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Title: The Aftermath
Gleanings from a Busy Life
Author: Hilaire Belloc
Release Date: December 29, 2021 [eBook #67042]
Language: English
Produced by: Tim Lindell, John Campbell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AFTERMATH ***
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Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
HILAIRE BELLOC
THE AFTERMATH
_or_
GLEANINGS FROM A BUSY LIFE
CALLED UPON THE OUTER COVER
For Purposes of Sale
CALIBAN’S GUIDE TO LETTERS
By H. B.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & CO.
☞ _FURTHER AND YET MORE WEIGHTY OPINIONS OF THE PRESS._
“ ... We found it very tedious....”--_The Evening German._
(The devil “we” did! “We” was once a private in a line regiment,
drummed out for receiving stolen goods).
“ ... We cannot see what Dr. Caliban’s Guide is driving at.”--_The
Daily American._
(It is driving at you).
“ ... What? Again?...”--_The Edinburgh Review._
“ ... On y retrouve a chaque page l’orgueil et la sécheresse
Anglaise....”--M. HYPPOLITE DURAND, writing in _Le Journal_ of
Paris.
“ ... O Angleterre! Ile merveilleuse! C’est donc toujours de toi
que sortiront la Justice et la Vérité....”--M. CHARMANT REINACH,
writing in the _Horreur_ of Geneva.
“ ... Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.”--Signor Y. ILABRIMO
(of Palermo), writing in the _Tribuna_ of Rome.
“πολλὰ τὰ δεινα κὀυδεν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.”--M.
NEGRIDEPOPOULOS DE WORMS, writing in _The_ “τὸ δεινον” of Athens.
“!!משאל.”--_The Banner of Israel._
“----!”--_The Times_ of London.
_TO_
CATHERINE, MRS. CALIBAN,
BUT FOR WHOSE FRUITFUL SUGGESTION, EVER-READY SYMPATHY,
POWERS OF OBSERVATION, KINDLY CRITICISM, UNFLINCHING
COURAGE, CATHOLIC LEARNING, AND NONE THE LESS
CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE,
THIS BOOK MIGHT AS WELL NOT HAVE BEEN
WRITTEN;
IT IS DEDICATED
BY
HER OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL SERVANT AND FRIEND
IN AFFLICTION,
THE AUTHOR.
“_O, Man; with what tremors as of earth-begettings hast thou not
wrought, O, Man!--Yet--is it utterly indeed of thee--? Did there
not toil in it also that_ WORLD-MAN, _or haply was there not Some
Other?... O, Man! knowest thou that word Some Other?_”--CARLYLE’S
“Frederick the Great.”
Most of these sketches are reprinted from “The Speaker,” and appear
in this form by the kind permission of its Editor.
ERRATA AND ADDENDA.
P. 19, line 14 (from the top), for “enteric” read “esoteric.”
P. 73, second footnote, for “Sophia, Lady Gowl,” read “Lady Sophia
Gowl.”
P. 277 (line 5 from bottom), for “the charming prospect of such a
_bribe_,” read “_Bride_.”
P. 456, delete all references to Black-mail, _passim_.
P. 510 (line 6 from top), for “_Chou-fleur_”, read “_Chauffeur_.”
DIRECTION TO PRINTER.--Please print hard, strong, clear, straight,
neat, clean, and well. Try and avoid those little black smudges!
PREFACE.
This work needs no apology.
Its value to the English-speaking world is two-fold. It preserves
for all time, in the form of a printed book, what might have
been scattered in the sheets of ephemeral publications. It is so
designed that these isolated monuments of prose and verse can be
studied, absorbed, and, if necessary, copied by the young aspirant
to literary honours.
Nothing is Good save the Useful, and it would have been sheer
vanity to have published so small a selection, whatever its merit,
unless it could be made to do Something, to achieve a Result in
this strenuous modern world. It will not be the fault of the book,
but of the reader, if no creative impulse follows its perusal, and
the student will have but himself to blame if, with such standards
before him, and so lucid and thorough an analysis of modern
Literature and of its well-springs, he does not attain the goal to
which the author would lead him.
The book will be found conveniently divided into sections
representing the principal divisions of modern literary activity;
each section will contain an introductory essay, which will form
a practical guide to the subject with which it deals, and each
will be adorned with one or more examples of the finished article,
which, if the instructions be carefully followed, should soon
be turned out without difficulty by any earnest and industrious
scholar of average ability.
If the Work can raise the income of but one poor journalist, or
produce earnings, no matter how insignificant, for but one of that
great army which is now compelled to pay for the insertion of
its compositions in the newspapers and magazines, the labour and
organizing ability devoted to it will not have been in vain.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
REVIEWING 17
POLITICAL APPEALS 35
THE SHORT STORY 59
THE SHORT LYRIC 75
THE INTERVIEW 93
THE PERSONAL PAR 113
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE 121
ON EDITING 131
ON REVELATIONS 143
SPECIAL PROSE 163
APPENDIX
PRICES CURRENT 173
NOTE ON TITLES 177
NOTE ON STYLE 179
THE ODE 183
ON REMAINDERS AND PULPING 187
INDEX 191
INTRODUCTION.
_A Grateful Sketch of the Author’s Friend (in part the
producer of this book_),
JAMES CALIBAN.
INTRODUCTION.
Few men have pursued more honourably, more usefully, or more
successfully the career of letters than Thomas Caliban, D.D., of
Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, near Portsmouth. Inheriting, as his name
would imply, the grand old Huguenot strain, his father was a
Merchant Taylor of the City of London, and principal manager of the
Anglo-Chilian Bank; his mother the fifth daughter of K. Muller,
Esq., of Brighton, a furniture dealer and reformer of note in the
early forties.
The connection established between my own family and that of Dr.
Caliban I purposely pass over as not germane to the ensuing pages,
remarking only that the friendship, guidance, and intimacy of such
a man will ever count among my chiefest treasures. Of him it may
truly be written: “_He maketh them to shine like Sharon; the waters
are his in Ram-Shaîd, and Gilgath praiseth him._”
I could fill a volume of far greater contents than has this with
the mere record of his every-day acts during the course of his long
and active career. I must content myself, in this sketch, with a
bare summary of his habitual deportment. He would rise in the
morning, and after a simple but orderly toilet would proceed to
family prayers, terminating the same with a hymn, of which he would
himself read each verse in turn, to be subsequently chanted by the
assembled household. To this succeeded breakfast, which commonly
consisted of ham, eggs, coffee, tea, toast, jam, and whatnot--in a
word, the appurtenances of a decent table.
Breakfast over, he would light a pipe (for he did not regard
indulgence in the weed as immoral, still less as un-Christian: the
subtle word ἐπιείκεια, which he translated “sweet reasonableness,”
was painted above his study door--it might have served for the
motto of his whole life), he would light a pipe, I say, and walk
round his garden, or, if it rained, visit the plants in his
conservatory.
Before ten he would be in his study, seated at a large mahogany
bureau, formerly the property of Sir Charles Henby, of
North-chapel, and noon would still find him there, writing in
his regular and legible hand the notes and manuscripts which
have made him famous, or poring over an encyclopædia, the more
conscientiously to review some book with which he had been
entrusted.
After the hours so spent, it was his habit to take a turn in the
fresh air, sometimes speaking to the gardener, and making the
round of the beds; at others passing by the stables to visit his
pony Bluebell, or to pat upon the head his faithful dog Ponto, now
advanced in years and suffering somewhat from the mange.
To this light exercise succeeded luncheon, for him the most
cheerful meal of the day. It was then that his liveliest
conversation was heard, his closest friends entertained: the
government, the misfortunes of foreign nations, the success of
our fiscal policy, our maritime supremacy, the definition of the
word “gentleman,” occasionally even a little bout of theology--a
thousand subjects fell into the province of his genial criticism
and extensive information; to each his sound judgment and ready
apprehension added some new light; nor were the ladies of the
family incompetent to follow the gifted table talk of their father,
husband, brother, master,[1] and host.[2]
Until the last few years the hour after lunch was occupied with a
stroll upon the terrace, but latterly he would consume it before
the fire in sleep, from which the servants had orders to wake him
by three o’clock. At this hour he would take his hat and stick and
proceed into the town, where his sunny smile and friendly salute
were familiar to high and low. A visit to the L.N.C. School, a few
purchases, perhaps even a call upon the vicar (for Dr. Caliban was
without prejudice--the broadest of men), would be the occupation
of the afternoon, from which he returned to tea in the charming
drawing-room of 48, Henderson Avenue.
It was now high time to revisit his study. He was at work by
six, and would write steadily till seven. Dinner, the pleasant
conversation that succeeds it in our English homes, perhaps an
innocent round game, occupied the evening till a gong for prayers
announced the termination of the day. Dr. Caliban made it a point
to remain the last up, to bolt the front door, to pour out his
own whiskey, and to light his own candle before retiring. It was
consonant with his exact and thoughtful nature, by the way, to have
this candle of a patent sort, pierced down the middle to minimise
the danger from falling grease; it was moreover surrounded by a
detachable cylinder of glass.[3]
Such was the round of method which, day by day and week by week,
built up the years of Dr. Caliban’s life; but life is made up of
little things, and, to quote a fine phrase of his own: “It is the
hourly habits of a man that build up his character.” He also said
(in his address to the I. C. B. Y.): “Show me a man hour by hour in
his own home, from the rising of the sun to his going down, and I
will tell you what manner of man he is.” I have always remembered
the epigram, and have acted upon it in the endeavour to portray the
inner nature of its gifted author.
I should, however, be giving but an insufficient picture of Dr.
Caliban were I to leave the reader with no further impression of
his life work, or indeed of the causes which have produced this
book.
His father had left him a decent competence. He lay, therefore,
under no necessity to toil for his living. Nevertheless, that sense
of duty, “through which the eternal heavens are fresh and strong”
(Wordsworth), moved him to something more than “the consumption
of the fruits of the earth” (Horace). He preached voluntarily and
without remuneration for some years to the churches in Cheltenham,
and having married Miss Bignor, of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea, purchased
a villa in that rising southern watering-place, and received a call
to the congregation, which he accepted. He laboured there till his
recent calamity.
I hardly know where to begin the recital of his numerous activities
in the period of thirty-five years succeeding his marriage. With
the pen he was indefatigable. A man more ποικίλος--or, as he put
it, many-sided--perhaps never existed. There was little he would
not touch, little upon which he was not consulted, and much in
which, though anonymous, he was yet a leader.
He wrote regularly, in his earlier years, for _The Seventh
Monarchy_, _The Banner_, _The Christian_, _The Free Trader_,
_Household Words_, _Good Words_, _The Quiver_, _Chatterbox_, _The
Home Circle_, and _The Sunday Monitor_. During the last twenty
years his work has continually appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_,
the _Times_, the _Siècle_, and the _Tribuna_. In the last two his
work was translated.
His political effect was immense, and that though he never acceded
to the repeated request that he would stand upon one side or
the other as a candidate for Parliament. He remained, on the
contrary, to the end of his career, no more than president of a
local association. It was as a speaker, writer, and preacher,
that his ideas spread outwards; thousands certainly now use
political phrases which they may imagine their own, but which
undoubtedly sprang from his creative brain. He was perhaps not
the first, but one of the first, to apply the term “Anglo-Saxon”
to the English-speaking race--with which indeed he was personally
connected through his relatives in New Mexico. The word “Empire”
occurs in a sermon of his as early as 1869. He was contemporary
with Mr. Lucas, if not before him, in the phrase, “Command of the
sea”: and I find, in a letter to Mrs. Gorch, written long ago
in 1873, the judgment that Protection was “no longer,” and the
nationalization of land “not yet,” within “the sphere of practical
politics.”
If his influence upon domestic politics was in part due to his
agreement with the bulk of his fellow-citizens, his attitude in
foreign affairs at least was all his own. Events have proved it
wonderfully sound. A strenuous opponent of American slavery as a
very young man--in 1860--he might be called, even at that age,
the most prominent Abolitionist in Worcestershire, and worked
indefatigably for the cause in so far as it concerned this country.
A just and charitable man, he proved, after the victory of the
North, one of the firmest supporters in the press of what he first
termed “an Anglo-American _entente_.” Yet he was not for pressing
matters. He would leave the “gigantic daughter of the West” to
choose her hour and time, confident in the wisdom of his daughter’s
judgment, and he lived to see, before his calamity fell upon him,
Mr. Hanna, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Elihu Root, and Mr. Smoot occupying
the positions they still adorn.
He comprehended Europe. It was he who prophesied of the Dual
Monarchy (I believe in the _Contemporary Review_), that “the death
of Francis Joseph would be the signal for a great upheaval”; he
that applied to Italy the words “clericalism is the enemy”; and he
that publicly advised the withdrawal of our national investments
from the debt of Spain--“a nation in active decay.” He cared not
a jot when his critics pointed out that Spanish fours had risen
since his advice no less than 20 per cent., while our own consols
had fallen by an equal amount. “The kingdom I serve,” he finely
answered, “knows nothing of the price of stock.” And indeed the
greater part of his fortune was in suburban rents, saving a small
sum unfortunately adventured in Shanghai Telephones.
Russia he hated as the oppressor of Finland and Poland, for
oppression he loathed and combatted wherever it appeared; nor
had Mr. Arthur Balfour a stronger supporter than he when that
statesman, armed only in the simple manliness of an English
Christian and Freeman, combatted and destroyed the terrorism that
stalked through Ireland.
Of Scandinavia he knew singularly little, but that little was in
its favour; and as for the German Empire, his stanzas to Prince
Bismarck, and his sermon on the Emperor’s recent visit, are too
well known to need any comment here. To Holland he was, until
recently, attracted. Greece he despised.
Nowhere was this fine temper of unflinching courage and sterling
common sense more apparent than in the great crisis of the
Dreyfus case. No man stood up more boldly, or with less thought
of consequence, for Truth and Justice in this country. He was not
indeed the chairman of the great meeting in St. James’ Hall, but
his peroration was the soul of that vast assemblage. “England will
yet weather the storm....” It was a true prophecy, and in a sense a
confession of Faith.
There ran through his character a vein of something steady and
profound, which inspired all who came near him with a sense of
quiet persistent _strength_. This, with an equable, unfailing
pressure, restrained or controlled whatever company surrounded
him. It was like the regular current of a full but silent tide,
or like the consistent power of a good helmsman. It may be called
his _personal force_. To most men and women of our circle, that
force was a sustenance and a blessing; to ill-regulated or worldly
men with whom he might come in contact, it acted as a salutary
irritant, though rarely to so intense a degree as to give rise to
scenes. I must unfortunately except the case of the Rural Dean of
Bosham, whose notorious excess was the more lamentable from the
fact that the Council of the _S.P.C.A._ is strictly non-sectarian,
and whose excuse that the ink-pot was not thrown but brushed aside
is, to speak plainly, a tergiversation.
The recent unhappy war in South Africa afforded an excellent
opportunity for the exercise of the qualities I mean. He was still
active and alert; still guiding men and maidens during its worse
days. His tact was admirable. He suffered from the acute divisions
of his congregation, but he suffered in powerful silence; and
throughout those dark-days his sober _necquid nimis_[4] was like a
keel and ballast for us all.
A young radical of sorts was declaiming at his table one evening
against the Concentration Camp. Dr. Caliban listened patiently, and
at the end of the harangue said gently, “Shall we join the ladies?”
The rebuke was not lost.[5]
On another occasion, when some foreigner was reported in the papers
as having doubted Mr. Brodrick’s figures relative to the numbers
of the enemy remaining in the field, Dr. Caliban said with quiet
dignity, “It is the first time I have heard the word of an English
gentleman doubted.”
It must not be imagined from these lines that he defended the gross
excesses of the London mob--especially in the matter of strong
waters--or that he wholly approved of our policy. “Peace in our
time, _Oh, Lord_!” was his constant cry, and against militarism he
thundered fearlessly. I have heard him apply to it a word that
never passed his lips in any other connection--the word DAMNABLE.
On the details of the war, the policy of annexation, the
advisability of frequent surrenders, the high salaries of
irregulars, and the employment of national scouts, he was silent.
In fine, one might have applied to him the strong and simple words
of Lord Jacobs, in his Guildhall speech.[6] One main fact stood
out--he hated warfare. He was a man of peace.
The tall, broad figure, inclining slightly to obesity, the clear
blue northern eyes, ever roaming from point to point as though
seeking for grace, the familiar soft wideawake, the long full white
beard, the veined complexion and dark-gloved hands, are now, alas,
removed from the sphere they so long adorned.
Dr. Caliban’s affliction was first noticed by his family at dinner
on the first of last September--a date which fell by a strange
and unhappy coincidence on a Sunday. For some days past Miss
Goucher had remarked his increasing volubility; but on this fatal
evening, in spite of all the efforts of his wife and daughters,
he continued to speak, without interruption, from half-past
seven to a quarter-past nine; and again, after a short interval,
till midnight, when he fell into an uneasy sleep, itself full of
mutterings. His talk had seemed now a sermon, now the reminiscence
of some leading article, now a monologue, but the whole quite
incoherent, though delivered with passionate energy; nor was it the
least distressing feature of his malady that he would tolerate no
reply, nay, even the gentlest assent drove him into paroxysms of
fury.
Next day he began again in the manner of a debate at the local
Liberal Club, soon lapsing again into a sermon, and anon admitting
snatches of strange songs into the flow of his words. Towards
eleven he was apparently arguing with imaginary foreigners, and
shortly afterwards the terrible scene was ended by the arrival of a
medical man of his own persuasion.
It is doubtful whether Dr. Caliban will ever be able to leave Dr.
Charlbury’s establishment, but all that can be done for him in his
present condition is lovingly and ungrudgingly afforded. There has
even been provided for him at considerable expense, and after an
exhaustive search, a companion whose persistent hallucination it
is that he is acting as private secretary to some leader of the
Opposition, and the poor wild soul is at rest.
Such was the man who continually urged upon me the necessity of
compiling some such work as that which now lies before the reader.
He had himself intended to produce a similar volume, and had he
done so I should never have dared to enter the same field; but I
feel that in his present incapacity I am, as it were, fulfilling
a duty when I trace in these few pages the plan which he so
constantly counselled, and with such a man counsels were commands.
If I may be permitted to dwell upon the feature more especially
his own in this Guide, I will point to the section “On Vivid
Historical Literature in its Application to Modern Problems,”
and furthermore, to the section “On the Criticism and Distinction
of Works Attributed to Classical Authors.” In the latter case the
examples chosen were taken from his own large collection; for
it was a hobby of his to purchase as bargains manuscripts and
anonymous pamphlets which seemed to him to betray the hand of some
master. Though I have been compelled to differ from my friend, and
cannot conscientiously attribute the specimens I have chosen to
William Shakespeare or to Dean Swift, yet I am sure the reader will
agree with me that the error into which Dr. Caliban fell was that
of no ordinary mind.
