -I seldom begin later than 5.45; I have a cup of tea brought -to me at 6 a.m. I also wrote a good deal in periodicals about -the great earthquake at Messina. The Italian papers were -naturally full of details, which had not been telegraphed to -England, and we used to get wonderful cinema films, which -made one quite an eye-witness of the events. In Italy you -can go to the cinema for twopence.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>I was about to make a tour of the earthquake scenes in -South Italy and Sicily, and to go on to Malta, where my son -was then quartered, when I was suddenly called home by the -alarming illness of my father, who was given up by the doctors, -though he recovered and lived for nearly two years afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We re-visited a few favourite spots, such as Pisa and Lucca, -on our way up, as we did not hope to see Italy again for some -time.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As it chanced, it was little more than a year before we were -back in Italy again, on the most interesting tour which we -have ever spent in that country. I had a commission from -Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. to write for them <i>How to See -Italy</i>, which was destined to be so popular, and there -were forty-five cities in Italy which I wished to visit or re-visit -before writing this book. I wrote it for the Italian Government, -as Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. were aware, and they had -offered me many facilities. They had the blocks made for -the illustrations. I went over their entire collection of photographs -in making my choice, and where no photograph -existed, they sent their special photographer to take one. -Also they allowed me to travel about on their lines wherever -my wish took me free of charge, so I was able to wander about -Italy in a way in which the expenses would ordinarily have -been too great for any book.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Markino went with us again on this journey, which lasted -from July to November. This time I had got him a commission -from Constable & Co. to illustrate a book by Miss -Potter, which was published under the title of <i>A Little -Pilgrimage in Italy</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We visited all our cities, starting from Genoa, and proceeding -to Florence, Arezzo, Cortona, Perugia, Deruta, Todi, -Siena, St. Gimignano, Passignano, Monte Oliveto, Asciano, -Chiusi, Città della Pieve, Assisi, Foligno, Spoleto, Spello, -Bevagna, Montefalco, Trevi, Clitunno, Gualdo Tadino, -Gubbio, Urbino, Rimini, Ravenna, San Marino, Ancona, -Loreto, Terni, Narni, Orvieto, Viterbo, Ferento, Bagnaja, -Monte Fiascone, Rome, Tivoli, Milan.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As soon as we had left the mountain heights of Arezzo and -Cortona, the Etruscan eyries from which the Romans marched -<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>down to their red fate on the shores of the lake Trasimene, -we learned how hot mid-Italy can be in midsummer. Even -on the rock of Perugia, fifteen hundred feet above the sea, -you could not walk on the sunny side of the street without -an umbrella on account of the risk of sunstroke, and the -heat was almost unendurable as we drove across the hills -the thirty or forty miles to Todi, a little city which the Gods -of the Middle Ages have kept to themselves.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Perugia was always defiant, from Etruscan times. With a -man like Duke Frederick of Urbino to rule and lead its fierce -citizens, Perugia would have been more potent than Urbino, -or Rimini, or Mantua, or Ferrara, perhaps a city of the first -rank, like Milan or Florence. Its rock made the whole city -a citadel, and it sits astride the road from Rome to the Alps, -with the fertile Vale of Umbria to provision it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Vale of Umbria below Assisi is only rivalled by the -shores of Lake Trasimene in the beauty of its women—we -know them from the pictures of Raphael, Perugino, and -Pinturricchio. I wish I could put its magic into words—the -nobility of its farm-houses, the soft grace of its orchards -and olive-gardens, its antique hermitages.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Summer in the Vale of Umbria was perfect, and certain of -its beauties were such as could only be seen in summer, like -the translucent sources of the Clitumnus, which, with their -lawny banks, remind you of the Twenty-third Psalm. I -would rather go and see them, below the tall poplars which are -a landmark across the plain, than the graceful little Roman -temple above them, which is a landmark for travellers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Foligno is only a walk from exquisite Spello, a city which -is a hill covered with Gothic houses. Foligno and the cities -on the hills round it are rich in great pictures by small -masters; but Spoleto is, after Perugia, the prize city of Umbria. -It is rich in monuments of all ages; in its walls it has -prehistoric masonry of three ages; it defied the assaults of -Hannibal; you can still see the house of Vespasian’s mother, -and other Roman monuments of the classic age; it is rich -in the handiwork of the forgotten centuries which followed; -it has a church built like a pagan temple in the fourth century -after Christ; it has the most stupendous aqueduct in Italy, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>carried across a valley from the hill of Groves, on arches -two hundred and fifty feet high; and a unique cathedral, -planted in the valley, like its other great church; it was the -capital of the only King of Italy who bore the title before -Victor Emmanuel. Standing on the hillside, embosomed in -groves, looking over the plain, in an amphitheatre of mountains, -Spoleto is a place which never leaves the memory.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We went straight from it to most famous cities—Gubbio -was not its equal, except when the sunset fired the façade of -its city hall, six hundred years old and three hundred feet -high; and Urbino, on its dizzy height, crowned with the -fantastic palace of Duke Frederick, is a prosaic place beside -it; Ravenna, for all its mosaiced churches, built by Justinian -and his successors, when the first millennium was half spent, -has no glory of site, nor has Rimini; Ancona has only its -site and its glorious Byzantine cathedral, on a green hill -between two seas.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We wandered from town to town such as these; we drove -all day from Rimini to San Marino, the castled eagle’s nest, -which is still an independent Republic; we went to Loreto -on the Virgin’s day, and saw peasants, who had come in -ox-carts from the recesses of the Apennines. We stood below -and above the stupendous waterfalls of Terni, the most -stupendous in Europe. But we saw no naturally nobler -city than Spoleto.</p> - -<p class='c016'>All that summer we wandered about the byways of Tuscany, -Umbria, Latium, and the March of Ancona. We hardly -ever saw an English face. We stayed for the most part in -humble native inns. It was a hot summer, even for Italy, -but we were not frightened by the heat from going where we -meant to go, nor by the fetish of malaria, for we stayed a -week at Ravenna in September. We never enjoyed ourselves -more in our lives. We tested an Italian summer fairly on -the hot plains and sun-baked hills. I needed the experience -to write <i>How to See Italy</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was a guide-book on a new principle. While I was writing -of the cities and scenery of Italy, generally I grouped them in -provinces, but I devoted other chapters to the hobbies of -travellers. I told the lover of paintings where all the best -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>paintings in Italy are to be found, and which places have the -richest galleries. I did the same for the lovers of architecture, -sculpture, mosaics, and scenery. I told the traveller how -to see all the principal sights of Italy by rail, without going -the same railway journey twice, and I tried to convert English -travellers to the delightful native inns of Italy, and I gave them -the prices of inns all over Italy.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The idea of the book was, briefly, to enable any one to -see at a glance which parts of Italy he ought to visit in pursuit -of his special studies. And I had three special chapters on -the changes in Rome, which have made all the old books on -Rome out of date.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we reached London in the late autumn, I found a -sad change in my father, who had reached the great age -of eighty-six. He had lost much of his memory, and very -often did not care to speak. He gradually failed, until one -night between Christmas and the New Year he passed away -quite peacefully, holding my hand.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I sold the house on Campden Hill—Phillimore Lodge—in -which he had lived for nearly fifty years, to Sir Walter Phillimore. -The estate was so burdened with legacies, made -while he was a much richer man, that I should have lost by -accepting my inheritance if I had not sold all the real estate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had no wish to live there. For years it had been my intention -to leave London when I no longer had my father to -consider. I wanted to go to some rural spot just outside -London, where I could have pleasure in being at home in the -summer months, because I like going abroad in the winter, -and you must make use of your house some time during the -year. At Addison Mansions we were only at home for a -month or two in some years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I set about looking for a new house almost immediately, -and after nearly taking an old Queen Anne mansion in the -Sheen Road, finally settled on the Avenue House, Richmond, -which stands in the north-west corner of the old Green, with -its front windows looking down the Avenue, and across the -Green to the Old Palace, and its back windows looking over -the old Deer Park and the Mid-Surrey Golf Club to the trees -of Kew Gardens. In the winter we can see a mile or two of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>grass and trees from those windows, and the river when the -tide is high. The house suited me perfectly; it had a charming -old-fashioned garden, with ancient trees, a cedar of Lebanon, -a mulberry, and an arbutus, which covers itself with flowers -and fruit, among them, besides two great wistarias and many -flowering laburnums, lilacs and hawthorns. I added rockeries -in the Sicilian style, and various features of a Japanese -garden.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The house had the further advantage of being only a few -minutes’ walk from the railway stations, from golf at Mid-Surrey, -and from one of the most beautiful reaches of the -Thames.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Here I have written the present book, <i>The Unholy Estate</i>, -<i>The Curse of the Nile</i>, and my parts of <i>Adam Lindsay Gordon -and His Friends in England and Australia</i>, and <i>Weeds</i>; and -I was here when <i>How to see Italy</i> was published.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was sorry in a way to say good-bye to Addison Mansions, -which had been my home during the most interesting years -of my life. I liked the rooms; I should have liked to transport -them to Richmond.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XIX<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>HOW I WROTE “WHO’S WHO”</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Of</span> all the books I have written, none have attracted more -attention than <i>Who’s Who</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Various biographical dictionaries of living persons were -in existence before the new <i>Who’s Who</i> appeared in 1897—<i>Men -of the Time</i>, <i>People of the Period</i>, and so on. But none -of them were annual, and none of them were published at a -popular price. I myself had attempted to get a cheap -annual biographical dictionary published, before A. & C. -Black came to me with their proposal about <i>Who’s Who</i>. I -put the idea into the hands of a literary agent for sale. It -was very much on the lines of <i>Who’s Who</i>, but not on so -ambitious a scale, and I thought that Sell, who has a Press -directory, might be likely to buy it. No one did buy it, -and when I told an interviewer, who came to get “copy” -out of me about <i>Who’s Who</i>, about it, that agent was wrong-headed -enough to think that I was trying to libel him, instead -of trying to claim originality for my idea.</p> - -<p class='c016'>However that may be, Adam Black, one day, when I was -talking to him about my novel, <i>A Japanese Marriage</i>, which -A. & C. Black had published, produced a copy of the old -<i>Who’s Who</i>, an insignificant pocket-peerage, of which he -had just purchased the rights, and asked if I could make anything -of it for the firm. Having made a synopsis of my own -idea for that literary agent to sell, I had it cut and dry, -and it was settled that I should do the book as soon as the -agreement could be drawn up. As events proved, it was drawn -up too hurriedly, for I signed it without insisting on the clause -which has gone into all my other agreements of the same kind—that, -in case the publishers wished to be released from the -agreement because the book was not as successful as they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>hoped, the book should become my property. I do not say -that the Blacks would have consented to the insertion of -this clause, but it is certain that I ought never to have signed -it without, because I put into it ideas, whose originality -and value has abundantly been proved since. It was agreed -that I should edit it for three years certain, but that if the -book was not successful by then the agreement should -terminate. At the end of the three years, they determined -that the book was not a success, and terminated the agreement. -At the time that I wrote this book there was no one in -London with the same knowledge as I had as to who should -be included in the book, because my three years’ work in -New York papers had made me take up biographical journalism—a -profession which did not exist in London till I brought -it over from America, and which never took permanent -root in England. In fact, it very soon withered out of -existence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is an odd fact that this book in its dried pippin form, -which went on for about half a century before it was expanded, -never struck the world as having a specially good title, till -Adam Black recognised its value, though now its title is -regarded as a stroke of genius.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“But how are you going to get the information?” he -asked, when I had detailed my formula for the biographies, -much the same as that which is used for <i>Who’s Who</i> now, -with the exception of the details about telephones and motors, -which were not part of English everyday life in 1897, and a -few other points which I ought to have thought of.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I shall make the people themselves give it.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“But will they ever do it?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I think so, if we give them proper forms to fill up, and -get a well-known peer and a well-known commoner to fill -up their forms as specimens before we send the others out.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You’ll have to tell them that you’re going to use their -biographies as specimens. I wish nothing to be done of which -anybody could complain.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the matter of the special stationery provided for the -purpose, the firm were extraordinarily liberal. They only -studied attractiveness, just as they had special type cast for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>setting up the book because none of the small types offered to -us were sufficiently beautiful. The selection of the long blue -envelopes, opening at the side, has an almost public interest. -Adam Black requested that we should leave the matter of -envelopes over until the following week, when he was to meet -Lord Rosebery on the yacht of his brother-in-law, George -Coates. When Lord Rosebery was asked what kind of -envelope he should treat with most respect in opening his -correspondence, Lord Rosebery pronounced in favour of this -particular form of long blue envelope, because it was used by -the Cabinet for their communications. So we adopted it, -and the first persons in official circles who received it may have -experienced a strange flutter of expectation, because we did -not in those days, I think, have the envelopes stamped -<i>Who’s Who</i>, lest they should defeat their object of being -taken for Cabinet communications.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Then came the question of whom we should invite to write -their biographies to be models for the biographies of other -people. I selected the Duke of Rutland for the peers, and -Mr. Balfour for the commoners. The Duke, both as Lord -John Manners and as Duke, had occupied one of the first -places in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen. He had filled -his place in the Cabinet with distinction; he had been the -typical aristocrat; his exquisite politeness had helped the -democracy to forgive him for writing “Let Wealth and -Commerce ... die. But give us still our old nobility.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I wrote to ask him to fill the biographical form, which I had -drawn up, to be the model for other members of the peerage, -and with his usual consideration, he acceded. Then I wrote -to Mr. Balfour to ask him to write his biography, to be a model -for the untitled. The only title he bore was so proud that -we usually, as I did then, forget to reckon it among titles—the -“Right Honourable.” Mr. Balfour, too, acceded, and -he was particularly suitable, because, in addition to being the -first man in the House of Commons, recreation had a real -meaning in his case, since he was known to be an inveterate -golfer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The idea of adding “recreations” to the more serious -items which had been included in previous biographical -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>dictionaries was adopted at one of the councils of war -which we used to hold in the partners’ room of A. & C. -Black, at 4 Soho Square. And for selling purposes it -proved far and away the best idea in the whole book, when it -was published. The newspapers were never tired of quoting -the recreations of eminent people, thus giving the book a -succession of advertisements of its readability, and shop-keepers -who catered for their various sports bought the book -to get the addresses of the eminent people, who were, many -of them, very indignant at the Niagara of circulars which -resulted.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I wonder if many people remember the old <i>Who’s Who?</i>—a -little red 32mo, which looked something like the Infantry -Manual with its clasp knocked off. It was a sort of badly kept -index to the Peerage, as futile as an 1840 Beauty Book. -We turned it into a dictionary of biography for living people, -and we made it eternally interesting by persuading the people -whom we included in it to give us their favourite recreations. -I chose (from an un-annual biographical dictionary edited by -Humphry Ward) the type, which had to be specially cast -for it; I chose the people who deserved to be included in it; -I drafted the letters and the forms to be filled up, which were -sent to each person; and I persuaded those two very eminent -men to be the bell-wethers for persuading other people to -fill up their forms, an idea which was crowned with success. -The late Duke of Rutland’s and Mr. Balfour’s fillings up of -the forms were printed at the heads of the forms sent out to -other people, and few people objected to following where they -had led the way. But among these few recalcitrants were -Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, and most naval officers. -Army officers, on the other hand, were generally very obliging. -Architects and literary men filled up their forms best, -artists and actresses worst, though actors were almost as -bad. You would have thought that the actual formation -of the letters in framing a reply was a torture to artists, -actors and naval officers. The actresses, if you had compiled -the biographies by interview, would have asked for two columns -each.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Many people thought it necessary to write me rude letters, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>demanding what right I had to intrude upon their privacy, -and ordering me not to include their names. To one of them, -the head of an Oxford College, I wrote, “Dear Sir, If you had -not been head of —— College, no one would have dreamt of -including you, but since you are, you will have to go in whether -you like it or not.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The late Duke of Devonshire said that his recreation had -formerly been hunting. One man said that he did not see -how the ownership of four hundred and fifty thousand acres -made him a public person. A prominent authoress first -of all refused to fill up her form at all. I wrote to tell her -that in that case I should have to fill it up for her. She -showed no concern about this until I sent her a proof of the -biography, in which I made her out ten years older than she -really was, and said that I meant to insert the biography in -that form unless there was anything she wished to correct. -She then corrected it, and added so much that it would have -taken the whole column if I had inserted all she sent.</p> - -<p class='c016'>W. S. Gilbert wrote the rudest letter of anybody. He said -he was always being pestered by unimportant people for -information about himself. So I put him down in the book -as “Writer of Verses and the libretti to Sir Arthur Sullivan’s -comic operas.” He then wrote me a letter of about a thousand -words, in which he asked me if that was the way to treat a -man who had written seventy original dramas. Next year -he filled up his form as readily as a peer’s widow who has -married a commoner.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bernard Shaw said in 1897 that his favourite recreations -were cycling and showing off, and informed the world that -he was of middle-class family, was not educated at all -“academically,” and coming to London when he was twenty, -for many years could obtain no literary recognition, even to -the extent of employment as a journalist.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But the most humorous experience I had in connection -with <i>Who’s Who</i> was when I succeeded in bringing a certain -actor-manager to book. He had repeatedly promised to -fill in his form, and failed to do so, when I found myself next -to him at a public dinner to which we had both been invited. -“Why did you not send me that biography?” I asked him, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>and he said, “Well, the real reason is that I thought I should -have to say how damned badly I have behaved to my wife.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The book was a complete literary success; the newspapers -gave it column reviews, chiefly consisting of the unsuitable -recreations of prominent people.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I edited it, <i>Who’s Who</i> contained a great deal of -information besides the biographies, such as lists of peculiarly -pronounced proper names, keys to the pseudonyms of prominent -people, names of the editors of the principal papers. -Some of the real names were so unreasonable that people wrote -to know why they were not included in the lists of pseudonyms; -one of these was Sir Louis Forget.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ascertaining the correct pronunciation of peculiar names -was very diverting; there was such a divergence of opinion -among people of Scottish birth about words like “Brechin.” -I was bewailing their egotism to the late Lord Southesk, -when he said, “I have been collecting peculiarly pronounced -Scottish names and their proper pronunciation for years. -You can have my list.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I thanked him and gladly inserted them all. A very good -friend of mine, the late Hugh Maclaughlan, who was sub-editor -of the <i>Star and Leader</i>, in reviewing the book over his own -name, found great fault with my Cockney pronunciation -of the Scottish names. I do not know to this day whether -he was serious, or, as schoolboys say, “pulling my leg,” and -in any case, I did not mind, but Lord Southesk was furious.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Tell Mr. Maclaughlan,” he said, “that I am the man whom -he called a Cockney, and that my ancestor commanded the -Highlanders at the battle of Harlaw.” Harlaw was the last -great battle between the Highlanders and the Lowlanders, -and was fought in the year 1411.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the funniest entries in the book was made by a -famous authoress, who wrote in her biography “she is at -present unmarried.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the most amusing experiences I had when I was -editor of <i>Who’s Who</i> was my receiving a message from a -Mrs. Williams or Williamson, asking me to call on her upon -a matter of great importance. I imagined that at the very -least Queen Victoria (Mrs. Williams was supposed to have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>influence in such matters) had deputed her to offer me a -knighthood. At any rate, from the tone of her letter, it -ought to have been a considerable advantage of some sort -which was to be bestowed upon me. I was not much flustered -because the lady had not the reputation of giving anything -for nothing. But I own I was rather taken aback when I -was shown into her den, and she said, “I sent for you because -Mrs. Dotheboy Tompkins”—or some such name—nobody of -the slightest importance—“wishes you to put her into -<i>Who’s Who</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I said, “The only answer I can give you is that I do not -consider Mrs. Tompkins of sufficient importance. I don’t -know how you will break this to her. Good-afternoon.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was such colossal impertinence, her sending for me instead -of writing to me, though that would have been bad enough, -that I was determined not to spare her.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XX<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>AUSTRALIANS IN LITERATURE</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>As</span> I lived four or five years in Australia, and have written -various books upon Australian poets, and as both my wife -and my son are Victorians by birth, it is natural for me to -devote a chapter to Australians in literature whom I have -known, counting both people from the Old Country who -became Australians by residence, and those who were born -or educated in Australia, though their writing career has -been in England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I never met either Gordon or Kendall—Adam Lindsay -Gordon and Henry Clarence Kendall, the twin stars of -Australian poetry, naturally come first to one’s mind in -writing of Australian literature, because poetry in Australia, -as usual, preceded prose as an art.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Gordon, whose nephew, Henry Ratti, living in London, -had just placed himself in communication with me in a -couple of long letters, and invited me to lunch when he died -so prematurely, had been dead for nearly ten years before -I landed in Australia. But Kendall did not die till I had -been in Australia for nearly three years. I was in Victoria -when he died; I think I had actually been appointed to the -Chair of Modern History in the University of Sydney before -it happened, so I missed him by a very narrow margin. -So little stir did his death cause in Victoria that I never -even heard of it, and imagined that he had been dead for -years, though he wrote lyrics only excelled in music by -Shelley’s, Swinburne’s and Poe’s in the whole of English -literature. Yet he had visited Melbourne, and was, in -fact, there and in the company of Gordon the very day -before his rival died. Kendall, unlike Gordon, was Australian -born.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>Far the greatest author born on Australian soil is, of -course, Mrs. Humphry Ward, a Tasmanian by birth, though -Australia had long passed out of her life before she wrote. -“Tasma” was also a Tasmanian by birth, and “George -Egerton,” whose father, Captain Dunne, fought in the New -Zealand war, was born in Melbourne.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Campbell Praed, on the other hand, was not only -born in Queensland, the daughter of a prominent Queensland -politician, Thomas Lodge Murray Prior, but has gone to her -native land for the scene of her brilliant novels. Ill-health -kept her from coming often to Addison Mansions, where she -had a double claim to literary homage, for, apart from her -own eminence as a novelist, she has a matrimonial connection -with William Mackworth Praed, the brilliant novelist -and father of Society Poetry.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Rolf Boldrewood, though born in London, has been so -long in Australia that he almost counts as a Colonial -(Australian born) rather than a Colonist (settler). He went -to the old Sydney College in New South Wales more than -seventy years ago, and though he spent the greater part of -his life as a Police Magistrate and Warden of the gold-fields -in New South Wales, began life as one of the pioneer squatters -of Victoria. His experiences gave him a rich equipment for -writing tales of wild life in the old Colonial days, like <i>Robbery -Under Arms</i>, with which he made such a huge reputation in -1888. I remember him as a writer ten years before that, -when he used to send a weekly <i>causerie</i> to the <i>Australasian</i>, -admirably written under his famous pseudonym. I believe -that he used to call it “Under the Greenwood Tree.” He had -already written and published the novel which he afterwards -called <i>The Squatter’s Dream</i>. It was a thin paper volume, -a sort of cross between our sixpennies and the French three -francs fifty coverless novels, and it was called in those days -<i>Ups and Downs</i>. It was a true story; it dealt with the ups -and downs of the famous Mossgiel Station, which made -John Simson’s great fortune, and the ruin by drought of -the De Salis brothers who had the station before him. It -was published anonymously. Rolf Boldrewood’s real name -is Thomas Alexander Browne. His mother was a Miss -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>Alexander. Both the Brownes and the Alexanders were -huge men; Rolf’s brother, Sylvester Browne, was the tallest -man in Australia, a couple of inches taller than my uncle, -Sir Charles (who was just under six foot six, and I think may -have owed some of his influence in the early days to his -great stature). The Brownes were not only very tall, but -very strongly-built men. Their adventurousness took them -to West Australia, where they made large fortunes during -the mining boom.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Guy Boothby and Louis Becke, on the other hand, both -much younger men, were real Colonials, Becke having been -born at Port Macquarie, New South Wales, and Boothby at -Adelaide, where his father was a member of Parliament and -his grandfather a Judge. That did not prevent him from -leading the wildest life. At one time he was an explorer and -crossed Australia from north to south. At another time he -was stoker on a tramp steamer trading between Singapore -and Borneo. He “struck oil” with the detective stories of -Dr. Nikola, which the <i>Windsor Magazine</i> ran in opposition -to Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in the <i>Strand Magazine</i>, -and at one time was making nine thousand a year out of his -writing. I remember his chartering an eight hundred ton -steam yacht, and he had some wonderful prize dogs at the -Manor House, close to the Kempton Park racecourse, in -which he lived.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Becke was never so fortunate in his earnings, though he -was a far superior writer. He acquired his wonderful knowledge -of the Australian coast and the South Sea Islands as -supercargo of one of the schooners which trade between -the islands and Sydney. He was one of Fisher Unwin’s -discoveries, and came very near achieving a <i>Kidnapped</i> -and <i>Treasure Island</i> success, for which, as far as first-hand -knowledge was concerned, he was infinitely better equipped -than Stevenson.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frank Bullen, Becke’s rival in South Sea knowledge, was -not an Australian, but born in Paddington. Like Becke, he -was in the Merchant Service. I have more to say about him -in another chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ada Cambridge, who was for a long time the best-known -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>novel-writer in Australia, was born in Norfolk, and spent -all her time in East Anglia till she married the Rev. J. F. -Cross, and sailed with him to Australia in 1870, the year of -Adam Lindsay Gordon’s death. She published her first -novel about seven years later. Cambridge was her maiden -name.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ethel Turner, Mrs. H. R. Curlewis, is another of the few -Australian authors living in Australia who have had large -publics in England. As a reviewer, I hailed with delight her -first books, <i>Seven Little Australians</i> and <i>The Family at Mis-Rule</i>, -and prophesied the wide and continuous success which -she has attained with her stories of child life in Australia. -Mrs. Curlewis was born in Yorkshire, but she has lived in -Sydney ever since I can remember.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frances Campbell (Mrs. Howard Douglas Campbell), the -author of <i>Love the Atonement</i>, <i>The Two Queenslanders</i>, and -other novels, married a cousin of the late Duke of Argyll, who -was out in Queensland, and commenced writing at his Grace’s -suggestion. In point of fact, she came to us with a letter of -introduction from him. Since then she has been an active -and successful journalist, doing several special journeys -abroad as correspondent for the great London dailies. She -is not to be confused with Mrs. Vere Douglas Campbell, the -mother of Marjorie Bowen, who is also a novelist. I made -the mistake myself once.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Mannington Caffyn, who under the pseudonym of -“Iota” wrote the famous <i>A Yellow Aster</i>, was a beautiful -and spirited Irish girl, the daughter of a country gentleman, -who took to hospital nursing as a profession, and married a -doctor, whose ill-health drove him to Australia. Her life -there was full of hard experiences, but she did not make a -mark in literature till her return to England. Andrew Lang -was struck with the extraordinary ability of <i>A Yellow -Aster</i>, and urged with all his influence one of the old classical -publishing houses to bring it out, but in vain. Hutchinson -saw his opportunity, accepted the book, advertised it with -genius, and made a colossal success of it. Other successes -followed, so real that she was able to send her growing boys -to a crack public school. Another novelist not born in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>Australia, but resident there for some years, was “Rita,” -who was educated in Sydney.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Countess von Arnim, author of a delightful series of -books from <i>Elizabeth and Her German Garden</i> to <i>Fraulein -Schmidt</i> and <i>Mr. Anstruther</i>, was an Australian born, the -daughter of Mr. Herron Beauchamp.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Haddon Chambers, one of my earliest literary friends in -London, though I have seen little of him for many years, I -met because we came from Australia at about the same time. -He was born near Sydney, of Irish parents, and was for a -while in the New South Wales Civil Service, like his father -before him. Feeling, as I did, that Australia was no place -for a literary career, he visited England when he was twenty, -and returned to England for good when he was twenty-two, -a handsome, alert, indomitable Australian boy. He looked -very boyish in those days. Beginning life in England as a -journalist and story-writer, he suddenly took London by -storm with his play, <i>Captain Swift</i>. Captain Swift was -one of the greatest parts which Beerbohm-Tree has created, -and from that time forward Chambers became one of the -dramatists who count.</p> - -<p class='c016'>To my mind, the best author living in Australia at the -present moment is the Rev. William Henry Fitchett, -President of the General Conference of the Methodist Church -of Australia, editor of a magazine and a weekly newspaper, -and Principal of a ladies’ college in Melbourne. He made -his name with a series of remarkable books about the exploits -of the British army—writing at first under the pseudonym -of “Vedette.” Few men have ever written so brilliantly -or so sympathetically on the subject as the author of <i>Fights -for the Flag</i> and <i>Deeds that Won the Empire</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A. B. Paterson, the poet who wrote “The Man from Snowy -River,” is an Australian by birth and residence. He is -another of the few Australian authors who have a vogue in -England without ever having lived there. He is recognised -not only as one of the chief poets of Australia, but as a -publicist. He is a solicitor by profession.</p> - -<p class='c016'>W. H. Ogilvy, the best living Australian poet, was not -born in Australia, nor does he live there now, but he spent -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>many years in the Australian bush, and caught its spirit -better than any poet except Adam Lindsay Gordon.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Countess of Darnley, who wrote some fiction a few -years ago, was the beauty of Melbourne when I was there -in the ’eighties. Lord Darnley met her when he came out -to Australia with one of the English cricket elevens. He -was then the Hon. Ivo Bligh, a name which will never be -forgotten in the history of sport.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The charming and elegant Eleanor Mordaunt, author of -<i>Lu of the Ranges</i>, the best novel ever written about hardships -in Australia, is English by birth.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“<i>Lu of the Ranges</i>,” says a <i>nil admirari</i> Australian newspaper, -whose editor could not have known that she was born -in England, “is a notable contribution to Australian literature.... -It is solidly constructed, finely written, frank to -the verge of brutality, and inherently Australian. Lu, -pictured on the cover by the fool illustrator as a charming -English maiden, is a drab and very human girl of the backwoods, -who, to the end of her life, could not speak grammatically. -Her language is the sort that looks neater -printed with a dash; and she has a temper of her own. A -hard, glittering, valiant personality, whom life teaches to -take care of herself ‘on her own.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“A veritable child of the bush, she was inured alike to -heat and cold, to hard work and a spare diet, to an almost -incredible isolation.... For the children of the bush are, -above all things, old, like the primitive forms of vegetation, -the wistful-eyed, prehistoric animals which are with their -fellows. When they grow up and find their way to the -cities, they blossom into a splendid youth, which never again -quite leaves them; or else, scared and bewildered, they creep -back again to the wild places whence they came. But to -the irresponsible gaiety of childhood they are for ever -strangers.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was the outcome of the seven years of struggles, more -than once coming perilously near starvation, which she had -in the colony of Victoria. Some of her short stories are good -enough for Rudyard Kipling. That she has not assumed her -place in the front rank of novelists is due only to the immense -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>barriers to recognition which have to be surmounted owing -to the mountains of fiction which are cast up every year, and -stand between the new writer and fame.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Eleanor Mordaunt about her life in -Australia she said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“In Australia I edited a woman’s paper, and made -gardens, and blouses for tea-room girls, and worked in an -engineer’s shop at metal work, and was four times carried -into public hospitals for dying. I never had a penny in the -bank—and more than once not in the world. Once I lay in -bed for three days because I had nothing to eat. Then -came thirty pounds for a manuscript of essays from <i>Lothian</i> -of Melbourne (published 1909 under the title of <i>Rosemary</i>), -and seven pounds a woman owed me for painting her a set -of silk curtains, and two pounds for <i>The Garden of Contentment</i>, -and I got up and went out and bought a pound of -chops, and cooked and ate them all. I did all my housework -at night, and all the washing.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“In Leek this time I lived on fifteen shillings a week with -the weavers, and knew no one else except the two daughters -of the Trade Union secretary, and never had so much love -and kindness in my life. The book comes out next autumn, -and is called <i>Bellamy</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mary Gaunt, the novelist and traveller, was born and -brought up in Victoria. Her father was a well-known -judge in the Colony. She had met with considerable success -in journalism before she left the Melbourne University.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Dr. George Ernest Morrison, who made himself so famous -as correspondent of <i>The Times</i> in Peking, was, as I have said -elsewhere, a fellow-student and friend of mine at the -Melbourne University, and has been a great friend ever -since. It was I who persuaded Horace Cox to publish his -<i>An Australian in China</i>, the only book he has ever published, -though I myself conveyed to him an offer of a thousand -pounds on account for a book about China before the Allied -Powers invaded it. He was unwilling to enter into a contract, -and the matter dropped. He has since then resigned -his position on <i>The Times</i>, and become English adviser to -the Government of China. His book on China, whenever -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>it does come, will be read all over the world, because no -European has ever understood Chinese politics as well as -he has.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His knowledge of the country Chinese, the two hundred -million toiling agricultural poor, is just as extraordinary. -His gigantic journeys across China have given him a chance -of seeing them as no other Anglo-Saxon, and probably no -other white man, ever has seen them. His first journey -was from Shanghai to Rangoon by land in 1894, which he -accomplished at a cost of eighteen pounds, and on which -he went unarmed, as usual. That is the journey described -in <i>An Australian in China</i>. His second was from Bangkok -in Siam to Yunnan city in China and round Tonquin in 1896; -his third across Manchuria from Stretensk in Siberia to -Vladivostok; his fourth from Peking to the border of Tonquin; -his fifth from Honan city in Central China across Asia -to Andijan in Russian Turkestan, nearly four thousand miles.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Morrison, whenever he came back to England from the -East, used to come straight to Addison Mansions. One night -he turned up about 10 p.m.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“How long have you been in London?” I asked.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“About two hours.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The hero of so many striking adventures (in which most -people would feel inclined to include the siege of Peking, -for he was badly wounded in it, and without his leadership -the city would have fallen) is, though his bushy hair has -turned snow-white, singularly youthful-looking. His rounded -clean-shaven face has not a line or a wrinkle from its long -sojourn under Eastern suns. His blue eye has a merry -twinkle in it which gives his face a humorous expression when -it is not hardened for action. Those who have seen him in -a crisis, know how stern and resolute and uncompromising -it can be. He has a slim, active figure.