Finally, let me offer to his family, and to his numerous circle,
such apologies as may be necessary for the differences in style,
and, alas, I fear, sometimes in mode of thought, between the
examples which I have chosen as models for the student and those
which perhaps would have more powerfully attracted the sympathies
of my preceptor himself. I am well aware that such a difference is
occasionally to be discovered. I can only plead in excuse that men
are made in very different ways, and that the disciple cannot, even
if he would, forbid himself a certain measure of self-development.
Dr. Caliban’s own sound and broad ethics would surely have demanded
it of no one, and I trust that this solemn reference to his charity
and genial toleration will put an end to the covert attacks which
some of those who should have been the strongest links between us
have seen fit to make in the provincial and religious press.
_DIVISION I._
REVIEWING.
REVIEWING.
The ancient and honourable art of Reviewing is, without question,
the most important branch of that great calling which we term the
“Career of Letters.”
As it is the most important, so also it is the first which a man of
letters should learn. It is at once his shield and his weapon. A
thorough knowledge of Reviewing, both theoretical and applied, will
give a man more popularity or power than he could have attained by
the expenditure of a corresponding energy in any one of the liberal
professions, with the possible exception of Municipal politics.
It forms, moreover, the foundation upon which all other literary
work may be said to repose. Involving, as it does, the reading of
a vast number of volumes, and the thorough mastery of a hundred
wholly different subjects; training one to rapid, conclusive
judgment, and to the exercise of a kind of immediate power of
survey, it vies with cricket in forming the character of an
Englishman. It is interesting to know that Charles Hawbuck was for
some years principally occupied in Reviewing; and to this day some
of our most important men will write, nay, and sign, reviews, as
the press of the country testifies upon every side.
It is true that the sums paid for this species of literary
activity are not large, and it is this fact which has dissuaded
some of our most famous novelists and poets of recent years from
undertaking Reviewing of any kind. But the beginner will not be
deterred by such a consideration, and he may look forward, by
way of compensation, to the ultimate possession of a large and
extremely varied library, the accumulation of the books which
have been given him to review. I have myself been presented with
books of which individual volumes were sometimes worth as much as
forty-two shillings to buy.
Having said so much of the advantages of this initial and
fundamental kind of writing, I will proceed to a more exact account
of its dangers and difficulties, and of the processes inherent to
its manufacture.
It is clear, in the first place, that the Reviewer must regard
herself as the servant of the public, and of her employer; and
service, as I need hardly remind her (or him), has nothing in it
dishonourable. We were all made to work, and often the highest in
the land are the hardest workers of all. This character of service,
of which Mr. Ruskin has written such noble things, will often lay
the Reviewer under the necessity of a sharp change of opinion, and
nowhere is the art a better training in morals and application than
in the habit it inculcates of rapid and exact obedience, coupled
with the power of seeing every aspect of a thing, and of insisting
upon that particular aspect which will give most satisfaction to
the commonwealth.
It may not be uninstructive if I quote here the adventures of
one of the truest of the many stout-hearted men I have known,
one indeed who recently died in harness reviewing Mr. Garcke’s
article on Electrical Traction in the supplementary volumes of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_. This gentleman was once sent a book to
review; the subject, as he had received no special training in it,
might have deterred one less bound by the sense of duty. This book
was called _The Snail: Its Habitat, Food, Customs, Virtues, Vices,
and Future_. It was, as its title would imply, a monograph upon
snails, and there were many fine coloured prints, showing various
snails occupied in feeding on the leaves proper to each species. It
also contained a large number of process blocks, showing sections,
plans, elevations, and portraits of snails, as well as detailed
descriptions (with diagrams) of the ears, tongues, eyes, hair, and
nerves of snails. It was a comprehensive and remarkable work.
My friend (whose name I suppress for family reasons) would not
naturally have cared to review this book. He saw that it involved
the assumption of a knowledge which he did not possess, and that
some parts of the book might require very close reading. It
numbered in all 1532 pages, but this was including the index and
the preface.
He put his inclinations to one side, and took the book with him to
the office of the newspaper from which he had received it, where
he was relieved to hear the Editor inform him that it was not
necessary to review the work in any great detail. “Moreover,” he
added, “I don’t think you need praise it too much.”
On hearing this, the Reviewer, having noted down the price of
the book and the name of the publisher, wrote the following
words--which, by the way, the student will do well to cut out and
pin upon his wall, as an excellent example of what a “short notice”
should be:--
“_The Snail: Its Habitat_, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.
“This is a book that will hardly add to the reputation of
its author. There is evidence of detailed work, and even of
conscientious research in several places, but the author has
ignored or misunderstood the whole teaching of ___________ and
the special discoveries of ___________ and what is even more
remarkable in a man of Mr. Charles’ standing, he advances views
which were already exploded in the days of ___________.”
He then took an Encyclopædia and filled up the blanks with the
names of three great men who appeared, according to that work, to
be the leaders in this branch of natural history. His duty thus
thoroughly accomplished and his mind at rest, he posted his review,
and applied himself to lighter occupations.
Next day, however, the Editor telephoned to him, to the effect that
the notice upon which he had spent so much labour could not be used.
“We have just received,” said the Editor, “a page advertisement
from Pschuffer. I would like a really good article, and you might
use the book as a kind of peg on which to hang it. You might begin
on the subject of snails, and make it something more like your
‘_Oh! my lost friend_,’ which has had such a success.”
On occasions such as these the beginner must remember to keep full
possession of himself.
Nothing in this mortal life is permanent, and the changes that are
native to the journalistic career are perhaps the most startling
and frequent of all those which threaten humanity.
The Reviewer of whom I speak was as wise as he was honourable.
He saw at once what was needed. He wrote another and much longer
article, beginning--
“_The Snail: Its Habitat_, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.
“There are tender days just before the Spring dares the adventure
of the Channel, when our Kentish woods are prescient, as it were,
of the South. It is calm ...”
and so forth, leading gradually up to snails, and bringing in the
book here and there about every twentieth line.
When this long article was done, he took it back to the office,
and there found the Editor in yet a third mood. He was talking
into the telephone, and begged his visitor to wait until he had
done. My friend, therefore, took up a copy of the _Spectator_, and
attempted to distract his attention with the masterful irony and
hard crystalline prose of that paper.
Soon the Editor turned to him and said that Pschuffer’s had just
let him know by the telephone that they would not advertise after
all.
It was now necessary to delete all that there might be upon snails
in his article, to head the remainder “My Kentish Home,” and to
send it immediately to “_Life in the Open_.” This done, he sat
down and wrote upon a scrap of paper in the office the following
revised notice, which the Editor glanced at and approved:--
“_The Snail: Its Habitat_, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.
“This work will, perhaps, appeal to specialists. This journal
does not profess any capacity of dealing with it, but a glance at
its pages is sufficient to show that it would be very ill-suited
to ordinary readers. The illustrations are not without merit.”
Next morning he was somewhat perturbed to be called up again upon
the telephone by the Editor, who spoke to him as follows:--
“I am very sorry, but I have just learnt a most important fact.
Adam Charles is standing in our interests at Biggleton. Lord Bailey
will be on the platform. You must write a long and favourable
review of the book before twelve to-day, and do try and say a
little about the author.”
He somewhat wearily took up a sheet of paper and wrote what
follows:--a passage which I must again recommend to the student as
a very admirable specimen of work upon these lines.
“_The Snail: Its Habitat_, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.
“This book comes at a most opportune moment. It is not generally
known that Professor Charles was the first to point out the very
great importance of the training of the mind in the education of
children. It was in May, 1875, that he made this point in the
presence of Mr. Gladstone, who was so impressed by the mingled
enlightenment and novelty of the view, that he wrote a long
and interesting postcard upon the author to a friend of the
present writer. Professor Charles may be styled--nay, he styles
himself--a ‘self-made man.’ Born in Huddersfield of parents
who were weavers in that charming northern city, he was early
fascinated by the study of natural science, and was admitted to
the Alexandrovna University....”
(And so on, and so on, out of “_Who’s Who_.”)
“But this would not suffice for his growing genius.”
(And so on, and so on, out of the _Series of Contemporary
Agnostics_.)
“ ... It is sometimes remarkable to men of less wide experience
how such spirits find the mere time to achieve their prodigious
results. Take, for example, this book on the Snail....”
And he continued in a fine spirit of praise, such as should be
given to books of this weight and importance, and to men such as he
who had written it. He sent it by boy-messenger to the office.
The messenger had but just left the house when the telephone rang
again, and once more it was the Editor, who asked whether the
review had been sent off. Knowing how dilatory are the run of
journalists, my friend felt some natural pride in replying that he
had indeed just despatched the article. The Editor, as luck would
have it, was somewhat annoyed by this, and the reason soon appeared
when he proceeded to say that the author was another Charles after
all, and not the Mr. Charles who was standing for Parliament. He
asked whether the original review could still be retained, in
which the book, it will be remembered, had been treated with some
severity.
My friend permitted himself to give a deep sigh, but was courteous
enough to answer as follows:--
“I am afraid it has been destroyed, but I shall be very happy to
write another, and I will make it really scathing. You shall have
it by twelve.”
It was under these circumstances that the review (which many of you
must have read) took this final form, which I recommend even more
heartily than any of the others to those who may peruse these pages
for their profit, as well as for their instruction.
“_The Snail: Its Habitat_, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.
“We desire to have as little to do with this book as possible,
and we should recommend some similar attitude to our readers.
It professes to be scientific, but the harm books of this kind
do is incalculable. It is certainly unfit for ordinary reading,
and for our part we will confess that we have not read more than
the first few words. They were quite sufficient to confirm the
judgment which we have put before our readers, and they would
have formed sufficient material for a lengthier treatment had
we thought it our duty as Englishmen to dwell further upon the
subject.”
Let me now turn from the light parenthesis of illuminating anecdote
to the sterner part of my task.
We will begin at the beginning, taking the simplest form of review,
and tracing the process of production through its various stages.
It is necessary first to procure a few forms, such as are sold
by Messrs. Chatsworthy in Chancery Lane, and Messrs. Goldman, of
the Haymarket, in which all the skeleton of a review is provided,
with blanks left for those portions which must, with the best will
in the world, vary according to the book and the author under
consideration. There are a large number of these forms, and I would
recommend the student who is as yet quite a novice in the trade to
select some forty of the most conventional, such as these on page 7
of the catalogue:--
“Mr. ---- has hardly seized the pure beauty of”
“We cannot agree with Mr. ---- in his estimate of”
“Again, how admirable is the following:”
At the same establishments can be procured very complete lists of
startling words, which lend individuality and force to the judgment
of the Reviewer. Indeed I believe that Mr. Goldman was himself
the original patentee of these useful little aids, and among many
before me at this moment I would recommend the following to the
student:--
{ Absolute }
{ Immediate }
{ Creative }
{ Bestial }
{ Intense }
“There is somewhat { Authoritative } in Mr. ----’s style.”
of the { Ampitheatrical } Mrs. ----’s
{ Lapsed } Miss ----’s
{ Miggerlish }
{ Japhetic }
{ Accidental }
{ Alkaline }
{ Zenotic }
Messrs. Malling, of Duke Street, Soho, sell a particular kind of
cartridge paper and some special pins, gum, and a knife, called
“The Reviewer’s Outfit.” I do not know that these are necessary,
but they cost only a few pence, and are certainly of advantage
in the final process: To wit:--Seizing firmly the book to be
reviewed, write down the title, price, publisher, and (in books
other than anonymous) the author’s name, at the _top_ of the sheet
of paper you have chosen. The book should then be taken in both
hands and opened sharply, with a gesture not easily described, but
acquired with very little practice. The test of success is that the
book should give a loud crack and lie open of itself upon the table
before one. This initial process is technically called “breaking
the back” of a book, but we need not trouble ourselves yet with
technical terms. One of the pages so disclosed should next be torn
out and the word “extract” written in the corner, though not before
such sentences have been deleted as will leave the remainder a
coherent paragraph. In the case of historical and scientific work,
the preface must be torn out bodily, the name of the Reviewer
substituted for the word “I,” and the whole used as a description
of the work in question. What remains is very simple. The forms,
extracts, &c., are trimmed, pinned, and gummed in order upon the
cartridge paper (in some offices brown paper), and the whole is
sent to press.
I need hardly say that only the most elementary form of review can
be constructed upon this model, but the simplest notice contains
all the factors which enter into the most complicated and most
serious of literary criticism and pronouncements.
In this, as in every other practical trade, an ounce of example is
worth a ton of precept, and I have much pleasure in laying before
the student one of the best examples that has ever appeared in
the weekly press of how a careful, subtle, just, and yet tender
review, may be written. The complexity of the situation which
called it forth, and the lightness of touch required for its
successful completion, may be gauged by the fact that Mr. Mayhem
was the nephew of my employer, had quarrelled with him at the
moment when the notice was written, but will almost certainly be
on good terms with him again; he was also, as I privately knew,
engaged to the daughter of a publisher who had shares in the works
where the review was printed.
A YOUNG POET IN DANGER.
MR. MAYHEM’S “PEREANT QUI NOSTRA.”
We fear that in “Pereant qui Nostra,” Mr. Mayhem has hardly added
to his reputation, and we might even doubt whether he was well
advised to publish it at all. “Tufts in an Orchard” gave such
promise, that the author of the exquisite lyrics it contained
might easily have rested on the immediate fame that first effort
procured him:
“Lord, look to England; England looks to you,”
and--
“Great unaffected vampires and the moon,”
are lines the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die.
In “Pereant qui Nostra,” Mr. Mayhem preserves and even increases
his old facility of expression, but there is a terrible
falling-off in verbal aptitude.
What are we to think of “The greatest general the world has seen”
applied as a poetic description to Lord Kitchener? Mr. Mayhem
will excuse us if we say that the whole expression is commonplace.
Commonplace thought is bad enough, though it is difficult to
avoid when one tackles a great national subject, and thinks what
all good patriots and men of sense think also. “Pour être poête,”
as M. Yves Guyot proudly said in his receptional address to the
French Academy, “Pour être poête on n’est pas forcément aliéné.”
But commonplace _language_ should always be avoidable, and it is
a fault which we cannot but admit we have found throughout Mr.
Mayhem’s new volume. Thus in “Laura” he compares a young goat
to a “tender flower,” and in “Billings” he calls some little
children “the younglings of the flock.” Again, he says of the
waves at Dover in a gale that they are “horses all in rank, with
manes of snow,” and tells us in “Eton College” that the Thames
“runs like a silver thread amid the green.”
All these similes verge upon the commonplace, even when they
do not touch it. However, there is very genuine feeling in the
description of his old school, and we have no doubt that the bulk
of Etonians will see more in the poem than outsiders can possibly
do.
It cannot be denied that Mr. Mayhem has a powerful source of
inspiration in his strong patriotism, and the sonnets addressed
to Mr. Kruger, Mr. O’Brien, Dr. Clark, and General Mercier are
full of vigorous denunciation. It is the more regrettable that
he has missed true poetic diction and lost his subtlety in a
misapprehension of planes and values.
“Vile, vile old man, and yet more vile again,”
is a line that we are sure Mr. Mayhem would reconsider in
his better moments: “more vile” than what? Than himself? The
expression is far too vague.
“Proud Prelate,” addressed to General Mercier, must be a
misprint, and it is a pity it should have slipped in. What Mr.
Mayhem probably meant was “Proud Cæsar” or “soldier,” or some
other dissyllabic title. The word _prelate_ can properly only be
applied to a bishop, a mitred abbot, or a vicar apostolic.
“Babbler of Hell, importunate mad fiend, dead canker, crested
worm,” are vigorous and original, but do not save the sonnet. And
as to the last two lines,
“Nor seek to pierce the viewless shield of years,
For that you certainly could never do,”
Mr. Mayhem must excuse us if we say that the order of the lines
make a sheer bathos.
Perhaps the faults and the excellences of Mr. Mayhem, his
fruitful limitations, and his energetic inspirations, can be best
appreciated if we quote the following sonnet; the exercise will
also afford us the opportunity (which we are sure Mr. Mayhem will
not resent in such an old friend) of pointing out the dangers
into which his new tendencies may lead him.
“England, if ever it should be thy fate
By fortune’s turn or accident of chance
To fall from craven fears of being great,
And in the tourney with dishevelled lance
To topple headlong, and incur the Hate
Of Spain, America, Germany, and France,
What will you find upon that dreadful date
To check the backward move of your advance?
A little Glory; purchased not with gold
Nor yet with Frankincense (the island blood
Is incommensurate, neither bought nor sold),
But on the poops where Drake and Nelson stood
An iron hand, a stern unflinching eye
To meet the large assaults of Destiny.”
Now, here is a composition that not everyone could have written.
It is inspired by a vigorous patriotism, it strikes the right
note (Mr. Mayhem is a Past Seneschal of the Navy League), and it
breathes throughout the motive spirit of our greatest lyrics.
It is the execution that is defective, and it is to execution
that Mr. Mayhem must direct himself if he would rise to the level
of his own great conceptions.
We will take the sonnet line by line, and make our meaning clear,
and we do this earnestly for the sake of a young poet to whom the
Anglo-Saxon race owes much, and whom it would be deplorable to
see failing, as Kipling appears to be failing, and as Ganzer has
failed.
Line 1 is not very striking, but might pass as an introduction;
line 2 is sheer pleonasm--after using the word “fate,” you
cannot use “fortune,” “accident,” “chance,” as though they were
amplifications of your first thought. Moreover, the phrase “by
_fortune’s_ turn” has a familiar sound. It is rather an echo
than a creation.
In line 3, “craven fears of being great” is taken from Tennyson.
The action is legitimate enough. Thus, in Wordsworth’s
“Excursion” are three lines taken bodily from “Paradise Lost,”
in Kipling’s “Stow it” are whole phrases taken from the _Police
Gazette_, and in Mr. Austin’s verses you may frequently find
portions of a _Standard_ leader. Nevertheless, it is a license
which a young poet should be chary of. All these others were men
of an established reputation before they permitted themselves
this liberty.
In line 4, “dishevelled” is a false epithet for “lance”; a lance
has no hair; the adjective can only properly be used of a woman,
a wild beast, or domestic animal.
In line 5, “incur the hate” is a thoroughly unpoetic phrase--we
say so unreservedly. In line 6, we have one of those daring
experiments in metre common to our younger poets; therefore we
hesitate to pronounce upon it, but (if we may presume to advise)
we should give Mr. Mayhem the suggestion made by the _Times_ to
Tennyson--that he should stick to an exact metre until he felt
sure of his style; and in line 8, “the backward move of your
advance” seems a little strained.
It is, however, in the sextet that the chief slips of the sonnet
appear, and they are so characteristic of the author’s later
errors, that we cannot but note them; thus, “purchased not with
gold or _Frankincense_” is a grievous error. It is indeed a good
habit to quote Biblical phrases (a habit which has been the
making of half our poets), but not to confuse them: frankincense
was never used as coin--even by the Hittites. “Incommensurate” is
simply meaningless. How can blood be “incommensurate”? We fear
Mr. Mayhem has fallen into the error of polysyllabic effect,
a modern pitfall. “Island blood” will, however, stir many a
responsive thrill.
The close of the sonnet is a terrible falling off. When you say a
thing is purchased, “not with this but----” the reader naturally
expects an alternative, instead of which Mr. Mayhem goes right
off to another subject! Also (though the allusion to Nelson and
Drake is magnificent) the mention of an iron hand and an eye by
themselves on a poop seems to us a very violent metaphor.
The last line is bad.
We do not write in this vein to gain any reputation for
preciosity, and still less to offend. Mr. Mayhem has many
qualities. He has a rare handling of penultimates, much
potentiality, large framing; he has a very definite chiaroscuro,
and the tones are full and objective; so are the values. We would
not restrain a production in which (as a partner in a publishing
firm) the present writer is directly interested. But we wish
to recall Mr. Mayhem to his earlier and simpler style--to the
“Cassowary,” and the superb interrupted seventh of “The Altar
Ghoul.”
England cannot afford to lose that talent.
ON POLITICAL APPEALS.
POLITICAL APPEALS.
It was one of Dr. Caliban’s chief characteristics--and perhaps the
main source of his power over others--that he could crystallize,
or--to use the modern term--“wankle,” the thought of his generation
into sharp unexpected phrases. Among others, this was constantly
upon his lips:--
“_We live in stirring times._”
If I may presume to add a word to the pronouncements of my revered
master, I would re-write the sentence thus:--
“_We live in stirring_--AND CHANGEFUL--_times._”
It is not only an element of adventure, it is also an element of
rapid and unexpected development which marks our period, and which
incidentally lends so considerable an influence to genius.
In the older and more settled order, political forces were so well
known that no description or analysis of them was necessary: to
this day members of our more ancient political families do not read
the newspapers. Soon, perhaps, the national life will have entered
a new groove, and once more literary gentlemen will but indirectly
control the life of the nation.
For the moment, however, their effect is direct and immediate.
A vivid prophecy, a strong attack upon this statesman or that
foreign Government may determine public opinion for a space of over
ten days, and matter of this sort is remunerated at the rate of
from 15_s._ to 18_s._ 6_d._ per thousand words. When we contrast
this with the 9_s._ paid for the translation of foreign classics,
the 5_s._ of occasional verse, or even the 10_s._ of police-court
reporting, it is sufficiently evident that this kind of composition
is the Premier Prose of our time.
There must, indeed, be in London and Manchester, alive at the
present moment, at least fifty men who can command the prices I
have mentioned, and who, with reasonable industry, can earn as
much as £500 a year by their decisions upon political matters. But
I should be giving the student very indifferent counsel were I to
recommend him for the delivery of his judgment to the beaten track
of Leading Articles or to that of specially written and signed
communications: the sums paid for such writing never rise beyond a
modest level; the position itself is precarious. In London alone,
and within a radius of 87 yards from the “Green Dragon,” no less
than 53 Authors lost their livelihood upon the more respectable
papers from an inability to prophecy with any kind of accuracy
upon the late war, and this at a time when the majority of regular
politicians were able to retain their seats in Parliament and many
ministers their rank in the Cabinet.
By far the most durable, the most exalted, and the most effective
kind of appeal, is that which is made in a poetic form, especially
if that form be vague and symbolic in its character. Nothing
is risked and everything is gained by this method, upon which
have been founded so many reputations and so many considerable
fortunes. The student cannot be too strongly urged to abandon the
regular and daily task of set columns--signed or unsigned--for the
occasional Flash of Verse if he desire to provoke great wars and to
increase his income. It may not always succeed, but the proportion
of failures is very small, and at the worst it is but a moment’s
energy wasted.
“_We are sick_” says one of the most famous among those who have
adopted this method, “_We are sick_”--he is speaking not only of
himself but of others--“_We are sick for a stave of the song that
our fathers sang._” Turn, therefore, to the dead--who are no longer
alive, and with whom no quarrel is to be feared. Make them reappear
and lend weight to your contention. Their fame is achieved, and may
very possibly support your own. This kind of writing introduces
all the elements that most profoundly affect the public: it is
mysterious, it is vague, it is authoritative; it is also eminently
literary, and I can recall no first-class political appeal of the
last fifteen years which has not been cast more or less upon these
lines.
The subjects you may choose from are numerous and are daily
increasing, but for the amateur the best, without any question, is
that of Imperialism. It is a common ground upon which all meet,
and upon which every race resident in the wealthier part of London
is agreed. Bring forward the great ghosts of the past, let them
swell what is now an all but universal chorus. Avoid the more
complicated metres, hendecasyllables, and the rest; choose those
which neither scan nor rhyme; or, if their subtlety baffles you,
fall back upon blank verse, and you should, with the most moderate
talent, lay the foundation of a permanent success.
I will append, as is my custom, a model upon which the student
may shape his first efforts, though I would not have him copy too
faithfully, lest certain idiosyncrasies of manner should betray the
plagiarism.
THE IMPERIALIST FEAST.
[_A Hall at the_ Grand Oriental. _At a long table are seated
innumerable Shades. The walls are decorated with flags of all
nations, and a band of musicians in sham uniform are playing very
loudly on a daïs._]
CATULLUS rises and makes a short speech, pointing out the
advantages of Strong Men, and making several delicate allusions
to Cæsar, who is too much of a gentleman to applaud. He then
gives them the toast of “Imperialism,” to which there is a hearty
response. Lucan replies in a few well-chosen words, and they fall
to conversation.
PETRONIUS--I would be crowned with paper flowers to-night
And scented with the rare opopanax,
Whose savour leads the Orient in, suggesting
The seas beyond Modore.
TALLEYRAND-- Shove up, Petronius,
And let me sit as near as possible
To Mr. Bingoe’s Grand Imperial Band
With Thirty-seven Brazen Instruments
And Kettle-Drums complete: I hear the players
Discourse the music called “What Ho! She Bumps!”
LORD CHESTERFIELD--What Ho! She Bumps! Likewise! C’est ça! There’s
’Air!
LORD GLENALTAMONT OF EPHESUS (_severely_)--Lord Chesterfield! Be
worthy of your name.
LORD CHESTERFIELD (_angrily_)--Lord Squab, be worthy of your
son-in-law’s.
HENRY V.--My Lords! my Lords! What do you with your swords?
I mean, what mean you by this strange demeanour
Which (had you swords and knew you how to use them)
Might ... I forget what I was going to say....
Oh! Yes----Is this the time for peers to quarrel,
When all the air is thick with Agincourt
And every other night is Crispin’s day?
The very supers bellow up and down,
Armed of rude cardboard and wide blades of tin
For England and St. George!
RICHARD YEA AND NAY-- You talk too much.
Think more. Revise. Avoid the commonplace;
And when you lack a startling word, invent it.
[_Their quarrel is stopped by_ THOMAS JEFFERSON _rising to propose
the toast of “The Anglo-Saxon Race.”_]
JEFFERSON--If I were asked what was the noblest message
Delivered to the twentieth century,
I should reply--
(_Etc., etc. While he maunders on_
ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, _and_ CÆSAR _begin talking
rather loud_)
CLEOPATRA--Waiter! I want a little crème de menthe.
(_The waiter pays no attention._)
ANTONY--Waiter! A glass of curaçao and brandy.
(_Waiter still looks at Jefferson._)
CÆSAR--That is the worst of these contracted dinners.
They give you quite a feed for 3_s._ 6_d._
And have a splendid Band. I like the Band,
It stuns the soul.... But when you call the waiter
He only sneers and looks the other way.
CLEOPATRA (_makes a moue_).
CÆSAR (_archly_)--Was _that_ the face that launched a thousand ships
And sacked....
ANTONY (_angrily_)--Oh! Egypt! Egypt! Egypt!
THOMAS JEFFERSON (_ending, interrupts the quarrel_).
... blessings
Of order, cleanliness, and business methods.
The base of Empire is a living wage.
One King ... (_applause_) ... (_applause_)
... (_applause_) shall always wave ... (_applause_)
... (_loud applause_) ... (_applause_)
THE REIGN OF LAW!
(_Thunders of applause_)
NAPOLEON (_rising to reply_)--I am myself a strong Imperialist.
A _brochure_, very recently compiled
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),
Neglects the point, I think; the Anglo-Saxon ... (&c. &c.)
GEORGE III. (_to Burke_)--Who’s that? Eh, what?
Who’s that? Who ever’s that?
BURKE--Dread sire! It is the Corsican Vampire.
GEORGE III.--Napoleon? What? I thought that he was leaner.
I thought that he was leaner. What? What? What?
NAPOLEON (_sitting down_) ... such dispositions!
Order! _Tête d’Armée!_
(_Slight applause_)
HEROD (_rises suddenly without being asked, crosses his
arms, glares, and shouts very loudly_).
Ha! Would you have Imperial hearing? Hounds!
I am that Herod which is he that am
The lonely Lebanonian (_interruption_) who despaired
In Deep Marsupial Dens ... (_cries of “Sit down!”_)
... In dreadful hollows
To--(“_Sit down!_”)--tear great trees with the
teeth, and hurricanes--(“_Sit down!_”)--
That shook the hills of Moab!
CHORUS OF DEAD MEN--Oh! Sit down.
(_He is swamped by the clamour, in the midst of which
Lucullus murmurs to himself_)
LUCULLUS (_musing_)--The banquet’s done. There was a tribute drawn
Of anchovies and olives and of soup
In tins of conquered nations; subject whiting:
Saddle of mutton from the antipodes
Close on the walls of ice; Laponian pheasants;
Eggs of Canadian rebels, humbled now
To such obeisance--scrambled eggs--and butter
From Brittany enslaved, and the white bread
Hardened for heroes in the test of time,
Was California’s offering. But the cheese,
The cheese was ours.... Oh! but the glory faded
Of feasting at repletion mocks our arms
And threatens even Empire.
(_Great noise of Vulgarians, a mob of people, heralds,
trumpets, flags. Enter_ VITELLIUS.)
VITELLIUS-- I have dined!
But not with you. The master of the world
Has dined alone and at his own expense.
And oh!--I am almost too full for words--
But oh! My lieges, I have used you well!
I have commanded fifteen hundred seats
And standing room for something like a thousand
To view my triumph over Nobody
Upon the limelit stage.
HEROD-- Oh! rare Vitellius,
Oh! Prominent great Imperial ears! Oh! Mouth
To bellow largesse! Oh! And rolling Thunder,
And trains of smoke. And oh!...
VITELLIUS-- Let in the vulgar
To see the master sight of their dull lives:
Great Cæsar putting on his overcoat.
And then, my loved companions, we’ll away
To see the real Herod in the Play.
(_The Shades pass out in a crowd. In the street_ THEOCRITUS
_is heard singing in a voice that gets fainter and fainter
with distance...._)
“Put me somewhere ea-heast of Su-hez,
W’ere the best is loi-hoike the worst--
W’ere there hain’ no”--(_and so forth_).
FINIS.
It is not enough to compose such appeals as may quicken the nation
to a perception of her peculiar mission; it is necessary to
paint for her guidance the abominations and weakness of foreign
countries. The young writer may be trusted to know his duty
instinctively in this matter, but should his moral perception be
blunted, a sharper argument will soon remind him of what he owes
to the Common Conscience of Christians. He that cannot write,
and write with zeal, upon the Balkans, or upon Finland, or upon
the Clerical trouble, or upon whatever lies before us to do for
righteousness, is not worthy of a place in English letters: the
public and his editor will very soon convince him of what he has
lost by an unmanly reticence.
His comrades, who are content to deal with such matters as they
arise, will not be paid at a higher rate: but they will be paid
more often. They will not infrequently be paid from several
sources; they will have many opportunities for judging those
financial questions which are invariably mixed up with the great
battle against the Ultramontane, the Cossack and the Turk. In
Cairo, Frankfort, Pretoria, Mayfair, Shanghai, their latter days
confirm Dr. Caliban’s profound conclusion: “Whosoever works for
Humanity works, whether he know it or not, for himself as well.”[7]
I earnestly beseech the reader of this text-book, especially if he
be young, to allow no false shame to modify his zeal in judging
the vileness of the Continent. We know whatever can be known; all
criticism or qualification is hypocrisy; all silence is cowardice.
There is work to be done. Let the writer take up his pen and
_write_.
I had some little hesitation what model to put before the student.
This book does not profess to be more than an introduction to the
elements of our science; I therefore omitted what had first seemed
to me of some value, the letters written on a special commission
to Pondicherry during the plague and famine in that unhappy and
ill-governed remnant of a falling empire. The articles on the
tortures in the Phillipines were never printed, and might mislead.
I have preferred to show Priestcraft and Liberty in their eternal
struggle as they appeared to me in the character of Special
Commissioner for _Out and About_ during the troubles of 1901. It
is clear, and I think unbiassed; it opens indeed in that light
fashion which is a concession to contemporary journalism: but the
half-frivolous exterior conceals a permanent missionary purpose.
Its carefully collected array of facts give, I suggest, a vivid
picture of one particular battlefield; that whereon there rage
to-day the opposed forces which will destroy or save the French
people. The beginner could not have a better introduction to his
struggle against the infamies of Clericalism. Let him ask himself
(as Mr. Gardy, M.P., asked in a letter to _Out and About_) the
indignant question, “Could such things happen here in England?”
THE SHRINE OF ST. LOUP.
My excellent good Dreyfusards, anti-Dreyfusards, Baptists,
Anabaptists, pre-Monstratentians, antiquaries, sterling fellows,
foreign correspondents, home-readers, historians, Nestorians,
philosophers, Deductionists, Inductionists, Prætorians (I forgot
those), Cæsarists, Lazarists, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics
and militant atheists, as also all you Churchmen, Nonconformists,
Particularists, very strong secularists, and even you, my
well-beloved little brethren called The Peculiar People, give ear
attentively and listen to what is to follow, and you shall learn
more of a matter that has wofully disturbed you than ever you would
get from the _Daily Mail_ or from Mynheer van Damm, or even from
Dr. Biggies’ _Walks and Talks in France_.
In an upper valley of the Dauphiné there is a village called
Lagarde. From this village, at about half-past four o’clock of a
pleasant June morning, there walked out with his herd one Jean
Rigors, a herdsman and half-wit. He had not proceeded very far
towards the pastures above the village, and the sun was barely
showing above the peak profanely called The Three Bishops, when he
had the fortune to meet the Blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, formerly
a hermit in that valley, who had died some fourteen hundred years
ago, but whose name, astonishing as it may seem to the author
of _The Justification of Fame_, is still remembered among the
populace. The Blessed Lupus admonished the peasant, recalling the
neglect into which public worship had fallen, reluctantly promised
a sign whereby it might be re-created among the faithful, and
pointed out a nasty stream of muddy water, one out of fifty that
trickled from the moss of the Alps. He then struck M. Rigors a
slight, or, as some accounts have it, a heavy, blow with his staff,
and disappeared in glory.
Jean Rigors, who could not read or write, being a man over thirty,
and having therefore forgotten the excellent free lessons provided
by the Republic in primary schools, was not a little astonished
at the apparition. Having a care to tether a certain calf whom
he knew to be light-headed, he left the rest of the herd to its
own unerring instincts, and ran back to the village to inform the
parish priest of the very remarkable occurrence of which he had
been the witness or victim. He found upon his return that the
morning Mass, from which he had been absent off and on for some
seven years, was already at the Gospel, and attended to it with
quite singular devotion, until in the space of some seventeen
minutes he was able to meet the priest in the sacristy and inform
him of what had happened.
The priest, who had heard of such miraculous appearances in other
villages, but (being a humble man, unfitted for worldly success
and idiotic in business matters) had never dared to hope that one
would be vouchsafed to his own cure, proceeded at once to the
source of the muddy streamlet, and (unhistorical as the detail
may seem to the author of _Our Old Europe, Whence and Whither_?)
neglected to reward the hind, who, indeed, did not expect pecuniary
remuneration, for these two excellent reasons:--First, that he knew
the priest to be by far the poorest man in the parish; secondly,
that he thought a revelation from the other world incommensurate
with money payments even to the extent of a five-franc piece. The
next Sunday (that is, three days afterwards) the priest, who had
previously informed his brethren throughout the Canton, preached
a sermon upon the decay of religion and the growing agnosticism
of the modern world--a theme which, as they had heard it publicly
since the Christian religion had been established by Constantine
in those parts and privately for one hundred and twenty-five years
before, his congregation received with some legitimate languor.
When, however, he came to what was the very gist of his remarks,
the benighted foreigners pricked up their ears (a physical atavism
impossible to our own more enlightened community), and Le Sieur
Rigors, who could still remember the greater part of the services
of the Church, was filled with a mixture of nervousness and pride,
while the good priest informed his hearers, in language that would
have been eloquent had he not been trained in the little seminary,
that the great St. Lupus himself had appeared to a devout member of
his parish and had pointed out to him a miraculous spring, for the
proper enshrinement of which he requested--nay, he demanded--the
contributions of the faithful.
At that one sitting the excellent hierarch received no less a sum
than 1053 francs and 67 centimes; the odd two-centimes (a coin that
has disappeared from the greater part of France) being contributed
by a road-mender, who was well paid by the State, but who was in
the custom of receiving charity from tourists; the said tourists
being under the erroneous impression that he was a beggar. He also,
by the way, would entertain the more Anglo-Saxon of these with the
folk-lore of the district, in which his fertile imagination was
never at fault.
It will seem astonishing to the author of _Village Communities in
Western Europe_ to hear of so large a sum as £40 being subscribed
by the congregation of this remote village, and it would seem
still more astonishing to him could he see the very large chapel
erected over the spring of St. Loup. I do not say that he would
understand the phenomenon, but I do say that he would become a
more perturbed and therefore a wiser man did he know the following
four facts:--(1) That the freehold value of the village and its
communal land, amounting to the sum of a poor £20,000, was not
in the possession of a landlord, but in that of these wretched
peasants. (2) That the one rich man of the neighbourhood, a retired
glove-maker, being also a fanatic, presented his subscriptions in
such a manner that they were never heard of. He had, moreover, an
abhorrence for the regulation of charity. (3) That the master mason
in the neighbouring town had in his youth been guilty of several
mortal sins, and was so weak as to imagine that a special tender
would in such a case make a kind of reparation; and (4) that the
labourers employed were too ignorant to cheat and too illiterate to
combine.
The new shrine waxed and prospered exceedingly, and on the Thursday
following its dedication an epileptic, having made use of the
water, was restored to a normal, and even commonplace, state of
mind. On the Friday a girl, who said that she had been haunted
by devils (though until then no one had heard of the matter),
declared, upon drinking a cup from the spring of St. Loup, that
she was now haunted by angels--a very much pleasanter condition
of affairs. The Sunday following, the village usurer, who called
himself Bertollin, but who was known to be a wicked foreigner from
beyond the Alps, of the true name of Bertolino, ran into the inn
like one demented, and threw down the total of his ill-gotten gains
for the benefit of the shrine. They amounted, indeed, to but a
hundred francs, but then his clientèle were close and skin-flint,
as peasant proprietors and free men generally are the world over;
and it was well known that the cobbler, who had himself borrowed a
small sum for a month, and quadrupled it in setting up lodgings
for artists, had been unable to recover from the usurer the mending
of his boots.