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Just before he was appointed <i>Times</i> correspondent in -China, I approached Sir Henry Norman, who was at that -time one of the editors of the <i>Daily Chronicle</i>, and whom -I knew, to try and get the proprietors of that paper to give -him a similar appointment in China, or in some country -where Spanish is spoken, for Morrison speaks Spanish fluently. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>I enumerated all the qualifications which immediately -afterwards led <i>The Times</i> to make the best appointment -they made since De Blowitz. At the end of it Norman just -said with a cold smile, “Oh, all your geese are swans,” and -changed the subject. I wondered if he ever let the proprietors -of the <i>Chronicle</i> know what a goose they had lost, -and whom they could have secured for quite a moderate -salary. To his honour be it known, that Moberly Bell, of -<i>The Times</i>, recognised Morrison’s value the moment the -young doctor approached him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Morrison’s middle fame was of a quite unusual sort. His -walk across Australia without money and without arms had -been a nine days’ wonder. His gallant explorations in New -Guinea, culminating in his being brought home with a barbed -wooden spear-head inside him, and being sent on to Edinburgh -because no one in Australia could extract it, made -him a celebrity in Scotland as well as Melbourne. But -when Prof. Chiene extracted the spear-head successfully, -Morrison’s exploits, for the time being, were lost sight of in -those of the great surgeon, and he became known as “Chiene’s -case.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>G. W. Rusden, the only important historian of New -Zealand and Australia till Henry Gyles Turner’s book appeared, -I knew very well. We lived together, until I was -married, at Cotmandene, Punt Road, South Yarra, a suburb -of Melbourne. In fact, I was married from there. He had -for many years been clerk of the Parliaments in Melbourne, -and was actually engaged in writing his histories when we -were living together. He was a strange mixture in his -sentiments—a violent Tory in everything except where -natives were concerned. But he was even more violent as -an advocate for coloured people. At that time the Maories -were giving a good deal of trouble in New Zealand, and -Bryce, the Minister for Native Affairs, showed great resolution -and capacity in dealing with them. This infuriated -Rusden, who, partly from the yellow journals in New Zealand, -and partly from Sir George Grey, who had been Governor and -afterwards Premier of the Colony, gleaned a farrago of libels, -accusing Bryce of murdering native women and children. He -<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>showed these reports to me triumphantly. At the risk of -losing his friendship, for he was very touchy, I begged him -not to make any use of these materials, which appeared to -me patently false. But he persisted in inserting portions -of them. Years afterwards, when both he and I were living -in England, Bryce brought an action for libel against him in -the London Courts on these very grounds. Rusden went to -my uncle’s firm, Sladen and Wing, as his solicitors, on account -of his friendship with my other uncle, Sir Charles. My -cousin told me about it. “Well,” I said, “make him pay -anything to keep it out of court. I was living with him -when he wrote that part of his history, and saw the materials, -and he hasn’t a leg to stand on.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>But Rusden was a great deal too stubborn to compromise—and -the verdict against him was five thousand pounds -damages.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Turner also is an old friend of mine. He was long manager -of the Commercial Bank in Melbourne, and was one of the -founders and editors of the <i>Melbourne Review</i>. He and the -late Alexander Sutherland, who was a schoolmaster, wrote -the excellent book on Australian literature which has been -the foundation of all subsequent works on the subject, -especially in the matter of our knowledge of Adam Lindsay -Gordon.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And here I must mention my two closest Australian -literary friends—Arthur Patchett Martin and Margaret -Thomas. Margaret Thomas, who was brought up in -Australia, though she was actually born in England, began -life as a sculptor. She won the silver medal of the Royal -Academy, and executed, among other public works, the -memorial to Richard Jefferies in Salisbury Cathedral, and -the memorials to various Somerset celebrities in the Somerset -Valhalla, founded by the Kinglakes at Taunton. She was -so successful also as a portrait painter that she was able to -retire with a competency, and devote the rest of her life -to travel and book-writing. She has written travel-books -on Syria, Spain and Morocco, and hand-books on painting -and sculpture. Probably no one living has such a wide -knowledge of the picture-galleries of the Continent.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>Patchett Martin was born at Woolwich, but went to -Australia at an early age, and was educated at the Melbourne -Grammar School and University. He helped to found, and -edited the <i>Melbourne Review</i>, and was intimately associated -with the theatre, because his sister married Garner, the -principal theatrical impresario of Australia. He settled in -London in 1882, and practically introduced Adam Lindsay -Gordon’s poems to their popularity in England, where they -had been neglected except for the reviews and articles which -appeared in <i>Baily’s Magazine</i>, about the time of Gordon’s -death a dozen years before. While editor of the <i>Melbourne -Review</i>, Martin was among the very first to “boom” Robert -Louis Stevenson, who was his model in his own delightful -poems and essays. His big, burly form and hot, good-humoured -face were very familiar in the Savage Club in the -’eighties.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Australian authors in London centre round the Royal -Colonial Institute, and the <i>British Australasian</i>, the editor of -which, Mr. Chomley, is the secretary of the literary circle at -the Royal Colonial Institute, which meets on Thursday -nights, and has most interesting papers and discussions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Both the former librarian (my old friend, J. R. Boosè, -who is now the secretary) and the present, P. Evans Lewin, -who was for a brief period the chief librarian of South -Australia, have kept the track of nearly every book which -has been published about Australia or by an Australian, -and Australian authors and journalists make a regular club -of the Institute when they are in London.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXI<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART I</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>By</span> far the greater number of my literary friends have been -novelists. I have counted no less than two hundred and -seventy male novelists who have visited us at Addison -Mansions, and I have no doubt that I have forgotten enough -to bring the number up to three hundred.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of Walter Besant, a short sturdy man, with a bushy brown -beard and blue eyes behind spectacles, which could be -very merry or very indignant, I have spoken elsewhere. -Besant, who pronounced his name with the accent on the -second syllable (it is said because people always pronounced -the famous theosophist’s name with the accent on the first -syllable, though the recollection of its Byzantine etymology -may also have guided him), was very outspoken. He could -not abide the famous Annie Besant; he considered that she -was a millstone about his brother’s neck, and made no bones -over saying so. That brother was a master at Cheltenham -College when I first went there. But I do not remember if -I ever saw Mrs. Besant there, though we saw the masters’ -wives as a body in the College Chapel every Sunday morning. -Another matter on which he was outspoken was his repulsion -for George Eliot—not her works, but her personality. He once -said to me that her head reminded him of a horse’s, and on -another occasion said that no woman’s face had ever struck -him as more sensual.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His own personality was splendid. He was so genial, -though such a fighter; he was so splendidly full of energy, -so quick to catch on to ideas, so masterful and wide-grasping -in carrying them out; so absolutely friendly; such a good -enemy, and so astonishingly warm-hearted. I never had a -greater personal feeling of respect and affection for any great -man than for Besant.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>All the world knows how much he effected for authors, -and how much he sacrificed for them. He made as large an -income as any great novelist of his time, but he might have -made much more and lived another twenty years, if he had -not slaved for his brother authors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>George Meredith, who succeeded him as head of the literary -craft, was never at Addison Mansions, though his daughter -came twice with Lady Palmer. I only had the privilege -of knowing him towards the end of his life, when his time -and his health were far too precious to be spent on going to -at-homes, though he was very kind about having younger -authors introduced to him at the parties which Lady Palmer -gave in his honour when he was staying with her. Once -seen, George Meredith could never be forgotten. You were -delighted to find that a man who had created a literature -within a literature, the writer who by common acclaim is -the greatest of all English novelists, was so rare and impressive -in his appearance and speech. His face was singularly -beautiful in its old age, surmounted by a fleece of snow-white -hair, and illuminated by bright blue eyes, absolutely clear. -He was, of course, an excellent talker, and both his voice -and his way of using it were strikingly emphatic. There -are few old men whom I have met to whom I should so -unhesitatingly apply the word majestic. The whole face, -with its well-trimmed beard and unexaggerated features, -reminded me of the bearded Zeus in the group of the three -gods on the frieze of the Parthenon.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was very gracious also to young authors, though it -must have been a severe tax on him to have so many worshippers -introduced to him. For George Meredith was not -a man like Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lady whom I introduced -to him began, “It must bore you terribly, Dr. Holmes, -to have everybody who is introduced to you telling you how -they admire your books.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“On the contrary, madame,” he said gallantly, “I can -never get enough of it. I am the vainest man alive.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>On the same occasion Holmes told me that he had been -unable to do any writing (except his short <i>Hundred Days in -Europe</i>) for years, because his entire time was taken up with -answering complimentary letters.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>Hardy did come to 32 Addison Mansions, Hardy who -has received the Order of Merit, and is proposed for next -year’s Nobel prize for literature, as the head of the literary -craft, one of the great masters of English fiction. I am very -proud to have known Thomas Hardy; he is not only so great, -but so silent and reserved, that it is not easy to know him. -I have met him often, but seldom seen him talking, except -very quietly to an intimate friend. He has generally been -on the edge of a crowd, observing—we have the fruits of that -profound observation in his novels. That slight figure, -that melancholy face, with the watchful eyes, was always -a cynosure, for Hardy has been the object of unbounded -admiration for many years. I remember his being the bright -particular star about whom the late Lady Portsmouth was -always talking at her house-parties at Eggesford, where I -stayed, as far back as 1885.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have a letter from him which is one of my most treasured -literary possessions. He wrote it to me to explain his point -in introducing the passage about the slaughtered pig after -I had reviewed <i>Jude, the Obscure</i>, at considerable length and -with minute criticism in the <i>Queen</i>. I have alluded to his -almost equal eminence as a poet in another chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is natural to couple Hall Caine with Thomas Hardy, for -both of them were brought up as architects, though they -turned to literature, and reached the topmost rung.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Hall Caine has been an intimate friend of mine for many -years. Our friendship began before he was a novelist, in -the days when he was a critic of the <i>Athenæum</i> and the -<i>Academy</i>, and an editor of poetry. His sending me <i>The -Sonnets of Three Centuries</i> in the year in which he lost -his housemate, the poet and artist, Dante Rossetti, was the -beginning of our friendship. He began publishing novels in -1885, and two years later leapt into the front rank of novelists -with his magnificent <i>Deemster</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After my return from America I began to see more and -more of him. He became a director of the Authors’ Club, -of which I was Honorary Secretary, and one of the chief -speakers at the New Vagabonds Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In 1894 he reached, with <i>The Manxman</i>, the height of fame, -at which he has since continued. I prophesied its enormous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>success in a long review of it, which I wrote for the <i>Queen</i>, -which came out simultaneously with the publication of the -book. We were in Rome together at the time that he was -writing the <i>Eternal City</i>, and in Egypt together while he was -writing <i>The White Prophet</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>No one could be in the presence of Hall Caine for five -minutes without knowing that he was in the presence of a -remarkable man. His resemblance to Shakespeare is extraordinary, -not only in the dome-like expanse of his forehead -and the Elizabethan slope of his beard, but in the burning -eyes and the shape of the eyecups. He looks the genius -that he is.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Hall Caine has always had the merit of being highly -approachable and affectionate, and if his conversation is -apt to centre round the work he is doing, it is always most -interesting and pregnant.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At Rome, for instance, where I very often had lunch with -him in his flat at Trinità del Monte, overlooking the city, -and went for walks with him, he was very full of the Vatican, -where he constantly went to see certain cardinals, who were -most indiscreet in their confidences.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was intimate with the Italian Government, too. I -met various members of the Cabinet at his table, and one of -them, Ferraris, then Postmaster-General, as well as editor -of the <i>Antologia Nuova</i>, has done me many acts of friendship -since.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Jerome’s neighbour in those days, Joseph Hatton (than -whom there could have been no more striking contrast to -him), was one of his and my dearest friends. There were -few men so dear to their friends as Joe Hatton. He had an -enormous circle of them in literature, and on the stage, and -so won their hearts with his geniality and loyalty that they -forgot how eminent he was, and treated him as a brother. -But Joe Hatton, in addition to the vast amount of work he -did as editor and critic, wrote some of the best novels of his -day. I can see him now as he so often came to our house, -a rather small man with a brown beard, a lift of the chin, -a ready smile, and such very bright sympathetic brown eyes. -He used to bring his pretty little daughter with him before -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>she was grown up. How proud he was of her first successes -on the stage, and the fairy-book she wrote! He had a house -with a very nice garden in St. John’s Wood, where he gave -parties at which one met all the leading actors and actresses -of the day. They could always spare time for a reception -at Hatton’s, as actors always stopped for a word with him -at the Garrick Club on Saturday nights.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of Doyle, Kipling and Barrie, Anthony Hope and Frankfort -Moore, I have spoken in another chapter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Stanley Weyman was such a rare visitor to London that -he was not often at our house. But I have corresponded -with him a good deal. I knew when I made <i>A Gentleman of -France</i> my book of the week in <i>To-day</i>, and hailed the author -as an historical novelist of the first rank, on what a solid basis -his work rested, for we were at Oxford at the same time, -and he took his First in History almost in the same term as -I took mine. He is a very fair man, with an eyeglass, much -more like a soldier than an author.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Poor Crockett, a big tall man, with a fair beard, the type -of the Saxons who fought against the Conqueror at Hastings, -was not very often in London, but when he was there, he -was a conspicuous figure at our at-homes. We had many -tastes in common, including Italy. Crockett asked my -advice when the question arose of his giving up the ministry. -He was at that time Free Church minister of Penicuik, a -little place in Midlothian, with a salary, as far as I remember, -of a hundred or two a year, but as an author was making -a thousand or two a year, and able to earn a good deal more -if he could save the time which he had to devote to his clerical -work. His congregation were aghast at the idea of losing -their beloved minister just as he had sprung into Anglo-Saxon -fame, and, with Scottish casuistry, represented to -him that it would be wrong for him to neglect the work -of the Lord for any worldly object. Crockett thought, and I -agreed with him, and decided him, that he would be more -certain of doing good if he allowed some man to whom the -minister’s stipend was necessary to be minister of Penicuik, -while he did his teaching and his preaching with his pen.</p> - -<p class='c016'>F. W. Robinson’s short, thick-set figure, and heavy moustache, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>were as conspicuous. It is strange how soon poor -Robinson has been forgotten. His work was popular with -readers, and treated with respect by critics, and he was one -of the bigwigs at literary clubs and receptions, but with his -death all memory of him seemed to pass away, except among -his old friends.</p> - -<p class='c016'>G. A. Henty, on the other hand, though he has been dead -for years now, seems to stand before us still, with his great -beard, his great pipe, his great body, and his breezy personality. -Henty loved clubs and literary gatherings. The -Savage was his particular stronghold, when he had said -good-bye to war-correspondenting in distant lands. He was -the typical chairman there, with his Father Christmas beard, -and his volumes of smoke, and his bluff personality. He -had been as popular among his fellow-correspondents. Was -it not Henty who lost his only pair of boots, when the British -army marched into some capital (I think it was King Theodore’s -in Abyssinia), and took his place in the triumph in -carpet slippers, riding on a pony?</p> - -<p class='c016'>Henty’s work as a war-correspondent gave him the copy -for those wonderful books which made him the boys’ Dumas. -He was a great personality, and, as I saw, on the only two -occasions when I ran across him in a crisis, a born ruler of -men.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He often came across from his house on Clapham Common -to our at-homes, and looked like a strayed Viking, or a master-mariner, -among the other authors and authoresses. Sailing -was his hobby.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Speaking of Abyssinia, it is natural to me to mention -Prince Alamayu—Ali, as we used to call him. He was sent -to Cheltenham College, so that he might live in the house of -Jex-Blake, then Principal of Cheltenham, and afterwards -head master of Rugby and Dean of Wells. Of all the head -masters of his time, Jex-Blake had the most considerable -reputation as a courtier and a man of the world. Alamayu -was brought to England after the capture of Magdala, and -came to Cheltenham in 1872, when he was eleven years old. -He was just a royal savage when he came to Cheltenham; -if he was hot, he took his coat off and threw it on the ground, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>and left it. He had no tutor to go about with him; he just -mixed with the boys in the ordinary way. And at first he -had the cruelties of his bringing-up; he once, for instance, -pushed a small boy into the water to see the splash he would -make. But he soon got cured of this, for Jex-Blake wisely -left him to fight his own battles, and though a sense of chivalry -made the boys very indulgent to the poor little orphaned -black, they soon let him know that bullying was not to be -one of his privileges, though almost anything else was treated -as a joke.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When Jex-Blake went to Rugby, Alamayu went with him, -and thence, when he was eighteen, he went to Sandhurst to -qualify for the British Army. That was fatal. He was his -own master there, with no one to make him take care of his -health, or restrain himself in taking spirits. He soon contracted -some deadly disease—pneumonia, I think—and died. -Queen Victoria showed her regret by having him buried in -St. George’s Chapel at Windsor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I knew him very well, because I was in the head form -when he came to the school, and was often at Jex-Blake’s -house, and was asked by “Jex” to keep an eye on him. -He was a nice little boy, with a very affectionate disposition, -and not at all stupid. It was his misfortune to lose at a -critical moment of his life the firm and tactful hand which -had disciplined and protected him for seven years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Green Chartreuse is almost as deadly as aeroplanes. I -knew a man, a very well-known man, who went mad because -he drank thirty-six green Chartreuses in one day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is natural to mention George Manville Fenn in the -same breath as Henty. He was another old friend of mine, -and of all the men I have known, retained his youth the -longest. Fenn’s hair remained golden and undiminished in -its vigour, and his figure remained slim and upright till he -was nearly seventy. He lived at the beautiful old red-brick -house on the river at Isleworth, which stands at the gates -of the Duke of Northumberland’s park, and is known as -Syon Lodge. There he turned out those wonderful boys’ -romances of his in a steady stream. Like Henty, I met him -constantly at the Savage and Vagabond Clubs, and at my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>own flat. He was very fond of meeting his fellow-craftsmen. -His son, Fred Fenn, used to come too. At that time he was -sub-editor of the <i>Graphic</i>, and I think he afterwards became -first editor of the <i>Golden Penny</i>. In any case, he freed himself -from the fetters of journalism by writing <i>Amasis</i>, that -admirable Egyptian comic opera, in which Ruth Vincent -won all hearts. He not only had the cleverness to write -it, but formed the company which put it on, and stood an -action at law about it triumphantly—a rare instance of grit.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Richard Jefferies never came to see me at Addison Mansions; -he was dead, I think, before we went there. But I have a -long and pathetic letter which he wrote to me some time -before he died, setting forth the cross-fire of diseases from -which he was suffering, and asking me if I thought the -climate of the exquisite Blue Mountains of New South Wales -would afford him any relief. One can picture how the genius -of Jefferies would have blossomed forth amid that matchless -gorge scenery (where you hear the bell-birds calling) and -amid the natural history curiosities of a new land.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Grant Allen, who lived in a charming house in the Haslemere -district, was a constant visitor to our flat. We had -visited his people in Canada before we met him. His -father was the principal inhabitant at Kingston, Ontario, -the dear old-fashioned town which contains Canada’s Military -Academy. The old Allen had a fine house with a delightful -garden, right on Lake Ontario. Grant Allen was a remarkable-looking -man, with his long red beard, and keen, hawk-like -face. He always reminded me of the gaunt, red-bearded -faces one sees on knights and lovers in the great French -tapestries of the fifteenth century. And he had the same -spare figure as they have, and the same habit of arching his -back. He was a remarkable man, who, famous as he was, -never got his due as a writer. He was never an F.R.S., -though half the Fellows of the Royal Society were his inferiors -in scientific attainments, and he never reached eminence as -a novelist, though he wrote some amazingly clever and -powerful books. He had a great contempt for actresses on -account of their want of conversation. He said they could -not talk about anything but the stage. I once came away -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>with him from a party at H. D. Traill’s, where he had taken -down to supper a woman who was beyond dispute the -greatest actress of her time. He was complaining loudly -about it; he said that he thought she was the most stupid -woman he had ever met.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But he was happy in his friendships. His brother-in-law, -Franklin Richards, father of the publisher, Grant Richards, -was recognised as one of the soundest philosophers of his -day at Oxford—I say this though his lectures were entirely -thrown away on me. I had to attend them because he was -a don of my College, but Philosophy was Chinese to me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of Grant Allen’s greatest friends in the last part of -his life was Richard le Gallienne, who went to live in that -house in the wood beyond Haslemere to be near him. Le -Gallienne had a sort of summer-house in the wood, a long -way from the house, in which he wrote those charming poems, -secure from interruption. I often went to see him in the -days when he lived in the King’s Farm at Brentford, which -was not a very farm-like house. But I only once went to -see him at Haslemere, and on that occasion I found him at -the summer-house, dressed as carefully as if he had been in -town, but with an eye on country effects. He had on a black -velvet coat and waistcoat, and a rich black evening tie, but -immaculate white flannel trousers; and I must admit that -even in this costume he managed to look appropriate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we were living at Cherwell Lodge, Oxford, that -delightful marine villa across the Cherwell from the Gothic -part of Magdalen, Grant Allen brought his best friend to -see us, Edward Clodd, the secretary of the London Joint -Stock Bank, who, in the intervals of a business career, had -written a number of great books, beginning with <i>The Childhood -of the World</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>W. D. Howells only came once to see us at Addison -Mansions, but I saw more of him when I was living in New -York, when he used to come in at tea-time to that little hall-room -we had for a sitting-room in that boarding-house in -West Forty-second Street. It gave me pleasure to see him -under my own roof, because I remembered how eagerly I -bought and read his novels when I was at Oxford, and David -<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Douglas was bringing out <i>A Chance Acquaintance</i>, <i>Their -Wedding Journey</i>, and so on, in the dainty little shilling paper -volumes which were the fortunate precursors of the modern -sevenpenny. Howells was rather a stout, bull-necked man, -very capable-looking, and in those days had a thick mop -of grey hair. In after years we knew his Italian books, -written while he was a Consul in Italy, almost by heart. -They are photographic in their fidelity.</p> - -<p class='c016'>George W. Cable was another American who came to the -flat but once. Like Howells, he seldom honoured England -with a visit. His books, and John Burroughs’, too, I first -knew in the little David Douglas Library, and I well remember -reading his <i>Old Creole Days</i> all night, because I was so -fascinated with it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was staying at the house of my sister’s father-in-law, the -Court Lodge at Yalding, at the time, and the month was -June—I had just come down from Oxford. At some impossibly -early hour—midnight seemed only just to have -slipped past—the dawn streamed in, and made me blow my -candle out, and the birds began their comment on the peach -garden. Five-and-thirty or forty years have passed since -then, but the delight of Cable’s poetical touch remains still -in my memory. Cable always rather reminded me of Hardy, -though being a Southerner from New Orleans he is darker -skinned. When he wrote <i>Old Creole Days</i>, he was the idol -of the South, but later, when he took up the colour question -on the other side, he would have been torn to pieces by the -mob of New Orleans if they had got hold of him, so he took -up his residence in Massachusetts.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I always slept in the haunted room in that house, a very -old house, with a kitchen and vaulted cellars going back to -the time of Edward III. It contained a very large cupboard, -between the old-fashioned chimney-piece and the window, -in which somebody is supposed to have been bludgeoned to -death, the corpse afterwards being dragged across the floor, -and when the window had been thrown up with a bang, -flung on the flags below. At one particular season of the -year, the noises which indicate this procedure plainly have -been heard by various people. I have forgotten when it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>happened, but it must have been a very long time ago, for -everything to have been done so openly.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have slept in that room repeatedly, alone, and never -heard the noises or thought about it being haunted, but I -should not like to sleep in the kitchen, for it was only separated -by a moth-eaten sort of door from the wickedest-looking -cellars I ever remember, which, unless something has been -done to them since then, lose themselves in pitch-dark -spaces.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another author, whose delightful essays on nature used -to be brought out in those dear little volumes of David -Douglas’s, and whom I read with even more enthusiasm -in those days, was John Burroughs, whom I visited in his -home at West Park, on a broad reach of the Hudson. He -told me that he wrote most of those essays when he was a -clerk in the Treasury at Washington, where his duties were -to sit opposite the safes, and see that no improper person -had access to them. I have forgotten what safes, but I -suppose they were those which contained the United States -gold reserve. He used to project the scenes in <i>Wake Robin</i> -and <i>Pepacton</i> on the blank doors of the safes in his mind, -as the cinema projects dissolving views on the lecturer’s -sheet. The sedentariness of this pursuit gave him acute -indigestion, and he was advised that nothing but manual -labour and a vegetable diet would cure it. When I was -with him, I think he lived entirely on asparagus, lentils -and onions. He could eat about three pounds of asparagus -at a sitting, as I suppose other people could if they weren’t -going to have any meat or pudding. He told me one thing -which filled my soul with joy. As manual labour was part -of the cure, he started a vineyard, in a position chosen with -great care, on a steep sloping bank of the Hudson facing due -south. His grapes ripened here three or four weeks before -any one else’s, with the result that he got a hundred pounds -a ton for them instead of four pounds. Bravo, literature!</p> - -<p class='c016'>Henry James, in virtue of his long sojourn among us, belongs -to England almost as much as he does to America. He still -lives in London in the winter, but in the warm part of the -year he retires to a delightful Georgian house on the crest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>of the hill at Rye, one of the most old-world places in England. -Henry James’s house and garden are exactly what you would -choose for him—the most refined and dignified and subtle -novelist in the language. The house is called “Lamb’s -House,” but it has nothing to do with Charles Lamb, though -it is exactly the house which he would have chosen, when -fortune came to him. All the garden is adorable, but especially -the Dutch court behind the house, and the kitchen-garden, -surrounded by the most ancient cottages in Rye, with roofs -red and chimneys bewitched. Between the garden and the -kitchen-garden is a red-brick Georgian pavilion, facing the -top of the street, as the Tempietto faces the long sloping lane -which leads up to the Sculpture Gallery of the Vatican, and -it is not less beautiful than the Tempietto.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Everything is appropriate; the novelist even bought the -cottages at the back of the kitchen-garden, to prevent them -being rebuilt, and thus ensured the permanence of a perfect -setting. He has a singularly noble head and face, the type -one would like to imagine for a Cicero.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Richard Whiteing, who leapt into fame at a comparatively -late age, with <i>No. 5, John Street</i>, after having been one -of the most important newspaper writers in England for -many years, is another man whom you would pick out in -any crowd for his splendid head.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Gilbert Parker, who was a regular habitué of our at-homes -before he went into Parliament and became such an -overworked man, was in those days a slim, black-bearded -Colonial, with noticeable blue eyes. He was born in Canada, -the son of a British officer stationed out there, and knew -Australia as well as Canada—in fact, I met him because we -had both been in Australia. He was at that time a busy -journalist and in the first flush of his success as a novelist, -and no one could have deserved it better, for his novels had -the historical fidelity and felicity of Francis Parkman, in -addition to their graceful and romantic style. In spite of -the solid work he has done in politics, he will be remembered -as an author more than as a politician, though now we clap -him on the back for the splendid spade-work he does for the -Conservative Party. As a writer he fires the imagination, -like the bugles in his famous story.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>Henniker-Heaton, on the other hand, will be remembered -not for his biographical dictionary of Australians, which was -the precursor of <i>Who’s Who</i>, but for his achievement in politics—a -postal reform as far reaching as that of Rowland Hill, -the father of the post-office. I prophesied his success in print -nearly thirty years ago. He is a shining example of what -a man who has a great ideal can do by singleness of vision; -nothing could shake him from his ideal of a universal penny -post; ridicule was poured on it; the big battalions were brought -up against it; but he pursued it doggedly. He showed infinite -patience, infinite good-nature, infinite tact. He brought his -personal influence to bear on politicians of both sides. He -went to conferences all over the world; he entertained -delegates from all parts of the world; he collected and classified -every species of statistic; he accumulated irresistible facts -until he had a penny postage, not universal, because it does -not bridge the twenty miles between Kent and France,<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c011'><sup>[8]</sup></a> but -universal for the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon nations, for -the United States came into the agreement as well as the -Empire. Nor did his activities stop at the post-office; for -he has achieved reforms of almost equal magnitude in telegraphic -charges. Now he is taking a well-deserved rest, and -I cannot help thinking that he would take it very usefully -if he had a flat in Berlin, and saw the Kaiser every day. A -monarch of the force and intelligence of the Kaiser could not -help seeing the irresistibleness of the argument that a letter -ought to be taken from London to Hamburg and Berlin for -the same price as it is taken to the heart of British Borneo, -and if he once happened to notice it, he would brush away -the cobwebs which impede it.</p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f8'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. </span>Now happily soon to be accomplished.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>To Alfred Austin I was never attracted, except by his -enthusiasm for gardens and Italy. He was made Laureate -because he was a leader writer, not because he was a poet, -and possessed neither the ability nor the affability for the -post. Had he gone on writing about blackthorn and blackbirds, -he would have left a greater name as a poet, and would -not have been made the victim of the famous story which is -told of a Scottish law lord, who, meeting him at a country -house, said, “Well, Mr. Austin, are you still writing ‘pomes’?”</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>“One must do something to keep the wolf from the door,” -replied the poet, with official modesty.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“And is that what you use those ‘pomes’ for?” asked -the man of law, giving one visions of a small man with a -big moustache belabouring a wolf on the door-step with a -roll of manuscript.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I know of only one more malicious story, which relates to -the bestowal of a bishopric. While it was in the balance, -Lord Salisbury was suffering from one of his fits of insomnia, -and, as his custom was, sent for an M.P. son, whose speeches -were the only thing which could make him sleep. His son -bothered him all night to bestow the see—it was the premier -bishopric—on its present holder. At last Lord Salisbury -lost patience. “Oh! give it to him, and leave me. I -prefer insomnia.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was <i>à propos</i> of insomnia that Lord Salisbury made his -finest retort in the House of Lords. A new Liberal peer, to -whom the leader was particularly acid, because, having been -a whip in the House of Commons, he was rather conscious of -his importance, was, in spite of the fact that his income arose -chiefly from a brewery, advocating Local Option, because he -said that the number of public-houses was a temptation to -drink. “Of course,” said Lord Salisbury, “I do not enjoy -the same opportunities as the noble Lord does for knowing -the effect of the number of public-houses upon the amount -which is drunk, but I don’t see his line of argument, because, -though I live in a house with forty bedrooms, I never feel -the slightest inclination to sleep.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Irish Party, too, came in for his acid wit. Who has -forgotten his comment on the member of the Irish Party -who libelled him, and went to America, when he lost the action, -to escape paying the costs? Lord Salisbury only shrugged -his shoulders, and said that escaping was the <i>forte</i> of the -Irish, adding, “Some prefer the fire-escape, and some the -water-escape.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Harold Frederic owed some of his vogue as a novelist in -this country to Mr. Gladstone, who had an immense enthusiasm -for his great novel, <i>In the Valley</i>. Frederic, a big burly man, -with a burly moustache, was the ablest American journalist -in London, till the advent of Isaac Nelson Ford for the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span><i>Tribune</i>, and Harry Chamberlain for the <i>Sun</i> and the Laffan -Agency. Frederic represented the <i>New York Times</i>. He -was a man coarse in his speech, and rather coarse in his fibre, -and full of prejudices, but he had the gift of political prophecy, -and, like Balaam, his utterances were dictated by -the voice within him, and not by what he had come to say. -His letters to his paper were splendid journalism. He used -often to come to Addison Mansions, because he lived just -round the corner in the old house on Brook Green. He -might have been with us now, if he had not been a Christian -Scientist. He was an enormous consumer of alcohol, though -I never knew him the worse for liquor, and when he was -taken with his last illness, the professor of Christian Science, -who was called in by a woman who had great influence over -him, was not able to insist upon banishing spirits as a regular -practitioner would have done. The result was that he took -stimulants (which were worse than poison to him) whenever -he felt bad, and ruined his chance of recovery.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Rider Haggard I have spoken of elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frank Hopkinson Smith is a man I should have liked to -see more of at Addison Mansions; he was one of the men I -liked best among my friends in American literary clubs. -He was an engineer by profession, who had carried out many -important contracts. Writing, though he was one of the -best writers in America, was an afterthought with him. -Like Du Maurier, that delightful man and delightful writer, -he stumbled upon his most brilliant gift.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Du Maurier became a novelist because he had become such -a master of situation and polished dialogue in his pictures -and their titles. Frank Hopkinson Smith grew to be a -novelist out of the anecdotes which he told so brilliantly at -story-tellers’ nights at the Century Club. He had a fund of -stories about the Italian labour which he employed in contracts. -He always used to declare that engaging Italian -labour was as simple as Kodaking, which had for its motto, -“You press a button—we do the rest.” He said that no -matter how many men he needed, all he had to do was to -ring up an Italian boss the night before, and tell him that he -wanted so many men for a certain kind of job. Then they -would be at any station in the city at seven o’clock the next -<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>morning, with the proper tools. He added that he always -put a clause into the contract that if any of them murdered -each other, the number was to be made up at once.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“That is their weakness,” he said, “but they only practice -it on each other. It’s the only kind of labour I would undertake -a contract with. They’re better than the Irish, anyway.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I don’t agree with you,” said Vermont, the sculptor; -“they’re so cruel.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Cruel!” retorted Hopkinson Smith. “What price this? -An Irishman named Larkin hired an organ-monkey from -an old Dago for a dollar a day. The monkey was often -badly bruised when he came back at night, and looked -frightened to death when Larkin came to fetch him in the -morning. So one Saint’s day when the old Dago had a -holiday, he determined to follow them up and watch them. -The Irishman drove along till he came to the bridge over the -railway at the bottom of Twelfth Avenue, where the coal -carts all pass on their way up from the depot. Then he took -the monkey out of the cart, and tied him to a post ten or -twenty yards away from the bridge, but in full sight of it. -Then he drove his horse and cart to a convenient place a little -way off, and awaited events.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Presently the coal carts began to stream across the -bridge, and the monkey in terror ran up to the top of the -post. The whole way across every carter took cock-shots -at it with pieces of coal. Occasionally one hit it, and then -the monkey screamed with rage and pain. As soon as there -was a cart load of coal lying at the foot of the post, Larkin -brought up his horse and cart and shovelled them in, first -putting the monkey where he could not be seen, to show that -the sport was over for the present. When he was loaded up, -he hitched the monkey to the cart again, and drove into New -York to the retailer who bought the coal from him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“But the next morning, when he came for the monkey, -he found not only that monkey, but every monkey in the organ-grinders’ -quarter, gone, and when he got down to the bridge, -the place was looking like a zoo.