By this time the Bishop had got wind of the new shrine, and
wrote to the Curé of Lagarde a very strong letter, in which,
after reciting the terms of the Concordat, Clause 714 of the
Constitution and the decree of May 29th, 1854, he pointed out
that by all these and other fundamental or organic laws of the
Republic, he was master in his own diocese. He rebuked the curé
for the superstitious practice which had crept into his cure,
ordered the chapel to be used for none but ordinary purposes, and
issued a pastoral letter upon the evils of local superstitions.
This pastoral letter was read with unction and holy mirth in the
neighbouring monastery of Bernion (founded in defiance of the law
by the widow of a President of the Republic), but with sorrow and
without comment in the little church of Lagarde.
The Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Public Worship,
each in his separate way, proceeded to stamp out this survival of
the barbaric period of Europe. The first by telling the Prefect to
tell the sub-Prefect to tell the Mayor that any attempt to levy
taxes in favour of the shrine would be administratively punished:
the second by writing a sharp official note to the Bishop for
not having acted on the very day that St. Loup appeared to the
benighted herdsman. The sub-Prefect came from the horrible town of
La Rochegayere and lunched with the Mayor, who was the donor of the
new stained-glass window in the church, and they talked about the
advantages of forcing the Government to construct a road through
the valley to accommodate the now numerous pilgrims; a subject
which the sub-Prefect, who was about to be promoted, approached
with official nonchalance, but the Mayor (who owned the principal
inn) with pertinacity and fervour. They then went out, the Mayor in
his tricolour scarf to lock up the gate in front of the holy well,
the sub-Prefect to escort his young wife to the presbytery, where
she left a gift of 500 francs: the sub-Prefect thought it improper
for a lady to walk alone.
Upon the closure of the shrine a local paper (joint property of
the Bishop and a railway contractor) attacked the atheism of
the Government. A local duchess, who was ignorant of the very
terminology of religion, sent a donation of five thousand francs to
the curé; with this the excellent man built a fine approach to the
new chapel, “which,” as he sorrowfully and justly observed, “the
faithful may approach, though an atheistic Government forbids the
use of the shrine.” That same week, by an astonishing accident, the
Ministry was overturned; the Minister of the Interior was compelled
to retire into private life, and lived dependent upon his uncle (a
Canon of Rheims). The Minister of Public Worship (who had become
increasingly unpopular through the growth of anti-Semitic feeling)
took up his father’s money-lending business at Antwerp.
Next week the lock and seals were discovered to have been in some
inexplicable way removed from the gate of the well and (by Article
893 of the Administrative Code) before they could be replaced an
action was necessary at the assize-town of Grenoble. This action
(by the Order of 1875 on Law Terms) could not take place for six
months; and in that interval an astonishing number of things
happened at Lagarde.
An old Sapper General, who had devised the special obturator for
light quick-firing guns, and who was attached to the most backward
superstitions, came in full uniform to the Chapel and gave the
shrine 10,000 francs: a mysteriously large endowment, as this sum
was nearly half his income, and he had suffered imprisonment in
youth for his Republican opinions. He said it was for the good
of his soul, but the editor of the _Horreur_ knew better, and
denounced him. He was promptly retired upon a pension about a third
greater than that to which he was legally entitled, and received
by special secret messenger from the Minister of War an earnest
request to furnish a memorandum on the fortifications of the Isère
and to consider himself inspector, upon mobilisation, of that
important line of defence.
Two monks, who had walked all the way from Spain, settled in a
house near the well. A pilgrim, who had also evidently come from a
prodigious distance on foot, but gave false information as to his
movements, was arrested by the police and subsequently released.
The arrest was telegraphed to the _Times_ and much commented upon,
but the suicide of a prominent London solicitor and other important
news prevented any mention of his release.
A writer of great eminence, who had been a leading sceptic all his
life, stayed at Lagarde for a month and became a raving devotee.
His publishers (MM. Hermann Khan) punished him by refusing to
receive his book upon the subject; but by some occult influence,
probably that of the Jesuits, he was paid several hundreds for
it by the firm of Zadoc et Cie; ten years afterwards he died of
a congested liver, a catastrophe which some ascribed to a Jewish
plot, and others treated as a proof that his intellect had long
been failing.
A common peasant fellow, that had been paralysed for ten years,
bathed in the water and walked away in a sprightly fashion
afterwards. This was very likely due to his ignorance, for a doctor
who narrowly watched the whole business has proved that he did
not know the simplest rudiments of arithmetic or history, and how
should such a fellow understand so difficult a disease as paralysis
of the Taric nerve--especially if it were (as the doctor thought
quite evident) complicated by a stricture of the Upper Dalmoid?
Two deaf women were, as is very commonly the case with enthusiasts
of this kind, restored to their hearing; for how long we do not
know, as their subsequent history was not traced for more than five
years.
A dumb boy talked, but in a very broken fashion, and as he had a
brother a priest and another brother in the army, trickery was
suspected.
An English merchant, who had some trouble with his eyes, bathed
in the water at the instance of a sister who desired to convert
him. He could soon see so well that he was able to write to the
_Freethinker_ an account of his healing, called “The Medicinal
Springs of Lagarde,” but, as he has subsequently gone totally
blind, the momentary repute against ophthalmia which the water
might have obtained was nipped in the bud.
What was most extraordinary of all, a very respectable director
of a railway came to the village quietly, under an assumed name,
and, after drinking the water, made a public confession of the most
incredible kind and has since become a monk. His son, to whom he
made over his whole fortune, had previously instituted a demand
at law to be made guardian of his estates; but, on hearing of his
father’s determination to embrace religion, he was too tolerant to
pursue the matter further.
To cut a long story short, as Homer said when he abruptly closed
the _Odyssey_, some 740 cases of miraculous cures occurred
between the mysterious opening of the gates and the date for
the trial at Grenoble. In that period a second and much larger
series of buildings had begun to arise; the total property
involved in the case amounted to 750,000 francs, and (by clause
61 of the Regulation on Civil Tribunals) the local court of
assize was no longer competent. Before, however, the case could
be removed to Paris, the assent of the Grenoble bench had to be
formally obtained, and this, by the singularly Republican rule of
“_Non-avant_” (instituted by Louis XI.), took just two years.
By that time the new buildings were finished, eight priests were
attached to the Church, a monastery of seventy-two monks, five
hotels, a golf links, and a club were in existence. The total taxes
paid by Lagarde to the Treasury amounted to half-a-million francs a
year.
The Government had become willing (under the “Compromise of
’49,” which concerns Departments _v._ the State in the matter
of internal communications) to build a fine, great road up to
Lagarde. There was also a railway, a Custom House, and a project of
sub-prefecture. Moreover, in some underhand way or other, several
hundred people a month were cured of various ailments, from the
purely subjective (such as buzzing in the ears) to those verging
upon the truly objective (such as fracture of the knee-pan or the
loss of an eye).
The Government is that of a practical and commonsense people. It
will guide or protect, but it cannot pretend to coerce. Lagarde
therefore flourishes, the Bishop is venerated, the monastery
grumbles in silence, and there is some talk of an Hungarian
journalist, born in Constantinople, whose father did time for
cheating in the Russian Army, writing one of his fascinating
anti-religious romances in nine hundred pages upon the subject. You
will learn far more from such a book than you can possibly learn
from the narrow limits of the above.
THE SHORT STORY.
THE SHORT STORY.
The short story is the simplest of all forms of literary
composition. It is at the same time by far the most lucrative. It
has become (to use one of Dr. Caliban’s most striking phrases)
“part of the atmosphere of our lives.” In a modified form, it
permeates our private correspondence, our late Baron Reuter’s
telegraphic messages, the replies of our cabinet ministers,
the rulings of our judges; and it has become inseparable from
affirmations upon oath before Magistrates, Registrars, Coroners,
Courts of Common Jurisdiction, Official Receivers, and all others
qualified under 17 Vic. 21, Caps. 2 and 14; sub-section III.
To return to the short story. Its very reason for being (_raison
d’être_) is simplicity. It suits our strenuous, active race; nor
would I waste the student’s time by recalling the fact that, in
the stagnant civilization of China, a novel or play deals with the
whole of the hero’s life, in its minutest details, through seventy
years. The contrast conveys an awful lesson!
Let us confine ourselves, however, to the purpose of these lines,
and consider the short story; for it is the business of every true
man to do what lies straight before him as honestly and directly as
he can.
The Short Story, on account of its simplicity, coupled with the
high rates of pay attached to it, attracts at the outset the
great mass of writers. Several are successful, and in their eager
rapture (I have but to mention John and Mary Hitherspoon) produce
such numerous examples of this form of art, that the student may
ask what more I have to teach him? In presenting a model for his
guidance, and reproducing the great skeleton lines upon which the
Short Story is built up, I would remind my reader that it is my
function to instruct and his to learn; and I would warn him that
even in so elementary a branch of letters as is this, “pride will
have a fall.”
It is not necessary to dwell further upon this unpleasant aspect of
my duty.
Let us first consider where the writer of the Short Story stands
before the Law. What is her Legal Position as to (_a_) the length,
(_b_) the plot of a short story which she may have contracted to
deliver on a certain date to a particular publisher, editor, agent,
or creditor? The following two decisions apply:--
[Sidenote: =Mabworthy v. Crawley.=]
_Mabworthy v. Crawley._--Mrs. Mabworthy brought an action against
Crawley & Co. to recover payment due for a short story ordered of
her by defendant. Defendant pleaded lack of specific performance,
as story dealt with gradual change of spiritual outlook, during
forty years, of maiden lady inhabiting Ealing. It was held by Mr.
Justice Pake that the subject so treated was not of “ordinary
length.” Judgment for the defendant. Mrs. Mabworthy, prompted
by her sex, fortune, and solicitor to appeal, the matter was
brought before the Court of Appeal, which decided that the word
“ordinary” was equivalent to the word “reasonable.” Judgment for
the defendant, with costs. Mrs. Mabworthy, at the instigation of
the Devil, sold a reversion and carried the matter to the House
of Lords, where it was laid down that “a Short Story should be of
such length as would be found tolerable by any man of ordinary
firmness and courage.” Judgment for the defendant.
The next case is the case of--
[Sidenote: =Gibson v. Acle.=]
_Gibson v. Acle._--In this case, Mr. Phillip Gibson, the
well-known publisher, brought an action for the recovery of a
sum of £3. 10_s._, advanced to Miss Acle, of “The Wolfcote,”
Croydon, in consideration of her contracting to supply a short
story, with regard to the manuscript of which he maintained,
upon receiving it, that (1) it was not a story, and (2) it was
not technically “short,” as it filled but eighteen lines in the
very large type known as grand pica. Three very important points
were decided in this case; for the Judge (Mr. Justice Veale,
brother of Lord Burpham) maintained, with sturdy common sense,
that if a publisher bought a manuscript, no matter what, so long
as it did not offend common morals or the public security of the
realm, he was bound to “print, comfort, cherish, defend, enforce,
push, maintain, advertize, circulate, and make public the same”;
and he was supported in the Court of Crown Cases Reserved in his
decision that:
_First_: the word “short” was plainly the more applicable the
less lengthy were the matter delivered: and
_Secondly_: the word “story” would hold as a definition for any
concoction of words whatsoever, of which it could be proved that
it was built up of separate sentences, such sentences each to
consist of at least one predicate and one verb, real or imaginary.
Both these decisions are quite recent, and may be regarded as the
present state of the law on the matter.
Once the legal position of the author is grasped, it is necessary
to acquire the five simple rules which govern the Short Story.
1st. It should, as a practical matter apart from the law, contain
some incident.
2nd. That incident should take place on the sea, or in brackish, or
at least tidal, waters.
3rd. The hero should be English-speaking, white or black.
4th. His adventures should be horrible; but no kind of moral should
be drawn from them, unless it be desired to exalt the patriotism of
the reader.
5th. Every short story should be divided by a “Cæsura”: that is, it
should break off sharp in the middle, and you have then the choice
of three distinct courses:
(_a_). To stop altogether--as is often done by people who die, and
whose remains are published.
(_b_). To go on with a totally different subject. This method
is not to be commended to the beginner. It is common to rich or
popular writers; and even they have commonly the decency to put in
asterisks.
(_c_). To go on with your story where it left off, as I have done
in the model which follows.
That model was constructed especially with the view to guide
the beginner. Its hero is a fellow subject, white--indeed, an
Englishman. The scene is laid in water, not perhaps salt, but at
least brackish. The adventure preys upon the mind. The moral is
doubtful: the Cæsura marked and obvious. Moreover, it begins in the
middle, which (as I omitted to state above) is the very hall-mark
of the Vivid Manner.
THE ACCIDENT TO MR. THORPE.
When Mr. Thorpe, drysalter, of St. Mary Axe, E.C., fell into the
water, it was the opinion of those who knew him best that he would
be drowned. I say “those who knew him best” because, in the crowd
that immediately gathered upon the embankment, there were present
not a few of his friends. They had been walking home together on
this fine evening along the river side, and now that Mr. Thorpe was
in such peril, not one could be got to do more than lean upon the
parapet shouting for the police, though they should have known how
useless was that body of men in any other than its native element.
Alas! how frail a thing is human friendship, and how terribly does
misfortune bring it to the test.
How had Mr. Thorpe fallen into the water? I am not surprised at
your asking that question. It argues a very observant, critical,
and accurate mind; a love of truth; a habit of weighing evidence;
and altogether a robust, sturdy, practical, Anglo-Saxon kind
of an attitude, that does you credit. You will not take things
on hearsay, and there is no monkish credulity about you. I
congratulate you. You say (and rightly) that Honest Merchants do
not fall into the Thames for nothing, the thing is unusual; you
want (very properly) to know how it happened, or, as you call it,
“occurred.” I cannot tell you. I was not there at the time. All I
know is, that he did fall in, and that, as matter of plain fact
(and you are there to judge fact, remember, not law), Mr. Thorpe
was at 6.15 in the evening of June 7th, 1892, floundering about in
the water a little above Cleopatra’s Needle; and there are a cloud
of witnesses.
It now behoves me to detail with great accuracy the circumstances
surrounding his immersion, the degree of danger that he ran, and
how he was saved. In the first place, Mr. Thorpe fell in at the
last of the ebb, so that there was no tide to sweep him out to
sea; in the second place, the depth of water at that spot was
exactly five feet two inches, so that he could--had he but known
it--have walked ashore (for he was, of course, over six feet in
height); in the third place, the river has here a good gravelly
bed, as you ought to know, for the clay doesn’t begin till you get
beyond Battersea Bridge--and, by the way, this gravel accounts
for the otherwise inexplicable phenomenon of the little boys that
will dive for pennies at low tide opposite the shot tower; in the
fourth place, the water, as one might have imagined at that season
of the year, was warm and comfortable; in the fifth place, there
lay but a few yards from him a Police Pier, crowded with lines,
lifebuoys, boats, cork-jackets, and whatnot, and decorated, as to
its Main Room, with a large placard entitled “First help to the
drowning,” the same being illustrated with cuts, showing a man
of commonplace features fallen into the hands of his religious
opponents and undergoing the torture. Therefore it is easy to see
that he could have either saved himself or have been saved by
others without difficulty. Indeed, for Mr. Thorpe to have drowned,
it would have been necessary for him to have exercised the most
determined self-control, and to have thought out the most elaborate
of suicidal plans; and, as a fact, he was within forty-three
seconds of his falling in pulled out again by a boat-hook, which
was passed through the back of his frock coat: and that is a lesson
in favour of keeping one’s coat buttoned up like a gentleman,
and not letting it flap open like an artist or an anarchist, or
a fellow that writes for the papers. But I digress. The point
is, that Mr. Thorpe was immediately saved, and there (you might
think) was an end of the matter. Indeed, the thing seems to come
to a conclusion of its own, and to be a kind of epic, for it has a
beginning where Mr. Thorpe falls into the water (and, note you, the
beginning of all epics is, or should be, out of the text); it has
a middle or “action,” where Mr. Thorpe is floundering about like
a sea monster, and an end, where he is pulled out again. They are
of larger scope than this little story, and written in a pompous
manner, yet the _Iliad_, the _Æneid_, Abbo’s _Siege of Paris_, the
_Chanson de Roland_, _Orlando Furioso_, _Thalaba the Destroyer_,
and Mr. Davidson’s shorter lyrics have no better claim to be epics
in their essentials than has this relation of _The Accident to Mr.
Thorpe_. So, then (you say), that is the end; thank you for the
story; we are much obliged. If ever you have another simple little
story to tell, pray publish it at large, and do not keep it for
the exquisite delight of your private circle. We thank you again a
thousand times. Good morrow.
Softly, softly. I beg that there may be no undue haste or sharp
conclusions; there is something more to come. Sit you down and
listen patiently. Was there ever an epic that was not continued?
Did not the Rhapsodists of Cos piece together the _Odyssey_ after
their successful _Iliad_? Did not Dionysius Paracelsus write a
tail to the _Æneid_? Was not the _Chanson de Roland_ followed by
the _Four Sons of Aymon_? Could Southey have been content with
Thalaba had he not proceeded to write the adventures in America of
William ap Williams, or some other Welshman whose name I forget?
Eh? Well, in precisely the same manner, I propose to add a second
and completing narrative to this of Mr. Thorpe’s accident; so let
us have no grumbling.
And to understand what kind of thing followed his fall into the
water, I must explain to you that nothing had ever happened to
Mr. Thorpe before; he had never sailed a boat, never ridden a
horse, never had a fight, never written a book, never climbed a
mountain--indeed, I might have set out in a long litany, covering
several pages, the startling, adventurous, and dare-devil things
that Mr. Thorpe had never done; and were I to space out my work so,
I should be well in the fashion, for does not the immortal Kipling
(who is paid by the line) repeat his own lines half-a-dozen times
over, and use in profusion the lines of well-known ballads? He
does; and so have I therefore the right to space and stretch my
work in whatever fashion will spin out the space most fully; and if
I do not do so, it is because I am as eager as you can possibly be
to get to the end of this chronicle.
Well then, nothing had ever happened to Mr. Thorpe before, and
what was the result? Why that this aqueous adventure of his began
to grow and possess him as you and I are possessed by our more
important feats, by our different distant journeys, our bold
speculations, our meeting with grand acquaintances, our outwitting
of the law; and I am sorry to say that Mr. Thorpe in a very short
time began to lie prodigiously. The symptoms of this perversion
first appeared a few days after the accident, at a lunch which he
attended (with the other directors of the Marine Glue Company)
in the City. The company was in process of negotiating a very
difficult piece of business, that required all the attention of the
directors, and, as is usual under such circumstances, they fell to
telling amusing tales to one another. One of them had just finished
his story of how a nephew of his narrowly escaped lynching at
Leadville, Colorado, when Mr. Thorpe, who had been making ponderous
jokes all the morning, was suddenly observed to grow thoughtful,
and (after first ascertaining with some care that there was no
one present who had seen him fall in) he astonished the company
by saying: “I cannot hear of such escapes from death without awe.
It was but the other day that I was saved as by a miracle from
drowning.” Then he added, after a little pause, “My whole life
seemed to pass before me in a moment.”