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Suddenly the popular anecdote-teller wrote <i>Colonel Carter of -Cartersville</i>, one of the best American novels of its generation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>William de Morgan, the other novelist who achieved his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>first book success so late in life, was never at Addison Mansions, -but I had the honour of meeting him at a much more interesting -place—the little <i>atelier</i>, somewhere in the Kilburn -district, where he made the famous lustre tiles by which he -was known before he took to literature. George Joy, the -artist who painted the famous picture of Gordon meeting -his death at Khartum, took me to see De Morgan, knowing -how enthusiastic I was over the famous Mazzara Vase, and -the other pieces preserved in Sicily of the old Sicilian Arab -lustre ware.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of Bret Harte and Maarten Maartens I have spoken -elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Egerton Castle, whose <i>Young April</i> is the most delightful -book of the romantic school, in which Anthony Hope, Henry -Harland, and a few others have written with such charm, -was a rare visitor. Any one could see that he had been a -soldier. But the militariness of his active, upright figure is -no doubt partly due to the fact that he is one of the finest -fencers in the country. He has been a representative of -England in the international contests. He is likewise, as -his books show, a notable connoisseur, and he has ample -means to indulge his tastes, not only from the wide popularity -of the novels which he writes, mostly in collaboration with -his wife, but from his having owned one of the chief daily -newspapers, the <i>Liverpool Mercury</i>, which is now amalgamated -with the <i>Liverpool Post</i>. The Agnes Castle who -collaborates with him is, of course, his wife, not his sister.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Percy White was a constant visitor. He has been my -intimate friend since he published his first novel, <i>Mr. Bailey -Martin</i>, that merciless dissection of suburban snobbery. I -used to write for him when he edited <i>Public Opinion</i>, and -that was a long time ago. He was one of the handsomest -men in literature, with his merry, boyish face, dark eyes, -and bright golden hair. C. B. Fry, the greatest all-round -athlete in the records of sport, is his nephew, and, though -darker, reminds me very much of Percy White as he was. -Florence White, who paints portraits, is his sister.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Percy White’s books have never met with the circulation -they deserve. If he had been born an American, they might -have had the largest circulation in the world. He is just the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>writer whose circulation would have spread like wildfire, if -he had lived in America, and written of American social life -as he has written of ours. No one could have expressed the -good and the bad in the American character with the same -light touch and ruthless penetration. His is just the pen to -depict the iron courage and the insight of genius which, -with or without chicanery, lead to the amassing of millions—the -selfishness, made endurable by grit and personal charm, -of the American woman—the brilliant wit and pathetic lack -of humour in Americans as a nation—the business side of -sport.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Once upon a time I introduced him to a man whom I will -call the Vidler, who ran a newspaper, and never paid anybody -anything except by advertisements in that paper. He -made periodical business journeys, collecting advertisements -for his paper—my heart bled for the advertisers—and -used to engage an editor to look after his paper while he was -away. He chose Percy White for the honour on this occasion, -and asked me if I could bring them together. I gave White his -message, warning him that he would only be paid in promises, -and was surprised to hear that he was willing to discuss the -matter with the Vidler. The Vidler gave him a wonderful -dinner at the Carlton, probably not paid for yet, and then -took him back to his chambers to discuss the matter in hand. -White sat up with him nearly all night, gravely taking down -notes of his projects for the paper, but reserved his decision, -which resulted in a negative. I met him the next day, and -asked him how he had got on, and when I heard how late he -had been kept, apologised for all the trouble to which I had -put him, knowing how little chance there was of his getting -any pecuniary advantage out of it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Don’t apologise, my dear Douglas,” he said; “I got a -whole book out of him. He’s the finest study I ever met in -my life.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>As Percy White did not take up the appointment, I set -myself to find a man who was willing to take the post, and -would not suffer for it. I found a man who was as sharp a -diamond as the Vidler himself. He was duly engaged, and -I always wondered which did the other in the eye. I have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>my suspicions, because when I met the Vidler a year or two -afterwards at Monte Carlo, he did not allude to the finish.</p> - -<p class='c016'>George Gissing did not come often, though we had the -great link of both knowing and loving the Ionian Sea.</p> - -<p class='c016'>If Gissing had not died, and there was no reason why he -should have died if he had taken ordinary care of himself—he -would only be fifty-six if he were alive now—he would -have had a reputation like Barrie or Bernard Shaw by this -time, for even during his lifetime people were just beginning -to wake up to the extraordinary qualities of his writing. I -am not comparing him to either of those two; I only make -the comparison because everything pointed to his having -popularity. Every now and then some excellent writer -achieves popularity. No one knows why. His excellence -is against his having a wide public, and it is very seldom -possible to tell why one is taken and another left. As the -Bible proverb says, “Two women shall be grinding at the -mill; one shall be taken and the other left.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Gissing had a genius for imparting romance to the sordid.</p> - -<p class='c016'>W. J. Locke often came in those days. He was secretary -to the Royal Institute of British Architects, and combined -with it the post of literary adviser to John Lane, the publisher—a -collaboration which resulted in the publication of many -notable books, of which none were more eventually successful -than his own, except, I suppose, H. G. Wells’s, and I think -that it was he who advised Lane to bring out the works of -Wells, and Harland’s <i>The Cardinal’s Snuff-box</i>, and Kenneth -Grahame’s <i>Golden Age</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Locke was always one of the most distinguished-looking -persons in a room, with his tall, slight figure, very well dressed, -and his hair—golden, with a natural wave in it—beautifully -valeted. His theatrical successes did not begin till much -later, nor had he developed his powers as a public speaker. -He published admirable and solidly successful books before -he took the reading world by storm with <i>The Beloved Vagabond</i>, -and his novels won the respect of his fellow-craftsmen -from the first. In those days he lived in a modest flat at -Chelsea, and was a pretty regular attendant at literary clubs -and receptions.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>Coulson Kernahan was one of the most prominent figures -in the set, because he had both a brilliant personality, and -was producing a remarkable series of books, beginning with -<i>A Dead Man’s Diary</i>. Coulson is one of our oldest and -most intimate literary friends. I met him again directly I came -back from America. He was at that time literary adviser -to Ward, Lock & Co.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When James Bowden split from his partners, Ward, Lock & -Co., and started a publishing business of his own, Kernahan -went with him, and continued his profoundly imaginative -series with books about Heaven—long, thin volumes, longer -and thinner even than the John Oliver Hobbes booklets, -which Fisher Unwin was bringing out. They sold by the -hundred thousand. They were the literary topic of the day, -till Norma Lorimer in despair said, “Kernahan is growing -too chummy with his Creator.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>In another line his imagination produced <i>Captain Shannon</i>, -a mysterious and thrilling adventure book. But he was -soon to find his <i>métier</i>, and leave thrilling fiction to Mrs. -Kernahan. He became a lecturer, for which his brilliant -personality, his eloquence, his gift of humour, and his conviction, -had cut him out. He went to live in the country; -he lectured; he became an officer in the Territorials. And -now he has turned them all to account in the service of the -Empire, to which he is so passionately devoted, by going -round as a caravan-lecturer to make the youth of the country -awake to the national peril from unpreparedness.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At a National Defence meeting, last summer, at which -Kernahan was the chief speaker, with Rudyard Kipling in -the chair, Kernahan told his audience of his last good-bye -word with Captain Robert Scott.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The hero of the South Pole asked him what he was doing, -and whether he had any new book on the stocks.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“No,” was the reply; “I am neglecting my scribbling to -work for Lord Roberts and National Defence.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Good!” said Scott, with unwonted warmth and enthusiasm. -“Good! I’m with you there!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Speaking of Lord Roberts, the grand old soldier is very -appreciative of the work Kernahan is doing in this direction. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>The veteran Field Marshal not only wrote a eulogistic introduction -to the Territorial author’s book on soldiering, but -when the latter has been addressing great audiences on -National Defence, has on several occasions sent telegrams -to the chairman, asking that his thanks be conveyed to the -speaker, and warmly commending Kernahan’s patriotism -and the work he is doing for his country. Kernahan is almost -as widely known for his friendships as for his writings. He -has known intimately many distinguished men and women—authors, -actors, soldiers, artists, explorers and politicians. -On the walls of his library are many signed and inscribed -portraits of celebrities, as well as pictures inscribed to him -by the painters. On his shelves are numerous books dedicated -or inscribed to him by the writers. One takes up a volume -of Swinburne and finds written in it, “To Coulson Kernahan, -whom Swinburne dearly loved, and who as dearly loved him. -From his old and affectionate friend, Theodore Watts-Dunton.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another bears the inscription, “With the kind regards of -Arthur James Balfour.” Yet another, “To Coulson Kernahan, -from his old chum, Jerome K. Jerome.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He is famous too, or I should say infamous, as “infamous” -is the only word to apply to it, for the illegibility of his handwriting. -His friend Harry de Windt, brother of the Ranee -of Sarawak, tells a good story of this. It is to the effect -that Kernahan once received a letter which ran as follows—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Dear Kernahan,—Many thanks for your letter. The parts -we could make out are splendid. We are using the rest as -a railway pass. No one can read enough of it to say that -it isn’t a railway pass, and as life is too short for any one to -find out what it really says, the collector has in the end to -let us through.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of Horace Annesley Vachell, one of those whom the gods -love, well born, more than usually prepossessing in appearance -and disposition, a sportsman, and one of the best novelists -of the day, I saw a good deal when he first came back from -California, and brought me a letter of introduction, asking -me to help him to meet the literary people in London. I -was immensely attracted to him, as attracted to him as I -was to his books, for which he had a good foundation in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>variety of life which he had led. He started with Harrow -and the Rifle Brigade, and had been many things, from a -rancher in California to an artist, before he found his vocation -in literature. <i>The Hill</i>, his famous Harrow school novel, -increased his popularity wonderfully, but he was an admirable -writer from the first, both in story and style. I have heard -it stated that on one of his great books his publishers made -the sporting suggestion that he should receive no advance -on account of royalties, but a thirty per cent. royalty from -the beginning, and that he accepted the offer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I wrote to Vachell to ask him what had made him -turn his attention to writing, he wrote back—</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<span class='sc'>My dear Sladen</span>,</p> -<p class='c010'>“Bad times in California turned me to scribbling, -although I had written some short stories for the magazines. -I am rather proud of the fact that I burnt my first very long -novel on the advice of a friend, who said that he could find -a publisher for it, and yet urged cremation instead!”</p> - -<p class='c025'>Vachell told me that one of the triumphs in his career which -he valued most was the winning of the half-mile race for Sandhurst -against Woolwich, which gave them the victory in the -Sports that year, 1881. Later he was asked to run against -Myers, the famous American, but wisely refused to do so.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He told me an amusing story of the hundred-pound prize -which <i>T. P.’s Weekly</i> offered for the person who could discover -most mistakes, typographical and so forth, in one of his -novels, which he had been unable to revise himself. A parson -wrote to him most indignantly, saying that there were no -mistakes at all in the book, and that he was surprised that -Vachell should lend himself to a cheap dodge for advertising -a novel. He hinted that Vachell had obtained money from -him—he had bought a six-shilling copy—under false pretences! -Vachell in return sent him one announcement of -the result of the competition. The man who won the prize -discovered nearly <i>four hundred</i> errors! This sounds quite -incredible, but it is true, as a most lengthy document in his -possession proves. The knowledge of his works displayed by -the winner fairly confounded him.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>He had some strange personal experiences in California. -A big cowboy rushed out of a saloon in the West, one day, -followed by another cowboy brandishing a big six-shooter. -The first cowboy took refuge behind the only cover in sight, -a telegraph-post. He dodged round this, while the second -cowboy emptied his pistol into the post. All six bullets -were in the post! Afterwards, when he was chaffed by me -for missing his man, he retorted, “Boys, the son of a gun -shrunk!” Both cowboys were full of sheep-herder’s delight.</p> - -<p class='c016'>And he told me another amusing Californian anecdote.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I met a pretty girl whom I had not seen for months. -She informed me that she was engaged to be married, and -when I asked for details, she replied, ‘He is not very rich -in this world’s goods, but in morals, Mr. Vachell, he’s a -millionaire.’ She married her moral millionaire, and about -a year later I met her again. She was alone. Remembering -her phrase, I said, ‘How is your moral millionaire?’ She -replied instantly, ‘He’s bust!’ I heard later that she had -just divorced him.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>And a short while ago he sent me one of the best newspaper -bulls I remember, which appeared in the <i>Western Daily Press</i> -review of <i>Loot</i>, on Dec. 19, 1913.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Mr. Vachell, who is perhaps most widely known as the -author of one of the best modern stories of school life, <i>The -Hell</i>, in which Harrow is described,” etc.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another of those whom the gods love is A. E. W. Mason, -who met with success very early. Mason was a Dulwich -boy, and a Trinity, Oxford, man, and was on the stage before -he took to literature, to his permanent advantage, for it -gave him that practical acquaintance with stage-craft which -hastened his success as a dramatist.</p> - -<p class='c016'>From the moment that he published <i>The Courtship of -Morrice Buckler</i> it was recognised that Mason was a romance-writer -with the charm of an Anthony Hope. And his -reputation has gone on increasing. <i>The Four Feathers</i> was -a book of genius. Unlike most authors, Mason has remained -a bachelor, consoling himself with yacht-sailing among the -Hebrides when he grows tired of social distractions and -politics. For some years he represented the important -<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>constituency of Coventry in Parliament as a Liberal. And -he was one of the few Liberals who dared to be independent, -which is probably the reason why he gave up politics. He -was one of the most boyish-looking members in the House, -blue-eyed, clean-shaven, fresh-coloured and slim. He has -changed very little since he left Trinity. He is a charming -public speaker, and his boyishness is one of his great charms -in speaking. My friendship with Mason began on our first -visit to Salcombe, the little Devonshire town on the wooded -inlet which lies behind the Bolt Head. He had sailed into -the inlet in a small yacht, and came to see me as an old -Trinity man. Mason is one of the men who count.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Max Pemberton has had many successes in his half-century -of life. Educated at Merchant Taylors, and Caius, Cambridge, -he nearly got into the Cambridge boat. He started his literary -life by editing one of the chief boys’ papers and writing -boys’ books—his <i>Iron Pirate</i> had a prodigious vogue among -future men. From this he soon passed to editing <i>Cassell’s -Magazine</i>, which occupied ten of his fifty years, and writing -novels, with their scenes laid in romantic and half-civilised -countries—what one might call “Balkan” novels. In these -he has hardly any rivals, because to an instinct for construction, -and skill in dialogue and description, he adds unusual -ingenuity in contriving plots and selecting subjects, and -accuracy in handling facts. Pemberton’s novels present most -vivid pictures of the far countries in which their scenes are laid.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I met him first at the Savage Club; we were sitting next to -each other at dinner, and he introduced himself as the editor -of <i>Cassell’s Magazine</i>, and asked if I felt disposed to write -a series of Japanese stories for him—the stories which were -afterwards worked up to <i>When We were Lovers in Japan</i> -(<i>Playing the Game</i>). I was very much flattered by his -proposal, and from that day to this we have remained intimate -friends. This series was followed by the series of Sicilian -stories which were worked up into my novel, <i>Sicilian Lovers</i>. -In both series I was to give as much local colour as possible.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After this we began to go to each other’s houses, and I well -remember the first time that we went to Pemberton’s, before -he had moved to Fitzjohn’s Avenue. It was a Sunday evening, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>and he had asked us to meet poor Fletcher Robinson, -who would have been one of the greatest journalists of the -day if he had survived. He was born to it, for he was a -nephew of old Sir John Robinson, who managed the <i>Daily -News</i> for many years. He was, at the time of his death, -assistant-editor of a great daily, and he was one of the persons -whose death was attributed to incurring the displeasure of -the celebrated Egyptian mummy in the British Museum. -He was a huge, fair man, with curly sandy hair; he was -beloved of society, and a poet as well as an editor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The popular account of his death is that, not believing in -the malignant powers of the celebrated mummy-case in the -British Museum, he determined to make a slashing attack on -the belief in the columns of the <i>Daily Express</i>, and went to -the museum, and sent his photographer there, to collect the -materials for that purpose: that he was then, although in -the most perfect health, struck down mysteriously by some -malady of which he died. The ancient Egyptians certainly -seem to have been able to protect the tombs and coffins -and bodies of their dead by active spiritual powers, which I -respect. But in any case, the adage of chivalry, <i>de mortuis -nil nisi bonum</i>, ought to prevent people from behaving unkindly -to anything that concerns the dead.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We continued to see a good deal of the Pembertons till -Max took Troston Hall in Suffolk because he found that -London gaieties interfered with his work. But a few years -later he felt drawn back to London, and took chambers in -St. James’s, though he kept Troston on, and it was in those -chambers that he wrote one of his great successes, the revue -<i>Hallo Ragtime</i>—the best and most popular revue ever written.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Unlike so many of our leading authors, Max Pemberton, -who is a distinguished-looking man—one would take him -for a diplomat—is as interesting to meet as his books are -to read. He shines in society.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A mutual friend of us both is Robert Leighton. Mrs. -Leighton I have mentioned above. Leighton’s gifts are of -a serious editorial order, though he has written boys’ books -of wide popularity. The Leightons are among the most -popular figures at literary gatherings—they are so lovable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>that they have an immense circle of friends. Robert Leighton -is recognised as having no superior as a writer on dogs. They -have left their house in St. John’s Wood now and gone to -live in an old-world house at Lowestoft.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When Arthur Morrison, who was already known as a -brilliant journalist, one of Henley’s most incisive young men, -made such a success with his <i>Tales of Mean Streets</i> and his -<i>Martin Hewitt</i> stories, one imagined that he would pour -out a stream of books like other writers who have “boomed.” -But he has been exceedingly moderate. We had a bond of -sympathy which used to bring him to our house. We had -a collection of very unusual Japanese curios of the humble -order, and he had one of the finest collections of Japanese -prints in the country. We never saw as much of him as -we wished because he lived in Essex, and when the success -of his books enabled him to do his work where he liked, he -grew more and more reluctant to come to London.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another man of that generation to whom we grew much -attached was Eden Phillpotts. In those days he was struggling -with ill-health and over-work. London did not agree -with him, and he had to write his novels in the intervals of -journalism. Though he told me that they seldom went out -elsewhere, he and his pretty wife were often at 32 Addison -Mansions. They lived at Bedford Park in those days. While -he was assistant editor of <i>Black and White</i>—that paper edited -by so many of our friends—it seemed to be a different one -every year, during its brief existence—he began to feel the -strain a good deal, and finally determined to burn his ships -and go back to his native Devon—he was a grandnephew of the -famous Bishop of Exeter—and depend entirely upon his novels.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The experiment was a complete success. His health -improved in his native air, and directly he could give the -proper leisure to writing his novels, he sprang into almost -the first rank—alike for the extraordinary power of his stories, -for his intimate knowledge of Devonshire and Devonian -character, and for the individuality of his style. Phillpotts -never deteriorates. He is one of those men who carry the -stamp of intelligence and <i>simpatica</i> on their faces. Now he -is following in the footsteps of the other great novelists and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>getting a footing on the stage, where he will be well represented -this year.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Robert Hichens is a very handsome and intellectual-looking -man—if his portrait had been executed by the steel -engravers of a hundred years ago it would have borne a -striking resemblance to the portraits of Lord Byron. He -has regular, clear-cut, refined features, of a very similar type. -I have not run across Hichens as often as might be expected -in Sicily and Egypt, though we have both been in these -countries, especially the former, so much. But I did meet -him one evening at Luxor, in the midst of one of those superb -Egyptian sunsets. He was on his <i>dahabea</i>, which he had -brought over from its usual anchorage near the bar on the -Thebes side. It was a luxurious and very Oriental-looking -<i>dahabea</i>. The saloon, separated from the cabins by heavy -Persian curtains, would have made a far more picturesque -scene for <i>Bella-Donna</i> on the stage than the steam-<i>dahabea</i> -which appeared in the actual play. He was living on one -of the old sailing-<i>dahabeas</i>, which are the most delightful to -occupy, though people generally do not sail up from Cairo -nowadays, but have them towed up to Luxor before they -join them, so as to have all their time in the picturesque, -temple-studded reach between Luxor and Assuan.</p> - -<p class='c016'>That meeting is riveted in my mind, because Hichens, in -thanking me for a long and enthusiastic review which I had -written over my signature in the <i>Queen</i> about his <i>Garden of -Allah</i>, said that though I had spoken in such terms of the -book, and brought out all its good points, he had a conviction -that in my heart of hearts I felt a sort of repulsion for it, -which was true. I thought the heroine’s falling in love with -such a man at first, and her sending him back to his cell as -a monk afterwards, equally repellent; while I could not help -doing homage to the book, and revelling in its Eastern setting.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Some time after my return to England I was nearly brought -into a very close relation with Hichens.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One morning Sir George Alexander came post-haste to -call on me. I was not in. So at lunch a telegram as long as -a letter arrived—would I see him in the theatre after such -an act that night? The royal box was at my disposal if I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>cared to see the play. I telephoned my acceptance to -Helmsley—a good actor, but far too good a manager to be -spared to take a part—and wondered what was up. When -I got to the theatre, I discovered what I was wanted for. -Hichens’s <i>Bella-Donna</i> was coming on. All the preparations -were ready for his inspection, and Hichens could not be -found by telegram in Europe or Africa. Alexander asked -if I would superintend the staging. The fee fixed was a -liberal one. But I was in a quandary. I knew that neither -J. Bernard Fagan, who had dramatised the story, nor Alexander, -had ever been in Egypt, and that the play and its -mounting, however well done, must be full of slips, to which -I ought to object. About Alexander I was not disturbed, -for I knew that his only idea would be to get the thing right. -But with Fagan it might be different. He would doubtless -have been studying the subject fiercely, and I should have to -reckon with his <i>amour propre</i>, and probably lose a friend—who -had been at Trinity, Oxford, like myself—that delightful -Sheridan-like person and personality, so I gave rather a -modified consent. I suggested that fresh efforts should be -made to find Hichens, but promised that if finally he -could not be found I would take his place in correcting the -Egyptianities of the piece.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Fortunately, at the last minute Hichens did turn up, and -I was saved from the responsibility. I was very grateful, -for when the first night came, and with it stalls for the -performance, there were many little points to which I should -have had to take exception, though they made no difference -to the enjoyment of such of the public as had not been in -Egypt. Still, I am sure that Fagan would have felt sore -about my correcting his scenes like a schoolboy’s Latin verses. -As it happened, Alexander and Mrs. Patrick Campbell were -so magnificent in their parts, and the piece was so splendidly -produced, that the public did not bother itself about small -details, but flocked to see the play. It could hardly have -been a greater success than it was for any improvements -that I could have suggested. I never saw Hichens at his -residence in Taormina—we never happened to be in the -Sicilian Eden at the same moment.</p> - -<div id='i278f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i278f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>W. B. MAXWELL<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART II</span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>W. B. Maxwell</span> I hardly knew in those days, though I -had met him years before, and, in the long and elaborate -review which I wrote of his <i>Vivien</i>, had hailed him as -a novelist who would rise to the very head of his craft.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Maxwell, of course, had heredity and atmosphere in his -favour. His mother, the famous Miss Braddon, had written -novels which took the world by storm long before he was -born—it is more than half a century ago since an astonishing -girl founded a new school of fiction with <i>Lady Audley’s -Secret</i> and <i>Aurora Floyd</i>—and he and his wife live with his -mother in a stately old Queen Anne mansion in the Sheen -Road at Richmond. Maxwell, who looks like a youthful -judge—he is clean-shaven, and has a calm, judicial face, -with an illuminating smile—has a judge’s gift of scrutiny -in reviewing life in his books. He is ruthlessly just with his -characters; they cannot deceive him. His sentences are not -too severe. But whatever their sentences are, the criminals -leave the court moral wrecks. He is obliged to mete out -just sentences, but he is ruthless in his summing up. His -last novel, <i>The Devil’s Garden</i>, is an excellent example of his -great impeachments of wrong. His books have the Até—the -Nemesis—tracking down their victims as ruthlessly as -the Œdipus is tracked down in the tragedies of ancient -Greece.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another writer whose novels I admire immensely, and I -have had to review a good many of them, is H. B. Marriott -Watson, the New Zealander. He has a large public, and, -in my opinion, ought to have a far larger one. As a writer -of novels of adventure, I think he has no superior among the -novelists of the day. For his adventures are most romantic, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>and his writing is so good—so delicate where it ought to be -delicate, so strong where it ought to be strong. Added to -which, he is scrupulous about getting his local colour and -“properties” correct. In appearance he is a typical colonist—a -huge man, with a dark, resolute face. When he first -became prominent in the literary world, you might have -thought that he was captain of the famous “All Black” -football team, rather than a writer. Apart from his success -as a novelist, he has been a power in journalism.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Charles Garvice, whose novels have a greater circulation -than those of any other living writer, is now my neighbour. -We live exactly opposite each other, with the breadth of -Richmond Green between, with its old lawns, and tall elms -planted by dead kings. He lives in one of the Maids of -Honour houses, built a couple of centuries ago, abutting on -the wall of the Old Palace of the Tudors, in which Queen -Elizabeth died, and those Maids of Honour served. It has -some beautiful eighteenth-century painted panelling. I look -out on its mellow brickwork, pointed with white stone, and -the fantastic Georgian ironwork of its gate, half-buried in -a tangle of swaying roses, from my study windows, just as I -look out on the crenellated wall and old perpendicular -archway of King Henry VII’s palace on the other side of -the clipped yew and the great stone-pine.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I first knew Garvice, twenty years ago, he was -farming his own lands in Devonshire, and just beginning to -find his public on this side, though he had long enjoyed an -enormous public in America. He used to pay frequent -visits to the Authors’ Club, where, since he had rooms -in Whitehall Court, he was more of a habitué than many -men who lived in London, and became extremely popular -for his genuine good-fellowship. A few years ago, when the -Club was rather languishing, he became chairman of the -committee which undertook its reconstruction, and though -he had in the interval become one of the most popular and -hard-worked novelists of the day, lavished his time and -energies with happy results, so that now it has even more -members than the Athenæum, and far more than any other -literary club. He is the central figure at its great dinners.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>He wrote a delightful book about farming—not a literary -exercise, but as the outcome of many years’ practical work. -Garvice, undoubtedly, has the largest sale of any novelist -in the world. I have seen the figures. Last year’s sales -alone amounted to 1,750,000 copies—books of all prices. -His romantic love-stories are conspicuous not only for their -thrilling plots—Garvice is a born story-writer—but for their -freedom from all deleterious influence. There is nothing -goody-goody about them; they are just wholesome, straight-forward -romances—an almost lost art. He is only the -length of the Palace away from the river, where he keeps -a sailing-boat, and he is fond of riding in Richmond Park. -He needs recreations, for he is a very hard worker. Every -morning he goes up to his office in London, where he spends -the business day in dictating his novels, and he gives many -of his evenings up to the Authors’ Club, which, under his -chairmanship, and the tireless secretaryship of Algernon -Rose, has now a membership of 1,600. Garvice is a great -reader of his brother-authors’ books.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Feeling that the public would like to know the secret of -one of the most remarkable literary successes on record—more -than six millions of his books have been sold—one -night when I had run in to see him, I got him to tell me his -story over a pipe—he smokes hard all the time he dictates -his stories, and cannot go on when his pipe goes out till it -is refilled. This is what he told me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“My first novel, though I had written a number of short -stories before this, was about the last of the three-deckers. -When it was revised and re-written quite recently, for a cheap -edition, I understood fully why, in its first form, it was not -the brilliant success I, a youth of nineteen, expected it to -be. Quite early in my literary career I made the acquaintance, -which grew into a warm friendship, of the proprietor -of a weekly fiction periodical which had attained an enormous -circulation. He was a clever editor, with a keen nose for -good stuff; and he would buy nothing else, for he had hit -upon the excellent idea that, if you gave the masses good -stuff at a low price, they would jump at it. They jumped. -I wrote the leading story for this paper for many years, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>was well paid. The serials attracted the attention of George -Munro, the famous American publisher, who was running -a similar paper in New York. He arranged for me to send -advance sheets for it, and he afterwards published the serial -in cheap book form. They had an enormous—to me a -fabulous—sale, and are still selling.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Munro started a sevenpenny magazine, asking me to -edit the English part of it, and to write a serial and a series -of short stories. I worked nearly day and night, and was -so fully occupied and contented that, absurd as it may sound, -I never gave a thought to publishing the serials in book -form here in England; notwithstanding that the books -were so popular in America that one of George Munro’s rivals -hit upon the extremely ingenious idea of waiting until half -a novel of mine was published in serial form, getting some one -else to finish it, and issuing it in volume form before I had -finished the story. Of course, this was before the International -Copyright Act. Blessings on its name!</p> - -<p class='c016'>“One day, my friend, that brilliant journalist, Robert -Harborough Sherard, while sitting at my writing-desk, took -up the American edition of <i>Just a Girl</i>. When I told him -it was not published in volume form in England, he asked -my permission to take it away and try to place it. He took -it to Mr. Coulson Kernahan, who recommended it to the -publisher for whom he was reading. It came out, and, to -my surprise and delight, proved a success. The review -that, more than any other, helped me, was a very kind one -in the <i>Queen</i>.<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c011'><sup>[9]</sup></a> Then, again, the books were so fortunate as -to win the approval of Dr. (now Sir) William Robertson -Nicoll; and when he likes a book he does not fail to say so.</p> - -<div class='footnote c023' id='f9'> -<p class='c015'><span class='label'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. </span>Written by myself.—D. S.</p> -</div> - -<p class='c016'>“The rest of my literary career, if the phrase may be -permitted me, is public property. I may add that, in my -early days, I sold the copyrights of my stories. Later on, -I got them back by the simple expedient of buying the -periodical, lock, stock and barrel, in which they had appeared; -and I am glad to be able to state that I hold now -the copyright of everything I have written. Some of the -books have been dramatised, and others are on their way to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>the stage; indeed, at an early age, I made a dramatic essay -with a little play in two acts, which was produced at the -Royalty Theatre, and obtained a success chiefly, if not -entirely, owing to the splendid cast; amongst others, I was -fortunate enough to have such actors as Richard Mansfield, -who afterwards became so famous in America, that sterling -player, Charles Denny, and Fred Everill, of the Haymarket. -It would be a poor play such men as these could not pull -through. Encouraged by my first effort, I might have -directed all my attention to the stage, but fiction had got -a firm hold upon me; it was safe and regular—and there -you are! But I am making a new start, and ‘you never -can tell,’ as Mr. Shaw says.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“The story of my lecturing is soon told. I gave a lecture, -consisting of recitals linked together by biographical notes, -for a Bideford debating society. An agent who happened -to hear it, thought it good enough for the general public, and -for some years past I have, during the winter months, appeared -on the lecture platform. It is a change of work, -which is good; and it is lucrative, which is also good, if not -better.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I have just been elected President of the Institute of -Lecturers. The duties of this office will fill in my spare -time—when I get it.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (“Q”), another admirable -writer, not only of novels, but of poems and essays, I have -seen hardly at all since he left Oxford, where, sometime after -me, he occupied my old panelled set of rooms at Trinity (of -which he was a Scholar like myself, and A. E. W. Mason an -Exhibitioner some years later), attracted probably by the -fact that they had been Cardinal Newman’s rooms when he -was an undergraduate. Couch was a splendid example of -the <i>mens sana in corpore sano</i>. He was stroke of the College -boat, as well as the most brilliant Trinity man of his time -intellectually, and he looked it. He had a lithe, active -figure, and a humorous, self-reliant face, with light eyes—the -type which takes so much beating. For a brief time he -had a very successful journalistic career in London, but he -quickly decided that it was not worth while to live in London -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>unless you were rich enough to do all the nice things which -came along, and returned to his native Cornwall to devote -himself to literature. In Cornwall he not only wrote delightful -books, but went in for sailing, and became a power in -local Liberal politics, and was knighted. Recently he has -become Professor of Poetry in the University of Cambridge—a -post he was admirably fitted to fill, since the mantle -of Francis Turner Palgrave fell upon him as an anthologist. -His <i>Oxford Book of Verse</i> is simply delightful.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Couch had from the first been a stylist. When congratulated -early in his career on the exquisite writing of a short -story, he deprecated its importance, because it was too -conscious an imitation of De Maupassant. “My great -difficulty is not to imitate my models,” he said. In the light -of this saying, it is interesting to recall the fact that in 1897 -he was chosen for the high honour of completing Robert -Louis Stevenson’s <i>St. Ives</i>, which he did with absolute -success. Stevenson must have been one of the models he -was trying not to imitate. There is no reason why he should, -for no one could want a more delightful style than his own. -<i>Hetty Wesley</i> is an exquisite book.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Henry Rider Haggard I ought to have mentioned long -before this, since he has been one of the recognised heads -of the novelists’ profession for many years. Haggard had -the good fortune for an imaginative man to go out to South -Africa when he and the South African question were young. -He was on the staff of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the Official -Commissioner in the Transvaal, and actually assisted in -hoisting the British Flag over the Republic in 1887. His -first book, published in 1882, was about South African -politics, but in 1884 he began as a novelist, with <i>Dawn</i>, and -in 1886 he achieved world-wide fame with <i>King Solomon’s -Mines</i>, one of the finest romances ever written. <i>She</i> came -out a year later, and confirmed the success. He has written -many other famous novels. For years he was always quoted -as the most successful novelist—but that was before the -days of “booming,” a practice against which Haggard has -steadily set his face. He told his agent that he would not -ever write to order, unless he was driven to it—that the bare -<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>fact of having signed a contract to produce a given thing by -a given time paralysed his pen. Besides writing novels of -increasing seriousness, Haggard, like Doyle, has proved -himself a patriot, with the deepest sense of his responsibilities -as a citizen. He has twice tried to get into Parliament, -with a view to legislation for restoring agriculture in England, -and he has given his time lavishly, both to the investigation -of the agricultural question and to serving on various -Commissions, as well as to writing books on various subjects -connected with the land. He came back from South Africa -and went to live in his native Norfolk many years ago, -but in spite of this he has done his duty in attending literary -gatherings. His active figure, and close-trimmed beard, -give him the cut of a naval officer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His brother, Major Arthur Haggard, who has seen much -service in Africa, and written well-known books, has done -patriotic service for his country in another way by organising -the Union Jack Club and the Veterans’ Club for soldiers -and sailors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another visitor to Addison Mansions in latter days was -William Romaine Paterson, better known as “Benjamin -Swift”—a man of extraordinary ability, whom I should not -be surprised to see in a Radical Cabinet. The moment you -meet him you are aware that you are in the presence of an -intellect of the first rank, and an uncompromising personality. -A deep reader and thinker, he has the gift of clear expression -and glittering sarcasm. I have seldom heard a more effective -speaker. He has already written a number of remarkable -novels. He is a born leader, and he looks it, with his commanding -figure, his face, of the eagle type, and his burning -eye.