Now this was not true. Mr. Thorpe’s mind at the moment he referred
to had been wholly engrossed by the peculiar sensation that follows
the drinking of a gallon of water suddenly when one is not in the
least thirsty; but he had already told the tale so often, that he
was fully persuaded of it, and, by this time, believed that his
excellent and uneventful life had been presented to him as it is to
the drowning people in books.
His fall was rapid. He grew in some vague way to associate his
adventure with the perils of the sea. Whenever he crossed the
Channel he would draw some fellow passenger into a conversation,
and, having cunningly led it on to the subject of shipwreck, would
describe the awful agony of battling with the waves, and the
outburst of relief on being saved. At first he did not actually
say that he had himself struggled in the vast and shoreless seas
of the world, but bit by bit the last shreds of accuracy left him,
and he took to painting with minute detail in his conversations the
various scenes of his danger and salvation. Sometimes it was in the
“steep water off the Banks;” sometimes in “the glassy steaming seas
and on the feverish coast of the Bight;” sometimes it was “a point
or two norr’ard of the Owers light”--but it was always terrible,
graphic, and a lie.
This habit, as it became his unique preoccupation, cost him not a
little. He lost his old friends who had seen his slight adventure,
and he wasted much time in spinning these yarns, and much money in
buying books of derring-do and wild ’scapes at sea. He loved those
who believed his stories to be true, and shocked the rare minds
that seemed to catch in them a suspicion of exaggeration. He could
not long frequent the same society, and he strained his mind a
little out of shape by the perpetual necessity of creative effort.
None the less, I think that, on the whole, he gained. It made him
an artist: he saw great visions of heaving waters at night; he
really had, in fancy, faced death in a terrible form, and this gave
him a singular courage in his last moments. He said to the doctor,
with a slight calm smile, “Tell me the worst; I have been through
things far more terrifying than this;” and when he was offered
consolation by his weeping friends, he told them that “no petty
phrases of ritual devotion were needed to soothe a man who had
been face to face with Nature in her wildest moods.” So he died,
comforted by his illusion, and for some days after the funeral his
sister would hold him up to his only and favourite nephew as an
example of a high and strenuous life lived with courage, and ended
in heroic quiet. Then they all went to hear the will read.
But the will was the greatest surprise of all. For it opened with
these words:--
“Having some experience of the perils they suffer that go down to
the sea in ships, and of the blessedness of unexpected relief and
rescue, I, John Curtall Thorpe, humbly and gratefully reminiscent
of my own wonderful and miraculous snatching from the jaws of
death ...”
And it went on to leave the whole property (including the little
place in Surrey), in all (after Sir William Vernon Harcourt’s death
duties had been paid) some £69,337. 6_s._ 3_d._ to the Lifeboat
Fund, which badly needed it. Nor was there any modifying codicil
but one, whereby the sum of £1000, free of duty, was left to
Sylvester Sarassin, a poetic and long-haired young man, who had for
years attended to his tales with reverent attention, and who had,
indeed, drawn up, or “Englished” (as he called it), the remarkable
will of the testator.
Many other things that followed this, the law-suit, the quarrel
of the nephew with Sarassin, and so forth, I would relate had I
the space or you the patience. But it grows late; the oil in the
bulb is exhausted. The stars, which (in the beautiful words of
Theocritus) “tremble and always follow the quiet wheels of the
night,” warn me that it is morning. Farewell.
THE SHORT LYRIC.
THE SHORT LYRIC.
Many Guides to Literature give no rules for the manufacture of
short lyrics, and nearly all of them omit to furnish the student
with an example of this kind of composition.
The cause of this unfortunate neglect (as I deem it) is not far
to seek. Indeed in one Text Book (Mrs. Railston’s _Book for
Beginners_. Patteson. 12_s._ 6_d._) it is set down in so many
words. “The Short Lyric,” says Mrs. Railston in her preface, “is
practically innocent of pecuniary value. Its construction should be
regarded as a pastime rather than as serious exercise; and even for
the purposes of recreation, its fabrication is more suited to the
leisure of a monied old age than to the struggle of eager youth, or
the full energies of a strenuous manhood” (p. xxxiv.).
The judgment here pronounced is surely erroneous. The short Lyric
is indeed not very saleable (though there are exceptions even
to that rule--the first Lord Tennyson is said to have received
£200 for _The Throstle_); it is (I say) not very saleable, but
it is of great indirect value to the writer, especially in early
youth. A reputation can be based upon a book of short lyrics
which will in time procure for its author Reviewing work upon
several newspapers, and sometimes, towards his fortieth year,
the editorship of a magazine; later in life it will often lead
to a pension, to the command of an army corps, or even to the
governorship of a colony.
I feel, therefore, no hesitation in describing at some length the
full process of its production, or in presenting to the student a
careful plan of the difficulties which will meet him at the outset.
To form a proper appreciation of these last, it is necessary to
grasp the fundamental fact that they all proceed from the inability
of busy editors and readers to judge the quality of verse; hence
the rebuffs and delays that so often overcast the glorious morning
of the Poetic Soul.
At the risk of some tedium--for the full story is of considerable
length--I will show what is their nature and effect, in the shape
of a relation of what happened to Mr. Peter Gurney some years ago,
before he became famous.
Mr. Peter Gurney (I may say it without boasting) is one of my
most intimate friends. He is, perhaps, the most brilliant of that
brilliant group of young poets which includes Mr. John Stewart, Mr.
Henry Hawk, &c., and which is known as the “Cobbley school,” from
the fact that their historic meeting-ground was the house of Mr.
Thomas Cobbley, himself no mean poet, but especially a creative,
seminal critic, and uncle of Mr. Gurney. But to my example and
lesson:--
Mr. Gurney was living in those days in Bloomsbury, and was occupied
in reading for the bar.
He was by nature slothful and unready, as is indeed the sad habit
of literary genius; he rose late, slept long, eat heartily, drank
deeply, read newspapers, began things he never finished, and wrote
the ending of things whose beginnings he never accomplished; in a
word, he was in every respect the man of letters. He looked back
continually at the stuff he had written quite a short time before,
and it always made him hesitate in his opinion of what he was
actually engaged in. It was but six months before the events herein
set down that he had written--
“The keep of the unconquerable mind”--
only to discover that it was clap-trap and stolen from Wordsworth
at that. How, then, could he dare send off the sonnet--
“If all intent of unsubstantial art”--
and perhaps get it printed in the _Nineteenth Century_ or the
_North American Review_, when (for all he knew) it might really be
very poor verse indeed?
These two things, then, his sloth and his hesitation in criticism,
prevented Peter from sending out as much as he should have done.
But one fine day of last summer, a kind of music passed into him
from universal nature, and he sat down and wrote these remarkable
lines:--
“He is not dead; the leaders do not die,
But rather, lapt in immemorial ease
Of merit consummate, they passing, stand;
And rapt from rude reality, remain;
And in the flux and eddy of time, are still.
Therefore I call it consecrated sand
Wherein they left their prints, nor overgrieve:
An heir of English earth let English earth receive.”
He had heard that _Culture_ of Boston, Mass., U.S.A., paid more for
verse than any other review, so he sent it off to that address,
accompanied by a very earnest little letter, calling the gem
“Immortality,” and waiting for the answer.
The editor of _Culture_ is a businesslike man, who reads his
English mail on the quay at New York, and takes stamped envelopes
and rejection forms down with him to the steamers.
He looked up Peter’s name in the _Red Book_, _Who’s Who_, _Burke_,
the _Court Guide_, and whatnot, and finding it absent from all
these, he took it for granted that there was no necessity for any
special courtesies; Peter therefore, fifteen days after sending off
his poem, received an envelope whose stamp illustrated the conquest
of the Philippines by an Armed Liberty, while in the top left-hand
corner were printed these simple words: “If not delivered within
three days, please return to Box 257, Boston, Mass., U.S.A.”
He was very pleased to get this letter. It was the first reply he
had ever got from an editor, and he took it up unopened to the
Holborn, to read it during lunch. But there was very little to
read. The original verse had folded round it a nice half-sheet of
cream-laid notepaper, with a gold _fleur de lis_ in the corner, and
underneath the motto, “Devoir Fera”; then, in the middle of the
sheet, three or four lines of fine copperplate engraving, printed
also in gold, and running as follows:--
“The editor of _Culture_ regrets that he is unable to accept the
enclosed contribution; it must not be imagined that any adverse
criticism or suggestion is thereby passed upon the work; pressure
of space, the previous acceptation of similar matter, and other
causes having necessarily to be considered.”
Peter was so much encouraged by this, that he sent his verses at
once to Mr. McGregor, changing, however, the word “rude” in the
fourth line to “rough,” and adding a comma after “rapt,” points
insignificant in themselves perhaps, but indicative of a critic’s
ear, and certain (as he thought) to catch the approval of the
distinguished scholar. In twenty-four hours he got his reply in the
shape of an affectionate letter, enclosing his MSS.:--
“My dear Peter,
“No; I should be doing an injustice to my readers if I were
to print your verse in the _Doctrinaire_; but you must not
be discouraged by this action on my part. You are still very
young, and no one who has followed (as you may be sure I have)
your brilliant career at the University can doubt your ultimate
success in whatever profession you undertake. But the path of
letters is a stony one, and the level of general utility in such
work is only reached by the most arduous efforts. I saw your
Aunt Phœbe the other day, and she was warm in your praises. She
told me you were thinking of becoming an architect; I sincerely
hope you will, for I believe you have every aptitude for that
profession. Plod on steadily and I will go warrant for your
writing verse with the best of them. It is _inevitable_, my dear
Peter, that one’s early verse should be imitative and weak; but
you have the ‘inner voice,’ do but follow the gleam and never
allow your first enthusiasms to grow dim.
“Always your Father’s Old Friend,
“ARCHIBALD WELLINGTON MCGREGOR.”
Peter was a little pained by this; but he answered it very
politely, inviting himself to lunch on the following Thursday, and
then, turning to his verses, he gave the title “Dead,” and sent
them to the _Patriot_, from whom he got no reply for a month.
He then wrote to the editor of the _Patriot_ on a postcard, and
said that, in view of the present deplorable reaction in politics,
he feared the verses, if they were held over much longer, would
lose their point. Would the _Patriot_ be so kind, then, as to let
him know what they proposed to do with the Poem?
He got a reply the same evening:--
“Telephone 239. “36A, Clare Market,
“Telegraph, ‘Vindex.’ “W.C.
“Dr. Sir,
“Your estd. favor to hand. No stamp being enclosed with verses,
we have retained same, but will forward on receipt of two stamps,
including cost of this.
“Faithfully yrs.,
“ALPHONSE RIPHRAIM.
“Please note change of address.”
By this Peter Gurney was so angered, that he walked straight over
to his club, rang up No. 239, and told the editor of the _Patriot_,
personally, by word of mouth, and with emphasis, that he was a
Pro-Boer; then he rang off before that astonished foreigner had
time to reply.
But men of Mr. Peter Gurney’s stamp are not cast down by these
reverses. He remembered one rather low and insignificant sheet
called the _Empire_, in which a vast number of unknown names had
been appearing at the bottom of ballads, sonnets, and so forth,
dealing mainly with the foreign policy of Great Britain, to which
country (as being their native land) the writers were apparently
warmly attached.
Peter Gurney flattered himself that he understood why the _Empire_
made a speciality of beginners. It was a new paper with little
capital, and thought (wisely enough) that if it printed many such
juvenilia it would, among the lot, strike some vein of good verse.
He had heard of such ventures in journalism, and remembered being
told that certain sonnets of Mr. Lewis Morris, and even the earlier
poems of Tennyson, were thus buried away in old magazines. He
copied out his verses once more, gave them the new title “Aspiro,”
and sent them to the _Empire_. He got a very polite letter in
reply:--
“Dear Mr. ---- I have read your verses with much pleasure, and
see by them that the praise I have heard on all sides of your
unpublished work was not unmerited. Unfortunately, the _Empire_
cannot afford to pay anything for its verse; and so large has
been the demand upon our space, that we have been compelled to
make it a rule that all contributions of this nature should pay
a slight premium to obtain a space in our columns. But for this
it would be impossible to distinguish between competitors without
the risk of heartburnings and petty jealousies. We enclose our
scale of charges, which are (as you see) purely nominal, and
remain, awaiting your order to print,
“Yours truly,
“WILLIAM POWER.”
I need hardly tell you that Peter, on receiving this letter, put
two farthings into an envelope addressed to William Power, and was
careful not to register or stamp it.
As for his Poem, he changed the title to “They Live!” and sent
it to the editor of _Criticism_. Next day he was not a little
astonished to get his verses back, folded up in the following
waggish letter:--
“The Laurels,
“20, Poplar Grove,
“S.W.
“Monday, the 21st of April.
“Sir,
“I am directed by the editor
To say that lack of space and press of matter
Forbid his using your delightful verses,
Which, therefore, he returns. Believe me still
Very sincerely yours, Nathaniel Pickersgill.”
Now not a little disconsolate, young Mr. Gurney went out into the
street, and thought of _Shavings_ as a last chance. _Shavings_ gave
a guinea to the best poem on a given subject, and printed some
of the others sent in. This week he remembered the subject was a
eulogy of General Whitelock. He did not hesitate, therefore, to
recast his poem, and to call it a “Threnody” on that commander,
neglecting, by a poetic fiction, the fact that he was alive, and
even looking well after his eight months of hard work against the
Warra-Muggas. He went into the great buildings where _Shavings_
is edited, and saw a young man opening with immense rapidity a
hand-barrowful of letters, while a second sorted them with the
speed of lightning, and a third tied them into neat bundles of
five hundred each, and placed them in pigeon-holes under their
respective initial letters.
“Pray, sir,” said Peter to the first of these three men, “what are
you doing?” “I am,” replied the functionary, “just finishing my
week’s work” (for it was a Saturday morning), “and in the course
of these four hours alone I am proud to say that I have opened no
less than seven thousand three hundred and two poems on our great
Leader, some of which, indeed, have been drawn from the principal
English poets, but the greater part of which are, I am glad to say,
original.”
Embittered by such an experience, my friend Gurney returned to
his home, and wrote that same afternoon the Satire on Modern
Literature, in which he introduces his own verses as an example and
warning, and on which, as all the world knows, his present fame
reposes.
To-day everyone who reads these lines is envious of Mr. Peter
Gurney’s fame. He is the leader of the whole Cobbley school, the
master of his own cousin, Mr. Peter Davey, and without question the
model upon which Mr. Henry Hawk, Mr. Daniel Witton, and Mr. John
Stuart have framed their poetic manner. He suffered and was strong.
He condescended to prose, and kept his verse in reserve. The result
no poet can ignore.
I should but mislead the student were I to pretend that Mr. Peter
Gurney achieved his present reputation--a reputation perhaps
somewhat exaggerated, but based upon real merit and industry--by
any spontaneous effort. Hard, regular, unflinching labour in this,
as in every other profession, is the condition of success. But the
beginner may say (and with justice), “It is not enough to tell me
to work; how should I set about it? What rules should I follow?”
Let me pursue my invariable custom, and set down in the simplest
and most methodical form the elements of the Short Lyric.
The student will, at some time or another, have suffered strong
emotions. He will have desired to give them metrical form. He
will have done so--and commonly he will have gone no further. I
have before as I write a verse, the opening of one of the most
unsuccessful poems ever written. It runs:--
“I am not as my fathers were,
I cannot pass from sleep to sleep,
Or live content to drink the deep
Contentment of the common air.”
This is very bad. It is bad because it proceeded from a deep
emotion only, and shot out untrammelled. It has no connection with
verse as an art, and yet that art lies open for any young man who
will be patient and humble, and who will _learn_.
His first business is to decide at once between the only two styles
possible in manufactured verse, the Obscure and the Prattling. I
say “the _only_ two styles” because I don’t think you can tackle
the Grandiose, and I am quite certain you couldn’t manage the
Satiric. I know a young man in Red Lion Square who can do the
Grandiose very well, and I am going to boom him when I think the
time has come; but the Student-in-Ordinary cannot do it, so he may
put it out of his head.
I will take the Simple or Prattling style first. Choose a subject
from out of doors, first because it is the fashion, and secondly
because you can go and observe it closely. For you must know that
manufactured verse is very like drawing, and in both arts you have
to take a model and be careful of details. Let us take (_e.g._) a
Pimpernel.
A Pimpernel is quite easy to write about; it has remarkable habits,
it is not gross or common. It would be much harder to write about
grass, for instance, or parsley.
First you write down anything that occurs to you, like this:--
“Pretty little Pimpernel,
May I learn to love you well?”
You continue on the style of “Twinkle, twinkle.”
“Hiding in the mossy shade,
Like a lamp of ¯˘ made,
Or a gem by fairies dropt
In their ...”
and there you stick, just as you had got into the style of the
“L’Allegro.” I have no space or leisure to give the student the
full treatment of so great a subject, how he would drag in the
closing and opening of the flower, and how (skilfully avoiding the
word “dell”) he would end his ten or fifteen lines by a repetition
of the first (an essential feature of the Prattling style). I will
confine myself to showing him what may be made of these ridiculous
six lines.
The first has an obvious fault. It runs too quickly, and one falls
all over it. We will keep “Little” and put it first, so one might
write “Little Purple Pimpernel.” But even that won’t do, though the
alliteration is well enough. What change can we make?
It is at this point that I must introduce you to a most perfect
principle. It is called the Mutation of Adjectives--it is almost
the whole art of Occ. verse. This principle consists in pulling
out one’s first obvious adjective, and replacing it by another of
similar length, _chosen because it is peculiar_. You must not put
in an adjective that could not possibly apply; for instance, you
must not speak of the “Ponderous Rabbit” or the “Murky Beasts;”
your adjective must be applicable, but it must be startling, as
“The Tolerant Cow,” “The Stammering Minister,” or “The Greasy
Hill”--all quite true and most unexpected.
Now, here it is evident that Purple is commonplace. What else can
we find about the Pimpernel that is quite true and yet really
startling? Let us (for instance) call it “tasteless.” There you
have it, “Little tasteless Pimpernel”--no one could read that too
quickly, and it shows at the same time great knowledge of nature.
I will not weary you with every detail of the process, but I will
write down _my_ result after all the rules have been properly
attended to. Read this, and see whether the lines do not fit with
my canons of art, especially in what is called the “choice of
words:”--
“Little tasteless Pimpernel,
Shepherd’s Holt and warning spell
Crouching in the cushat shade
Like a mond of mowry made....”
and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem. Nearly all the
words are curious and well chosen, and yet the metre trips along
like a railway carriage. The simplicity lies in the method; the
quaint diction is quarried from Mr. Skeats’ excellent book on
etymology; but I need not point out any particular work, as your
“Thesaurus” in this matter is for your own choosing.
So much for the Prattling style.
As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is getting
overdone, and I would not depend too much upon it.
In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gentlemen and
ladies who suffered from an imperfect education, and wrote as they
felt, without stopping to think.