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I ought to have mentioned Morley Roberts before, because -he was a man of whom I saw much in those days. He was -often at our at-homes, and nearly always in the Authors’ -Club when I went there. He was the greatest personality -there in those days—not only as an author whose books -every one in the Club admired, long before the public took -them at their true value, but for his wide and deep knowledge, -and for the adventures he had successfully concluded with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>his splendid physique. We always felt that Morley Roberts -was essentially a man, that the strength of his books was due -to the daring life he had led. I have very seldom heard -Morley Roberts make a speech, but I have seen him hold a -whole room of brilliant men from his easy-chair beside the -fire, while he unfolded some curious piece of knowledge with -surprising power and interestingness. It was he who said -that books of adventure are generally written by sedentary -cowards for sedentary cowards.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I met Morley Roberts first at a garden-party given by -Rosamund Marriott Watson, the poetess, whose husband -I have for many years considered one of the finest novelists -of the day. She introduced us to each other because we -had both been to Australia, and I rather think that she -accused him as well as myself of having wooed the Muse of -Poetry (though there was no Muse of Poetry among the -immortal nine). After that he came a good many times to -our house, though he never was fond of at-homes, and I -don’t remember his ever coming back after his long illness. -A very strong man, six feet high, or thereabouts, with a -commanding face, and flashing dark eyes, he was always -one of the most conspicuous figures in the room. He had -been a sailor before the mast, a navvy out west, a hand on -a ranch, and I don’t know what all in his adventurous youth.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It seems incredible to think that Somerset Maugham, who -is barely forty, should have been a long time coming into -his own, yet ten years elapsed between the publication of -<i>Liza of Lambeth</i> and the production of <i>Lady Frederick</i>, and -in the interval he had written those delightful books <i>The -Merry-go-Round</i> and <i>The Bishop’s Apron</i>. He came to us -with a mutual friend in the year 1897, when he had just -written <i>Liza</i>. I remember, when I read it, venturing, as -an old reviewer, to prophesy that such a writer must leap -into fame forthwith. I was sure of it when I read <i>The -Merry-go-Round</i>, but the public did not quite answer to -my expectations. I have always heard that <i>Liza of Lambeth</i> -was inspired by the gruesome sights and sounds which were -his environment when he was at St. Thomas’ Hospital, -that he lodged in some street where, from his back windows, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>he could see the she-hooligans hitting each other with their -babies. He is, a rare thing for an author, an admirable dancer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another man born in the same year, 1874, who came to -his own through plays, and was even longer in doing it, is -Edward Knoblauch, the author of <i>Kismet</i>, and joint author -of <i>Milestones</i>. Knoblauch, who is an American, born in -New York, and educated at Harvard, and his sister, came to -us with Lena Ashwell a good many years ago. Knoblauch -was Lena’s reader at the Kingsway, and collaborated with -the Askews in <i>The Shulamite</i>, in which she created such a -splendid character. He had already adapted <i>The Partikler -Pet</i> for Cyril Maude. But he was writing plays for years -before he had a single one accepted, and it was not until -1911 that he sprang into general fame with <i>Kismet</i>, quickly -followed by <i>Milestones</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Louis Napoleon Parker, another old member of the Authors’ -Club, is a very old friend of mine. I think it was Adrian -Ross who introduced us, when he first came up from Sherborne -School, where he was appointed Director of Music -upon leaving the Royal Academy of Music. Strangely -enough, one who has composed such delightful music is -extremely deaf. For many years, of course, he has been one -of our leading and most prolific playwrights, and only a -short while ago he composed the incidental music for his -drama, <i>Drake</i>. Parker, who was born in France, and might -almost pass for a Frenchman, has been the translator of -some of the most celebrated French plays which have been -“Englished” for our stage—<i>Chanticleer</i>, <i>L’Aiglon</i> and -<i>Cyrano de Bergerac</i> among them. He has had yet another -sphere of activity in producing the series of splendid masques -which are associated with his name. He is, indeed, practically -the inventor of the masque in its present form, such as -the Sherborne pageant, the Warwick pageant and the York -pageant.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXIII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY NOVELIST FRIENDS: PART III</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Henry Harland</span>, who justly made such a prodigious hit -with that exquisite book, <i>The Cardinal’s Snuff-box</i>, I knew -well in America. Stedman introduced us at one of his -at-homes. He wrote then under the pseudonym of “Sidney -Luska,” and was best known for some big action he had had -with some firm of publishers in New York, the American -Cassells, I think. He was a very opinionated man, and I did -not at the time believe that he would ever write so fine a book -as <i>The Cardinal’s Snuff-box</i>, which breathes the very air of -Italy, and is the most exquisite idyll of Italian life which we -have in the language. But it is only just to him to say that -Stedman, in introducing him, spoke of him in terms which -should have made me believe this. He was born in St. -Petersburg, and looked rather like a Russian. He would -have been fifty-two if he had been alive. Lane always -believed in him, and made him editor of the <i>Yellow Book</i>. -He and his pretty little wife had a flat in Cromwell Road, -and were popular in the “precious” section of literary -society. His early death was a great loss to literature.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frank Bullen is one of the most interesting personalities -I have met in literature. He is so many-sided in his abilities -and his experiences. After being an errand-boy, and everything -up to chief officer on a sailing-ship, and a clerk in the -meteorological office at Greenwich, he became a writer, an -orator and a philanthropist. No one has done more for the -men of the Merchant Service, for while he did all that man -could for them practically, he enlisted the sympathies of -the world for them in his books. A small, dark man, with -very bright eyes, and a sympathetic manner, except when -he is moved to indignation, he was born to dominate great -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>audiences, especially when he is telling them of wrongs -which need practical redress. The wonders of the Lord -which he saw when he went down to the sea in ships, made -such a profound impression on his imagination that they fill -the pages of his books with eloquence and knowledge. With -the exception of Joseph Conrad, he has no rival among living -writers as a sea-novelist. I think I met him at the Idler -first. I know that we became friends from the first day.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Dion Clayton Calthrop, that prince of light novelists, who -is always finding fame by some new stroke of genius, was -our neighbour for several years at Addison Mansions. He -is such a distinguished-looking man that I used to watch him -and wonder who he was, until one night I met him through -a mutual friend. It is not surprising that he is so brilliant, -because he is the son of John Clayton, the actor, and grandson -of Dion Boucicault.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Calthrop, who started as an artist, what -made him take up writing, he said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I really took up writing owing to a bout of insomnia -when I was living in Paris, and as I was painting in the schools -all day, I tried to write at night. I read the sketches to -Norman Angell, a friend of mine (who wrote <i>The Great -Illusion</i>), and through him met Manuel, the artist, and -through him they were published in <i>The Butterfly</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I believe in many irons in the fire; people specialise -too much, so I have books, plays, dress designs, or scene -models, and a picture or two, all going at once, and it is a -great cause for regret to me that I cannot write music. In -the great days of Art, artists were so interested in life that -they tried everything—why shouldn’t we? I even have -a rock-garden full of Alpine flowers on my writing desk—true, -it is only four feet by one—but it is very interesting to -see flowers grow as you work. As a matter of fact, I am -writing against an Alpine crocus, trying to finish a book as -it comes into bloom.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Desmond Coke, one of the most brilliant of our younger -novelists, I met in 1904 through his mother, Mrs. Talbot -Coke, who had been my colleague on the <i>Queen</i>, the wife -of one of our generals in the Boer War. Mrs. Talbot Coke -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>was at the time—as she is still—one of the principal contributors -to <i>Hearth and Home</i>, a paper which served as a -literary cradle to Robert Hichens, whilst it was sub-edited -by no less a personage than Arnold Bennett, who was just -beginning to write his series of great novels about the pottery -towns.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Desmond Coke, who, under the pseudonym of “Charbon,” -wrote the reviews in a lively strain, possibly sometimes more -welcome to his readers than to the novelist reviewed, was at -the time I speak of fresh from Oxford, which he had made his -own in fiction with that delirious skit on feminine fiction, -<i>Sandford of Merton</i>. Since then he has written a number of -novels, distinguished for their original ideas. He has long -been a keen collector, as his chambers in a backwater off -Oxford Street show, and has of late turned his collecting to -good account by writing the classic on <i>The Art of Silhouette</i>. -He is very accomplished, and is one of the chief pillars of -Chapman & Hall’s publishing house. The announcement, -however, that Mr. H. B. Irving has secured his three-act -play, <i>One Hour of Life</i>, proves that here is yet another novelist -who, given the opportunity, would gladly exchange the -quiet covers of Bookland for the more adventurous and hectic -boards of Theatredom!</p> - -<p class='c016'>E. H. Cooper was a very dear friend of mine, who came near -being one of the conspicuous figures of his time. He had -a short life and a merry one—merry, at all events, for his -friends. He was, perhaps, too cynical ever to be quite -merry himself, except with children. His father was a -Staffordshire country gentleman, with an estate adjoining -the Duke of Sutherland’s, and the Duchess and her children -and her nephews and nieces were much attached to that -wayward genius. While he was still an undergraduate at -Oxford, he contracted the taste for gambling on horse-races, -which kept him a poor man, but enabled him to write one -of the best racing novels of the language—<i>Mr. Blake of -Newmarket</i>. That did not prevent him from writing delightful -children’s books, inspired by the Duchess’s children. -He was a very handsome and romantic-looking man, with -wonderful iron-grey eyes, but, like Byron, was born lame. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>For a brief time he edited the <i>Daily Mail</i>, as a <i>locum tenens</i>, -I believe, and for a long time he was Paris correspondent -of the <i>New York World</i>. Once, during that period, he made -a big coup at Chantilly, and for some days pressed me with -letters and telegrams to go and stay with him for a week -at Paris and “paint the town absolutely red” at his expense. -We were to stay at the Ritz. He said he was going to be -really rich for a week, and it would supply me with the -material for a whole novel. But if he was determined to -waste his one stroke of luck, I was not going to be a party to -it, and I not only refused, but did my utmost to wean him -from the idea—unsuccessfully, I think. If Cooper had really -given his mind to novel-writing and journalism, he might have -made a great name, for he was brilliantly clever, and his distinction -of manner made him an impressive figure in society.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We were drawing near the end of our time at Addison -Mansions when I met Jeffery Farnol. Farnol, who is still -young, is as likely as any one to rank among the foremost -novelists of his time. His <i>Broad Highway</i> is one of the best -books produced by the generation, and <i>The Amateur Gentleman</i> -was a good successor to it. He is an Englishman born, -but lived some time in America, where he made his living -as a scene-painter. There he wrote his great novel, and -after disappointments in searching for a publisher he sent -it to Shirley Byron Jevons, at that time editor of the <i>Sportsman</i>, -a relative of the celebrated Professor Stanley Jevons, -the Political Economist, and brother of Dr. Frank Jevons, -Vice-Chancellor of Durham University, he himself being -now connected with literary journalism. Shirley Jevons at -once recognised it as something like a work of genius, and -taking it to the old firm of Sampson Low, Marston & Co., -Ltd., told them that they must publish it. It made its way -a little slowly at first, but then the public, led by the strong -convictions of one man, swept him on to fame on an irresistible -tide. Farnol was born in Birmingham thirty-five -years ago. His parents came to London when he was seven, -and he has made a suburb of it, Lee, in Kent, his permanent -home, though business may take him to the United States -for months at a time.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>He married in his early twenties the daughter of Hawley, -the scenic and architectural artist, an Englishman living in -America. She was on a visit to relatives in England, and the -rash young couple, soon after the birth of a daughter, their -only child, resolved to try their fortunes on the other side -of the Atlantic, the plucky and fascinating little wife sharing -there his bad fortune as now she shares his good. The -struggle was hard enough for a time, and, if Farnol cared to -relate all that he went through in those years, the story would -be a human document of great interest. At my house he -met Yoshio Markino. I was about to introduce the already -famous Jap to the coming young Englishman, when the -impulsive Markino rushed at and fondled him, crying out -in delight, “Why, it’s Jacky!” They had been fellow-students -at the Goldsmiths’ Institute when both were younger, -and both unknown to fame. There Farnol had shown -welcome little kindnesses to the lonely, warm-hearted -stranger from Nippon. Their ways had parted, neither -thinking to see the other again, and least of all in this dramatic -fashion and in these brighter circumstances. <i>The Broad -Highway</i> has been dramatised for America, and is to be staged -in England. <i>The Amateur Gentleman</i> is also to be adapted -to the stage. His third important story—he has done many -shorter things—is likely to be of modern times.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Francis Gribble is a very old friend of mine; we belonged -to the same literary clubs, and met constantly at them, and -he and his charming Dutch wife were often at Addison -Mansions. Gribble, who is an Oxford First Class man, -besides his very able novels and his biographies, which are -recognised as classics on their subject, has made a neglected -aspect of Switzerland his particular province. He is the -authority on the Swiss towns, like Geneva and Lauzanne, -where so much of the scenes of some of his biographies had -necessarily to be laid. He now spends a good deal of his -time in Continental travel. I remember his telling me that -it was through his study of Swiss towns that he was led on -to write biography. The connecting link was his accidental -perusal of that wonderful book, <i>Benjamin Constant’s Journal -Intime</i>. He saw from it that the life of Madame de Staël -<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>needed to be written from a new point of view, then he was -led on to cover the whole ground of the romantic movement -in French literature from Rousseau to Victor Hugo.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Frank Hird I have known many years. I met him first -as editor of some important journal—I forget what—with -which I was arranging a contribution, just as I met C. N. -Williamson first as sub-editor of the <i>Graphic</i>. I was astonished -to find myself in the presence of a person who was -hardly more than a boy, very good-looking, very well-bred, -very well dressed. Since then I have met him repeatedly, -and enjoyed the friendship of one who fully came up to my -first prepossession. I have met him most, I think, at the -hospitable villa of the Joseph Whitakers’ in Palermo, where -he frequently stayed, and showed himself as good in private -theatricals as he is as an author. The place where he seemed -most in his element was when he was correspondent to one -of the chief London newspapers in Rome, and I used to -meet him in salons like the Countess Lovatelli’s. The -Countess was the sister of the Duke of Sermoneta, one of -the highest of the Roman nobility, who has a similar position -to our Duke of Norfolk. The Sermoneta family have a -proud record in Italian archæology; the Countess herself -is an author, and, as a centre of public and literary life, the -Lady St. Helier of Rome. Her “salon” is said to be the -only one in which the “Whites” and the “Blacks” habitually -meet. He was always the diplomatist, more than the -correspondent, though he was so excellent at his own work, -and would have risen high in diplomacy if he had made it -his career.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Edgar Jepson and his wife were often at Addison Mansions, -and I used to meet him constantly at the Authors’ Club as -I now meet him at the Dilettanti. He is a man in whom -his friends believed from the first, and the quality of his books -and his speaking have amply justified them. Intellectually -he is a typical Balliol man, but that does not prevent his -being one of the delights of Bohemia, where his popularity -is unbounded. Experts are agreed that on his day, he is -the second best, if not the best, auction-bridge player in -England. He says of himself, that he is a walking warning -<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>against writing fiction, since from his first book he made 0, -from his second six pounds nineteen and nine, and from -his third nine pounds ten and fivepence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>William le Queux has been an intimate friend of mine for -many years. A Frenchman by birth, he is a strongly -Imperialist Englishman by naturalisation, and in his writings -and politics. He has led a most interesting life. He was -once an artist in the Quartier Latin, but he deserted this for -journalism, and was sent by <i>The Times</i> as a special correspondent -to Russia, using the opportunity to acquire an -extraordinary knowledge of the secret workings of the -Nihilists, just as he has in recent years been very much behind -the scenes in the Balkans and Turkey. For a while he was -sub-editor of the <i>Globe</i>, which post he resigned as soon as -his success as a novelist justified it. Since then he has -travelled continually, and acquired a unique knowledge of -the secret service of the Continental Powers. He is one -of the most popular novelists of the day, the secret of his -popularity lying in his brilliant handling of mysteries, and -the use he makes of his knowledge behind the scenes in -Continental politics. His books dealing with supposed -invasions of England are masterpieces in their way, showing -an extraordinary grasp of military details. A member of -the Athenæum Club told me once that judges and bishops -almost quarrelled with each other when a new William le -Queux book came into the Club. His affable face, with -bright, dark eyes, behind <i>pince-nez</i>, and an inscrutable -expression, is familiar to frequenters of the Devonshire -Club and the Hotel Cecil. The curious thing is that, though -we have been such friends, and have been frequent visitors -to the same places on the Continent, from the little republic -of San Marino, of which he is Consul-General, upwards, -we have never, so far as I remember, met out of England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bertram Mitford lived side by side with myself and “Adrian -Ross” at Addison Mansions for years. He belongs to one of -the oldest families in England. His father, the late E. L. -Osbaldeston Mitford, of Mitford in Northumberland, which -has been in the possession of his family since Saxon times, -appearing in Doomsday Book, was a wonderful old gentleman; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>he lived to be more than a hundred years old, and, -till a few years before his death, used to come up to London -for first nights at his favourite theatres.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bertram Mitford is a good sportsman, who has travelled -and shot in the back parts of South Africa, and the wild -lands bordering on India and Afghanistan. His travels have -inspired novels which are splendid books of adventure. -He has also been in Italy a good deal.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Guise Mitford, who has written one or two good novels, -is his cousin, as is the stately Lord Redesdale, the head of -a cadet branch of his family, who wrote the famous <i>Tales -of Old Japan</i>. Miss Mitford, too, a once most popular -authoress, was of the clan.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mitford and I used to see each other constantly in Addison -Mansions, and frequently at two or three clubs to which -we both belonged, but I don’t remember ever doing the -journey between together, between them and our flats. -He often walked both ways for the exercise.</p> - -<p class='c016'>K. J. Key, the great cricketer, who for many years held -the record for the Oxford and Cambridge match, with his -130, and was afterwards Captain of the Surrey Eleven for -years, one of my most valued friends, introduced me to -Charles Marriott, of whose novels he was an immense admirer. -Key is a great reader. Unlike most cricketers, who prefer -to watch the game intently until they go in to bat, as if they -were playing whist or bridge, and wanted to see what cards -were out, he used to read a book or a newspaper till it was -his turn to go in, and I have no doubt that he saved a good -deal of nerve energy by doing so. I think he met Marriott -in Cornwall, to which they are both devoted. Certainly, -they are both fond of photography. Marriott made a -considerable <i>succès d’estime</i> with his first novel, <i>The Column</i>. -He is, or was until recently, the Art critic of one of the great -London dailies, and is a most accomplished man, of wide -knowledge, and one of the best novelists of the day. Living -at Brook Green, he was a near neighbour of ours, and from -the time that Key introduced us to the time that we left -Addison Mansions, we saw a good deal of him. Key’s wife -has recently published a novel with a cricketer (not her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>husband) for its hero—<i>A Daughter of Love</i>. She is a sister -of Lascelles Abercombie.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Compton Mackenzie first came to Addison Mansions as -a small boy at St. Paul’s School, where he was a friend of -my son. They began to be men very early in my son’s -little cupboard of a study, overlooking Lyon’s cake-factory. -I did not see him after he made his fame as a novelist till -we came to live at Richmond. He has, like myself, a passion -for gardening. He is, of course, a son of Edward Compton, -the actor, and Virginia Bateman, and his great-grandmother -was a Symonds, aunt of John Addington Symonds, so there -is one of the best strains of literary ability in the family. The -famous Sir Morell Mackenzie was Edward Compton’s cousin.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I wrote to ask Compton Mackenzie, who is now -indulging his passion for gardening by living in Capri and -making landscapes round his house, what first impelled him -to write novels, he said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I can remember shooting peas at your guests as they -came in, and throwing cake, etc. I don’t suppose we did it -always, but I distinctly remember doing it once or twice. -It is difficult to extract anything from the past and account -for my writing novels. Yet I always had a passion for -writing. In the Upper Sixth in 1896, I, with two other boys, -ran a paper called <i>The Hectona</i>, of which, so far as I know, -only two numbers are in existence. It was printed on -gelatine, and all the contributions were copied out by myself -in my execrable handwriting. Like many magazines since, -it expired of illegibility. Later, at Oxford, I ran another -paper called <i>The Oxford Point of View</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Gardening I took up to console myself for not being -able to find a publisher for my first book. It toured round -London for nearly two years, and I did not sit down and -write <i>The Carnival</i> until <i>The Passionate Elopement</i> lay bound -upon my table. This was according to a vow I had made. -I started very early. <i>The Passionate Elopement</i> was printed -just after I was twenty-five. It was originally—or some -of it—a play which I wrote to console my father for having -got married without warning or expectation. That was -when I was twenty-two.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>“<i>The Carnival</i>, I suppose, may be called the result of -helping my brother-in-law, poor Harry Pelissier, with his -Alhambra Revue. I used to rehearse the Corps de Ballet, -and, I suppose, naturally made use of such an opportunity -to make a book.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lord Monkswell, who wrote a single novel, and whose -sister, the Contessa Arturo di Cadilhac, born Margaret -Collier, has written some valuable books about life in Italy, -I met constantly as one of the directors of the Authors’ -Club. He was also my sponsor for another club. He was -very regular in his attendances at the Board Meetings of the -Authors’ Club, which he occasionally illuminated with a -naïve outbreak, as in his dictum about the National Liberal -Club. At one of our Board Meetings, I was advocating -some change in the financial arrangements of the billiard-room, -and quoted as an example to be followed the rule at -the National Liberal Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“National Liberal Club!” cried Lord Monkswell, who -was at that time Under-Secretary for War in a Liberal -Government; “why, I don’t call that a club at all—I call it -a railway station!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Richard Orton Prowse has won admiration in high places -with his work. One of his novels ran as a serial in the -<i>Cornhill</i>, and he had a play produced by the “Stage Society.” -He used to come to Addison Mansions because we were in -the same small house at Cheltenham College—Gantillon’s, -in Fauconberg Terrace. There were only about half-a-dozen -boys in the house, but we used to knock up a game of -football on a waste bit of ground at the back of the terrace, -with two small day-boys who lived in an adjoining house. -There were not more than eight of us all told—I think only -seven, and of the seven, besides Prowse and myself, there -were the two famous Renshaws, and the two famous Lambs. -The Renshaws were very small boys in those days, but so -absolutely certain in their catching, and their drop-kicking, -that they counted in football games with boys three or four -years older. When they grew up, their extraordinary scientificness -in games was proved in the lawn-tennis courts, -because for years, until one of them died by his own hand, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>they were undisputed champions. As it happened, I never -met either of them after they left school, but one day I was -driving through a remote Buckinghamshire village, White -Waltham or something of the kind, with a friend, when we -observed a crowd, in the street outside the village pound, -of persons whom you would not have expected in such a -place. We inquired what the trouble was, and found -that it was an inquest on a suicide—one of the famous -Renshaws.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Curiously enough, there was the same element of tragedy -in the history of the brothers Lamb—Captain Thomas Lamb -and Captain Edward Lamb, were for years the finest shots -in the British army. Edward Lamb was the only boy who -ever won the Spencer Cup twice; when he was at school, -there had never been such a shot at a public school. Thomas -Lamb, who had the finest nerve I ever remember in any one, -broke down in a match when he went over to the United -States to represent England, and was so mortified that he -shot himself on the way home.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I shall always remember with pride that I was the first -person who ever put a rifle into the hands of those two -Lambs. I taught them how to shoot, and did most of the -explaining in that house in Fauconberg Terrace, Cheltenham. -I was at the time Captain of the school shooting eight, and -I had won the Spencer Cup myself in the Public Schools -matches at the preceding Wimbledon Meeting. I rather -despaired about Tommy Lamb; he was not quick at taking -things in, but I knew that if he could learn to shoot, his nerve -and his doggedness might carry him to any heights of success. -The houses of Fauconberg Terrace were very high, and there -was a high parapet about a foot wide on the roof. I have -seen Tommy Lamb run along that parapet from end to end. -He said, “If it was only two or three feet from the ground, -instead of two or three feet from the roof, it would be nothing. -Why should it make any difference? It is all the same to -me.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Several feet from our study window, which had a storey -underneath it, there was a railing of about the same width. -He used to jump from our window on to that railing, and keep -<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>his balance. Anybody could do it, he said, if it was nearer -the ground. Why should it make any difference?</p> - -<p class='c016'>And he was always ready to jump from a height of twenty -or thirty feet, and never hurt himself.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The seventh boy in those football games was Frank Lamb, -the youngest brother. I never heard if he did anything in -after life, but we six, I am quite sure, had no thought beyond -a football which bounced so unevenly on that piece of -waste land.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Tommy Lamb was a very fine fellow, singularly modest -about his achievements. Several years afterwards, when I -first came back from Australia, I went down to Wimbledon -to see the Public Schools Veterans’ Match, in which I had -captained Cheltenham three or four times. Lamb, who was -then in the flower of his shooting, was very anxious that -I should take his place in that year’s team. He thought it -so wrong that I should not be shooting. I had, fortunately, -not fired off a rifle for at least three years, or I should have -had great difficulty in dissuading him from effacing himself -for me, and if I had been at my very best he would have been -heavens above me in the form he showed. That was the -sort of man he was. We were in the same house at Cheltenham -for two or three years, so I knew him extremely well.</p> - -<p class='c016'>These chapters in no way exhaust the list of my novelist -friends—they are merely reminiscences which I thought likely -to interest readers about some of them. I have not mentioned, -for instance, one of my greatest friends, that brilliant -historical novelist, John Bloundelle-Burton; or Hornung, -Doyle’s brother-in-law, whom I first met out in Australia -thirty years ago; or Richard Pryce, that dainty novelist and -playwright; and I have passed by many other well-known -authors whom I knew equally well and saw very often.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXIV<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>OTHER AUTHOR FRIENDS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>One</span> is apt to let fiction speak for itself, as if it represented -the whole of literature. But it does not. Several of the -men mentioned below are novelists, but they owe their -importance more to other books.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The late W. H. Wilkins, who was much at our house, is -an example. Wilkins, who was the son and heir of a West -Country Squire, was an extraordinary mixture—a man of -fashion, who was at the same time an industrious museum-worker. -He wrote admirable books on the Georgian Courts. -But he will be best remembered as the editor to whom Lady -Burton entrusted her manuscripts for publication. It was -from him that I learned the irreparable loss which she inflicted -on literature by burning a number of Burton’s manuscripts -because of the grossnesses which they contained. -There was no reason why any of these grossnesses should -have been published—the manuscripts could have been -printed with lacunæ where these passages occurred, and the -manuscripts could have been left to the nation in the British -Museum on condition that the offending passages never were -published. But the idea of burning unpublished works -about Arabia, by the greatest of all explorers of Arabia and -students of Arab customs, was too infamous. Wilkins put -it down to her religion. She was a very ardent Roman -Catholic.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He had a good deal to do with the <i>Ladies’ Realm</i> in its -early days, when it was published by Hutchinson, and I -believe he had a good deal to do with the formation of the -fortnightly part publications for which this house is famous. -He certainly was a friend and constant adviser of Hutchinson’s. -His books enjoyed a considerable sale. The novel -<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>he wrote in collaboration with Herbert Vivian was one of the -last of the three-volumers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Wilkins was a man of strong likes and dislikes, very -affectionate to his friends. Like E. H. Cooper, he was a -well-known figure in society as well as in literary circles—and, -curiously enough, he, too, was lame.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Joseph Shaylor, the managing secretary of the Whitefriars -Club, and the managing director of Simpkin, Marshall, -Hamilton, Kent & Co., the largest wholesale booksellers -in the world, I have known almost as long. It is interesting -to note that Shaylor, besides being the largest dealer in -books commercially, has a most intimate and discriminating -knowledge of all the books which are worth reading, and -issues delightful little books on books, including his dear -little annual <i>From Friend to Friend</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Every one knows his volume called <i>The Fascination of -Books</i>. His career is a romance; it reminds one of Dick -Whittington. He has himself told us that he is a self-made -man—<i>i. e.</i> he has had nothing but his own intelligence and -grit to help him. He was born in Stroud in 1844, where he -was apprenticed to a bookseller named Clark. It was part -of Shaylor’s duty to fetch the London papers from the train -in the morning. In 1864 he came to London, at once entering -the firm of Simpkin, Marshall & Co. His diligence and -business acumen generally was noted, and after a while he -was given charge of one of the departments. It became -increasingly evident to his employers that their confidence -in, and judgment of, this young man from the country had -not been misplaced, and within five or six years after the -formation of the company, as it now stands, Shaylor was -elected to the position of one of the managing directors.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Shaylor is an authority on the history of books and bookselling, -and has many interesting stories to tell of how things -were done in the trade years ago, when life was more leisurely. -In those golden days, reviewers had some power; a good -review in <i>The Times</i> sold two hundred thousand copies of -<i>The Fight at Dame Europa’s School</i>, timidly brought out in -the very smallest way, and an article in <i>The World</i> sold four -hundred copies of <i>Called Back</i>. How a book sells depends -<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>very much upon the original subscription before publication, -of which Shaylor, as head of the world’s biggest buyers, thinks -it worthy. Of him it may be justly said that he has his finger -on the pulse of English literature and that his diagnosis is -accepted by the world.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ernest Thompson Seton—who took for his pen-name -Ernest Seton Thompson—came to us first many years ago, -when he became engaged to a friend of ours, the beautiful -Grace Gallatin, daughter of the Speaker of the California -House of Representatives. A descendant of the last Earl -of Winton, he went to Canada when he was only five, and -lived in the backwoods for ten years. Then he went to -school and college in Canada, and had two years’ art-training -in London before he returned to Manitoba to study natural -history, eventually becoming naturalist to the Manitoba -Government. In 1898, when he was thirty-eight years old, -he published his <i>Wild Animals I have Known—the Biographies -of Eight Wild Animals</i>, which went through ten editions in -the first year, and was the foundation of his fame and large -fortune. He founded the outdoor-life movement, known as -<i>The Woodcraft Indians</i>, which has a membership of nearly -a hundred thousand, and in addition to his soundness as a -naturalist, he is the most dramatic lecturer I have ever -heard. He lectures on the psychology of wild animals as -if they were human beings, and is said to be the most popular -lecturer living. His books about wild animals have delightful -sketches of animal playfulness and humanness in their -margins, some of which are by himself, and some by his wife.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Dr. Dillon, whose articles in the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> on the -Balkan question during the war formed the most illuminating -comment on the subject, I have been meeting for years at -Violet Hunt’s. He is an elderly man, who looks more the -scholar and the recluse than the publicist with his finger -on the pulse of all Eastern Europe.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Max Beerbohm, Sir Herbert Beerbohm-Tree’s brother, is -recognised as one of the most brilliant wits and intuitive -critics of the day, as well as our most inspired caricaturist. -There are few educated people in England who are not -familiar with his work. I met him first at a dinner of the -Women Journalists. We were both guests of the Club, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>Mrs. T. P. O’Connor, who was in the chair, said to me, “You -know Max Beerbohm, don’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I did not know him, though I had always wanted to know -him, because I was a great admirer of his work and his wit. -I said, “No, I don’t,” and was about to add what pleasure -it would give me, when he took the words out of my mouth by -saying, “I refuse not to be known by Mr. Douglas Sladen.” -That was our introduction.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was in splendid form that night. He and a man with -an unpronounceable Polish name, who was one of the leading -foreign journalists in London, were deputed to reply for the -visitors. The Pole, who spoke very broken English, at -interminable length, made Max Beerbohm very angry, -because he hated the idea of speaking to a jaded audience, -so when at length his colleague sat down, and he rose to -make his speech, he began, “I, too, am a foreigner. I go -about in holy terror of the Tariff Reform League.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The audience recognised that he was really alluding to -the Aliens Act, and rocked with laughter.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I remember Mark Twain being similarly annoyed at a dinner -of the American Society, when he had to speak after a number -of verbose platitudinarians. He was quite dispirited when -he rose, and confined himself to a few sentences. After the -dinner was over, he told me this, and he went on to say, -“But I was wrong, for the late Sir Henry Brackenbury -spoke after me, and look what he did with the audience! -He took them up in his hand, and moved them to tears -and laughter, just as he pleased.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>That speech of Sir Henry’s certainly was magnificently -eloquent. It was during, or just after, the South African -War, and the phrases in which he alluded to the war swept the -audience, though they were mostly Americans, right off their -feet; they were as fine as John Bright’s immortal allusion -to hearing the angels’ wings in his Crimean War speech. -I only once heard a finer speech—the sermon preached in -St. Paul’s by the present Archbishop of York, then Bishop -of Stepney, upon the centenary of Nelson’s death. In that -sermon over and over again the words were flames. There -is nothing so inspiring as a supreme speech at a supreme -moment.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>Dr. G. C. Williamson, the art editor of George Bell & -Sons, is one of the most potent figures in the world of art—in -fact, there are few branches of art on which he has not -got any reasonable information at his fingers’ tips. He has -written books which have met with wide acceptation on -several of them, and has been a great collector and traveller.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I met him under curious circumstances. We were both, -though I did not know him then, in St. Peter’s, witnessing -the Jubilee of Leo XIII. On occasions like this in Italy no -one interferes with the liberty of the sight-seer, and as I -was not, in the nature of things, likely to see the Jubilee of -another Pope, and I had to write a description of it, I determined -to seize whatever opportunity I could for seeing it, -without any <i>mauvais honte</i>. The cathedral had been so -packed for the past six hours that it was practically impossible -to see anything unless you seized some coign of vantage. -Williamson and I were standing close to one of the great -piers of the nave, and the base had a projection some feet -from the ground. I determined to stand on it, but he was -between me and the pier. He very good-naturedly made -way for me, and helped me to scramble up, calling out “<i>Viva -il papa re! Viva il papa re!</i>” all the time. I offered, of -course, to share my giddy eminence with him, turn and turn -about, but he was a devout Catholic, and though he saw no -harm in my ambitions, which he furthered so nobly, he was -quite content to be in the church, and worshipping. He did -not want to see more than everybody saw without striving, -when at last it happened—the carrying of the frail old -Pope on his <i>Sedia Gestatoria</i>, supported on men’s shoulders, -between the snow-white <i>flabella</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When it was all over, we exchanged cards, and that was -the beginning of my friendship with the famous art critic.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It certainly was about the most impressive sight I ever -saw—that vast cathedral, packed with a hundred thousand -human beings, with the nonagenarian Pope dressed in snow-white -garments borne on his moving throne from the High -Altar to the Chapel of the Crucifix.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is not too much to say that literary London felt a shock -when it heard that William Sinclair had resigned the Archdeaconry -of London which he had held with such conspicuous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>success for twenty-two years, and retired to a Sussex benefice. -He had been one of the foremost figures in every London -function of the time, since the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, -and he had started life as a Scholar of Balliol and President -of the Union—the University Debating Society at Oxford. -Being a bachelor, there was no reason why he should restrict -himself to dining at home, and, consequently, he was the -most prominent figure at public dinners, of a patriotic, -philanthropic or useful character, where he spoke comparatively -seldom, considering what a good speaker he is. -Being a connection of half the Scottish aristocracy—he is -a cousin of the Lord of the Isles—he was equally conspicuous -in country house parties. A constant attendant at the -functions of the Authors’ and other literary clubs, his eminence -as an ecclesiastic and a public man obscured the fact -that his performances as an author were among the most -distinguished of those present, for he has a gift of saying -wise things in epigrammatic form. His <i>magnum opus</i> is a -book on his own cathedral, and here I may incidentally -remark that few archdeacons have ever exercised such -influence on the Dean over the care of the cathedral. His -great object was to emphasise the voice of St. Paul’s as that -of the nation in its religious aspect, and it was with this view -that he prevailed on the Dean and Chapter and the Crown -to install the Imperial Order of St. Michael and St. George -in the Chapel of the Cathedral where they meet for annual -commemorations. His loss, also, from the Sunday afternoon -pulpit of St. Paul’s has been distinctly felt. It was one of -the institutions of London. He was a wise man to retire -for leisure to write and travel while he was still in his prime.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Basil Wilberforce, the Archdeacon of Westminster, and -son of the great Bishop, I came to know because we used to -meet at dinner at Lady Lindsay’s. It was there that I -heard him declare his firm faith in the Holy Grail—I am -refering to the vessel which had been discovered a short -time before at Glastonbury Abbey, and which was believed -to emanate a luminous <i>aura</i> at night, from time to time. -The Archdeacon declined the honour of having it left in his -bedroom at night to test the truth of the allegation, either -because he thought his emotions might act on his imagination, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>or because he did not think himself worthy, but I -understand that it was left in Sir William Crookes’, the great -F.R.S.’s room for three nights without his observing any -phenomena.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I remember George Russell—the Rt. Hon. G. W. E. -Russell, the editor of Matthew Arnold’s letters, and Under-Secretary -for India in Lord Rosebery’s Government—who -was present that night, interposing a jarring note of incredulity, -which the Archdeacon very sweetly forgave in an -old friend.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Until her prolonged absences from London for ill-health, -Mrs. Neish, the wife of the Registrar of the Privy Council, -was, on account of the remarkable rapidity with which she -made her way in literature as well as for her beauty, a conspicuous -figure in London literary society. She made her -way so quickly because she was a born writer, and mingled -the witty and the pathetic naturally. She was a daughter -of Sir Edwin Galsworthy. There is literature in the family. -She is a first cousin of the great novelist and playwright, -John Galsworthy. Her husband’s father was a Scottish -laird, who in an inspired moment advanced the capital for -founding the <i>Dundee Advertiser</i>. She has often done the -<i>Saturday Westminster</i> and written many nature sketches.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the principal figures in literary society, and one of -my most valued friends, is M. H. Spielmann, the great art -critic who discovered and bought the lost Velasquez a year -or two ago. Spielmann was for seventeen years editor of -the <i>Magazine of Art</i>, and is an authority on <i>Punch</i> -and its contributors, as well as on painting and sculpture. -He is the author of several standard works, and has been -juror in the Fine Arts’ section of innumerable exhibitions. -He is also a keen politician on the Conservative side, though -he is the brother-in-law of the Rt. Hon. Herbert Samuel, -and is an admirable speaker. But you always feel that it is -not his accomplishments which count in Spielmann, though -he has so many; it is himself—his shining character, his -almost feminine gentleness and considerateness, combined -with unusual firmness and principle. There are few men -in London who could be so ill spared as Spielmann.</p> - -<div id='i306f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i306f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>THE JAPANESE ROOM AT 32 ADDISON MANSIONS.<br />(<i>From the Painting by Yoshio Markino.</i>)</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXV<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>FRIENDS WHO NEVER CAME TO ADDISON MANSIONS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>I ought</span> to say something here of the interesting people I -have known, who never happened to come to Addison -Mansions, for one reason or another.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Distance prevented the great Dr. Boyd of St. Andrews—the -famous A.K.H.B., of whom I saw a good deal in the long -summer I spent at St. Andrews—from coming. Dr. Boyd -possessed the most crushing powers of repartee of any person -I ever met. One day, when he was walking with me along -the street at St. Andrews, which leads down to the links, -some one presented an American publisher, a partner in a -famous firm, to him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I am very glad to meet you, Dr. Boyd,” said the publisher. -“I enjoyed your <i>Scenes from Clerical Life</i> so -much.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I did not write that book, sir,” said the terrible Doctor. -“I wrote <i>The Recreations of a Country Parson</i>—and you ought -to know it, because your firm stole them both.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I once unconsciously helped him in using this talent, which -happened in this wise. Dr. Boyd was a reformer as drastic -as John Knox. The great humanising movement in the -Scottish Church, which made its services and music so much -more beautiful and its attitude so much less angular, was -largely his work, for he was not only one of the most eloquent -of the notable ministers who worked for it, but he had any -amount of backbone. An old ultra-Protestant lady, having -perceived this, paid an evangelist a thousand a year to go -about Scotland preaching against him. One Sunday he was -at St. Andrews, on the public space where the inhabitants -used to practice archery, preaching against Dr. Boyd. His -preaching was all “limehousing,” an appeal to the coarsest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>prejudice, most banal abuse and derision. It was so ludicrous -that I took most of it down in longhand, in the intervals when -he paused for applause, as he did whenever he imagined that -he was scoring. It so happened that I was having afternoon-tea -with Dr. Boyd, and that he was preaching in his own -church that evening. I began to sympathise with him in -being made the subject of such a persecution.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Were you there?” he asked. I nodded.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Do you remember at all what he said?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I produced my notes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Do you mind reading them out to me?” he asked, after -a despairing glance at the writing. I did. He took no -notes; but he had an admirable memory, and he evidently -took it all in, for that evening, without having lowered his -dignity by being present at the evangelist’s attack on him, -he turned the tables on the offender from his own pulpit, -with a dissection of his remarks which can only be compared -to throwing vitriol, though it was all done with beautiful -polish and observance of form.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was never more amusing than when he was sympathising -about the difficulties which he described Andrew Lang -as experiencing when he came to St. Andrews. He was such -a master of innuendo.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Dr. Boyd wrote his books in handwriting so minute that -he could get two thousand words on to one foolscap page. -The firm who always printed them for his publishers had -large magnifying glasses fitted to the case on which his copy -was fixed for setting it up. And Dr. Boyd was very proud -of it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of Dr. Boyd’s sons has inherited his power as a writer—my -friend Charles Boyd, who acted for some time as -private secretary to Cecil Rhodes in South Africa.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Charles Dilke, M.P., took a flattering interest in my -books, and was very friendly in his intercourse with me. -The most amusing reminiscences I have in connection with -him are <i>à propos</i> of a dinner at which we were both taken in, -though I was too obscure for it to signify in my case.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A dinner for a high-sounding object was given at Prince’s. -Sixty important public men and leading writers and journalists -<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>were invited, and Sir Charles Dilke was asked to respond -to the toast of the evening.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His rising to speak was the signal for three great acetylene -flares to be turned on, which reduced the scores of electric -lights in the room to looking like the gas jets in the Richmond -railway-station. This was taken as a compliment to -Sir Charles, though it would have disconcerted any less -practised speaker.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When his speech and the other speeches were over, the -chairman electrified the assemblage by informing them that -a new sort of gramophone would reproduce for them Tennyson’s -last words in the voice in which he spoke them. It was -a most impressive moment. For a few minutes one did not -realise the colossal impertinence of pretending that there had -been a phonograph in Tennyson’s bedroom on this solemn -occasion. But, of course, the record might have been produced -by a man who knew Tennyson’s voice well enough to -imitate it, as certain reciters imitate celebrated actors. We -did not realise this at the time. The next day the dinner was -duly reported, with the names of the makers of these wonderful -lamps, and this wonderful phonetic record, and later on -it transpired that these two parties had paid for the dinner, -which was only got up to advertise them.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This is one of the two cleverest pieces of journalism I -remember. The other happened on the night that King -Edward died. A great London linen-draping firm had -an elaborate intelligence system during the well-beloved -monarch’s last illness. They were well served. I happened -to see the head of the firm about twelve hours before the -nation was plunged into mourning.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You may take it from me,” he said, “that his Majesty -won’t live another twenty-four hours.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>As he was in the habit of making impressive statements, -I discounted what he said. But he was right, and acting on -his information, he bought up all the available mourning in -the market, and scored a huge business victory. I met him -long afterwards, and alluded to the information which he had -given me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I wasn’t the only one who took pains to know,” he said, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>“for that night, at the hour the King died, I was driving -from the hotel, where I had been dining, to my office, with -the correspondent of one of the great French newspapers. -As we passed the Palace, one of the top windows was opened, -and a person came to it with a lighted candle, and blew it -out. ‘Did you see that? Do you mind driving me to the -West Strand post-office?’ said my French friend. ‘Why, -no,’ I said; ‘but what do you want to go there for?’ ‘To -send a cipher-wire to my paper that his Majesty is dead.’ -‘Isn’t it a great risk?’ I asked. ‘If it was, I would take it. -But even a good rumour is worth something.’”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Frenchman was right, and he won his victory.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The late Lord Dufferin was another man who was very -kind to me about my writings. I suppose that they appealed -to him for the same reason that they appealed to Dilke. -Both of them were deeply interested in Greater Britain, and -in travel generally, and I have written books full of enthusiasm -for travel and the Colonies.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lord Dufferin never forgot any one who had served him. -When his new title forced a new signature on him, he sent -a new photograph with the Dufferin and Ava signature to -all his journalist friends, though some of them had passed -out of his sphere for years.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He always did the right thing. I remember the late Lord -Derby beginning a speech at a dinner at Winnipeg at which -I was present, “As Lord Dufferin, who seems to have left -nothing unsaid, observed,” etc.</p> - -<p class='c016'>On that same vice-regal progress to the West, I was -showing Lord Derby some Kodaks I had taken on various -occasions at which he had been present—crowded functions -in cities, full-dress rehearsals of Chippeway Indians on the -war-path, and the like. One print was from a negative -which I had of these Chippewas, with their necklaces of -cartridges and their feather head-dresses, taken on the top -of the massed choirs of Manitoba, singing “God save the -Queen.” Lord Derby begged this photograph from me, -“That’s a photograph of the whole trip,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He remained surprisingly popular, considering the maladroitness -of one of his aide-de-camps—a delightful Guardsman -<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>who is now dead. I have heard this A.D.C., whom Nature -had gifted with the most graceful manners, say appalling -things.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At one provincial capital, the mayor gave a ball in Lord -Derby’s honour. I had just been presented to the mayor, -and was standing quite close to him, when Lord Derby came -in. When the official presentation was over, Lord Derby, -who always wished to get on a friendly footing with his hosts, -asked his A.D.C. in a whisper, “What is the mayor, M——?” -The Governor-General wished to know if his host bred cattle, -or ran a timber-mill, or owned a hotel, or what, so that he -might say the appropriate thing. But the A.D.C.’s reply, -which, like Lord Derby’s “What is the mayor, M——?”, -was perfectly audible to that functionary, was “Toned-down -Jew.” So much for the <i>entente cordiale</i> at—we will -call it Medicine Hat.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At a ball given by Lord Derby, I watched that same -A.D.C. taking an important politician, whom he should have -known perfectly well, to introduce him to his own wife, a -young and pretty woman who considered herself one of the -lions of Canadian society. The situation struck me as a -promising one, so I listened to hear what he would say.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Mrs. Um,” he said; “may I introduce Mr. Um-um to -you?” She looked up at him with an amused smile, and -he continued quite blissfully, “He’s a stupid old buffer, but -I’ll get you away from him as soon as I can.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXVI<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY TRAVELLER FRIENDS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Considering</span> the number of years which I have devoted -to travel, I have not met a great many explorers, certainly -nothing like so many as I should have met if I had been a -regular attendant at the meetings of the Royal Geographical -Society. These interest me extremely, but I have an unfortunate -habit of going to sleep at lectures, however interesting -I find them, so I shrink from going to them. Otherwise -I should have joined the society long ago, and been a regular -attendant.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The last time I went there was many years ago, when a -great explorer and mighty hunter had just returned from -Mashonaland. He read an immensely interesting paper; I -quite forgot to go to sleep. Among the speakers who followed -was a pompous old gentleman, who scourged the -lecturer with the most inane platitudes, winding up with the -question, “May I ask the lecturer what he thinks of the -climate of Mashonaland?” and the explorer replied, “There’s -nothing wrong with the climate of Mashonaland, but it -isn’t the sort of place where you could get drunk and lie all -night in the gutter, without knowing about it the next -morning.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The old gentleman gasped, and so, I think, did the audience, -but the lecturer seemed quite unconscious that he had done -anything beyond giving sound advice.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My friendship with the famous Dr. George Ernest Morrison, -of Peking, I have described in the chapter on Australians. -When I was living in Melbourne, I saw a good deal at the -Melbourne Club of Augustus Gregory, one of the doyens of -Australian exploration, actually the first, I believe, to accomplish -the transcontinental journey successfully. He told -<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>me that when their supplies ran short, the things they missed -most in the terrific heat were fat and sugar. When their -water ran short, they more than once refilled their water-bottles -by wringing the dew out of their blankets.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Curiously enough, fat and sugar were the things equally -most missed by a party of Canadian explorers who were -engaged one winter in finding the pass by which the Canadian -Pacific Railway crossed the Rocky Mountains. Their leader, -who was running a small steamer up from Golden City to -the source of the Columbia in Lake Windermere, told me -so, when I was a passenger with him. I had just shot a wild -goose on a shoal with my Winchester rifle from the deck of -the steamer, and he had come out of his cabin to see what the -matter was.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I had a unique experience at that Canadian Lake Windermere. -I was lying flat on my back in the reedy shallows at -its edge, enjoying a bath in water above human temperature, -when a deputation of ranchers waited on me to ask if I would -act as judge in the annual horse-races for Red Indians, -which were to be held that afternoon. They had heard that -an author had come up with the steamer from Golden City, -and wished to pay me this unique compliment. I protested -my inexperience in the matter, but dressed and accompanied -them to a sort of pulpit made of fresh lumber, which I occupied -while half-a-dozen races were run on little barebacked horses -(I wondered if these were <i>mustangs</i>, but did not dare to show -my ignorance by inquiring) by naked braves and squaws -in trousers with a feather trimming down the seam. -As I escaped uninjured, I suppose that my judgments were -accepted. Colonel Baker, a brother of Valentine and Sir -Samuel, was one of the deputation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In the time of which I am writing, when people came back -from the wilds, it was the fashion to fête them at the literary -clubs. In this way I met Captain Lugard, who was fresh -back from his strenuous efforts in Uganda, and Mr. F. C. -Selous, when he came back from his pioneer expedition to -Mashonaland and Matabeleland, which led to their annexation, -and the foundation of Rhodesia. Selous was the -greatest hunter that England ever sent to South Africa. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>For twenty years he made his living as an elephant-hunter -and collector of rare natural history specimens, and took -the chief part in bringing about the annexation of Matabeleland. -In later days he has taken a great part in the measures -for preserving the wild animals of Africa by a splendid -system of game laws, far stricter than our own.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Of all the author-explorers who came to Addison Mansions, -I have known none so well as Arnold Henry Savage Landor, -grandson of the poet Walter Savage Landor. I first met -Landor at Louise Chandler Moulton’s house in Boston, on -one Sunday night in 1888, when he was twenty years old, -and I have seen him constantly ever since. While we were -at Washington, as I have said elsewhere, he was my guest -for a week. We were at Montreal together one winter season, -and saw each other nearly every day, and when we got to -Japan, almost the first person we saw there was Landor. -We stayed in the same hotel there for months.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we first met Landor, he was an artist, who made -a considerable income by portrait-painting. It was not -until after we had met in Japan that he went upon his first -exploring expedition among the Hairy Ainu in the North -Island of Yezo and the Kuriles.</p> - -<p class='c016'>After we left Japan, he went across to China, and went -very far afield in it. But he did not achieve world-wide -fame until he made his expedition into the Forbidden Land. -Every one has read of the tortures to which he was subjected -there, but it is not every one who met him on his way back, -as we did, when his spine was so injured that he could not sit -down, and his eyes still had a white film over them from -being bleared with fire. I knew of his endurance, because -I had seen him go out in Montreal in an ordinary English overcoat -and bowler when the thermometer was twenty-five below -zero; and I knew of his courage from the fracas he had with -the New York police when they were breaking the queue -at the Centenary Ball for people who gave them money to -get in out of their place, in which he came within an ace of -being clubbed.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Landor is always witty. I heard him say to a man who -was bragging to him about the size of everything in his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>country, “You see, I am so small that I have to come into -a room twice before any one can see me.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>He is also extremely courageous. I once heard a dispute -between him and a man of six feet two, whose portrait he -was painting. While he was painting it, he did a small -commission for this man’s partner, who wanted it in a great -hurry as a wedding-present.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“If you work for other people, I won’t have the portrait,” -said the giant.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You must have it,” said Landor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Upon my word as a gentleman, <i>nothing</i> can make me -have it,” said the giant, whose name was B——.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Mr. B——,” said Landor, “nothing could make you -behave like a gentleman.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>And his courage in taking other risks is just as great.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Undismayed by his experiences in Thibet, he was back in -the Himalayas two years afterwards, and reached an altitude -of 23,490 ft. He was with the Allied troops on their march -to Peking, and was the first European to enter the Forbidden -City. He visited four hundred islands in the Philippines in -a Government steamer, lent him by the United States for -the purpose. He crossed Africa in the widest part, marching -8,500 miles to do it, and he crossed South America from -Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Lima in Peru, over the great -central plateau, across the swamps of the Amazon and the -heights of the Andes, with followers selected from the most -desperate criminals in the gaols, because they were the only -Brazilians who would undertake the risk. That last journey -alone cost him seven thousand pounds. All Mr. Landor’s -books are illustrated with his own paintings and photographs. -It must be remembered that he was an artist before -he was an explorer or an author.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Though he is contemptuous of hardships and semi-starvation -in his explorations, and travels with a lighter equipment -than any other explorer, he likes luxurious surroundings -when he is back in civilisation, and lives in a charming flat -in one of our most luxurious hotels.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He also has a large estate in Italy, near Empoli and Vinci, -where he has carried on the wine-growing business very -<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>successfully. Landor’s mother is an Italian, and he himself -was born and educated at Florence, where his father, a younger -son of the celebrated Walter Savage Landor, has always -lived, and amassed a magnificent collection of works of art.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is not generally known that Landor was one of the -first to take up the invention of aeroplanes. He began long -before the Wrights, as long ago as 1893, when he succeeded -in flying a hundred yards, and later he built a more perfected -machine not unlike the ordinary aeroplanes. But he was -away, making his celebrated journeys across Africa and -South America while the invention advanced with such leaps -and bounds, and he abandoned aviation.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Landor speaks many languages. He has lectured in -English, Italian, French, and German, before learned -societies, and he can speak several other European and -Oriental languages and many savage dialects. For he has -travelled all over the world, although the attention of the -public has been concentrated on the big journeys of exploration -which have formed the subjects of his books.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir H. M. Stanley I only knew after he had retired from -exploring, and was living at Richmond Terrace, Whitehall. -I met him through having been a friend of his wife, who, as -Dorothy Tennant, was a leading figure in the most brilliant -set in London Society, and in so many altruistic movements. -I had met her brother, Charles Combe Tennant, when we -were both at Oxford—he at Balliol and I at Trinity. He -either proposed me or seconded me, I forget which, for the -Apollo, my other sponsor being J. E. C. Bodley, who was -both at Harrow and Balliol with Tennant. Bodley has since -become a very distinguished literary man. He is perhaps -the best writer we have upon French Constitutional questions, -and he was selected by the late King Edward VII to write -the book on the coronation, which involved a very wide -knowledge of the British Constitution.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lady Stanley wrote a book on London Street Arabs and -put together and edited an admirable autobiography of her -famous first husband, whose name she retains. Her sister -married Frederick Myers of Psychical fame, the greatest -Cambridge scholar of his generation.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>But it is not only the books she has written, and the -brilliant intellectual people whom she has gathered around -her, which constitute her claim to being remembered, for -she has taken a leading part in the betterment of London. -She has naturally worked hardest in Lambeth, where she -became acquainted with the swarming thousands of Surrey -when Stanley was member for one of the Lambeth Divisions, -and it was from Lambeth that she drew most of her boy-models -to make studies for her book illustrations of London -ragamuffins.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Isabella Bird—Mrs. Bishop—one of the most famous -travellers in the East, I met once near Hakone in Japan. -She was a curious-looking old lady, dressed like a native -woman, with nothing but rope-sandals, which cost three-halfpence -a pair, on her feet. We came upon her very -suddenly, because Norma Lorimer and I had gone in to -examine the interior of a pretty building made of some light-coloured, -unpainted wood, into which people seemed to go -as they pleased. As Miss Lorimer was then not long out of -her teens, and the building proved to contain naked men and -women bathing together, only separated by a bamboo floating -on the top of the steaming pool, we came out much quicker -than we went in, and almost fell upon Isabella Bird and her -attendant.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we were at Khartum, the Sirdar, Sir Reginald -Wingate, introduced me to the famous Father Ohrwalder, -the good old Austrian priest who had made the sensational -escape from Omdurman twenty years before, and wrote the -extraordinarily vivid account of his captivity which is one -of our principal sources of knowledge of life in Omdurman. -He was then a venerable old man, with a patriarchal beard, -very frail, and exhausted by conversing for a few minutes, -but the Austrian Bishop, who spoke excellent English, took -his place, and we had an interesting conversation. He was -not, he informed me, allowed to make converts in the northern -part of the Sudan, where the inhabitants are chiefly Mohammedan. -I asked him if he made many converts among the -pagans in the southern part. He said not as many as he -ought, but I elicited from him that he set his face sternly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>against polygamy, and the Sirdar’s Intelligence officer had -informed us that one of the favourite forms of investment -in those provinces was to buy as many wives as you could -and make them work for you.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Wingate himself was most kind to us during our visit to -the Sudan. He placed his three steamers or yachts at our -disposal, and deputed his Intelligence officer to accompany -us, whenever he had no actual need of him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The late John Ward, F.S.A., I never met on any of his -journeys to Egypt or the Sudan or Sicily, though we corresponded -for some years. I have found his books most -valuable. He had a perfect genius for collecting indispensable -illustrations, and his books are encyclopædias of local -colour.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The late George Warrington Steevens, the finest correspondent -the <i>Daily Mail</i> ever had—it is said that they paid -him five thousand a year—a small, pale, delicate-looking -man, with double eye-glasses, and an alert, rather humorous -expression, used to come to us at Addison Mansions with -his wife. She was a good deal older than he was, but he -always said that she had been the making of his career, which -came to an untimely end while he was besieged in Ladysmith.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His conversation was as sparkling as his journalism. I -remember when we were discussing Kitchener’s conquest -of the Sudan at the Authors’ Club one night, telling him -that Maxwell (now Sir John Maxwell, late commanding the -Army of Occupation in Egypt), who was one of Kitchener’s -most trusted officers, had been at Cheltenham College with -me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“What sort of man is Maxwell now?” I asked; and he -answered, “The sort of man you put in charge of a conquered -town.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Arthur Weigall, who was Inspector of Monuments in -Upper Egypt when we were there, came to see us several -times at Addison Mansions. One hardly expected to find -a member of the great Kent cricketing family one of the chief -experts in deciphering Egyptian inscriptions and judging -their antiquities. Weigall was rather superstitious for so -great an Egyptologist, though I confess that I should not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>have liked to outrage the dignity of the tomb of a queen at -Thebes, as he and a house-party he had at his fine mansion -on the river near Luxor, proposed to do. They got up -a sort of comedy to be performed in the tomb, and the -performance was blocked by a series of accidents—sudden -illness, the breaking of a leg, and so on.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had a delightful expedition with him to some of the -less-known tombs at Thebes. At his house I saw a couple -of articles he had published in <i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i> on -Aknaton, the heretic Pharaoh, and I think Queen Ti. I saw -at a glance that, like Sir Frederick Treves, he was a born -writer, with quite a Pierre Loti feeling for style, and learned, -to my surprise, that he had not been able to find a publisher -for two books which he had ready. I gave him a letter of -introduction to my literary agent, setting forth the circumstances, -which resulted in the instant acceptance of both -books by leading publishers. One of them was his admirable -<i>Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Edward Ayrton, a most brilliant young Egyptologist, -who discovered the famous gold treasure in the tombs of the -Kings at Thebes, and has since been Government Archæologist -in Ceylon, we met at his lonely hut among the tombs -of the Kings. We came upon him the first time, dressed in -immaculate flannels, as if he was just starting off for a tennis -match, and playing <i>diavolo</i>. He is young enough to have -been at St. Paul’s with my son. It required a man of strong -nerve to live where he lived, surrounded by the spirits of -so many Egyptian monarchs and their great officers, and -practically at the mercy of any evilly-disposed Arabs. The -spirits of bygone Egyptians have, above all others, in the -history of psychical science, manifested their sustained -interest in human affairs. Ayrton was acting then, not for -the Government, but for a rich American.</p> - -<p class='c016'>John Foster Fraser, who was my colleague on <i>To-day</i>, -though he is so much younger than I am, a remarkably able -and energetic man, who once went a bicycle tour of nearly -twenty thousand miles round the earth, and would have gone -farther if the land had not come to an end, has made many -long and adventurous journeys through dangerous countries, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>and has written notable books. The story I liked best about -his wanderings was that he always used the public tooth-brush, -provided by a civilised Shah who had been to Europe, -in the rest-houses of Persia. He certainly added that no -previous visitor to these rest-houses had ever known what -the brushes were used for.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Speaking of teeth, I once knew a dentist who visited Persia. -Knowing the prestige of the royal family there, he thought -that his fortune was made, when the Shah and his mother -ordered sets of false teeth—the Shah’s made of pearls, I -think, and his mother’s of diamonds. But next day he was -overtaken by a crushing blow. The Shah, to prevent false -teeth from becoming too common, confined their use to the -royal family, and the poor dentist had to fall back on writing -novels—it was C. J. Wills.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This Shah, or another, on his return from a visit to Europe, -made his entire harem adopt British ballet-girls’ skirts.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This same Shah, when he visited London, asked the -Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to recommend some one -to show him round the gilded hells of London. The man, -whose accomplishments thus received official recognition, -gave great satisfaction, I believe, but as he is still alive, I -shall not divulge his name, lest he should be overwhelmed -with overtures from publishers. His mother was a famous -Society hostess.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have known some Arctic and Antarctic explorers. I was, -as I have mentioned elsewhere, in the chair at the Savage -Club on the night that we entertained Nansen. Trevor-Battye, -who afterwards conducted an expedition to Kolguev -in the Barents Sea, himself, came up to me, asking me to -introduce him to Nansen. Of course, I had great pleasure -in doing so. Nansen, who was a tall, wiry man, and looked -much less at home in his dress-clothes and his Orders than -in his Arctic furs, looked my friend up and down. The -latter was a remarkably smart-looking man, and was very -well dressed. Nansen was not to know that he came of a -family famed for their strength and endurance in Indian -frontier warfare, so he said with a smile, which showed the -wide openings between his teeth in his lower jaw, “If you -come with me, remember that you won’t be able to wash for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>three years”—he meant, of course, after they had got to -the Arctic regions. Battye, who is a most distinguished -naturalist, and a well-known author, was not deterred, but -Nansen’s list was already really full. Battye was editor-in-chief -of Natural History in the Victoria History of the -Counties of England. At the Authors’ Club, where he was a -habitué in those days, we used to ask him why he had not -gone to the North Pole whenever we wanted to get a rise -out of him. He was a frequent visitor to our house.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another Arctic explorer who often came to see us after -he had got back from his three years in the Arctic circle, was -Fred Jackson, who conducted the Jackson-Harmsworth -expedition. Jackson was a very adventurous man. He had -made an expedition across the Great Tundra Desert, and -another across Australia, before he went to Franz Josef -Land. With his swarthy face, bright dark eyes, and general -air of <i>joie de vive</i>, Fred Jackson looks much more like the -manager of some great English business concern in the -Tropics than an Arctic explorer. Yet he was an Arctic -explorer, and a very hardy one. Everybody remembers -the photograph of the meeting of Nansen and Jackson in -the Arctic circle—Nansen swaddled to the chin in the fur -clothes of his kind, Jackson showing a starched English -collar, a proper tie, and a triangle of shirt-front.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Back from the Arctic circle, Jackson volunteered for -South Africa, distinguished himself, won medals, and became -a captain in the Manchester Regiment—<i>Hac arte Pollux</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We often had with us I. N. Ford, whose advent to England -as correspondent of the <i>New York Tribune</i> was practically -the beginning of the <i>entente cordiale</i> between Great Britain -and the United States. His predecessor, the well-known -G. W. Smalley, had been very much spoiled in English society, -but he never set himself whole-heartedly to produce hearty -relations between the two countries any more than Harold -Frederic did in his correspondenting in the <i>New York Times</i>. -<i>The Tribune</i>, had, in fact, been frequently in open hostility -to England—so open that I heard the following conversation -at a dinner-party in Washington in the year 1889 at Colonel -John Hay’s. General Harrison had just been elected President -of the United States, and the moderate Republicans -<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>made no secret of the fact that they would have liked to see -Colonel John Hay, who had been Abraham Lincoln’s private -secretary, Harrison’s Secretary of State. His character stood -as high as any one’s in America; no man since George -Washington had been so fit to be President of the United -States; for he was as clear-headed and able and unwavering -as he was honourable, and his immense private wealth set -him above temptation. But it was that very wealth which -prevented him from being nominated. Americans are -determined that wealth shall not command the Presidency -as it has the Senate.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Well, that night Savage Landor and I and a number of -leading American politicians—the men who were to form -Harrison’s Cabinet were most of them there—were dining -with Hay at his palatial mansion, built in a heavy-browed -sort of Spanish-Moresco style by the celebrated Richardson. -The new President’s private secretary, a commercialish little -Englishman, had promised to come, and he kept us waiting -so long that finally we went in to dinner without him, half-an-hour -late.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At last he made his appearance, breathless, and, upsetting -a water-bottle as he took his seat, blurted out, “Whitelaw -Reid” (then editor and proprietor of the <i>Tribune</i>) “has been -moving heaven and earth to get the Court of St. James’” -(<i>i. e.</i> the post of American Minister to England), “but the -President won’t give it him. He’s afraid that England will -refuse to receive him because of the way in which the <i>Tribune</i> -has behaved.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>A good many years later he achieved the goal of his -ambition, for I. N. Ford had come to England in the interval, -and had made the <i>Tribune</i> to America what the London -<i>Times</i> is to England in the matter of foreign politics. Ford -had won distinction earlier as an author writing on travel -in Central America.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another man who did a lot of spade-work in promoting -the <i>entente cordiale</i> was John Morgan Richards, who has lived -in England for many years, and has more than once been -President of the American Society of London. American -from his backbone to his finger-tips, John Richards had a -fine Quaker sense of justice and peace on earth which made -<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>the eagle lie down with the lion like a couple of lambs -wherever he was present. His brilliant daughter, Mrs. Craigie—better -known in literature as John Oliver Hobbes—was a -potent link between the two countries.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Both he and his converse, G. R. Parkin, the Canadian, -who was the real father of Imperial Federation, and who is -now usefully and congenially employed in managing the -Rhodes Scholarship Fund, were often at our house. G. R. -Parkin and Gilbert Parker, another Canadian, were sometimes -confused with each other in those days, by people who -did not know them personally.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Canada has sent us a lot of good men. Beckles Willson, -who lives in the old mansion in Kent which was the birthplace -of General Wolfe, the conqueror of Canada, has poured -out a stream of information about Canada in a most attractive -form. Who does not remember the elder Pitt asking Wolfe, -a boy of thirty-three, to dinner just after he had appointed -him to command the military in Canada? Wolfe got very -drunk, and for a moment Pitt feared that he had made a -mistake. But he remembered how the boy had behaved -under fire in that descent on the Breton coast, and let him -go to Canada without misgivings.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I have known Seton Watson, the Perthshire Laird who has -done so much for the Slav population of Hungary, since he -was a small boy. When at New College, Oxford, he showed -his future bent by winning the Stanhope—the University -Prize for an historical essay. His first work, after he went -down, was to translate Gregorovius’s <i>Tombs of the Popes</i>. -But he soon began to give his attention to Hungary, where -he has travelled a great deal, and took up the cause of the -Slav races who are being oppressed by the Magyars. He -held a successful exhibition of their art in London a year or -two ago.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another friend of mine who has done similar good -work is Campbell Mackellar. He, however, has chiefly -devoted himself to the Balkans, and in Montenegro no Englishman -is so well known and beloved. At his hospitable table -I have met some of the leading representatives of the Balkan -States who came to England during the war.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Connected both by property and family with Australia, his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>book-writing has been chiefly about Australia, and it was -he who wrote the description of the Adam Lindsay Gordon -country in South Australia which appears in the book I -wrote with Miss Humphris about <i>Adam Lindsay Gordon and -His Friends in England and Australia</i>. Mackellar has likewise -done a good deal for the recognition of Australian Art in -London—a fact commemorated in an album of original -sketches presented to him by the Australian artists who are -over here.