But that first holy rapture cannot be recovered. We must work by
rule. The rules attaching to this kind of work are six:--
(1) Put the verb in the wrong place (some leave it out altogether);
(2) Use words that may be either verbs or nouns--plurals are very
useful;
(3) Punctuate insufficiently;
(4) Make a special use of phrases that have two or three meanings;
(5) Leave out relatives;
(6) Have whole sentences in apposition.
Some of our young poets have imagined that the mere use of strange
words made up the Obscure style. I need not say that they were
wrong. Thus, the lines--
“And shall I never tread them more,
My murrant balks of wealden lathes?”
are singularly bad. Anyone could be obscure in so simple a fashion.
It behoves the student rather to read carefully such lines as the
following, in which I have again tackled the Pimpernel, this time
in the Obscure manner.
I begin with “What Pimpernels,” which might mean “What!
Pimpernels?” or, “_What_ Pimpernels?” or again, “What
_Pimpernels_!”; expressing surprise, or a question, or astonished
admiration: but do you think I am going to give the show away by
telling the reader what I mean? Not a bit of it. There is something
in our island temper which loves mystery: something of the North. I
flatter myself I can do it thoroughly:--
“What Pimpernels; a rare indulgence blesses
The winter wasting in imperfect suns
And Pimpernels are in the waning, runs
A hand unknown the careless winter dresses,
Not for your largess to the ruined fells,
Her floors in waste, I call you, Pimpernels.”
There! I think that will do very fairly well. One can make sense
out of it, and it is broad and full, like a modern religion; it
has many aspects, and it makes men think. There is not one unusual
word, and the second line is a clear and perfect bit of English.
Yet how deep and solemn and thorough is the whole!
And yet, for all my ability in these matters, I may not offer an
example for the reader to follow. I am conscious of something
more powerful (within this strict channel), and I am haunted
reproachfully by a great soul. May I quote what none but She could
have written? It is the most perfect thing that modern England
knows. Every lesson I might painfully convey there stands manifest,
of itself, part of the Created Thing.
THE YELLOW MUSTARD.
Oh! ye that prink it to and fro,
In pointed flounce and furbelow,
What have ye known, what can ye know
That have not seen the mustard grow?
The yellow mustard is no less
Than God’s good gift to loneliness;
And he was sent in gorgeous press,
To jangle keys at my distress.
I heard the throstle call again
Come hither, Pain! come hither, Pain!
Till all my shameless feet were fain
To wander through the summer rain.
And far apart from human place,
And flaming like a vast disgrace,
There struck me blinding in the face
The livery of the mustard race.
* * * * *
To see the yellow mustard grow
Beyond the town, above, below;
Beyond the purple houses, oh!
To see the yellow mustard grow!
THE INTERVIEW.
THE INTERVIEW.
It is now some years ago since I was sitting in Mr. Caliban’s
study, writing in his name upon the Balance of Power in Europe. I
had just completed my article, and passed it to him to sign, when
I noticed that he was too much absorbed in a book which he was
reading to pay attention to my gesture.
Men of his stamp enforce courtesy in others by their mere presence.
It would have been impossible to have disturbed him. I turned to
a somewhat more lengthy composition, which was also to appear
above his signature, entitled, “The Effect of Greek Philosophy
upon European Thought.” When I had completed my analysis of this
profound historical influence, I thought that my master and guide
would have freed himself from the net of the author who thus
entranced him. I was mistaken. I had, however, but just begun a
third article, of which the subject escapes me, when he turned to
me and said, closing the book between his hands:
“Will you go and interview someone for me?”
I fear my sudden change of expression betrayed the fact that the
idea was repugnant to one familiar rather with foreign politics and
with the Classics than with the reporters’ side of the paper.
Mr. Caliban looked at my collar with his kindly eyes, and kept them
fixed upon it for some seconds. He then smiled (if such a man could
be said to smile) and continued:
“I want to tell you something....”
There was profound silence for a little while, during which a
number of thoughts passed through my mind. I remembered that
Dr. Caliban was Editor at that moment of the _Sunday Herald_.
I remembered that I was his right hand, and that without me
the enormous labour he weekly undertook could never have been
accomplished without trespassing upon the sanctity of the Sabbath.
After a little hesitation, he pulled down his waistcoat, hitched
his trousers at the knees, crossed his legs, made a half-turn
towards me (for his study-chair was mounted upon a swivel), and
said:
“It’s like this:-- ...”
I assured him that I would do what he wished, for I knew, whenever
he spoke in this tone, that there was something to be done for
England.
“It’s like this,” he went on, “I have found a man here who should
_count_, who should _tell_. It is a fearful thought that such a
mind can have remained so long hidden. Here is a man with something
in him quite peculiar and apart--and he is unknown! It is England
through and through, and the best of England; it is more than that.
Even where I disagree with him, I find something like a living
voice. He gets right at one, as it were ... yet I never heard his
name!”
Here Mr. Caliban, having stopped for a moment, as though seeking
something in his memory, declaimed in a rich monotone:
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
There was a little silence. Then he said abruptly:
“Do you know Wordsworth’s definition of a poet? Take it down. I
should like you to use it.”
I pulled out my note-book and wrote in shorthand from his dictation
a sublime phrase, which was new to me: “_A Poet is a_ MAN _speaking
to_ MEN.”
“This man,” said Dr. Caliban simply, “is a man speaking to men.”
He put the book into my hands; two or three of the leaves were
turned down, and on each page so marked was a passage scored in
pencil. The lines would have arrested my eye even, had a greater
mind than my own not selected them.
“_A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke._”
“_Tied wrist to bar for their red iniquitee._”
“_To do butcher work_” (he is speaking of war) “_yer don’t want
genlemen, ’cept to lead._”
“_I got the gun-barrels red-hot and fetched the whipcord out of the
cupboard, while the other man held the screaming, writhing thing
down upon the floor._”
“_Under whose_ (speaking of God) _awful hand we hold dominion over
palm and pine._”
I have no space to quote a longer passage of verse, evidently
intended to be sung to a banjo, and describing the emotions of
the author in a fit of delirium tremens when he suffered from the
hallucination that a red-hot brass monkey was himself attempting
song. The poet showed no jealousy of the animal. There was the
full, hearty Anglo-Saxon friendship for a comrade and even for a
rival, and I met the same tone again on a further page in the line:
“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
I looked up at Mr. Caliban and said:
“Well?”:--for these short phrases are often the most emphatic.
“Well,” said Dr. Caliban, “that man must not be allowed to go
under. He must be made, and we must make him.”
I said that such a man could not fail to pierce through and
conquer. He seemed the very salt and marrow of all that has made us
great.
Dr. Caliban laid his hand in a fatherly way upon my shoulder and
said:
“You are still young; you do not know how long fame may take to
find a man, if the way is not pointed out to her; and if she takes
too long, sometimes he dies of a broken heart.”
It was a noble thought in one who had known Fame almost from the
very day when, as a lad of 22 years old, he had stood up in the
chapel at Barking Level and answered the preacher with the words,
“Lord, here am I.”
Dr. Caliban continued in a few simple words to convince me that my
foolish pride alone stood between this young genius and the fame he
deserved. He pointed out what a weight would lie upon my mind were
that poet some day to become famous, and to be able to say when I
presented myself at his receptions:
“Get ye hence: I know ye not!”
He added the awful words that death might find us at any moment,
and that then we should have to answer, not for our reasons or
our motives, but for the things we have done, and for the things
we have left undone. He added that he would regard a visit to
this new writer as overtime work, and that he was ready to pay my
expenses, including cab fares to and from the station. He ended
with an appeal which would have convinced one less ready to yield:
a magnificent picture of the Empire and of the Voice for which it
had waited so long.
* * * * *
It seems unworthy, after the relation of this intimate domestic
scene, to add any words of exhortation to the reader and student.
I will not pretend that the interview is a form of true literature.
If I have been guilty of too great a confidence, my excess has
proceeded from an earnest desire to watch over others of my kind,
and to warn them lest by one chance refusal they should destroy the
opportunities of a lifetime.
To interview another, even a rival, is sometimes necessary at the
outset of a career. It is an experience that need not be repeated.
It is one that no earnest student of human nature will regret.
The powerful emotions aroused by the reminiscence of Dr. Caliban’s
eloquence, and of the meeting to which it led, must not be
desecrated by too lengthy an insistence upon the mere technique of
a subsidiary branch of modern letters. I will state very briefly my
conclusions as to what is indispensable in the regulation of this
kind of literature.
It is, in the first place, of some moment that the young
interviewer should take his hat and gloves with him in his left
hand into the room. If he carries an umbrella or cane, this
also should be carried in the same hand, leaving the right hand
completely free. Its readiness for every purpose is the mark of a
gentleman, and the maintenance of that rank is absolutely necessary
to the _sans gêne_ which should accompany a true interview.
In the second place, let him, the moment he appears, explain
briefly the object of his visit. Without any such introduction as
“The fact is ...” “It is very odd, but ...”, let him say plainly
and simply, like an Englishman, “I have been sent to interview you
on the part of such and such a paper.”
He will then be handed (in the majority of cases) a short
type-written statement, which he will take into his right hand,
pass into his left, in among the gloves, stick, hat, &c., and will
bow, not from the shoulders, nor from the hips, but subtly from the
central vertebrae.
In the third place he will go out of the room.
There are two exceptions to this general procedure. The first is
with men quite unknown; the second with men of high birth or great
wealth.
In the first case, the hat and gloves should be laid upon a table
and the stick leaning against it in such a way as not to fall down
awkwardly in the middle of a conversation. The student will then
begin to talk in a genial manner loudly, and will continue for
about half-an-hour; he will end by looking at his watch, and will
go away and write down what he feels inclined.
In the second case, he will do exactly the same, but with a
different result, for in the first case he will very probably
become the friend of the person interviewed, which would have
happened anyhow, and in the second case he will be forbidden the
house, a result equally inevitable.
I cannot conclude these remarks without exhorting the young
writer most earnestly, when he is entering upon the first of
these distressing experiences, to place a firm trust in Divine
Providence, and to remember that, come what may, he has done his
duty.
If he should have any further hesitation as to the general manner
in which an interview should be written, he has but to read what
follows. It constitutes the interview which I held with that young
genius whom Mr. Caliban persuaded me to visit, and of whose fame I
shall therefore always feel myself a part.
INTERVIEW
WITH HIM.
(Written specially for the _Sunday Englishman_, by the Rev. JAMES
CALIBAN, D.D.)[8]
“_By the peace among the peoples, men shall know ye serve the
Lord._”--DEUTERONOMY xvi. 7.
... Leaping into a well-appointed cab, I was soon whirled to a
terminus which shall be nameless, not a hundred miles from Brandon
Street, and had the good luck to swing myself into the guard’s van
just as the train was steaming out from the platform. I plunged at
once _in medias res_, and some two hours later alit in the sunny
and growing residential town of Worthing. I hailed a vehicle which
plied for hire, and begged the driver to conduct me to 29, Darbhai
Road, “if indeed,” to quote my own words to the Jehu, “if indeed it
be worth a drive. I understand it is close upon a mile.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the honest fellow, “You will find, sir, that it
is quite a mile, sir. Indeed, sir, we call it a little over a mile,
sir.”
I was soon whirled, as fast as the type of carriage permitted, to
Laburnum Lodge, Darbhai Road, where a neat-handed Phyllis smilingly
opened the door for me, and took my card up to her master, bidding
me be seated awhile in the hall. I had the leisure to notice
that it was lit by two stained glass panels above the entrance,
representing Alfred the Great and Queen Victoria. In a few minutes
the servant returned with the message that her master would be down
in a moment, and begged me to enter his parlour until he could
attend me, as he was just then in his study, looking out of window
at a cricket match in an adjoining field.
I found myself in a richly-furnished room, surrounded by curious
relics of travel, and I was delighted to notice the little
characteristic touches that marked the personal tastes of my host.
Several skulls adorned the walls, and I observed that any natural
emotion they might cause was heightened by a few tasteful lines
such as actors paint upon their faces. Thus one appeared to grin
beyond the ordinary, another was fitted with false eyes, and all
had that peculiar subtle expression upon which genius loves to
repose in its moments of leisure. I had barely time to mark a few
more notable matters in my surroundings, when I was aware that I
was in the presence of my host.
“No,” or “Yes,” said the great man, smiling through his spectacles
and puffing a cloud of smoke towards me in a genial fashion, “I do
not in the least mind telling you how it is done. I do not think,”
he added drily, “that any other fellows will pull quite the same
chock-a-block haul, even if I do give them the fall of the halyard.
You must excuse these technical terms; I make it a point to speak
as I write--I think it is more natural.”
I said I should be delighted to excuse him.
“I hope you will also excuse,” he continued, “my throwing myself
into my favourite attitude.”
I said that, on the contrary, I had long wished to see it.
With a sigh of relief he thrust those creative hands of his into
his trouser pockets, slightly stooped his shoulders, and appeared
to my delight exactly as he does in the photograph he handed me for
publication.
“To show you how it is done, I cannot begin better than by a little
example,” he said.
He went to a neighbouring table, rummaged about in a pile of the
_Outlook_ and _Vanity Fair_, and produced a scrap of paper upon
which there was a type-written poem. His hands trembled with
pleasure, but he controlled himself well (for he is a strong,
silent kind of man), and continued:--
“I will not weary you with the whole of this Work. I am sure you
must already be familiar with it. In the Volunteer camp where I was
recently staying, and where I slept under canvas like anybody else,
the officers knew it by heart, and used to sing it to a tune of my
own composition (for you must know that I write these little things
to airs of my own). I will only read you the last verse, which, as
is usual in my lyrics, contains the pith of the whole matter.”
Then in a deep voice he intoned the following, with a slightly
nasal accent which lent it a peculiarly individual flavour:--
“I’m sorry for Mister Naboth;
I’m sorry to make him squeak;
But the Lawd above me made me strawng
In order to pummel the weak.”
“That chorus, which applies to one of the most important problems
of the Empire, contains nearly all the points that illustrate ‘How
it is Done.’ In the first place, note the conception of the Law. It
has been my effort to imprint this idea of the Law upon the mind of
the English-speaking world--a phrase, by the way, far preferable
to that of Anglo-Saxon, which I take this opportunity of publicly
repudiating. You may, perhaps, have noticed that my idea of the Law
is the strongest thing in modern England. ‘Do this because I tell
you, or it will be the worse for you,’ is all we know, and all we
need to know. For so, it seems to me, Heaven” (here he reverently
raised the plain billy-cock hat which he is in the habit of wearing
in his drawing-room) “governs the world, and we who are Heaven’s
lieutenants can only follow upon the same lines. I will not insist
upon the extent to which the religious training I enjoyed in early
youth helped to cast me in that great mould. You have probably
noticed its effect in all my work.”
I said I had.
“Well, then, first and foremost, I have in this typical instance
brought out my philosophy of the Law. In my private conversation I
call this ‘following the gleam.’”
“Now for the adventitious methods by which I enhance the value of
my work. Consider the lilt. ‘Lilt’ is the ‘Túm ti ti túm ti túm’
effect which you may have felt in my best verse.”
I assured him I had indeed felt it.
“Lilt,” he continued, “is the hardest thing of all to acquire.
Thousands attempt it, and hundreds fail. I have it (though I say it
who should not) to perfection. It is the quality you will discover
in the old ballads, but there it is often marred by curious
accidents which I can never properly explain. Their metre is often
very irregular, and I fancy that their style (which my Work closely
resembles) has suffered by continual copying. No: where you get the
true ‘Lilt’ is in the music halls--I am sorry it is so often wasted
upon impertinent themes. Do you know ‘It is all very fine and
large,’ or ‘At my time of life,’ or again, ‘Now we shan’t be long’?”
I answered I had them all three by heart.
“I shouldn’t say they were worth _that_,” he answered, as a shade
of disappointment appeared upon his delicate, mobile features,
“but there is a place where you get it to perfection, and that is
Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_. They are my favourite reading.
But that is another story.”
“To turn to quite a different point, the Vernacular. It isn’t
everything that will go down in ordinary English. Of course I _do_
use ordinary English--at least, Bible English, in my best work. For
instance, there is a little thing called ‘In the Confessional,’
which I propose to read to you later, and which has no slang nor
swear-words from beginning to end.”
“But, of course, that is quite an exception. Most things won’t
stand anything but dialect, and I just give you this tip gratis.
You can make anything individual and strong by odd spelling. It
arrests the attention, and you haven’t got to pick your words.
Did you ever read a beautiful work called _Colorado Bill; or,
From Cowboy to President_? Well, I can assure you that when it
was in English, before being turned into dialect, it was quite
ordinary-like.”
“But that ain’t all. One has now and then to strike a deeper note,
and striking a deeper note is so simple, that I wonder it has not
occurred to others of our poets. You have got to imagine yourself
in a church, and you must read over your manuscript to yourself in
that kind of hollow voice--you know what I mean.”
I swore that I did.
“_Now_, you see why one puts ‘ye’ for ‘you,’ and ‘ye be’ for
‘you are,’ and mentions the Law in so many words. It is not very
difficult to do, and when one does succeed, one gets what I call A1
copper-bottomed poetry.”
He went to a corner of the room, opened a large, scented,
velvet-bound book upon a brass reading-desk, looked at me severely,
coughed twice, and began as follows:
“I am about to read you ‘In the Confessional.’ The greatest critic
of the century has called this the greatest poem of the century. I
begin at the third verse, and the seventeenth line:--
* * * * *
“Lest he forget the great ally
In heaven yclept hypocrisy,
So help me Bawb! I’ll mark him yet--
Lest he forget! Lest he forget!”
* * * * *
He closed the book with becoming reverence.
And there was a silence, during which the grand words went on
running in my head as their author had meant them to do. “Lest he
forget! Lest he forget!” Ah, may heaven preserve its darling poet,
and never let him fall from the height of that great message.
“Well,” said he, genially, anticipating my applause, “Good-bye.
But before you go please let me beg you to tell the public that
I lately wrote something for the _Times_ a great deal better
than anything else I have ever written. Nobody seems to read the
_Times_,” he continued, in a tone of slight petulance, “and I have
not seen it quoted anywhere. I wonder if it is properly known?
Please tell people that that little note about ‘copyright’ is only
for fun. _Anyone_ may use it who likes--I had a paragraph put
in the papers to say so. It’s like this--” He then added a few
conventional words of God-speed, and I left him. I have never seen
him since.
And yet ... and yet....
The student will now pardon me, I trust, if I go somewhat more
deeply into things than is customary in text books of this class.
That little conquest over pride, that little task honestly
performed, earned me something I shall value for ever, something
that will be handed down in our family “even unto the third and
the fourth generation” (_Habb._ vii. 13). It is something that
means far, far more to me than a mere acquaintance with an author
could possibly have done. For who can gauge so volatile a thing as
friendship? Who could with certitude have pointed me out and said,
“There goes _His_ friend”? The Written Thing remained.
In my room, nay, just above me as I write, hangs framed the
following note in pencil.
“Awfully glad to see the stuff in the ‘Herald,’ but say--are you
old Caliban? That was rather stiff on a jack high? Wasn’t it? Never
mind. You didn’t ask me for my auto, but I send it herewith right
along, for I _like_ you.”