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was no mere accident which made Miss Humphris and -myself collaborate in <i>Adam Lindsay Gordon and His Friends -in England and Australia</i>. It was true that we were strangers -when she wrote to ask me to collaborate, but we brought -common traditions to bear on the book. In Cheltenham, -where Gordon spent his boyhood, Miss Humphris lives, and -I was six years at the College. Gordon was a College boy, -and his father was a College master. Miss Humphris could -not be at the College, as I was, but her grandfather was the -architect who built its principal buildings. Like Gordon, -both Miss Humphris and I went to Australia, and we spent -years there, though not so many as he did, and as a connection -of one of Australia’s greatest racing men—the famous -Etienne de Mestre—it was natural that she should take an -absorbing interest in the steeplechasing exploits of Adam -Lindsay Gordon.</p> - -<div id='i324f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i324f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>SIR GILBERT PARKER<br /><i>Drawn by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>Edith Humphris has an extraordinary power of collecting -and sifting materials for a book. Off her own bat, she -collected all the facts of Gordon’s early life at Cheltenham -and Prestbury. The grist which I brought to the mill, -besides a study of Gordon’s life in Australia and his poems, -which I had blocked out more than thirty years before, when -I tried to get Cassell’s to undertake its publication, was the -mass of material put at my disposal by people who had known -him in the flesh, and treasured remembrances and keepsakes -of him. Miss Humphris knew that the letters to Charley -Walker existed; I tracked their owner down and got permission -to reproduce them. Henry Gyles Turner, who gave -me leave to use all the materials in <i>Turner and Sutherland</i>, -was a friend of mine in Australia. George Riddoch, who -gave us all the Riddoch poems and reminiscences, is a friend -<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>of mine, introduced by old friends in Australia. Lambton -Mount, Gordon’s partner on the West Australian Station -(brother of Harry Mount), is a friend of mine, and gave me -all his information orally. General Strange, who was -Gordon’s friend at Woolwich, and wrote about him in <i>Gunner -Jingo’s Jubilee</i>, is an old, old friend of mine. Frederick -Vaughan and Sir Frank Madden and Mrs. Lauder wrote -their reminiscences for me, as did Campbell Mackellar of the -Gordon country in South Australia. And John Bulloch, -the editor of the <i>Graphic</i>, who wrote the wonderfully interesting -pedigrees and chapters about Gordon’s family, wrote -them for me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>But Miss Humphris wrote all her part of the book, including -a great deal about Gordon in Australia, herself, from -studies which she had been making since she was a child.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Talking of Australia, at one time I saw a good deal of -Basil Thomson, the son of the great Archbishop of York, who -in those days was an author, but is now secretary of the -Prison Commission, after having been governor of Dartmoor -and Wormwood Scrubbs prisons.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Thomson, when I first knew him, had just come back -from being Prime Minister of the Tonga Islands. I asked -why he gave it up. He said that things were no longer what -they had been in Government circles in Tonga; when he was -there, even the Government could only raise the wind by -having fresh issues of postage stamps manufactured for them -by stamp-dealers in England, who paid for the privilege of -selling the stamps in England without accounting for them -to the Government of Tonga. But in the palmy days of -Tonga it was very different. Then, a Prime Minister, who -was also a Nonconformist missionary, procured the monopoly -of selling trousers from the King of Tonga, before he induced -the king to make the whole population turn Christian, and -make it illegal to appear without trousers.</p> - -<p class='c016'>You sometimes hear people say, “What would you do if -you were on a desert island?” I once came very near -seeing life on a desert island—it was in a little settlement of -less than a dozen families, on an island adjoining the mainland -on a desolate coast of Asia. It had a Consul.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“It seems an awfully dead and alive hole,” I said to him.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>“It is not so bad as it looks,” he replied. “We have a -splendid rule here; as there is no kind of amusement in the -place, except making love, we passed a resolution that no -one should get in a temper over the infidelity of a spouse. -We manage our loves like other people manage their friendships—if -a woman likes to have an affair with another -woman’s husband, it is nobody’s concern but hers and his. -Since we have made this arrangement, this has been the -happiest place in the world, though we live on a mud bank, -without even a tennis-court. Before this golden age began, -the quarrelling was awful. Two men simply could not get -out of each other’s way, and they felt obliged to resort to -violence to maintain their self-respect, though they might not -value the affection they were losing so much as an old glove.” -I forget the profession of the Solon to whom the community -owed this up-to-date method of law-giving.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Fred Villiers, the war-correspondent, was making his way -across Canada at the same time as we were, on a lecture tour. -He had a number of wonderful battle-slides, and he looked -highly picturesque in his service kit. He had also a splendid -advance agent, whom I will only call by his Christian name, -because he was the son of an English bishop, and had very -distinguished connections. Henry never forgot his dignity, -and even in the wilds of the North-West always wore a tall -silk hat, with its fur worn thin by constant brushing, because -he was Villiers’ agent.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We had run across him at many C.P.R. capitals before he -came to our rescue at a woe-begone place called Kamloops -in British Columbia. We arrived there after midnight, and -proceeded to the hotel, which should have been expecting us, -as it was the only train in the day from Montreal. We found -the hotel open, but absolutely deserted. We could have -helped ourselves to anything we liked in the bar, and taken -our choice of the bedrooms. At that moment appeared -Henry, who asked us what we would like to drink, and told -us the Kamloops charges for it. He then took us round, -and gave us our choice of bedrooms, and when we wanted to -know why he had suddenly become landlord, told us that the -landlord had just died, and the Irish servants were afraid -to be in the house with a corpse.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>We slept the night there, and paid our bills to Henry in -the morning. Norma Lorimer, who was with us, had a room -which smelt horribly of disinfectants. Henry said that the -dentist, who came up once a week from Seattle, had used -that room as his surgery the day before, but the inhabitants -said that the corpse was there.</p> - -<p class='c016'>This was nothing to an experience of Lewis Clarke, a -son of the celebrated Marcus Clarke, who wrote <i>For the Term -of his Natural Life</i>, and edited the first complete edition -of Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poems—a man who has had an -extraordinarily adventurous life. This happened to him, -I think, in the wilds of New Guinea. He had gone to sleep -under a tree. During the night there came on a violent wind, -and he was awakened by something cold and heavy, which -kept brushing his face. Whatever it was, it only just -touched him, and when he brushed it away, yielded lightly -to his touch. After pushing it away for a while, he came to -the conclusion that it did not matter, and got to sleep again. -In the morning he was awakened by an awful stench, and -when he opened his eyes to see what it was, found the bare -toes of a dead Chinaman, who had hanged himself, knocking -against his nose.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I was at Canton, I went to visit our Consul-General -there. I was with him in his office one day when he was -trying a case. An Englishman had gone out shooting, and -a Chinaman had sent his children after him, with instructions -to get into the line of fire and be shot, which duly happened. -The affectionate father then brought an action against the -Englishman for damages occasioned to him by the injuries -to his children. It was perfectly plain that the children -had had themselves shot on purpose, but to my utter surprise -the Consul made the Englishman pay.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When the parties had left the room, I reproached him with -the miscarriage of justice. His only reply was, “I know it, -my dear fellow, as well as you do; but I have been Consul -here for thirty years (I forget exactly how many he said), and -it is impossible for me to conceive any circumstances under -which the British Government would support me.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I may add that he was much loved and respected by the -British community, whom he was unable to protect.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXVII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY ACTOR FRIENDS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>Since</span> I came back to London a score of years ago, I have -known at least a hundred actors and actresses, but they did -not all visit us at Addison Mansions—some, whom I knew -quite well, never could summon up the energy to go as far -west as West Kensington. Actors like to live right in the -centre of things, or right out in country air. There is quite -a colony of them at Maidenhead; Maxine Elliot lives near -Watford, in the Manor House which belonged to my uncle -Joseph, and Edward Terry had a house at Barnes, which is -now sublimed into Ranelagh Parade.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Among our chief actor friends were the Grossmiths. -Weedon Grossmith, with his pretty wife, came constantly. -That diffident manner of his hides brilliant abilities. We -are apt to forget that besides being one of the finest comedians -of the day, he was once a regular exhibitor at the Royal -Academy (which furnished him with the subject for a farce). -What has made Weedon so “immense” is his absence of -<i>mauvais honte</i>. He has dared to play the humiliating parts, -of which he is the finest living exponent, with perfect sincerity. -He has often said to me, “Why don’t you write me -a play, Douglas? If you make me a bally enough little -fool, I’ll take it; if you make me a big enough coward, I’ll -take it; if you make me a bad enough cad, I’ll take it. It is -my art to put this kind of character into the pillory.” And -so it is; there is no one who can excel him in depicting the -ignoble, foreign as it is to his own character.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His brother George, with his wife and daughters and his -son Lawrence—George the younger had already flitted from -the paternal nest, and was earning forty pounds a week—were -also constant visitors. Lawrence was always the mirror -of smartness. I think he was very bored with that sort of -party, but he adorned it.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>Geegee, as he loved to call himself, was full of frolic. -He could make light of anything. He made light of the -awful play in which he appeared, which was written for the -mistress of a millionaire. The author was given five thousand -pounds to write a play and put it on the stage. The only -condition was that the millionaire’s mistress should be on -the stage the whole time, and have nothing to say.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was once the cause of my seeing the finest piece of -acting off the stage which I ever saw. One of our greatest -living actors is always chaffed about his <i>penchant</i> for duchesses. -Grossmith and I were having supper together by ourselves -at his party at the Grafton Galleries. Presently we saw the -great actor standing beside us, and Grossmith, without -bothering about his being within earshot, said, “We’ll ask -—— to sit down and have some supper with us; when he’s -been there about two minutes, he’ll look at his watch, and say -that he must leave us because he promised to be at the -duchess’s in a quarter of an hour.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The great man sat down and attacked a mayonnaise vigorously. -Presently he looked at his watch, and made an -elaborate and rather snobbish apology to Grossmith for having -to leave, but he had promised the Duchess of ——d, etc., -and all the time he was making it, trod on my foot till I -nearly yelled. Then he got up and left us, pausing to speak -to some one a few yards off to have the satisfaction of hearing -Grossmith’s “There, didn’t I tell you!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Fred Terry, the “manliest actor on the stage,” and his -beautiful wife, Julia Neilson, used to come and see us sometimes. -I met them first at Hayden Coffin’s, where she was -filling the room and the garden with her glorious singing -one summer dawn. When she rose from the piano, she made -several vain efforts to get Terry away; he was telling Coffin, -myself, and one or two others, some of his experiences. -When she came back the third time, he said, “My wife always -has a devil of a trouble to make me put on my dress-clothes, -but when I have once got them on, I never want to go home.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>That night, a rather shy little man, very alert and intelligent-looking, -had given us a recitation of his own which was -so breathlessly witty, that the audience could not seize all -the points. Coffin introduced him as “a very clever friend -<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>of mine, Mr. Huntley Wright,” and his name meant nothing -to the audience. A year later they would have stood on the -mantelpiece to get a better view of the king of musical -comedians. Both he and his sister Haidée, that brilliant -character-actress, used to come to Addison Mansions in those -days. That the Coffins should do so was natural, because I -had known Charles Hayden Coffin since he was a boy at school -and I was a man at Oxford. He and his sisters and I and -my sisters used to skate together at Lillie Bridge. His father -was the leading American dentist of London, and Coffin himself -was a dentist, or, at all events, in training for it, for -several years. But he had such a glorious voice that it was -inevitable that he should find his way to the musical stage, -and have the longest reign on record as a <i>jeune premier</i>. -He thrilled London with his “Queen of My Heart To-night.” -He has deserved his success twice over—both on account of his -singing, and for the way in which he has helped others; no one -has done more for the beginners in his own profession, and for -helping unknown composers of ability to get a hearing. There -are many people quite famous now whom I heard before they -were known to fame at all, at his charming cottage, that <i>rus -in urbe</i> on Campden Hill, which has the same initials as himself—C. -H. C., Campden Hill Cottage, Charles Hayden Coffin.</p> - -<p class='c016'>With Julia Neilson I should have mentioned her handsome -cousin, Lily Hanbury, who was, till her premature death, one -of the beauties of the London stage. She came often to us.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It is natural, in connection with her, to think of Constance -Collier, now Mrs. Julian L’Estrange, who filled her place, and -has gone so much farther, for she has not only personal -attraction, but real power. She was, as all the world knows, -leading lady at His Majesty’s before she went to America, -but all the world does not know that she is the most accomplished -tango-dancer on the stage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There is no more attractive figure on the stage than Ben -Webster. Young as he is, he found time to be a barrister -before he began his long succession of leading parts, and -though he is one of the least stagey actors on the stage, he -was born in its purple. He is a grandson of Ben Webster I., -who had a claim to fame besides his acting which has long -since been forgotten, for he was the founder of the great -<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span><i>Queen</i> newspaper, which he sold to Sergeant Cox—strange -godfathers for the <i>Queen, the Lady’s Newspaper</i>. Sergeant -Cox was the uncle, not the father, of Horace Cox, who was -at the head of the <i>Field</i>, the <i>Queen</i>, and the <i>Law Times</i> for -most of the last half century. Webster married an actress, -May Whitty, so well known, not only for her acting, but for -her activity in woman movements. They were very often at -Addison Mansions, and among the strongest supporters of -our Argonauts Club.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lena Ashwell we have known better than any other great -actress, because we came to know her family long before she -went on the stage, through her sister, Mrs. Keefer, wife of -the engineer who built the famous bridge over Niagara. -In those days she was studying at the Royal Academy of -Music, and she is an F.R.A.M. She has a singularly beautiful -voice for singing as well as speaking. Conscious of the -burning dramatic temperament which won her her fame in -the impersonation of the heroine in <i>Mrs. Dane’s Defence</i>, -she has always cast her eyes on the stage. When she was -only fourteen she spoiled a chicken she was cooking by -forgetting to remove the insides because she was so enthralled -with reading <i>King John</i>. In intensity she is unsurpassed by -any actress on the stage. She is really as good in tender -parts as in grim parts, but she is less known in them, though -every one should remember how delightful she was in <i>The -Darling of the Gods</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lena Ashwell enjoys the almost unique distinction of having -been born on a British man-of-war, the fine old ship which -did duty under Nelson, and was the Wellesley training-ship -till she was accidentally burnt a few months ago. Her -father was a captain in the Navy.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Having been brought up in Canada on the St. Lawrence, -she is a wonderful canoeist. Her grace on the water used to -be the theme of the frequenters of Cookham Reach.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Her brother, Roger Pocock, has written the best novels -of the Canadian North-West. They are descendants of the -famous traveller, and had a great-great-uncle, Nicholas -Pocock, the sea-painter who painted Nelson’s Battle of the -Nile and Lord Howe’s Glorious First of June. Another -ancestor wrote farces in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>Lena Ashwell owns the Kingsway Theatre, and has produced -some notable successes there, in which she showed her -determination to give brilliant beginners—whether actors or -dramatists—a chance. But since 1908, when she married -Dr. Simson of Grosvenor Street, she has chiefly given herself -up to feminist and benevolent movements—the chief of which -was the founding of the Three Arts’ Club for young actresses, -musicians, and painters to make their home as well as their -club. The Three Arts’ Club has an excellent magazine of -its own, and confers the various advantages of an Institute -on its members. She is also a prominent worker for the -Suffrage Movement.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of the earliest of our actor friends, and one of our -most frequent visitors, was James Welch, who first came -with his brother-in-law, Le Gallienne. He had given up -chartered-accounting for the stage for five or six years before -we knew him. But a good many years more had to pass -before he came into his own as the genius of farce, though -he played with real power and success in several of Ibsen’s -plays, and Bernard Shaw’s first play, <i>Widowers’ Houses</i>. It -was in <i>Mr. Hopkinson</i>, in 1905, after he had been on the stage -for eighteen years, that he became an idol of the public, -and was enabled to go into management.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ever since then he has been enormously successful, and -in spite of it, has remained the same simple, impulsive, -unspoiled person as ever. He used often, as I have told in -another chapter, to go to the Authors’ Club with me.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One night not long since, when I was chatting with him -in his dressing-room at the theatre, and was asking him when -he could have another game of golf, he said, “I don’t know, -I’m sure. I have contracts with cinema-film photographers -for seven thousand pounds, and I don’t see how the devil -I am going to get them all in.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I felt quite oppressed with the unfairness of things, for I -had known this same man when he was just as brilliant an -actor, eating his head off with chagrin at not being able to -get an engagement (of which I am sure he was badly in need -pecuniarily), and now here were photographers and film-makers -tumbling over each other in their anxiety to take him -in his inimitable fooling in <i>When Knights were Bold</i>, or his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>misery and stupefaction in his great condemned cell-scene from -the Coliseum.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Welch is quite a decent golfer—down to 8, I think, -though the time was when I had to give him 8. He is -also a remarkably good spinner of golf stories. I tell him -that whenever he is hard up for a curtain-raiser, he could -easily hold a house for half-an-hour with his golf-stories.</p> - -<p class='c016'>One of his favourites is about his caddie at Aberdeen, -to whom he gave two seats to see him in <i>When Knights were -Bold</i>. Next day on the links, he asked the man how he -liked it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“My wife laughed,” said the cautious Scot.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“And what did you think of it?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Oh, I? Now tell me, mon, do you make a guid thing -of it?”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I do pretty well.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Ye do?” said the caddie. “Then my advice to ye is, -to drop golf—ye’ll never make a living at that.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Welch is a daughter of Lottie Venne, one of the best -women comedians we ever had on the English stage—a -frequent visitor to us at one time, as was that fine actress, -Fanny Brough (Mrs. Boleyn), an eminent member of an -eminent family, whom we first met at an Idler tea.</p> - -<p class='c016'>At the Idler, too, we met the Beringers, of whom we saw -a good deal at that time—Mrs. Oscar Beringer, the playwright, -and her daughters Esme and Vera, who were both -on the stage. Vera, the younger, has followed in her mother’s -footsteps, and written plays—one with Morley Roberts. Esme, -who is very popular both as a woman and an actress, has -played in a large number of parts with an unvarying success.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We knew Beatrice (Robbie) Ferrar much better than -either of her sisters, though all three came to our at-homes, -just as they were all three on the stage. Though she had been -on the stage six years when we met her, she still looked a -mere child. She was for years one of the best <i>ingénue</i> -actresses (for which her pretty, small features, bright colouring -and demure expression, gave her natural advantages) -on the stage. She was one of the most familiar figures at -the Idler functions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Rowena Jerome, who has scored several successes in her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>father’s plays, was only a little child, playing horses, remarkably -clever and precocious, in the days when we were -going to the Idler teas and Jerome’s house in the Alpha -Road, St. John’s Wood.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Among other actors and actresses we met at the Idler teas -or at Jerome’s were Ian (Forbes) Robertson and his wife, -and their daughter, Beatrice Forbes-Robertson, Nina Boucicault, -the Henry Arthur Jones’s, Kate and Mary Rorke, Olga -Nethersole, George Hawtrey, Lindo and Phyllis Broughton. -I saw Phyllis Broughton the other day, looking absolutely -the same as the very first time she ever came to our flat, -twenty years ago, the gentlest-faced actress I ever met.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Forbes-Robertson’s brother, Ian Robertson (who never -used the name of Forbes himself, though his pretty daughter -Beatrice resumed it when she went on the stage), came to -us less frequently than his wife and daughter, who were -habituées.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Mrs. Robertson was a daughter of an old friend of mine, -that remarkable man Joe Knight, who always seemed to -me as if he ought to have been Henty’s brother. As dramatic -critic of three leading newspapers, the <i>Athenæum</i>, the <i>Globe</i>, -and I forget the other, he had almost as much power to make -and unmake as Clement Scott had. He used his influence -most generously. At the same time he was a scholar of -omniscience; he performed the Herculean task of editing -<i>Notes and Queries</i> for the proprietors of the <i>Athenæum</i>; and -he had a daughter so good-looking and charming that I -always thought of her as Romola when I thought of her with -him. I have no doubt that before she married Ian Robertson -she had made herself as useful to the scholar as Romola.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Their daughter, Beatrice, has made a distinguished name -for herself on the American stage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was an odd thing that I should not have met (Sir J.) -Forbes-Robertson at Jerome’s, considering how much they -have done since to make each other’s fortunes in the <i>Third -Floor Back</i>, for which Jerome, as he always does when I -am in England, sent me stalls on one of the opening nights. -But, as a matter of fact, I met Forbes-Robertson at Palermo -in the Venetian palace which Joshua Whitaker, the head of -the great Marsala wine-firm, built for himself, adjoining the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>old Ingham house in the Via Bara. Forbes-Robertson was -staying there, and I am in and out of the Whitakers most -days when I am in Palermo. He was convalescing from a -severe illness, and we went about, the little which he could -manage, together in Sicily, and afterwards for a whole week -together in Venice.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was, I remember, very tickled with one trip which he -took in Sicily when he got stronger. A nephew who lives -in England, but has very large possessions in Sicily, came -out to stay with the Whitakers. They wished him to visit -his various properties in the interior when he was there. -But the thing did not interest him; he was a subaltern in -the Guards, taken up with much more important thoughts. -But he was an ardent admirer of Forbes-Robertson on the -stage, and he was willing to go wherever his uncle desired -if Forbes-Robertson would go with him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Forbes-Robertson was eager to oblige his hosts, and -captivated with the manner of the expedition, for, as they -were going into brigandy parts of the island, and the person -of a great landowner is the favourite prey of the brigand, -they had to have an escort, and sit with loaded revolvers on -their knees.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Everything passed off happily, and Forbes-Robertson -came back with the knowledge that an orchard in which -pistachio trees bear freely is as good as a gold-mine.</p> - -<p class='c016'>In Venice he was quite well again, and spent all day in -letting us show him the <i>artist’s bits</i> of Venice, for there was -a time when, like another of our leading actors, he expected -to make his living as a painter, not as an actor. He was -educated at the Royal Academy till he was twenty-one, -after leaving the Charterhouse, where he was four years the -senior of Baden-Powell.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He was especially delighted with the gondola expeditions -we made to the back canals of Venice. One day it would -be along by the lagoon, where the timber-rafts lie floating, -and collect weeds and local colour, past the ruining abbey -of the Misericordia and Tintoretto’s Church, S. Maria del -Orto, to Tintoretto’s house, now woefully humiliated by -being a “tenement,” but unrepaired and unaltered since -that prince of painters lived and worked in it. It may easily -<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>be found, since it is near the Camel sign of a mediæval Moorish -merchant. Another day it would be across the Giudecca, -where the big Adriatic fishing-boats, with figures of saints -and monsters on their scarlet and orange sails lie anchored, -generally with their sails flapping against their masts, as -if they knew that they were there for ornament to the landscape. -Across the Giudecca there was the famous Redentore -Church, with its three far-famed Madonnas by the pupils of -Bellini, and there was more than one house with that rarity -for Venice—a garden.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Over the other side of the Giudecca we all went into the -great old garden of some Marchese. Venice has gardens -there, but the Venetians are so unused to gardens that they -abandon them to dull evergreens, when, having nothing to -overshadow them, they might be as full of gay flowers as a -sarcophagus in Raphael’s pictures of the Resurrection. The -only person I know who does make use of his garden chances -is Dr. Robertson, the Presbyterian Minister, who wrote that -wonderful book, <i>The Bible of St. Mark’s</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I think Forbes-Robertson enjoyed the visit to Tintoretto’s -house best of all. The well-head in the court was untouched -except by the soft fingers of three centuries; the studio, with -its open timber roof and huge fireplace, had nothing about -it to distract the eye from memories, for it was a bare tenement -of the poor. And it was such a very little way from -S. Maria del Orto, a name made classic to the British public -by the robbery of one of the most precious Madonnas of -John Bellini—Santa Maria del Orto, which contains a frescoed -choir by Tintoretto, and his “Presentation in the Temple,” -and his tomb. When we were looking at the immortal -Venetian pictures in the Accademia and the Doge’s Palace, -or studying the faded marbles which jewel the interior of -St. Mark, he was so overcome with reverence that it seemed -almost a pain to him. He had not, I think, been in Venice -before. At all events, he did not know it as I did—I could -take him to any point of interest in the city by a few minutes’ -walk, and perhaps crossing the Grand Canal by a traghetto. -I have written half a book about Venice, and some of my best -writing is about it. I do not know why I never finished it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Henry Arthur Jones’s family I have known since they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>were children. Mrs. Jones used to come to our parties before -the eldest of her children was out of the schoolroom, and we -spent one summer in the same house at Ostend, so we have -watched the elder girls coming to the front on the stage with -interest. Of the great dramatist himself I have spoken -elsewhere. If he had chosen, he could have been equally -famous as a writer of books. He has a profound mind, and -a popular method of statement.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Olga Nethersole could not come in the evenings to our -at-homes, because she was generally acting, but she came for -long talks in the afternoons. I found her remarkable, not -only as an actress of a singularly emotional type, but from -the interest which she takes in the social problems of the day, -such as criminology and emigration. A year ago, at a party -given by the C. N. Williamsons at the <i>Savoy</i>, when we were -comparing notes on the Canadian North-West, from which -she had just returned, and which I knew twenty years ago, -I was much struck by her grasp of the subject.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I cannot remember whether it was at the Idler or at “John -Strange Winter’s” that I first met Martin Harvey, who, like -Forbes-Robertson, is a painter in his leisure moments. He -was with Irving in those days, recognised already as the -most capable all-round actor in the company, and for his -wonderful conscientiousness and finish. Harvey had the -good sense to bide his time, and when he did launch on his -own account in <i>The Only Way</i>, which Frederick Langbridge, -the poet, dramatised in collaboration from Dickens’s -<i>Tale of Two Cities</i>, he made an instantaneous and gigantic -success. In the days when he used to come to us, he was -singularly boyish-looking, and delightfully modest about -his powers, though all his friends knew that he was a genius.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was certainly “John Strange Winter” who introduced -us to Mary Ansell, at that time one of the twin stars of -Barrie’s first play, <i>Walker, London</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It may have been Mary Ansell, who was noted for her -beauty, who introduced us to the other star of the play, -Irene Vanbrugh, equally noted for her prettiness and her -archness, who continues to this day to interpret the whimsicalities -of Barrie with such delightful <i>espièglerie</i>. She was a -Miss Barnes, daughter of a Prebendary of Exeter—there were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>four daughters living with their mother in Earl’s Court Road. -Violet, the eldest, and Irene, the youngest, then unmarried, -were on the stage, Angela was a violinist or violoncellist—I -never remember which of these instruments my friends -play—and Edith, the fair one of the family, frowned on the -stage, and married somebody of importance in India. Angela -came to us oftenest. A little later Violet Vanbrugh married -Arthur Bourchier, whom I had met long before when he -was at Christchurch, Oxford, and the leading light of the -Oxford A.D.C., of which Alan MacKinnon, an old friend of -mine at Trinity, who introduced us, was another leading -light.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Bourchier, the inimitable, is, I fancy, the only professional -Shakesperian actor who could have the chance of taking the -part of one of his own family in Shakespeare. For Cardinal -Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, is a character in -Shakespeare’s <i>Richard III</i>. He was also Henry VI’s -Chancellor, as Sir Robert de Bourchier was to Edward III -in 1340—the first of the lay-Chancellors of England.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The first time I saw Bourchier act was when he was an -undergraduate at Oxford—the part was Harry Hotspur, -and he was superb in it, because this was a part in which he -could use his art and his personality in equal proportions. -Since then I have seen him blend his two great qualifications -of character-acting and potent personality, in many parts, -in Henry VIII pre-eminently, and I have seen him exercise -the two qualifications separately in many parts, now as an -old seventeenth-century Bishop, overflowing with goodness, -now as a bluff, practical joker in boisterous farce with -Weedon Grossmith. He is certainly one of the finest actors -on the stage, when you consider him from the double standpoint -of his tremendous personality, and his power to disguise -it in parts entirely foreign to one’s idea of Bourchier. I -cannot help liking him best as himself on the stage, because -to me there is nothing so interesting as personality, and he -has such an inexhaustible flow of wit and high spirits.</p> - -<p class='c016'>If Bourchier had had no success on the professional stage, -his name would have been immortalised in its annals, for -it was he who persuaded Jowett, of Balliol, the then Vice-Chancellor -of Oxford, to abolish the statute of the University -<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>against Oxford having a theatre, and he actually enlisted -Jowett’s services into raising the money for building one.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I first went to Oxford, we had no theatre on account -of the famous statute. Our ancestors regarded actors as -“rogues and vagabonds,” and only a year ago a well-known -actor got off serving on a jury on the grounds that he was -legally a rogue. But though the town might not have a -theatre, it might have as many low music-halls as it liked, -because the University did not consider what went on in -“the halls” as acting at all. The real point at issue—would -the ladies of a caste like Irving’s or Tree’s be as likely -to tempt the St. Anthonys of Oxford out of their hermitages -in the deserts of learning—was entirely lost sight of.</p> - -<p class='c016'>With Bourchier one naturally thinks of Aubrey Smith, -who had to play Sir Marcus Ordeyne in Bourchier’s theatre—Smith, -who was the chief light of the Cambridge A.D.C., and -the crack Cambridge bowler of his time in the ’Varsity matches.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Smith’s beautiful sister, Mrs. Cosmo Hamilton, who -latinised her name into <i>Faber</i> when she went on the stage—she -told me so herself—was only just coming into her own -when she died—cut off in her very flower. There was no -more genuinely liked and esteemed woman on the stage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Granville Barker, the typical clever, red-headed boy, -though he was not then old enough to have been promoted to -dress-clothes, used to come with an extremely intelligent and -charming mother, the mother of a large family, I always -understood, though she looked far too young. They were -brought by Edwin Waud, the artist, as far as I remember, and -they were friends of Gleeson White’s. Granville was a very -bright boy when you spoke to him, but he was never much in -evidence; he left his mother, so that she might enjoy herself, -instead of having to keep him amused. He may have gone -to the sandwiches and lemonade in the dining-room—more -probably, he was not allowed to smoke, and went to do that.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I fancy that Acton Bond, who now runs the British -Empire Shakespeare Society, must have been a friend of -Gleeson White’s, because he came into our life so very early. -Bond was an institution in Bohemia. He was a singularly -handsome and distinguished-looking actor, who took Shakespeare -and other “costume” parts. He was one of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>most courteous men I ever met, and I knew that I could -confer pleasure on anybody by introducing Bond. This was -an important consideration to a host who made a point of -keeping all his guests introduced and amused for all the -evening. Bond knew all the denizens in Bohemia, and had -a fund of conversation about them, in addition to being -personally very interesting; and, as a fair golfer, a good man -in a boat, a good dancer, and so on, was a “find” for a -country house. Even when he was acting most, his heart -inclined to the other side of his profession—to training people -for the stage and running the Actors’ Association—a sort -of Union for Actors. He did an immense amount of useful -work. He married the charming Eve Tame comparatively -lately. A tall man, with a graceful figure, he carried himself -extremely well, and, with his fine classical head, perpetuated -the tradition of the Kembles.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Ray Rockman was one of our Argonaut friends, and became -a very intimate friend indeed. She stayed with us at Salcombe -and elsewhere, besides being constantly at our house. -With her tall, slight, aristocratic figure, the face of a marquise -of Louis XV’s court, and her wonderful Oriental eyes, she -had the presence of the greatest <i>tragédiennes</i> who have adorned -our stage. When you see her in a drawing-room, you think -instinctively of Sarah Bernhardt’s great parts, and rightly, -because she was Sarah’s understudy in them in Paris before -she came to England. If any actor-manager had wanted -a leading lady for tragedy, she would have been one of the -most famous actresses on our stage to-day, for she had the -divine fire. But London does not run to tragedies, except -for the glorification of an actor- or actress-manager, so she -had to descend to being the villainess of melodramas generally -finishing up with suicide in the last act. In the <i>Great Ruby</i> -she showed her real dramatic power. But she has never had -the chance of becoming the leading lady at one of our chief -theatres like His Majesty’s, where she could have taken -London by storm with her magnificent presence and carriage -and the passion she can put into her acting with her marvellous -Oriental eyes and coal-black hair. These she owes to her -being a South Russian. I am not sure whether she was born -in Russia or the United States, where her father is a doctor -<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>in Montana—a friend of the Copper King. If any one were -to make a play out of Sarah Siddons, Ray Rockman would -be the ideal actress to cast for the leading part.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was Ray who introduced me to the wonderful Annie -Russell, the most temperamental of American actresses. I -say American, though she was born in Liverpool, because -practically all her work has been done on the other side, and -it was Ray who introduced me to Sarah Bernhardt. Unfortunately, -Sarah does not like talking English, and I am -not equal to saying anything very interesting in French, -though I read it with facility, and know plenty of “kitchen” -French for use at hotels and railway-stations. Sarah sent -me seats to see her in <i>Hamlet</i>, which she pronounced “omelette.” -I found it rather wearisome, to be quite honest, -because I hear French so badly, and when I went down to see -Ray and her in her dressing-room at the end of the first act, I -gladly accepted her invitation to spend the rest of the evening -in her dressing-room, “if I could not follow her easily.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was extremely interesting to watch her dressing, and -she did not take any more notice of my presence than if I -had been a fly, while she was actually being got ready for -the stage, though she made herself extremely pleasant during -the acts when she was off the stage. She could divest -herself of the personality of Hamlet, and resume it at a -moment’s notice. Ray speaks French as well as English, -so everything was quite simple, with her there to interpret. -During the longest interval a message came down for her -that the Prince of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII) was -in the house, and Sarah went off to see him for a long time; -it seemed like half-an-hour. She invited me to go with Ray -to visit her at that wonderful rock island off the Breton -coast, but for some reason or other I did not make the effort. -I think I had made arrangements to go to St. Andrews.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Elizabeth Robins I met at the Idler. One always thought -of her as the actress in those days, and not, as one now thinks -of her, as the novelist. Elizabeth Robins is a tall, spare, -Western woman, with a very eloquent face. She is the -greatest Ibsen actress we have had in England. She had -the unusual courage, for the stage, to think that good looks -and elegance in dress were of no consequence, when she was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>presenting Ibsen’s characters. Her one desire was to fulfil -his conception exactly, and she did it most convincingly.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A few people, like myself, knew that she was the “C. E. -Raimond” who wrote <i>George Mandeville’s Husband</i> for that -series of Heinemann’s, but we imagined it to be a passing -phase with her, instead of the prelude to a series of great -novels on burning questions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I do not know who brought Gertrude Kingston to us first, -but she often came. She was the accomplished violinist -mentioned in Lord Roberts’ dispatch of September 13, 1901, -as having rendered special service during the war in South -Africa. Mrs. Silver, for this is her real name, is an authoress -as well as an artist and a collector, as I discovered when we -were going over the old things in Phillimore Lodge together -before the sale.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Alice Skipworth was a lovely woman with a gorgeous -voice, whose fortunes on the stage were made in an extraordinary -way. An actor-manager engaged her without any -experience of acting to understudy his wife, who financed -his plays, in an American tour. When they got to Philadelphia, -I think it was, on the second night his wife took -ill, and Mrs. Skipworth duly took her place. Philadelphia -went wild over her beauty and her voice, and the actor-manager -found himself in the unpleasant predicament of -having to decide whether he would close his doors, or persuade -his wife to let Mrs. Skipworth go on taking her place. His -wife, who was, I believe, very charming herself, was a sensible -woman, and thought it would be better to coin money by -doing nothing than to bankrupt herself by acting, so the -understudy acted and sang throughout the tour, and came -back a leading lady in musical comedy. She was a very -clever woman; she could have written an excellent novel -about Bohemian life; she had the knowledge; and she was -both witty and epigrammatic.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I need not explain who Murray Carson is. He was a very -great light in those circles, because he was an actor-manager, -and as such had the distinction of giving Lena Ashwell one -of her first chances in <i>Gloriana</i>. In addition to his successes -as an actor and a manager, he was joint author with Louis -Napoleon Parker in that delightful play <i>Rosemary</i>, since -<span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>which he has written many plays. He is quite a well-known -figure at various literary clubs, noted for his remarkable -resemblance to the first Napoleon. The collaboration of -these two Napoleons was, I imagine, a mere coincidence.</p> - -<p class='c016'>My last meeting with Decima Moore I am never likely to -forget. She was very fond of watching polo, and we were -sitting together in the pavilion at a club to which I belong, -when a man was thrown from his pony, and dragged along -the ground for several yards on his face, his nose ploughing -a regular furrow till it was broken. I went down to where he -was lying. Every one thought he was killed, because he lay -insensible for so long. When he did come to, he said, “Is -my nose broken, doctor?” The doctor said it was, and then -he said, in my hearing, “Then I hope you will make a better -job of it than God did,” which seemed to me the most extraordinary -piece of <i>sang-froid</i> for a man who, the moment -before, had been almost across the threshold of life and death.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Sir Charles Wyndham, whose real name I cannot for the -moment remember, and “Mary Moore,” I have seen chiefly on -the Riviera at Cimiez. I make it the excuse for my forgetfulness -that he forgot what he was forgetting once, when, -coming up cordially to shake hands with me, he said, “I -remember your name quite well, but I can’t recall your face.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Wyndham fought in the war between North and South -in the United States, and he was a member of the company of -John Wilkes Booth, the actor, at the time that the latter -assassinated President Lincoln in the theatre; I have never -heard if he was actually on the stage at the time. He was -brought up, I understood, as a doctor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>As an instance of Wyndham’s lapses of memory, I may -quote that one day at Ranelagh he asked me if I was a -member of the Club. I said “Yes.” “Can I telephone from -here?” “Oh, yes.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>When we got to the telephone, he began turning up the -name of his man of business, who had a name, which I will -not mention, as ordinary as Skinner; there might have been -a couple of score of the name in the telephone book. He -read down the list. “I can’t remember his initials,” he said. -I looked at him as if to say, “Don’t you often see him?” -He caught my eye. His actor’s intuition told him my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Yes, -I do ’phone to him every day, but I can’t for the life of me -tell which of all this lot he is.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Irving once told me at lunch a story which he probably -told many others. He was touring in the United States, -and staying either at St. Louis or Cincinnati. One morning -at breakfast a large rat ran across the room. As he had -been up till past five that morning, being entertained by the -local Savage Club—I forget its name—he was feeling rather -cheap, and gave a little start. “You needn’t mind him, -Mis’ Irving,” said the negro waiter; “he’s a real one.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Trees I have known for a long time. It is an undiluted -pleasure to meet Tree out at lunch—like all actors, he affects -lunches more than dinners. There are few men so witty. -When most of the great actors and actresses were exhausting -their powers of polished vituperation on the unhappy Clement -Scott for his generalisations upon the morals of the stage, -Tree’s reply as to what he thought of the matter was, that -nothing Clement Scott had said made him think any less of -him, and Lady Tree’s rejoinder to the late W. T. Stead is -historical.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Cyril Maude always gives me his smile when we meet at a -certain polo club, and often “passes the time of day” to -me very pleasantly. But I know that he is another of the -people who remember your name, when they meet you, but -cannot recall your face. Still, I forgive him for the sake of -that Major in <i>The Second in Command</i>. His charming wife, -Winifred Emery, whose triumph I saw the night she won -her place in the first rank as Marguerite in Irving’s <i>Faust</i>—she -was the understudy—always remembers my face as well as my -name. There never was an actress on our stage who showed -more spirit, unless it is Lena Ashwell turning on a bully, for -Lena turns to bay like the lion “on that famed Picard field.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The Maudes’ daughter is now rapidly coming to the front. I -saw her as one of Portia’s ladies in the <i>Merchant of Venice</i> looking -(intentionally, I suppose) for all the world like the exquisite -Tornabuoni heiress in the choir frescoes of Santa Maria Novella -at Florence, and could hardly believe that it was the same -merry, everyday girl that I meet at the Adrian Ross’s.</p> - -<div id='i344f' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i344f.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p>SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM-TREE<br /><i>From the drawing by Yoshio Markino</i></p> -</div> -</div> -<p class='c016'>Edward Terry I first met at the Savage, where he was one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>of the most influential members, and afterwards at Barnes, -where he had a dear old house near the church, which has -been improved away to make room for a sweet-shop and a -garage and an auctioneer’s lair. Though he was so capable -in the chair, and such an excellent comedian, I don’t remember -his ever saying anything worth remembering when we -walked or “bussed” down Castelnau together.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Penley I never met in private life; I only met him at -the Savage, where he never would do a turn, and where his -dignity—not assumed—when he was in the chair was as funny -as <i>Charley’s Aunt</i>, and proceedings were conducted in the -voice of the curate in <i>The Private Secretary</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I first met Mrs.—and Mr.—Patrick Campbell at a party -at Oswald Crawfurd’s in the very early ’nineties. She had -been enjoying triumphs in the provinces for some years, but -London was for the first time being thrilled by that marvellously -seductive voice, that languorous grace, and that -panther-like personality, which is sleek till it springs. Of -all actresses, Mrs. Campbell is most closely connected with -Kensington, for she was born in the Forest House, Kensington -Gardens, and lives no farther off than Kensington Square, -where she occupies one of the old houses on the west side.</p> - -<p class='c016'><i>The Second Mrs. Tanqueray</i> at one end of her career in -London, and <i>Bella-Donna</i> at the other, established the fact -that for parts in which the infidelity of a wife brings in -passion and intrigue of tragic proportions, she has few equals on -the stage of any country. It is the Italian side of her nature -coming out—her mother was a Miss Romanini. Indeed, one -can picture her at her very finest in an Italian mediæval play—such -as the scene where his beautiful mother mourns over -the body of the terrible young Griffonetto Baglioni.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Like Lena Ashwell and Julia Neilson, Mrs. Campbell (Mrs. -George Cornwallis West) might have expected to make her -name by music.</p> - -<p class='c016'>She supplies one more illustration of the siren voice of Africa, -which never ceases to call to those who have once listened to -it. For Patrick Campbell made his work in Africa, and died -there in the Boer War, and now their daughter Stella, who had -made her mark on the stage with her <i>Princess Clementina</i> in -Mason’s play, has married and gone to live at Nairobi.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /> <br /><span class='c022'>MY ARTIST FRIENDS</span></h2> -</div> -<p class='c008'><span class='sc'>My</span> first connection with artists came through my cousin, -David Wilkie Wynfield, who was the nephew and godson of -the great Sir David Wilkie. He was a popular artist in both -senses of the word, for engravers used to multiply his pictures -like “The New Curate,” and there was no more popular -figure at the Arts’ Club or in the homes of his brother artists. -A repartee of his was the origin of the picture in <i>Punch</i>, where -a painter who wants to know why he does not get into the -Royal Academy is told that he should not wear such thick -boots. He and some brother artists, of whom I think Marcus -Stone and G. A. Storey are the only survivors, took Ann -Boleyn’s castle of Hever (when, if not abandoned to the owls -and bats, it had not yet become the home of the Astors), as -a summer sketching-box, and I have a picture of them grouped -round the entrance arch, which he painted.</p> - -<p class='c016'>So that he might have a better opportunity of introducing -me to all his friends, he put me up for “The Arts,” of which -I remained a member till his death. In those days it was -located in a delightful old house in Hanover Square, which -had belonged to and been frescoed by Angelica Kauffmann. -There I made the acquaintance of the most famous artists -of the day, both painters and sculptors, for your artist, unlike -your author, loves to go to the club at night to relieve his -mind after his long day’s work, by playing pool or demolishing -the claims of his rivals to be considered artists in long technical -conversations through clouds of smoke. The art of blowing -smoke-rings is a speciality of artists. I have heard a famous -R.A. recommend a young painter, who was complaining -that <i>he</i> could never get his pictures into the Royal Academy, -to paint small grey pictures. “Why?” asked the disappointed -aspirant. “Because they are the pictures which Leighton -<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>needs to show off his own pictures properly, and he always -picks them out first.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another time, at the committee meeting when Herbert -Schmaltz was up for election, the chairman asked, “Does -anybody know anything about Mr. Schmaltz?” and the -most popular landscape painter of the day replied, “Mr. -Schmaltz is a man who has taken the illustration of the Bible -into his own hands.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was Wynfield who introduced me to Joe Jopling. There -have been few at-homes more popular than Mrs. Jopling-Rowe’s. -Jopling, who was a great rifle-shot—he won the -Queen’s Prize at Wimbledon—as well as a regular exhibitor -in the Academy, died a few years after I came to know them, -and his widow married George Rowe. Mrs. Jopling-Rowe, -who is a popular and admirable portrait-painter, and a -constant exhibitor at all the principal picture-shows, like the -Academy and the Salon, when first I knew her lived at Beaufort -Street, Chelsea, but an epidemic of burglars drove her -from there to Pembroke Road, Earl’s Court, and from thence -to an old house in Pembroke Gardens. It made no difference -to her at-homes, which have always been crowded with really -distinguished people, for she has known all the leading artists, -most of the leading authors and actors, and not a few of the -leading public men and women of her time. Millais painted -her portrait in her youthful prime, and if one sees her standing -near it, where it hangs in her house, one notices how little -she has altered in those intervening years, which have been -so full of painting triumphs and brilliant society.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Many artists used to come to Addison Mansions. West -Kensington is not like St. John’s Wood or Chelsea; there -was no West Kensington Arts’ Club, and artists had not -many meeting-places except Phil May’s studio and our flat. -Solomon, already nearing his zenith, used often to come -with his brother Albert, and so did Arthur Hacker, though -they both lived some way off. We were asked to Solomon’s -wedding—we and Henry Arthur Jones, I think, were the only -Gentiles present at this splendid ceremony, carried out with -all the historical rites. Albert Solomon very good-naturedly -sat with us to tell us the significance of everything. It was -as interesting as an Easter service in a Sicilian cathedral.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>It was easier for J. J. Shannon, for he lived quite close, -in Holland Park Road, in an old farmhouse, which he gradually -transformed into a charming mansion, where one used to -meet most interesting people.</p> - -<p class='c016'>David Murray, the famous landscape painter, was another -frequent visitor among the Academicians, very popular for -his wit and camaraderie, very ready to help any one who -needed a push in high quarters.</p> - -<p class='c016'>He has altered surprisingly little—only last summer I met -him at a ball at Sir St. Clair Thompson’s, the eminent throat -specialist’s, whom I knew as far back as 1886 when he was -honorary secretary of the Club at Florence. David was -dancing as much as most of the young men, and not looking -perceptibly older than when I met him a quarter of a century -ago. He is another of the intellectual artists who read -deeply, and he is much interested in Japan. He very good-naturedly -came to advise me about my pictures when I was -selling the contents of Phillimore Lodge, but we had already -parted with the celebrated Nattier of Louis XV dressed as -Hercules—a Burke heirloom—my father sold that to Colnaghi -for £1500.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Alfred Drury, that delightfully poetical sculptor, was another -Academician who came often. Drury has a beautiful voice.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was only in our last days at Addison Mansions, after -we had given up those large evening at-homes, that William -Nicholson, not an Academician, but one of the greatest artists -of them all, came. Nicholson was not only one of the finest -painters of the day in inspiration and technique, but was the -pioneer of a new movement, being the first painter to have an -artificial reproduction of daylight installed in his studio—a -costly and highly scientific combination of various lights. -By means of this painting is rendered independent of the -weather and the time. He has painted all night before now. -Mark Barr, a scientific friend of ours, who devised the -apparatus for this, the most brilliant man I ever met, brought -him.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another pioneer of art who used to come to Addison -Mansions often, when he had a studio in Brook Green, was -Francis Bate, the moving spirit of the New English Art Club. -His influence on art has been profound. The new English -<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>Art Club may have been identified with a certain extravagant -phase by scoffers, but it has embraced men like Sargent -and Shannon, as well as apostles of stiff blue cabbages.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The public were quick to appreciate the charm of the soft -grey studies, in which so little was indicated and so much -implied, of Theodore Roussel and Paul Maitland. Maitland, -in spite of his delicate health, was a student as well as a -painter. He was a very clear thinker, like the late Sir Alfred -East, another Academician who often joined our symposia. -I always felt that East could have made his name as easily -in literature as in art.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The artist who has played the greatest part in the book life -of his time is, of course, Walter Crane, a really profound -student and thinker, who has held all sorts of most important -directorships in art, and delivered lectures of historical -importance. No artist has such a record in <i>Who’s Who</i>, -for Crane is not only an illustrator of books, but a writer, -and as eminent a socialist as he is an artist. He describes -himself as “mostly self-taught,” but he was apprenticed to -W. J. Linton, and exhibited in the Royal Academy when he -was only sixteen. He lives in ideal surroundings, in a rambling -house, more than two centuries old, in Holland Street, -Kensington. The thing which always struck me more than -the old curios which find such a fitting niche in the house, are -the rubbings of the brasses of his ancestors, for Crane has -a long line of knightly ancestors, one of whom was Chancellor -of England in Stuart times. Of his work I need not speak, -for he has founded one of the schools of modern English Art.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Walter Crane if he had been turned into an -artist by any sensational incident, he said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“My progress—if I may so call it—has been very gradual -and quite unsensational, I think—except to myself. I had -the great advantage of having an artist for a father, and never -remember the time when I did not handle a pencil of some -kind, though it was often a <i>slate</i> pencil. I had no early -struggles to have my wish to be an artist allowed and encouraged, -or any strife about the realisation of that ideal -with a bourgeois-minded family, as one so often hears about -in artists’ histories. I never started for anywhere with half-a-crown -in my pocket—anything of the sort usually quickly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>burnt a hole in what little pocket I may have had—and no -doubt that is the principal reason why I remain poor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“My early fondness for drawing animals caused confident -and friendly critics to say, ‘He will be a second Landseer!’ -and nothing could have had a more glowing prospect for me -at the time; but times have a way of changing, and ideals -change with them, especially when one is ‘growing up.’</p> - -<p class='c016'>“At the age of sixteen I had what might be called my first -picture accepted at the Royal Academy—first time of asking—but -the subject was ‘The Lady of Shalott,’ and my source -of inspiration was by no means Landseer, but rather the -pre-Raphaelites, and I was already deeply read in Ruskin.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“You speak of the ‘paradox of my being a socialist’ in -spite of my descent. Why should it be a paradox for one -who loves beauty and harmony, and strives to realise it in -his work, but who sees around him a world scrambling for -money, glutted with riches at one end of the social scale, -and penniless and destitute at the other, while all the time -the bounty of Nature and the invention and labour of man -provides abundance—but only for those who can exchange -the necessary counters, and for those who hold the keys of -the means of the maintenance of life?</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Socialism does not mean lowering the standard of life, -but raising it, and with the abolition of the struggle for mere -bread, and the substitution of co-operation for competition, -it will be possible to build a society founded upon some better -basis than cash, a surplus value. Indeed, it may be said -that a true aristocracy might then become possible, since -personal qualities and character would then have their real -value, purged of the harrowing, selfish burden of private -ownership of the means of life, and estimated by service to -the community.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>My most intimate artist friend is Réné de l’Hôpital, who, -in spite of his name and his descent, speaks not a word of -French. De l’Hôpital is one of those happy portrait-painters -who can get a likeness; but he is more than that; if he had -a literary turn, he could write as good a book as any one on -“collecting” economically, for he has a wonderful knowledge -of old furniture and its West-end and East-end values. I -know the extent of his knowledge because he and my brother-in-law, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>the late Frederick Robert Ellis, were my advisers -when I sold the contents of Phillimore Lodge, and the auctioneer -said they fetched half as much again as they were -worth, because we knew their value and their points were so -well brought out. De l’Hôpital owed his knowledge partly to -the fact that he was born in a great old house full of treasures. -Having known what it was to struggle himself, when he became -an artist against the wishes of his family, he does a great deal -for the poor.</p> - -<p class='c016'>De l’Hôpital, who is a French count, son of the sixth Duke -de Vitry, has had the honour of painting Prince Arthur of -Connaught and Pope Leo XIII, and was a Gold Staff officer -at the coronation of King George V. He married a daughter -of John Francis Bentley, the great architect who built the -Westminster Cathedral. Mrs. de l’Hôpital has written a book -entitled <i>The Westminster Cathedral and its Architect</i>, and -collaborated with me in one of my books in which she would -not allow her name to appear.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Two painters who used to come to Addison Mansions arise -in my mind with East. Both were portrait-painters, recognised -as among the soundest executants of their craft—J. H. -Lorimer and Hugh de Trafford Glazebrook—for both were -interested in literature as well as art—a not common trait -among artists—and both of them paint portraits with enduring -and outstanding merit. Lorimer, as I have said, was the -son of the late Prof. Lorimer of Edinburgh University, the -eminent international jurist who made the restoration of -Kellie Castle his hobby, and brother of Sir Robert Lorimer, -who restored St. Giles’ Cathedral at Edinburgh, and a cousin -of Norma Lorimer, the novelist. Glazebrook was a brother -of Canon Glazebrook, late head master of Clifton, an Oxford -friend of mine who never won the high jump, though he could -clear five feet eleven, because he happened to have for a contemporary -the only man who ever cleared six feet in the -’Varsity sports.</p> - -<p class='c016'>A new school of black-and-white artists was coming rapidly -to the fore. Pictorial journalism on an unprecedented scale -had invaded England from America, and a number of new -illustrated papers and magazines had started, and they relied -for their pictorial side on ideas which must have seemed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>revolutionary to those who had been brought up on the old -standard productions of the <i>Illustrated London News</i>. The -foundation of <i>The Graphic</i> a decade or two earlier had been -a sign of the times.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The most extraordinary artist of the movement could -hardly be called a journalist proper, because most of his -work was done for books published by John Lane, and for the -<i>Yellow Book</i>. Beardsley, who was a mere boy, with his -boyishness accentuated by his fair hair and consumptive’s -pink-and-white complexion, came nearly every week with a -very pretty sister who made her name rapidly on the stage. -Beardsley, who had a workmanship of spiderish delicacy -and an imagination like Edgar Allan Poe, which resulted -in the creation of female types of appalling wickedness and -snake-like fascination, did not talk much “shop”; he was -more occupied with the studies on which these extraordinary -creations were founded. He was a very interesting man to -talk to, very modest. He always impressed me as a man with -a wonderful future if he were not cut off, as he was, by an -early death.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Phil May, another genius of the movement, was one of our -most constant visitors. He lived, as I have said, in a studio -improvised from a stable, almost opposite Shannon, in those -days. He did more than most men to revolutionise black -and white, because he was one of the first who grasped the -value of Japanese effects and introduced them into his work. -But his method of producing these Japanese effects was not -Japanese. A Japanese artist fills the brush, which he uses -as pen and pencil, with Indian ink, and secures his effects -with a few dexterous sweeps. Phil May drew his picture in -the English way with comparatively few lines, then studied -his own work to see what was superfluous, and rubbed out -every superfluity. He was not the rapid worker which one -imagined from his style. After he left the Australian paper -with which he was connected, he remained a free lance for -years, drawing whatever came into his head as irresistible, -and selling it to one or other journal, and bringing out collections -of his drawings of the year in his famous annual. It was, -perhaps, not the best way of making money, but it came very -naturally to him, for he was as brilliant a wit as he was an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>artist. He was a man of inspirations; he could be irresistibly -funny with such simple materials as the henpecked husband. -He was the reverse of henpecked himself. He had a devoted -and very pretty wife, who was forgiving to all the faults -he committed in his bland and childlike way, and I often -used to think that his jokes about henpecked husbands formed -his way of crying “peccavi.” Who that had ever seen it -could forget his picture of the husband coming home at three -o’clock in the morning and being asked, “What do you mean -by coming home at this time of night?” and pleading that -there was nowhere else open? Or his picture of the drunken -lion-tamer, who had taken refuge from his wife in the lion’s -cage, with his wife outside the cage crying “You coward!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>I do not think he ever made his speech in the rooms of the -Piscatorial Society the subject of a picture, but it was worth -it. He was the guest of the evening and had dined a little -too well—at any rate, as far as drink was concerned. When -he rose to respond to the toast of his health, he looked round -the room and saw dozens of glass cases stuffed with salmon -and pike of monstrous size, the pride of the Society. He took -them all in with a wave of his hand, and said, “I suppose -you will tell me that there is only one ——y kipper on that -wall!”</p> - -<p class='c016'>On another occasion I was with Phil and Corbould at the -Savage Club. We stayed there very late, and when Phil -finally made up his mind to go home, he could not remember -where he lived. Of course, we knew his own studio quite -well, because it was close to our homes, and we had been there -scores of times, but he was not residing there; he was staying -in lodgings, for he had just come back from the Japan fiasco. -He had received a commission from the <i>Graphic</i> to go to -Japan for a year or more, and do sketches for them. They -offered him very liberal terms, and he accepted them. He -let his studio for a year, and started off full of good intentions. -But he never got to Japan. He stopped somewhere on the -way—a very long way from England—and abandoned himself -to a lotus life of mild dissipation—we might, perhaps, -have called him a lotus-drinker—and the <i>Graphic</i> had to -bring him home again. It was soon after he got home that -this event at the Savage happened.</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>“Where to?” asked the cabby.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I don’t know,” said Phil. “I have forgotten where I -live; it is not my own house.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“Well, how am I to get you there?” asked the cabby.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I do not know what the name of the house is,” said Phil; -“but I think I could draw it.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“There are a good lot of houses in London,” said the cabby, -“and they are mostly all alike.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>“But there is a church near it,” said Phil; “and I could -draw that.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>A menu card and a pencil were procured, and he drew a -picture of the ordinary London house and a rather toyshop -church. The cabby looked at it and said, “I know where it -is; that’s Osnaburgh Terrace,” so Phil got into the cab, and -then the cabby turned round to Corbould and myself and said, -“That’s Phil May, ain’t it?” We said yes, and he unbuttoned -his coat and put the menu card carefully in his pocket, -remarking, “It will be worth something some day.”</p> - -<p class='c016'>The extraordinary thing was that any one who was so -witty and such a consummate artist should have been ignored -by <i>Punch</i> for so many years, though he became in the end one -of its most honoured contributors. The editor approached -him in a very curious way when he felt that he could not ignore -him any longer. He did it through the firm who at that time -reproduced illustrations for <i>Punch</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Phil May was one of the best-hearted of men, generous to a -fault, alike with his money and in his attitude to his rivals.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Very famous people used to come sometimes to those -ultra-Bohemian gatherings in his studio, including some of -the Queens of the music-hall stage.</p> - -<p class='c016'>It was Phil May, I believe, who drew the inimitable cartoon -in the <i>St. Stephen’s Review</i> of Mr. Gladstone, with a malevolent -eye, gathering primroses on the banks of the Thames -on the anniversary of his illustrious rival’s death, which had -for its title—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c024'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“A primrose by the river’s brim,</div> - <div class='line in1'>A yellow primrose was to him,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And it was nothing more.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c025'>The cartoon was received with universal acclaim, but the -general public—<i>quorum pars fui</i>—did not bother as to who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>the artist was. I did not know Phil at the time. He was -just back from Australia, where he had been working for the -<i>Sydney Bulletin</i>.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Phil May had the head of a mediæval jester, and was fond -of drawing himself in the cap and bells.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another black-and-white humorist of a different type who -was with us just as much was Dudley Hardy, whose satirical -sketches of ballet girls and their admirers filled the periodicals -of the day, obscuring Dudley Hardy’s claim as an artist. -He was a son of the well-known marine painter, T. B. Hardy, -and was lured from doing the really admirable work with which -his friends are familiar, by the fatal popularity of his theatrical -caricatures. It was long before he could make up his mind -to break away from that and do himself justice in painting. -His sister married a very great friend of ours, a water-colour -painter of extraordinary cleverness and charm, Frank -Richards. We have many of his pictures, mostly impressionist -water-colours, which prove the heights to which Richards -could have risen if he had continued to have the leisure to -which he was born. He might have done very well in black-and-white -too. He could have come nearer to Phil May than -most people, for he too had caught the spirit of Japan in -the simplicity and bold curves of his drawing; and he had -considerable humour. His limpidity and the charm of his -colouring were especially shown in his paintings of Venice.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His portrait of Dudley Hardy is simply admirable, for -Dudley, with his whimsical smile and jaunty way of wearing -his hat, looks like a Parisian notable.</p> - -<p class='c016'>For some years we saw more of Reginald Cleaver than any -other artist. Cleaver was at that time the favourite artist -of the <i>Graphic</i>, as well as a regular contributor to <i>Punch</i>. -He was excellent in catching likenesses, and his crisp and -beautiful handiwork made his pictures of passing events most -attractive. The <i>Graphic</i> always sent him to the most important -functions, such as royal weddings. He hated this work, -because he was far too gentlemanly and too shy to push, -and the people in charge of royal functions seemed to take -a pleasure in putting every disadvantage they could in the -way of the artists and journalists who had to immortalise -the occasion for their fellow-countrymen. The artist was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>expected to stand behind the organ or anywhere else provided -he was sufficiently out of sight; whether he could see or not -was of very little consideration. But one day Fate overtook -the autocrat who used to browbeat the Press. It was in -the days when the late King was Prince of Wales, and his -brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, had just become a German -reigning prince as Prince of Saxo-Coburg Gotha. Cleaver, -who was posted where he could not see the procession as it -entered, imagined that the Duchess of Edinburgh as a reigning -princess would take precedence of the Princess of Wales, -and gave her precedence in his picture in the <i>Daily Graphic</i>. -Before ten o’clock the next morning a messenger from Marlborough -House arrived at the <i>Graphic</i> office to know the meaning -of this libel, and the editor explained that the artist had -been placed in a position where he could not see the Princess. -The Princess was furious. She attached no blame to the -artist, but she sent for the autocrat and gave him to understand -that there must be no more accidents of this kind, -and from that day forward there was a great change in the -way in which artists were treated at royal functions.</p> - -<p class='c016'>We spent several of our summer holidays together. -Cleaver’s sketches of famous people at historical functions -will have a permanent value. He had no rival in fidelity and -charm in this kind of work. In recent years the world has -seen too little of his work owing to his being so much abroad. -He is the elder brother of Ralph Cleaver, the well-known -political caricaturist.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Holland Tringham, a very good-looking and well-bred -man, of whom I saw a good deal at that time, had a battle -royal with a millionaire duchess over a similar question. He -went down to represent one of the chief illustrated papers at -a great ball she was giving at her country house. When he -got there, he was received with scant ceremony, but began his -work. When supper-time came, the housekeeper arrived to -tell him that he would find his supper in the still room. He -showed her the beginnings of his sketch—and he was a brilliant -artist—and said, “Take this to her Grace and tell her that -if she does not come and fetch me to supper with her guests, -I shall tear it up, and go home.”</p> - -<p class='c016'><span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>Her Grace came, took him to supper, and introduced him -to her friends galore, and the picture appeared. Of course, -Tringham was very sure of his position as an artist with the -paper, or he would not have risked the chance of being sacrificed -on the altar of the offended duchess. I should like to -have heard what the housekeeper told her.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There has not been so much of this snobbery lately among -hostesses; the race for publicity having become too acute.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I must have met Sambourne, who succeeded Sir John -Tenniel as chief artist of <i>Punch</i>, when I was a boy, for he -married a Miss Herapath, and when we were children she -and her brothers were generally having tea at our house in -Upper Phillimore Gardens if we were not having tea at theirs -a few yards away. I never lost sight of him, and in the last -years of his life saw more rather than less of Sambourne, -whose thoroughness was always a marvel to me. No pains -were too great for him to be accurate in the details of his -cartoons and whimsicalities. I forget how many thousand -photographs he told me he had, which he could use like a -dictionary. But I remember that his idea of the best day’s -holiday one could take was to go to Boulogne in the morning -on a day when there was a good sea on, lunch there, and come -back in the afternoon.</p> - -<p class='c016'>His successor on <i>Punch</i>, Bernard Partridge, was very often -at Addison Mansions in the old Idler and Vagabond days. -He had already achieved fame in two directions—as a black-and-white -artist whose handiwork was unexcelled for delicate -beauty and romantic charm, and as an actor. But he did -not act under his own name; he was Bernard Gould behind -the footlights. Partridge’s father, the late Prof. Richard -Partridge, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and one of the -greatest surgeons of his day. Mrs. Partridge, then Miss -Harvey, was also often at our at-homes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Another <i>Punch</i> and <i>Graphic</i> artist often with us was -Alexander Stuart Boyd, whose wife, Mary Stuart Boyd, is a -favourite novelist of the great house of Blackwood. Boyd -has the dry wit of his race, so it is not surprising that such a -fine artist should have found his way to <i>Punch</i>. He now -gives his time to painting and spends much of his time at a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>house he has in the Balearic Islands. He was a very old -Vagabond. I met him there or at the Idler teas.</p> - -<p class='c016'>There, too, I met Hal Hurst, my neighbour and constant -associate for years, though we do not often meet now. I -have various pictures of his in my present house. Hurst, -who was a very clever artist, and his friend Alyn Williams, -the president of one of the two Miniature Painters’ Societies, -not only shared a studio in Mayfair, but married beautiful -young wives about the same time, who were constantly -together, one very dark and the other very fair. Mrs. -Williams was the picture of health, but suddenly she was struck -down by a mysterious malady, and almost wasted to death, -a terrible shock to all who had seen much of them. Then, -for no apparently sufficient reason, she suddenly picked up -again, threw off her malady completely, and was restored -to her old radiant health; it was like coming back from -the grave. The Royal Family have been great patrons of -Williams’ miniatures.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Oddly enough, I knew the president of the other society -of miniature painters equally well—Alfred Praga, an Italian -by extraction, a well-known and popular member of the -Savage Club. Praga lives in a picturesque grey house off -Hornton Street. His wife is a well-known writer.</p> - -<p class='c016'>With them it is natural to mention the brilliant Robert -Sauber, a German by extraction, who for years was one of -the most popular artists in journalism; whatever paper or -magazine you took up, it was almost sure to have a cover -with a charming female figure designed by Sauber. I have -a delightful specimen painted for the menu of the Vagabond -Club on some important occasion. But Sauber was not -only a journalistic artist; he has been painting large decorative -panels and ceilings and portraits for the last thirteen -years, and has done no illustrations for the last twelve years. -He is an exhibitor at the principal Salons in London, Paris -and Munich.</p> - -<p class='c016'>While mentioning <i>Punch</i> artists, I forgot two who were -constant visitors at Addison Mansions—John Hassall and -Chantrey Corbould.</p> - -<p class='c016'>The man who helped to keep our at-homes going more than -<span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>any one else was Chantrey Corbould, the artist, a godson of -the great Sir Francis Chantrey, whose bequest is almost as -famous as his sculpture; he was a nephew also of Charles -Keene, the immortal <i>Punch</i> artist and etcher, on the mother’s -side. Edward H. Corbould, his father’s eldest brother, taught -the Royal Family.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Corbould was a huge man, with a very jovial, high-coloured, -handsome face, and a very horsey appearance, -as becomes one of the best hunting-picture artists who ever -drew for <i>Punch</i>. He had a very loud and hearty laugh, which -could be heard all over the house, and told good stories, -and always had a court of the ladies of Bohemia round him -in the inner room. He had one golden quality; whenever -he saw a woman sitting neglected, he went over and fetched -her to join his circle, and the older and uglier she was, the -more particular he was to do it.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I was wrong in saying that we never had an entertainment -at our at-homes—Corbould’s stories were an entertainment, -but people had not to keep silent with them; the more noise -they made, the better he liked it. He was very funny sometimes.</p> - -<p class='c016'>When I asked Corbould what first turned his attention to -Art, he said—</p> - -<p class='c016'>“I was always for the Arts. Charles S. Keene, my -mother’s brother, took me in hand, saying ‘sketch from -Nature,’ so I am altogether self-taught. I never went to -any Art school. Keene’s idea was that I should eventually -step into a ‘staff appointment on <i>Punch</i>.’ I began under -Shirley Brooks, then Tom Taylor, and later under F. C. -Burnand. Tom Taylor promised me the first vacancy at -‘The <i>Punch</i> Table,’ but he died, and F. C. Burnand took on -Furniss. I began with <i>Punch</i> in the early ’seventies; later -I worked for the <i>Graphic</i>, the <i>Illustrated London News</i>, the -<i>Daily Graphic</i> (1890), etc. I have always loved ‘gee-gees.’”</p> - -<p class='c016'>John Hassall is a universally popular man, and certainly one -of the most capable artists of the day. One cannot be sure -to what heights he will rise. He was not much more than a -boy when he first came to our house, and he was not much -more than a boy when he first got into <i>Punch</i>. As he is a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span>brilliant caricaturist, with a strong political sense, he could -be the Conservative F.C.G. whenever he chooses. Probably -he would dislike the drudgery of producing constant political -cartoons—all work done against time. G. R. H., the famous -cartoonist of the <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>, found the work too exacting, -and Hassall, the most popular poster designer of the -day, has many irons in the fire which require attending to. -But he is a born caricaturist of the unexaggerating kind -which the future will demand.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Joseph Pennell, the artist, and his charming wife, one of -the best travel-writers in America, have been friends of ours -for many years. They live in an old house in Buckingham -Street, Strand, near the gate, which now does nothing on -the Thames Embankment but is, I suppose, the last of the -water-gates of the Thames. Pennell conferred one of the -great pleasures of our lives on us by making us go to Le Puy, -at the source of the Loire, which he had been drawing for -some periodical. The statues of saints and tiny chapels -standing up on needle rocks against the sky, which look so -fascinating in his sketches, are not a whit less fantastic in -real life, and, until quite lately, you could see from the plain -High Mass being celebrated in the cathedral, which was at -the western end of the rock. The great west doors were flung -open for the purpose, until the mortality among the priests -became too great. At Le Puy the old market-women wear -their hats over their caps, and frogs are as cheap as dirt—real -edible frogs.</p> - -<p class='c016'>I went to a banquet given by the town to its most famous -son, M. Dupuy, who was then Prime Minister of France, -and was, as it happened, a native, though he did spell the -Puy in his name with a small p. We paid three francs a head—less -than half-a-crown—for the banquet, including wine, -and an introduction to the Premier.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span> - <h2 class='c007'>INDEX</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>of the leading people about whom Personal Reminiscences or New Facts are related.