There is the Man Alone as He IS--.... It seems of small moment,
but there is something more. Framed in dark oak and gold very
sumptuously, and hanging quite apart, is the little shred of paper
which He enclosed. Shall I whisper what is written upon it?...?...
The first few jotted notes of the glorious song which rang through
the Empire like a bugle-call, and hurled it at Nicaragua.
[Sidenote: _Mem.--Can a preposition begin with a capital?_]
Hark and attend my Chosen: Ye have heard me
_ye_ _people_
Out of the East,
_with an introduction_?
[Sidenote: _Mem.--Alternative, “with a bag and a blanket.”_]
I came and the nations trembled: I bore the Mark
_with a_ ■■■■■■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■
_glory about me?_
of the Beast,
[Sidenote: _Good!_]
And I made ye a hundred books--yea! even an hundred and one
Of all the labours of men that labour under the sun,
[Sidenote: _Second “yea”? Uncle says “delete.”_]
And I clad me about with Terrors: Yea! I covered my paths with dread,
And the women-folk were astonished at the horrible things I said.
And the men of the Island Race were some of them woundily bored,
But the greater part of them paid me well: and I praised the Lord.
And when--as the spirit was full--I sniggered and lapped and swore
[Sidenote: _Dick says “Days of Yore” is commonplace. Tore? Gore?
Lore? More? provisional: see Emily also about it._]
As ever did men before me, men of the days of yore
(?)
When-as the spirit was full--But when it was rare and low
I copied the Psalms at random; and lo! it was even so!
■■■■■■■
(_Fill in here: ask_ ■■■■■■■)
_Publisher_
[Sidenote: _Uncle says that repetition is Greek. Mem.--plagiarism?_]
Then up and arose the Daughter-Nations: Up and arose
Fearless men reciting me fearlessly through the nose,
Some of them Presbyterian, and some of them Jews, and some
[Sidenote: _Frivolous. Change._]
Of the Latter-Day Church, King Solomon’s sect--which is awfully rum.
(_Stuck_.)
... the lot of it ... Anglo-Saxons ... shout it aloud
... at it again? ... back the crowd?
(_Fill in. Mem.--must be consecutive_)
Things are not as they were (_commonplace_)
(_delete_)
Things are not as they.... Things and the Change....
Things and ... things....
(_Leave this to fill in_)
* * * * *
And some of ye stand at a wicket, and they are the luckier men,
[Sidenote: _Whenas. Good. Mem.--use in “Horeb.”_]
But others field afar on a field, and ever and then,
When-as the over is over, they cross to the other side,
A weary thing to the flesh and a wounding thing to the pride.
[Sidenote: _He will have to go._]
And Cabinet Ministers play at a game ye should all avoid,
It is played with youngling bats and a pellet of celluloid,
And a little net on a table, and is known as the named (_better_)
PING and the PONG.
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do this wrong?
And some, like witherless Frenchmen, circle around in rings,
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do these things?
Why do you....
(_Mem.--after Uncle to-morrow. Billy’s: refuse terms._)
These are the chance lines as they came--the disjointed
words--everything--just as He wrote them down.
Reader--or whatever you be--was that a small reward? Are you
willing _now_ to say that Interviewing has no wages of its own?
Will you sneer at it as unfit to take its place in your art? Truly,
“Better is he that humbleth himself than a pillar of brass, and a
meek heart than many fastenings.”
PERSONAL PARS.
THE PERSONAL PAR.
Closely connected with the Interview, and forming a natural sequel
to any treatise upon that Exercise, is the Personal Par. It
contains, as it were, all the qualities of the Interview condensed
into the smallest possible space; it advertises the subject,
instructs the reader, and is a yet sharper trial of the young
writer’s character.
The homely advice given in the preceding section, where mention
was made of “pride” and of “pockets,” applies with far more force
to the Personal Par. With the Interview, it is well to mask one’s
name; with the Personal Par, it is absolutely necessary to conceal
it. The danger the author runs is an attraction to Mrs. Railston,
who in her book strongly advises this form of sport--she herself
does Bess in _All About Them_. On the other hand, Lieut.-Col.
Lory says, in his _Journalist’s Vade-mecum_ (p. 63): “A Personal
Par should never be penned by the Aspirant to Literary honours.
Undetected, it renders life a burden of suspense; detected, it
spells ruin.”[9] He quotes twenty-five well-known peers and
financiers who rose by steadily refusing to do this kind of work
during their period of probation on the press.
The present guide, which is final, will run to no such extremes.
Secrecy is indeed essential; yet there are three excellent reasons
for writing Personal Pars, at least in early youth.
(1.) The Personal Par is the easiest to produce of all forms of
literature. Any man or woman, famous or infamous for any reason,
is a subject ready to hand, and to these may be added all persons
whatsoever living, dead, or imaginary; and anything whatever may
be said about them. Editors, in their honest dislike of giving
pain, encourage the inane, and hence more facile, form of praise.
Moreover, it takes but a moment to write, and demands no recourse
to books of reference.
(2.) The Personal Par can always be placed--if not in England, then
in America. Though written in any odd moments of one’s leisure
time, it will always represent money; and the whole of the period
from July to October, when ordinary work is very slack, can be kept
going from the stock one has by one.
(3.) It has a high economic value, not only in the price paid for
it, but indirectly, as an advertisement. This is a point which
Lieut.-Col. Lory and Mrs. Railston both overlook.
A short specimen, written in August, 1885, at the very beginning of
the movement, by my friend, Mrs. Cowley (the Folk-Lorist, not the
Poetess), for the _Gazette_, will make these three points clear:--
“The capture of that rare bird, the Cross-tailed Eagle, which
is cabled from St. Fandango’s, recalls the fact that the famous
Picture ‘Tiny Tots’ was formerly in the possession of the
present Governor of that island. The picture is put up to auction
by Messrs. Philpots next Saturday, and, judging by the public
attendance at their galleries during the last fortnight, the
bidding should be brisk.”
There is no such bird as the Cross-tailed Eagle, nor any such
person as the Governor of St. Fandango’s, nor indeed is there even
any such island. Yet Mrs. Cowley was paid 5_s._ by the _Gazette_
for her little bit of research; it was copied into most of the
papers, with acknowledgment, and she got a commission from Messrs.
Philpots. The former owner of “Tiny Tots” (Mr. Gale of Kew, a
wealthy man) wrote a long and interesting letter explaining that
some error had been made, and that not he, but his wife’s father,
had been an _Inspector_[10] (not Governor) in _St. Vincent’s_. He
begged the writer to call on him--her call was the origin of a
life-long friendship, and Mrs. Cowley was mentioned in his will.
I must detain the student no longer with what is, after all, a very
small corner of our art, but conclude with a few carefully chosen
examples before proceeding to the next section on Topographical
Essays.
EXAMPLES.
_Wit and Wisdom of the Upper Classes._
Her Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Solothurn was
driving one day down Pall Mall when she observed a poor pickpocket
plying his precarious trade. Stopping the carriage immediately,
she asked him gently what she could do for him. He was dumbfounded
for a reply, and, withdrawing his hand from the coat-tail of an
elderly major, managed to mumble out that he was a widower with a
wife and six children who were out of work and refused to support
him, though earning excellent wages. This reasoning so touched the
Princess, that she immediately gave him a place as boot-black in
the Royal Palace of Kensington. Discharged from this position for
having prosecuted H.R.H. for six months’ arrears of wages, he set
up as a publican at the “Sieve and Pannier” at Wimbledon, a licence
of some ten thousand pounds in value, and a standing example of the
good fortune that attends thrift and industry.
* * *
It is not generally known that the late Lord Grumbletooth rose
from the ranks. His lordship was a singularly reticent man, and
the matter is still shrouded in obscurity. He was, however, a
politician in the best sense of the word, and owed his advancement
to the virtues that have made England famous. The collection of
domestic china at Grumbletooth House will vie with any other
collection at any similar house in the kingdom.
* * *
Dr. Kedge, whose death was recently announced in the papers, was
the son of no less a personage than Mr. Kedge, of the Old Hall,
Eybridge. It is hardly fair to call him a self-made man, for his
father paid a considerable sum both for his education and for the
settlement of his debts on leaving the University. But he was
a bright-eyed, pleasant host, and will long be regretted in the
journalistic world.
* * *
Lady Gumm’s kindness of heart is well known. She lately presented
a beggar with a shilling, and then discovered that she had not the
wherewithal to pay her fare home from Queen’s Gate to 376, Park
Lane (her ladyship’s town house). Without a moment’s hesitation she
borrowed eighteen pence of the grateful mendicant, a circumstance
that easily explains the persecution of which she has lately been
the victim.
* * *
Lord Harmbury was lately discovered on the top of a ’bus by an
acquaintance who taxed him with the misadventure. “I would rather
be caught _on_ a ’bus than _in_ a trap,” said the witty peer. The
_mot_ has had some success in London Society.
* * *
Mr. Mulhausen, the M.F.H. of the North Downshire Hunt, has recently
written an article on “Falconry” for the _Angler’s World_. The
style of the “brochure” shows a great advance in “technique,” and
cannot fail to give a permanent value to his opinion on Athletics,
Gentleman-farming, and all other manly sports and pastimes.
Mr. Mulhausen is, by the way, a recently-elected member of the
Rock-climbers’ Club, and is devoted to Baccarat.
* * *
There is no truth in the rumour that Miss Finn-Coul, daughter of
Colonel Wantage-Brown, was about to marry her father’s second
wife’s son by an earlier marriage, Mr. James Grindle-Torby. The
Colonel is a strong Churchman, and disapproves of such unions
between close relatives; moreover, as C.O., he has forbidden the
young lieutenant (for such is his rank) to leave the barracks for a
fortnight, a very unusual proceeding in the Hussars.
* * *
Lady Sophia Van Huren is famous for her repartee. In passing
through Grosvenor Gate an Irish beggar was heard to hope that she
would die the black death of Machushla Shawn. A sharp reply passed
her lips, and it is a thousand pities that no one exactly caught
its tenor; it was certainly a gem.
* * *
It is well known that the Bishop of Pontygarry has no sympathy
with the extreme party in the Church. Only the other day he was
so incensed at a service held in Ribble-cum-Taut, that he fought
the officiating clergyman for half an hour in his own garden, and
extorted a complete apology. He also forbad anyone in the village
ever to go to Church again, and himself attended the Methodist
Chapel on the ensuing Sunday. Had we a few more prelates of the
same mettle things would be in a very different condition.
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.
The Topographical Article is so familiar as to need but little
introduction.... Personally, I do not recommend it; it involves a
considerable labour; alone, of all forms of historical writing, it
demands accuracy; alone, it is invariably un-paid.
Nevertheless, there are special occasions when it will be advisable
to attempt it; as--in order to please an aged and wealthy relative;
in order to strike up a chance acquaintance with a great Family; in
order to advertise land that is for sale; in order to prevent the
sale, or to lower the price (in these two last cases it is usual
to demand a small fee from the parties interested); in order to
vent a just anger; in order to repay a debt; in order to introduce
a “special” advertisement for some manure or other; and so forth.
Most men can recall some individual accident when a training in
Topographical Writing would have been of value to them.
There even arise, though very rarely, conditions under which this
kind of writing is positively ordered. Thus, when the Editor of the
_Evening Mercury_ changed his politics for money on the 17th of
September, 1899, all that part of his staff who were unable to drop
their outworn shibboleths were put on to writing up various parts
of London in the legal interval preceding their dismissal, and a
very good job they made of it.
Never, perhaps, were the five rules governing the art more
thoroughly adhered to. A land-owning family was introduced into
each; living persons were treated with courtesy and affection; a
tone of regret was used at the opening of each; each closed with
a phrase of passionate patriotism; and each was carefully run
parallel to the course of English History in general; and the
proper praise and blame allotted to this name and that, according
to its present standing with the more ignorant of the general
public.[11]
It was in this series (afterwards issued in Book form under the
title, _London! My London_) that the following article--which I
can put forward as an excellent model--was the contribution of my
friend, Mr. James Bayley. It may interest the young reader (if he
be as yet unfamiliar with our great London names) to know that
under the pseudonym of “Cringle” is concealed the family of Holt,
whose present head is, of course, the Duke of Sheffield.
DISAPPEARING LONDON: MANNING GREEN.
At a moment when a whole district of the metropolis is compulsorily
passing into the hands of a soulless corporation, it is
intolerable that the proprietors of land in that district should
receive no compensation for the historical importance of their
estates. Manning Green, which will soon be replaced by the roar
and bustle--or bustle and confusion, whichever you like--of a
great railway station, is one of those centres whence the great
empire-builders of our race proceeded in past times.
For many centuries it was a bare, bleak spot, such as our England
could boast by the thousand in the rude but heroic days when the
marvellous fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon race were preparing in the
slow designs of Providence. For perhaps a generation it was one of
those suburban villages that are said by a contemporary poet to
“nestle in their trees.” Doubtless it sent forth in the sixties
many brave lads to fight for the liberties of Europe in Italy or
Denmark, but their humble record has perished. Such a thought
recalls the fine lines of Gray:--
“Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”
Twenty to twenty-five years ago the advancing tide of the capital
of the world swept round this little outlying place; it was
submerged, and soon made part of greater London.
Relics are still to be discovered of the period when Manning Green
had something rural about it, as Highgate and South Croydon have
now. Thus “The Jolly Drover” (whose license was recently refused
because it was not a tied house) recalls the great sheep-droves
that once passed through the village from the north. It is now
rare indeed to meet with a countryman driving his flock to market
through the streets of London, though the sight is not absolutely
unknown. The present writer was once stopped in the early morning
by a herd of oxen south of Westminster Bridge, and what may seem
more remarkable he has frequently seen wild animals in the charge
of negroes pass through Soho on their way to the Hippodrome. It is
as Tennyson says:--
“The old order changes, giving place to the new,”
until at last
“Beyond these voices there is peace.”
Another relic of the old village of Manning Green is the Court
Baron, which is still held (how few Londoners know this!) once a
year, for the purpose of providing a small but regular income to a
relative of the Lord Chancellor. This Court was probably not held
before the year 1895, but it is none the less of extreme interest
to antiquarians.
The first mention of Manning Green in history is in a letter to
Edward Lord Cringle, the pioneer and ally of the beneficent reforms
that remain inseparably associated with the name of the eighth
Henry. This letter is written from prison by one Henry Turnbull, a
yeoman, and contains these phrases:--
“For that very certainly, my good Lord, I never did this thing,
no, nor met the Friar nor had any dealing with him. And whatever
I did that they say is treason I did it being a simple man,
as following the Mass, which I know is welcome to the King’s
Majesty, and not knowing who it was that sang it, no, nor
speaking to him after, as God knows. And, my dear Lord, I have
had conveyed to you, as you know, my land of Horton with the Grey
farm and _the mere called Foul Marsh or Manning_, having neither
son nor any other but my own life only, and for that willingly
would I give you this land, and so I have done; and, my good
Lord, speak for me at Court in this matter, remembering my gift
of the land....”
This Turnbull was afterwards executed for treason at Tyburn. There
is still a Turnbull in the parish, but as his father’s name was
Weissenstein he is very unlikely to have any connection with the
original family of yeomen.
The land (if land it could then be called) did not, oddly
enough, remain long in the Cringle family. It was sold by Lord
Edward to the Carmelites, and on the dissolution of that order
was returned by the grateful monarch to its original owner. We
next find “Manning” or “Foul Marsh” drained during that period
of active beneficence on the part of the great landlords which
marked the seventeenth century. We are acquainted of this fact in
our agricultural history by an action recorded in 1631, where it
appears that one Nicholas Hedon had gone to shoot snipe, as had
been once of common right in the manor, and had so trespassed upon
land “now drained at his lordship’s charges, and by him enclosed.”
Hedon lost both ears, and was pilloried.
Manning is probably alluded to also in a strong protest of the
old Liberal blood[12] against ship-money, to which exaction it
contributed 1_s._ 4_d._ The sum need not excite ridicule, as it
represents quite 4_s._ of our present currency. The vigorous
protest of the family against this extortion is one of the finest
examples of our sterling English spirit on the eve of the Civil
War. The money was, however, paid.
In the troubles of the Civil Wars Manning (now no longer a
marsh, but a _green_) was sold to John Grayling, but the deed of
conveyance being protested at the Restoration, it was restored
to its original owners at the intruder’s charge by an action of
_Novel Disseizin_. After Monmouth’s rebellion, Manning was in
danger of suffering confiscation, and was hurriedly sold to a
chance agent (William Greaves) at so low a price as to refute for
ever all insinuations of rapacity upon the part of its now ducal
owners. It was happily restored by a grateful nation as a free
gift after the glorious Revolution of 1688, and the agent, who had
only acquired it by taking advantage of the recent troubles, was
very properly punished. King William congratulated the family in a
famous epigram, which a natural ignorance of the Taal forbids us to
transcribe.
In 1718, Manning being still pasture of a somewhat spongy nature
(Guy, in his report, calls it “soggy and poor land, reedy, and
fit for little”), there was a rumour that the New River canal
would pass through it, and it was sold to Jonathan Hemp. The New
River was proved, however, in the pleadings before both Houses
of Parliament, to have no necessity for this canal, and Hemp was
compelled (as it was a mere speculation on his part) to sell it
back again to its distinguished owner at a merely nominal price.
Nothing further can be traced with regard to Manning Green (as
it was now commonly called) till the report in 1780 that coal
had been found beneath it. Such a deposit so near the metropolis
naturally attracted the attention of merchants, and the Family sold
the place for the last time to a merchant of the name of Hogg for
£20,000.
The report proved false; yet, oddly enough, it was the beginning of
Mr. Hogg’s prosperity.
We have no space to dwell on this interesting character. “Hogg’s
Trustees” are an ecclesiastical household word in our principal
watering-places, and the “Hogg Institute” at Brighton is a monument
of Christian endeavour. He was a shrewd bargainer, a just man, and
upon his mantel-pieces were to be discovered ornaments in alabaster
representing Joshua and Richard Cœur de Lion.
The growth of the metropolis entered largely into Mr. Hogg’s
enlightened prevision of the future, and he obtained promises from
a large number of people to build houses upon his land, which
houses should, after a term of years, become his (Hogg’s) property,
and cease to belong to those who had paid to put them up. How Mr.
Hogg managed to obtain such promises is still shrouded in mystery,
but the universal prevalence of the system to-day in modern England
would surely prove that there is something in our Imperial race
which makes this form of charity an element of our power.
Mr. Hogg’s only daughter married Sir John Moss, Lord Mayor; and Mr.
Moss, the son, was the father of the present Lord Hemelthorpe. Thus
something romantic still clings to poor Manning Green, of which
Lord Hemelthorpe was, until his recent bankruptcy, the proprietor.