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<ul class='index'> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>Adcock, St. John, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ainslie, Douglas, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Alamayu, Prince, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a>-<a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Albanesi, Madame, <a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Alden, H. M., <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Alden, W. L., <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Alexander, Boyd, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Alexander, Sir George, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Alexander, Mrs. (Mrs. Hector), <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Allen, Grant, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>-<a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Allhusen, Mrs. Henry, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Angell, Norman, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Argonauts’ Club, The, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>-<a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Arnim, Countess von, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Arnold, Sir Edwin, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a>-<a href='#Page_117'>117</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ashwell, Lena, <a href='#Page_331'>331</a>-<a href='#Page_332'>332</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Atherton, Gertrude Franklin, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>-<a href='#Page_132'>132</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Austin, Alfred, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Authors’ Club, The, <a href='#Page_146'>146</a>-<a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ayrton, Edward, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Barker, Granville, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Barlass, Douglas, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Barr, Robert, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a>-<a href='#Page_102'>102</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>-<a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Barrie, Sir J. M., <a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bashford, Lindsay, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>-<a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bate, Francis, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Battye, Aubyn Trevor-, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>-<a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Baumann, A. A., <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Beardsley, Aubrey, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Becke, Louis, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Beerbohm, Max, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a>-<a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Belloc-Lowndes, Marie, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Beresford, Lord Charles, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bernhardt, Sarah, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>-<a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Besant, Annie, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Besant, Sir Walter, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>-<a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a>, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bigelow, Poulteney, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bird, Isabella, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Boldrewood, Rolf, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a>-<a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bond, Acton, <a href='#Page_339'>339</a>-<a href='#Page_340'>340</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span>Boosè, J. R., <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Boothby, Guy, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bourchier, Arthur, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>-<a href='#Page_339'>339</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bourget, Paul, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bourne, Cardinal, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>-<a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Boyd, A. K. H., <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>-<a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Boyd, A. S., <a href='#Page_357'>357</a>-<a href='#Page_358'>358</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Brackenbury, Sir Henry, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Braddon, Miss,” <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bradley, Dean, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Brandes, Georg, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Brinsmead, John, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Brodhurst, J. Penderel, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bullen, Frank, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a>, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a>-<a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bulloch, J. M., <a href='#Page_198'>198</a>-<a href='#Page_199'>199</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Bunning, Herbert, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Burgin, G. B., <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a>-<a href='#Page_165'>165</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson, <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Burroughs, John, <a href='#Page_260'>260</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Burton, Sir Richard, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Cable, G. W., <a href='#Page_260'>260</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Caine, Hall, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a>-<a href='#Page_254'>254</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Callaghan, Admiral Sir G., <a href='#Page_210'>210</a>-<a href='#Page_211'>211</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Calthrop, Dion Clayton, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Campbell, Frances, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Campbell, Mrs. Patrick, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cardigan, Lady, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>-<a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Carman, Bliss, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>-<a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Castle, Egerton, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cave, George, K.C., M.P., <a href='#Page_130'>130</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cawston, George, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Chambers, Haddon, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Clarke, Lewis, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cleaver, Reginald, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a>-<a href='#Page_356'>356</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Cleeve, Lucas,” <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cleveland, President, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Clifford, Mrs. W. K., <a href='#Page_127'>127</a>-<a href='#Page_128'>128</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Coffin, C. Hayden, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>-<a href='#Page_330'>330</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Coke, Desmond, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>-<a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cook, Theodore Andrea, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cooper, E. H., <a href='#Page_290'>290</a>-<a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>Corbould, A. Chantrey, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>, <a href='#Page_354'>354</a>, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>-<a href='#Page_359'>359</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Corelli, Marie, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Cornish, Herbert, <a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Coronation, The, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Couch, Sir A. T. Quiller-, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>-<a href='#Page_284'>284</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Courtney, W. L., <a href='#Page_194'>194</a>-<a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Crane, Walter, R.I., <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>-<a href='#Page_350'>350</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Craven, Miss Maude Chester, <a href='#Page_140'>140</a>-<a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Crawfurd, Oswald, <a href='#Page_148'>148</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Creighton, Bishop, of London, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Crockett, S. R., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Croker, Mrs. B. M., <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>-<a href='#Page_121'>121</a></li> - <li class='c003'>“Danby, Frank,” <a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Darnley, Countess of, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Davidson, John, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> - <li class='c026'>De l’Hôpital, René, <a href='#Page_350'>350</a>-<a href='#Page_351'>351</a></li> - <li class='c026'>De Lorey, Eustache, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_218'>218</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li> - <li class='c026'>De Morgan, William, <a href='#Page_266'>266</a>-<a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Denison, George Taylor, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Derby, late Earl, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a>-<a href='#Page_311'>311</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Devonshire Club, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dickens, Charles, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dilettante Club, The, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dilke, Sir Charles, M.P., <a href='#Page_308'>308</a>-<a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dillon, Dr., <a href='#Page_302'>302</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Diósy, Arthur, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dobson, Austin, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, <a href='#Page_73'>73</a>-<a href='#Page_77'>77</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>-<a href='#Page_157'>157</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dufferin, late Marquis of, <a href='#Page_310'>310</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dundonald, Earl of, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Dunn, James Nicol, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Edward, H.M. King, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a>, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Egerton, George, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>-<a href='#Page_135'>135</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Eliot, George, <a href='#Page_251'>251</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Escoffier, M., <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Fagan, J. Bernard, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Farnol, Jeffery, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>-<a href='#Page_292'>292</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Fawcett, Edgar, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Fenn, Fred, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Fenn, G. M., <a href='#Page_257'>257</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Field, Eugene, <a href='#Page_54'>54</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Fletcher, Benton, <a href='#Page_223'>223</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Forbes-Robertson, Sir J., <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a>-<a href='#Page_336'>336</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ford, I. N., <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>-<a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Fowler, Ellen Thorneycroft, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>, <a href='#Page_164'>164</a></li> - <li class='c026'>France, Anatole, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span>Fraser, John Foster, <a href='#Page_319'>319</a>-<a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Frederic, Harold, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>-<a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Freeman, Rev. H. B., <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Fry, C. B., <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Garvice, Charles, <a href='#Page_280'>280</a>-<a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li> - <li class='c026'>George V., H.M. The King, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gilbert, W. S., <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gissing, George, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Glazebrook, Hugh de Trafford, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Glazebrook, Canon M. G., <a href='#Page_351'>351</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gore, Right Rev. C., Bishop of Oxford, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gorst, Mrs. Harold, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gorst, Sir John, <a href='#Page_138'>138</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gosse, Edmund, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Grace, W. G., <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Grand, Sarah,” <a href='#Page_124'>124</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Gray, Maxwell,” <a href='#Page_119'>119</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Gribble, Francis, <a href='#Page_292'>292</a>-<a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Grossmith, George, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a>-<a href='#Page_177'>177</a>, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>-<a href='#Page_329'>329</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Grossmith, Weedon, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Haggard, Sir H. Rider, <a href='#Page_284'>284</a>-<a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hamilton, General Sir Ian, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hardy, Dudley, <a href='#Page_355'>355</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hardy, Thomas, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a>, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Harland, Henry, <a href='#Page_288'>288</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Harraden, Beatrice, <a href='#Page_129'>129</a>-<a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Harris, Sir Augustus, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Harte, Bret, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>-<a href='#Page_95'>95</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Harvey, Martin, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hassall, J., <a href='#Page_358'>358</a>, <a href='#Page_359'>359</a>-<a href='#Page_360'>360</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hatton, Joseph, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>-<a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hay, Colonel John, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_150'>150</a>, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a>-<a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hearn, Lafcadio, <a href='#Page_68'>68</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hedgcock, Walter, <a href='#Page_185'>185</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Helmsley, C. T. H., <a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Henley, W. E., <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_117'>117</a>-<a href='#Page_118'>118</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Henniker-Heaton, Sir J., <a href='#Page_263'>263</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hentschel, Carl, <a href='#Page_86'>86</a>-<a href='#Page_87'>87</a>, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Henty, G. A., <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hichens, Robert, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>-<a href='#Page_278'>278</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hicks, Seymour, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hind, Lewis, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>-<a href='#Page_189'>189</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hird, Frank, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Hobbes, John Oliver,” <a href='#Page_131'>131</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Hope, Anthony” (A. H. Hawkins), <a href='#Page_78'>78</a>-<a href='#Page_79'>79</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a>-<a href='#Page_176'>176</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Houghton, H. O., <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span>Howells, W. D., <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Humphris, Edith M., <a href='#Page_324'>324</a>-<a href='#Page_325'>325</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hunt, Violet, <a href='#Page_135'>135</a>-<a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Hurst, Hal, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Ingram, Rt. Rev. A. F. Winnington-, Bishop of London, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Iota” (Mrs. Mannington Caffyn), <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Irving, Sir Henry, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Jackson, Frederick, <a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jacobs, W. W., <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>-<a href='#Page_99'>99</a></li> - <li class='c026'>James, Henry, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a>-<a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jefferies, Richard, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jepson, Edgar, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a>-<a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jerome, Jerome K., <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_82'>82</a>-<a href='#Page_91'>91</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a>, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>-<a href='#Page_163'>163</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_188'>188</a>, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jerrold, Walter, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a>-<a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jeyes, S. H., <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>-<a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jones, Henry Arthur, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_336'>336</a>-<a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Jowett, Rev. Benjamin, Master of Balliol, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Kenealy, Alexander, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Kenealy, Arabella, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Kernahan, Coulson, <a href='#Page_165'>165</a>-<a href='#Page_166'>166</a>, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a>-<a href='#Page_271'>271</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Key, K. J., <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Kingston, Gertrude,” <a href='#Page_342'>342</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Kipling, Rudyard, <a href='#Page_77'>77</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Knight, Joseph, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Knoblauch, Edward, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Lamb, Captain Thomas, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>-<a href='#Page_299'>299</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lambs, The, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>-<a href='#Page_299'>299</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lambton (Meux), Admiral Sir Hedworth, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Landor, A. H. Savage, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a>, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>-<a href='#Page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lane, John, <a href='#Page_134'>134</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lang, Andrew, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>, <a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Larisch, Countess Marie, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lawrence, Sir Walter, Bart., G.C.I.E., <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Le Gallienne, R., <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>, <a href='#Page_259'>259</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lehmann, Rudolf, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Leighton, Marie Connor, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>-<a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Leighton, Robert, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>-<a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Le Queux, William, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lewin, P. Evans, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lindsay, Lady, <a href='#Page_114'>114</a>, <a href='#Page_124'>124</a>-<a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Linton, Mrs. Lynn, <a href='#Page_119'>119</a>-<a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Locke, W. J., <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span>Longfellow, Miss Alice, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lorimer, Norma, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a>-<a href='#Page_140'>140</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a>-<a href='#Page_213'>213</a>, <a href='#Page_215'>215</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Lovatelli, Countess, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Low, Sidney, <a href='#Page_191'>191</a></li> - <li class='c003'>“Maartens, Maarten,” <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c026'>McCarthy, Justin, M.P., <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> - <li class='c026'>McCarthy, Justin Huntly, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Mackay, Charles, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Mackellar, C. D., <a href='#Page_323'>323</a>-<a href='#Page_324'>324</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Mackenzie, Compton, <a href='#Page_296'>296</a>-<a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Maclaren, Ian,” <a href='#Page_161'>161</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Maclaughlan, Hugh, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Malet, Lucas,” <a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Markino, Yoshio, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a>-<a href='#Page_72'>72</a>, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>-<a href='#Page_227'>227</a>, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Marriott, Charles, <a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Marryat, Florence, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Marston, R. B., <a href='#Page_199'>199</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Martin, A. Patchett, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Martin, Robert Jasper, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>-<a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Mason, A. E. W., <a href='#Page_273'>273</a>-<a href='#Page_274'>274</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Mathers, Helen,” <a href='#Page_130'>130</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Maude, Cyril, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Maugham, W. Somerset, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>-<a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Maxwell, Gen. Sir J. G., <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Maxwell, W. B., <a href='#Page_279'>279</a></li> - <li class='c026'>May, Phil, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a>-<a href='#Page_355'>355</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Meredith, George, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Miles, Eustace, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Millais, Sir J. E., P.R.A., <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Mitford, Bertram, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>-<a href='#Page_295'>295</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Monkswell, Lord, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Montrésor, Miss, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a>-<a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Moore, T. Frankfort, <a href='#Page_79'>79</a>-<a href='#Page_80'>80</a>, <a href='#Page_166'>166</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Mordaunt, Elinor, <a href='#Page_245'>245</a>-<a href='#Page_246'>246</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Morris, Sir Lewis, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Morrison, Arthur, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Morrison, Dr. G. E., <a href='#Page_15'>15</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>-<a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_312'>312</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Moulton, Louise Chandler, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Murray, David, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Myers, F. W. H., <a href='#Page_104'>104</a>-<a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Nansen, Frithjof, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>-<a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Neilson, Julia,” <a href='#Page_329'>329</a>, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>, <a href='#Page_345'>345</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Neish, Mrs. Charles, <a href='#Page_306'>306</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Nethersole, Olga, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Nevill, Lady Dorothy, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Newman, Cardinal, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>-<a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Nicholson, William, <a href='#Page_348'>348</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Nicoll, Sir W. Robertson, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Nimr, Dr., <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Norman, Sir Henry, M.P., <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Nye, Bill, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> - <li class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>O’Connor, T. P., <a href='#Page_168'>168</a>, <a href='#Page_198'>198</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Odell, J. S., <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ohrwalder, Father, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>-<a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Oliver, Edwin, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> - <li class='c026'>O’Rell, Max, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>-<a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Osgood, Irene, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Pain, Barry, <a href='#Page_102'>102</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Pankhurst, Christabel, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Parke, Ernest, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Parker, Sir Gilbert, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Parker, Louis Napoleon, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Partridge, Bernard, <a href='#Page_357'>357</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Paternoster, G. Sidney, <a href='#Page_62'>62</a>, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Pemberton, Max, <a href='#Page_274'>274</a>-<a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Pennell, Joseph, <a href='#Page_360'>360</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Percival, Bishop of Hereford, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Perrin, Mrs. Charles, <a href='#Page_121'>121</a>-<a href='#Page_123'>123</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Phillpotts, Eden, <a href='#Page_276'>276</a>-<a href='#Page_277'>277</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Praed, Mrs. Campbell, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Prowse, R. O., <a href='#Page_297'>297</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Raper, R. W., <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a>-<a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ratti, Henry, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Reid, Rt. Hon. Sir George, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>-<a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Reid, Sir H. Gilzean, <a href='#Page_201'>201</a>-<a href='#Page_202'>202</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Reid, Whitelaw, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Renshaws, The, <a href='#Page_297'>297</a>-<a href='#Page_298'>298</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Richards, J. M., <a href='#Page_322'>322</a>-<a href='#Page_323'>323</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ridge, W. Pett, <a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_172'>172</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Rita,” <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rives, Amelie, <a href='#Page_131'>131</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Roberts, Field-Marshal Earl, V.C., <a href='#Page_120'>120</a>, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Roberts, Morley, <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>-<a href='#Page_286'>286</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Robertson, Rt. Rev. A., Bishop of Exeter, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Robertson, Sir George Scott, M.P., <a href='#Page_177'>177</a>-<a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Robertson, Mrs. Ian, <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Robins, Elizabeth, <a href='#Page_341'>341</a>-<a href='#Page_342'>342</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Robinson, F. W., <a href='#Page_255'>255</a>-<a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Robinson, Fletcher, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rockman, Ray, <a href='#Page_340'>340</a>-<a href='#Page_341'>341</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rolfe, Eustace Neville, <a href='#Page_207'>207</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Roosevelt, Theodore, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rose, Algernon, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a>-<a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rosebery, Lord, <a href='#Page_235'>235</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Ross, Adrian,” <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>-<a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rowe, Mrs. Jopling, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Rusden, G. W., <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>-<a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li class='c003'>St. Helier, Lady, <a href='#Page_125'>125</a>, <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Salisbury, late Marquess of, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sambourne, Linley, <a href='#Page_357'>357</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>Sarrûf, Dr., <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sauber, Robert, <a href='#Page_358'>358</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Savage Club, <a href='#Page_181'>181</a>-<a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Saxony, Ex-Crown Princess of, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a>, <a href='#Page_142'>142</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Schmalz, Herbert, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Scott, Capt., R.N., <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Seaman, Sir Owen, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Seddon, Rt. Hon. J. R., <a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Selous, F. C., <a href='#Page_313'>313</a>-<a href='#Page_314'>314</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Seton, Sir Bruce, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Seton, Ernest Thompson, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a>-<a href='#Page_174'>174</a>, <a href='#Page_302'>302</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Seymour, Admiral Sir Edward, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Seymour, Admiral Sir Michael Culme, <a href='#Page_34'>34</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Shannon, J. J., R.A., <a href='#Page_348'>348</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sharp, William, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a>, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Shaw, Bernard, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Shaylor, Joseph, <a href='#Page_301'>301</a>-<a href='#Page_302'>302</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sherman, Gen. W. Tecumseh, <a href='#Page_30'>30</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Shorter, Clement, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a>-<a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Shorter, Dora Sigerson, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>-<a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sickert, B., <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>-<a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sidgwick, Henry, <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>-<a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sidgwick, Mrs. A., <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sidney, F. E., <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sinclair, Archdeacon, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a>-<a href='#Page_305'>305</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, Arthur, C.M.G., <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, Sir Charles, K.C.M.G., <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, Douglas Brooke (my father), <a href='#Page_1'>1</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, Col. Sir Edward, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, Gen. John, <a href='#Page_120'>120</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, John Baker, D.L., J.P., <a href='#Page_1'>1</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Sladen, Lieut. Sampson, R.N., <a href='#Page_6'>6</a>, <a href='#Page_69'>69</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Smith, Frank Hopkinson, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a>-<a href='#Page_266'>266</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Smith, Goldwin, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Solomon, Solomon J., R.A., <a href='#Page_347'>347</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Southesk, the late Earl of, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Spender, Harold, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Spender, J. A., <a href='#Page_200'>200</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Spielmann, M. H., <a href='#Page_306'>306</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stanley, Lady (Dorothy), <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>-<a href='#Page_317'>317</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stanley, Sir H. M., <a href='#Page_105'>105</a>, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stanton, Father, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a>-<a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_170'>170</a>-<a href='#Page_171'>171</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stedman, Edmund Clarence, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_96'>96</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Steel, Mrs. Flora Annie, <a href='#Page_123'>123</a>, <a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Steevens, G. W., <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stepniak, Sergius, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Stevens, Miss E. S.,” <a href='#Page_143'>143</a>-<a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stockdale <i>versus</i> Hansard, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stockton, Frank, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>-<a href='#Page_98'>98</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stoker, Bram, <a href='#Page_80'>80</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Strindberg, August, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span>“Swan, Annie S.,” <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Swift, Benjamin,” <a href='#Page_285'>285</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Taylor, J. H., <a href='#Page_72'>72</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Tedder, H. R., <a href='#Page_158'>158</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Tennyson, <a href='#Page_309'>309</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Terry, Fred, <a href='#Page_329'>329</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Thirlmere, Rowland,” <a href='#Page_114'>114</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Thomas, Brandon, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Thomas, Margaret, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Thomson, Basil, <a href='#Page_325'>325</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Thring, G. Herbert, <a href='#Page_158'>158</a>-<a href='#Page_160'>160</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Thurston, Katherine Cecil, <a href='#Page_136'>136</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Tree, Sir H. Beerbohm–, <a href='#Page_344'>344</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Trench, Herbert, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Tringham, Holland, <a href='#Page_356'>356</a>-<a href='#Page_357'>357</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Turner, Henry Gyles, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a>, <a href='#Page_249'>249</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Twain, Mark,” <a href='#Page_53'>53</a>, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>-<a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Tynan, Katherine, <a href='#Page_116'>116</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Vachell, H. A., <a href='#Page_271'>271</a>-<a href='#Page_273'>273</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Vagabonds’ Club, The, <a href='#Page_162'>162</a>-<a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Van Horne, Sir William, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Victoria, H.M. Queen, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a>-<a href='#Page_190'>190</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Villiers, Fred, <a href='#Page_326'>326</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Visetti, Albert, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Ward, Sir Edward, K.C.B., <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ward, Mrs. Humphry, <a href='#Page_126'>126</a>-<a href='#Page_127'>127</a>, <a href='#Page_241'>241</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Ward, John, F.S.A., <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Watson, A. E. T., <a href='#Page_202'>202</a>-<a href='#Page_203'>203</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Watson, H. B. Marriott, <a href='#Page_279'>279</a>-<a href='#Page_280'>280</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Watson, R. Seton-, <a href='#Page_323'>323</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Watson, William, <a href='#Page_106'>106</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Watt, A. P., <a href='#Page_204'>204</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Watts-Dunton, Theodore, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Webbe, A. J., <a href='#Page_191'>191</a>-<a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Webster, Ben, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a>-<a href='#Page_331'>331</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Weigall, A. E. P., <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>-<a href='#Page_319'>319</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Welch, James, <a href='#Page_107'>107</a>, <a href='#Page_332'>332</a>-<a href='#Page_333'>333</a></li> - <li class='c026'><span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>Wells, H. G., <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>-<a href='#Page_100'>100</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Weyman, Stanley, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wheelton, Mr. John, Sheriff, <a href='#Page_1'>1</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wheelton, Mary (my mother), <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_5'>5</a>, <a href='#Page_6'>6</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Whistler, J. MacNeill, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Whitaker, G. H., <a href='#Page_199'>199</a></li> - <li class='c026'>White, Gleeson, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - <li class='c026'>White, Herbert K., <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c026'>White, Percy, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>-<a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Whittier, John Greenleaf, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wilberforce, Archdeacon, <a href='#Page_305'>305</a>-<a href='#Page_306'>306</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wilde, Oscar, <a href='#Page_64'>64</a>, <a href='#Page_108'>108</a>-<a href='#Page_111'>111</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wilkins, Mary E., <a href='#Page_145'>145</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wilkins, W. H., <a href='#Page_300'>300</a>-<a href='#Page_301'>301</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Williamson, Alice (Mrs. C. N.), <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>-<a href='#Page_133'>133</a>, <a href='#Page_163'>163</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Williamson, C. N., <a href='#Page_132'>132</a>-<a href='#Page_133'>133</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Williamson, Dr. G. C., <a href='#Page_304'>304</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Willoughby de Broke, Lord, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a>-<a href='#Page_175'>175</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wills, C. J., <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wingate, Sir Reginald, <a href='#Page_317'>317</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c026'>“Winter, John Strange,” <a href='#Page_133'>133</a>-<a href='#Page_134'>134</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wolf, Lucien, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>-<a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wolseley, Field-Marshal Viscount, <a href='#Page_151'>151</a>-<a href='#Page_152'>152</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wood, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn, V.C., <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wood, J. S., <a href='#Page_201'>201</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Woods, Rev. H. G., Master of the Temple, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Woods, Margaret, <a href='#Page_128'>128</a>-<a href='#Page_129'>129</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Worsfold, Dr. Cato, <a href='#Page_159'>159</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wright, Huntley, <a href='#Page_330'>330</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wyndham, Sir Charles, <a href='#Page_343'>343</a>-<a href='#Page_344'>344</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Wynfield, David Wilkie, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Yeats, W. B., <a href='#Page_106'>106</a>-<a href='#Page_107'>107</a></li> - <li class='c003'>Zangwill, Israel, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a>, <a href='#Page_91'>91</a>-<a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> - <li class='c026'>Zola, Emile, <a href='#Page_67'>67</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a></li> -</ul> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span><span class='sc'>Richard Clay & Sons, Limited</span>,</div> - <div>BRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,</div> - <div>AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<p class='c016'> </p> -<div class='tnbox'> - - <ul class='ul_1 c003'> - <li>Transcriber’s Notes: - <ul class='ul_2'> - <li>Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - </li> - <li>Typographical errors were silently corrected. - </li> - <li>Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant - form was found in this book. - </li> - </ul> - </li> - </ul> - -</div> -<p class='c016'> </p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS OF MY LIFE ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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