There is little more to be said about Manning Green. The Ebenezer
Chapel has a history of its own, written by the Rev. Napoleon
Plaything, son of Mr. Honey Q. Plaything, of Bismark, Pa. The
success of the boys’ club has been detailed in _God’s London_, by
Mr. Zitali, of the “Mission to the Latin Races.” The book is well
worth buying, if only for this one essay, written, as it is, by a
brand saved from the burning. Mr. Zitali was for a long time in the
employ of Messrs. Mañanâ, the restaurant keepers, and no one is
better fitted to deal strenuously with the awful problems of our
great cities.
Manning Green is about to disappear, and all its wonderful
associations will become (in the words of Swinburne)
“Smoke, or the smoke of a smoke.”
But until it disappears, and until its purchase price is finally
fixed by the committee, its historical associations will still
remain dear to those who (like the present writer) are interested
in this corner of the Motherland. That men of our blood, and men
speaking our tongue--nay, that those neither of our blood, nor
speaking our tongue, but devoted to a common empire--will remember
Manning Green when the sale is effected, is the passionate and
heartfelt prayer of
JAMES BAYLEY.
ON EDITING.
ON EDITING.
I come now to that part of my subject where pure literature is of
less moment than organization and the power of arrangement; and the
last two divisions of my great task concern work which has been
written by others, and with which the journalist has to deal in the
capacity of manager rather than that of author. These are, a few
notes upon editing, and some further remarks upon Revelations, that
is, unexpected and more or less secret political announcements.
I deal here first with editing, by which I do not mean the
management of a whole newspaper--for this has no connection
whatever with the art of letters--but the selection, arrangement,
and annotating of work produced by another hand, and entrusted to
the journalist for publication in his columns. The work is far
easier than might appear at first sight.
The first rule in connection with it is to offend as little as
possible, and especially to spare the living.
The second rule is to cut down the matter to fit the space at your
disposal. With the exception of a number of MSS. so small that
they may be neglected in the calculation, it does not matter in
the least what you cut out, so long as you remember that the parts
remaining must make sense, and so long as you make this second rule
fit in with the exigencies of the first.
As for annotation, it is the easiest thing in the world. True to
the general principle which governs all good journalism, that the
giving of pleasure should always be preferred to the giving of
pain, let your annotations pleasantly recall to the reader his own
stock of knowledge, let them be as obvious as possible, and let
him not learn too much from your research. This method has the
additional advantage, that it also saves you an infinity of trouble.
The matter is really not so elaborate as to need any further
comment. I will proceed at once to my example, prefacing it only
with the shortest explanatory statement, which will show how
thoroughly it illustrates the rules I have just enunciated.
The wife of one of the principal candidates for Parliament in
our part of the country begged Dr. Caliban to publish a simple,
chatty diary, which her sister (who was married to a neighbouring
squire) had kept during some years. Dr. Caliban was too courteous
to refuse, and had too profound an acquaintance with the rural
character to despise this kind of copy. On the other hand, he was
compelled to point out that he could not allow the series to run
through more than six months, and that he should, therefore, be
compelled to cut it down at his discretion. Full leave was given
him, and I do not think any man could have done the work better.
Thus the lady’s husband, though a good Englishman in every other
way (an indulgent landlord and a sterling patriot), was German by
birth and language. Here was a truth upon which it would have been
uncharitable and useless to insist--a truth which it was impossible
to conceal, but which it was easy to glide over; and Dr. Caliban,
as the student will see in a moment, glode over it with the
lightest of feet.
Again, a very terrible tragedy had taken place in the Burpham
family, and is naturally alluded to by their near neighbour. It was
impossible to cut out all mention of this unhappy thing, without
destroying the diary; but in Dr. Caliban’s edition of the MS., the
whole is left as vague as may be.
The particular part which I have chosen for a model--I think the
most admirable piece of editing I know--is from that week of the
diary which concerns the outbreak of the recent difficulty with
France, a difficulty luckily immediately arranged, after scarcely
a shot had been fired, by the mutual assent of the two nations and
(as it is whispered) by the direct intervention of High Authority.
The motto which Dr. Caliban chose for the whole series (called, by
the way, “Leaves from a Country Diary”), is a fine sentence from
the works of Mr. Bagehot.
LEAVES FROM A COUNTRY DIARY.
“_An aristocratic body firmly rooted in the national soil is
not only the permanent guarantee of the security of the State,
but resembles, as it were, a man better instructed than his
fellows--more prompt, possessed of ample means, and yet entrusted
with power: a man moreover who never dies._”
_February 2nd,_ 19--.--To-day is the Purification. The lawn looked
lovely under its veil of snow, and the vicar came in to lunch. We
did not discuss the question of the service, because I know that
Reuben disapproves of it. The vicar told me that Mrs. Burpham is
in dreadful trouble. It seems that the Bank at Molesworth refused
to cash Algernon’s cheque, and that this led Sir Henry Murling
to make investigations about the Chattington affair, so that he
had to be asked to resign his commission. To be sure it is only
in the Militia, but if it all comes out, it will be terrible for
the Monsons. They have already had to dismiss two servants on
these grounds. Jane has a sore throat, and I made her gargle some
turpentine and oil; Ali Baba’s[13] hock is still sore. I do hope
I shall keep my old servants, it is an unwelcome thing to dismiss
them in their old age and the house is never the same again. They
meet to-morrow at Gumpton corner, but not if this weather holds.
_February 3rd,_ 19--.--It is thawing. There are marks of boots
across the lawn on what is left of the snow, and I am afraid some
one must have gone across it. I wish Reuben would come back.
Called at Mrs. Burpham’s, who is in dreadful trouble. Algernon has
gone up to town to see his solicitor. Poor Mrs. Burpham was crying;
she is so proud of her boy. He says it will be all right. They are
very bitter against the Bank, and Sir Henry, and the regiment, and
the Monsons. I fear they may quarrel with Binston Park[14] also.
Mrs. Burpham was so curious about them; Jane is no better.
_February 4th,_ 19--.--Reuben came home suddenly by the 2.40 with
Mr. Ehrenbreitstein and Lord Tenterworth. He asked me to put Mr.
Ehrenbreitstein in the Blue room and Lord Tenterworth in the Parrot
room opposite the broom and pail place, where Aunt Marjory used
to sleep. I shall have to clear the clothes out of the drawers.
Just before dinner Mr. Bischoffen came in from the station. Reuben
told me he had asked him. I wish he would give me longer notice.
He brought a secretary with him who cannot talk English. I think
he must be a Spaniard--he is so dark. Jane can hardly speak, her
throat is so bad; I told her she might stay in bed to-morrow till
nine.
_February 5th,_ 19--.--Mrs. Burpham is certainly in dreadful
trouble. She tells me Algernon has written from St. Malo saying it
will be all right. It was very foolish and imprudent of him to go
over there just now with all this trouble on with France. If only
he had stayed at home (Mrs. Burpham says) she would not have minded
so much, but she is afraid of his getting killed. It seems they are
so savage at St. Malo.[15] Only the other day an English lady had
a stone thrown in her direction in the street. Mr. Bischoffen’s
secretary is not a Spaniard; I think he is a Pole; his name is
Brahms. There was a difficulty about the asparagus last night. It
seems the Germans do not eat it with their fingers. Reuben said I
ought to have got little silver pincers for it. I remember seeing
them in his father’s house, but papa said they were very vulgar.
_Then_ Reuben used to apologise for them, and say that his people
were old fashioned, which was nonsense, of course. I reminded
Reuben of this, and he said, “Ach! Gott!” and I had to leave the
room. Ali Baba is all right; he took a piece of sugar from my hand;
but when I felt his hock he kicked Jones severely. I fear Jones
is really injured, and I have sent for Dr. Minton and for the
veterinary surgeon.
_February 6th,_ 19--.--Dr. Minton dined here last night before
going to set Jones’ leg, and I gave the veterinary surgeon supper
in the old schoolroom. I am afraid Dr. Minton took too much wine,
for he quarrelled with Mr. Ehrenbreitstein and Mr. Bischoffen
about the danger of war with France. He said they had no right to
speak, and got quite excited. Called again on Mrs. Burpham, and
only appreciated fully to-day in what sad trouble she is. Algernon
has telegraphed from Paris saying it will be all right. Meanwhile
she has certainly quarrelled with Binston Park, and she even spoke
bitterly against the Duke, so that means another family gone--for
the Duke is very proud. I see in the _Standard_ that our Ambassador
has delivered an ultimatum, and that the French are doing all they
can to shirk war. That is what Mr. Bischoffen and Reuben said they
would do, but they must be taught a lesson. Newfoundlands have
fallen, but Reuben says they must rise after the war. I do hope
they will. The dear Bishop called. He says this war is a judgment
on the French. Jane is much better, and can talk quite clearly, and
Ali Baba is almost well. Also it has thawed now completely, and
they can meet on Saturday as usual, so things are looking up all
round.
_February 7th,_ 19--.--Freddie goes to the Isle of Wight with
the Lambtonshire Regiment, and Mrs. Burpham and the Bishop are
both delighted, because it will bring him and Hepworth together.
It would be such a solace to poor Mrs. Burpham if Freddie could
see active service and get promotion; it would help to wipe out
Algernon’s disgrace, for I fear there is now no doubt of it,
though he says it is all right in his last letter, which is from
Marseilles. Letters still come through from France, because our
Ambassador said that if any tricks were played with them he would
hold the French Government personally responsible, and so cowed
them. The Bishop has gone to London with his family.
_February 8th,_ 19--.--The _Standard_ has a large map of the North
of France, where the fighting will be. It is very interesting.
Reuben and his friends have gone up to town again. I saw the
Reserves marching through Molesworth to-day; they are going to
garrison Portsmouth.[16] The afternoon post did not come in. Reuben
said he would telegraph, but I have not got any message. The 12.40
train was an hour late, so I suppose everything is upset by the
war. Maria will have to come home by Bâle, and I do so dread the
passage from Ostend for her; even the hour from Calais to Dover is
more than she can bear. The vicar says that our Government will
force the French to keep the Dover-Calais route open for civilians.
He says it would be against the practice of civilised warfare to
close it, and if that were done we should lay waste the whole
country; but I fear he does not know much about the legal aspect
of the thing: it is his heart, not his head that speaks. It is
dreadful to think what I shall do with Mademoiselle[17] when she
comes home with Maria. One can’t blame her when one thinks that it
is her own country that is going to be harried and her own brothers
brought here as prisoners; but it will be very difficult all the
same. The man who was killed at Bigley races was not a Frenchman
after all: the crowd only thought he was because he had blacked his
face like a negro. It seems that Sir Henry was very hard in court,
and said that the ringleaders were lucky not to be indicted for
manslaughter. It has frozen again, and it is very slippery in the
drive. They are having fireworks or something at Portsmouth, to
judge by the sound. Jones told Jane he thought there was a bonfire
as well, because he could see a glare now and then in the sky from
the window in his room. His leg is setting nicely.
ON REVELATIONS.
ON REVELATIONS.
Revelations, again, as we found to be the case with editing, do not
properly constitute a department of the art of letters. Though they
are of far more importance than any other branch of contemporary
journalism, yet it is impossible to compare their publication to a
creative act of pure literature.
It may be urged that such Revelations as are written in the office
of the newspaper publishing them are not only literature, but
literature of a very high order. They are, on the face of it,
extremely difficult to compose. If they are to have any chance of
deceiving the public, the writer must thoroughly know the world
which he counterfeits; he must be able to copy its literary style,
its air, its errors. It is even sometimes necessary for him to
attempt the exquisitely subtle art of forgery.
The objection is well found; but it is not of this kind of
Revelation that I propose to speak. It belongs to the higher
branches of our art, and is quite unsuited to a little elementary
manual.
The Revelation I speak of here is the ordinary type of private
communication, domestic treason, or accidental discovery, dealing,
as a rule, with public affairs, and brought to the office
spontaneously by servants, colonial adventurers, or ministers of
religion.
Nine Revelations out of ten are of this kind; and the young
journalist who may desire to rise in his great calling must make
himself thoroughly familiar with the whole process by which they
are to be procured and published.
A small amount of additional matter has, indeed, sometimes to be
furnished, but it is almost insignificant, and is, moreover, of so
conventional a nature, that it need not trouble us for a moment.
Some such phrase as “We have received the following communication
from a source upon which we place the firmest reliance,” will do
very well to open with, and at the end: “We shall be interested
to see what reply can be given to the above,” is a very useful
formula. Thus the words “To be continued,” added at the end
are often highly lucrative. They were used by the _Courrier
des Frises_ (a first-class authority on such matters), when it
recently published a number of private letters, written (alas!) in
the English tongue, and concerning the noblest figure in English
politics.
But though there is little to be done in the way of writing, there
is a considerable mental strain involved in judging whether a
particular Revelation will suit the proprietor of the newspaper
upon which one is employed, and one must not unfrequently be
prepared to suffer from exhausting terrors for some weeks after its
publication.
Difficult as is the art of testing Revelation, the rules that
govern it are few and simple. The Revelator, if a domestic servant,
wears a round black bowler hat and a short jacket, and a pair
of very good trousers stolen from his master; he will be clean
shaven. If an adventurer or minister of religion, he will wear a
soft felt hat and carry a large muffler round his throat. Either
sort walk noiselessly, but the first in a firm, and the second in a
shuffling manner. I am far from saying that all who enter newspaper
offices under this appearance bear with them Revelations even of
the mildest kind, but I do say that whenever Revelations come, they
are brought by one of these two kinds of men.
I should add that the Revelator like the moneylender, the spy,
and every other professional man whose livelihood depends upon
efficiency is invariably sober. If any man come to you with a
Revelation and seem even a trifle drunk, dismiss him without
inquiry, though not before you have admonished him upon his shame
and sin, and pointed out the ruin that such indulgence brings upon
all save the wealthy.
When a man arrives who seems at all likely to have a Revelation
in his pocket, and who offers it for sale, remember that you have
but a few moments in which to make up your mind; put him into the
little room next to the sub-editor, take his MS., tell him you will
show it to your chief, and, as you leave him, lock the door softly
on the outside.
The next moment may decide your whole career. You must glance at
the Revelation, and judge in that glance whether the public will
believe it even for two full hours. The whole difference between a
successful and an unsuccessful journalist lies in that power of
sudden vision; nor will experience alone achieve it, it must be
experience touched with something like genius.
Libellous matter you can delete. Matter merely false will not be
remembered against you; but if that rare and subtle character which
convinces the mob be lacking, _that_ is a thing which no one can
supply in the time between the Revelator’s arrival and the paper’s
going to press.
Finally, when you have made your decision, return, unlock, pay, and
dismiss. Never pay by cheque. Remember how short is the time at
your disposal. Remember that if your paper does not print a really
good Revelation when it is offered, some other paper will. Remember
the _Times_, the _Chronicle_, and Major Esterhazy. Remember Mr.
Gladstone’s resignation.
... Remember the “Maine.”
A few practical instances will help us to understand these abstract
rules.
Consider, for instance, the following--one of the wisest acts of
Dr. Caliban’s whole life.
Dr. Caliban was busy writing a leader for the _Sunday Englishman_
upon “Hell or Immortality”; for it was Saturday night, he had just
received the weekly papers, and, as he well said, “A strong Sunday
paper has this advantage, that it can do what it likes with the
weeklies.”
He was, I say in the midst of Hell or Immortality, when he was
interrupted by a note. He opened it, read it, frowned, and passed
it to me, saying:--
“What do you make of this?”
The note ran:--
“I have just been dismissed from the _Spectator_ for sneezing in
an indelicate manner. I have a Revelation to make with regard
to the conduct of that paper. Please see me at once, or it may
be too late. I have with me a letter which the _Spectator_ will
publish next week. It throws a searching light upon the Editor’s
mind, and lays bare all the inner workings of the paper. Price
40_s._”
I told Dr. Caliban, that in my opinion, on the one hand, there
might be something in it; while on the other hand, that there might
not.
Dr. Caliban looked at me thoughtfully and said:
“You think that?”
He touched an electric bell. As this did not ring, he blew down
a tube, and receiving no answer, nor indeed hearing the whistle
at the other end, he sent a messenger, who, by some accident,
failed to return to the editorial office. Dr. Caliban himself went
down and brought up the stranger. He was a young man somewhat
cadaverous. He repeated what he had said in his note, refused to
bargain in any way, received two sovereigns from Dr. Caliban’s own
purse, sighed deeply, and then with a grave face said:
“It feels like treason.”
He pressed his lips hard together, conquered himself, and left us
with the utmost rapidity.
When Dr. Caliban and I were alone together, he opened the sealed
envelope and read these words, written on a little slip of foolscap:
“_The following letter is accepted by the Spectator, and will
be printed next week._” To this slip was pinned a rather dirty
half-sheet of notepaper, and on this was the following letter:
Balcarry Castle,
County Mayo.
Jan. 19th, 1903.
To the Editor of the _Spectator_.
Dear Sir,
Among your humorous Irish stories perhaps the following will be
worthy to find a place. A dear uncle of mine, my father’s half
brother, and the husband of the talented E. J. S., was bishop of
Killibardine, a prelate of great distinction and considerable
humour.
I well remember that somewhere in the summer of 1869, his valet
having occasion to call unexpectedly upon a relative (butler to
the Duke of Kerry), the latter observed “Indade, an’ shure now
an’ is that yourself, Pat, Pat asthor, at all, at all,” to which
the witty fellow answered, with the true Irish twinkle in his
eye, “Was your grandfather a monkey?”
I am very faithfully yours,
THE MACFFIN.
Dr. Caliban was heartily amused by the tale, and told me that he
had met the MacFfin some years ago at Lady Marroway’s.
“Nevertheless,” he added, I don’t think it would be fair to comment
on the little story ... I had imagined that something graver was
toward ...”
He never spoke again of the small outlay he had made, and I
afterwards found that it had been included in the general expenses
of the paper. I have never forgotten the lesson, nor since that
date have I ever accepted MSS. and paid for it without making
myself acquainted to some extent with the subject. A little such
foresight upon that occasion would have convinced us that a letter
of this kind would never have found a place in a review of the
calibre of the _Spectator_.
Contrast with Dr. Caliban’s wise and patriotic conduct upon this
occasion the wickedness and folly of the _Evening German_ in the
matter of the Cabinet Crisis.
For some time the saner papers, which see the Empire as it is, had
been issuing such placards as “He must go,” “Make room for Joseph”
and other terse and definite indications of a new policy.
The _Evening German_ had for several days headed its leading
article, “Why don’t he resign?”
A member of the unscrupulous gang who ever lie in wait for whatever
is innocent and enthusiastic called, just before press, upon the
editor of the _Evening German_, passing himself off as the valet
of the minister whose resignation was demanded. He produced a
small sheet of MSS., and affirmed it to be the exact account of an
interview between the minister and his doctor, which interview the
valet had overheard, “concealed,” as he put it “behind an arras.”
He said it would explain the situation thoroughly. He received no
less than 25 guineas, and departed.
Now let the student read what follows, and ask himself by
what madness a responsible editor came to print a thing so
self-evidently absurd.
WHY HE DOES NOT RESIGN!
We have received upon an unimpeachable authority the verbatim
account of an interview between him and his medical adviser, which
we think thoroughly explains the present deadlock in Imperial
affairs. We are assured upon oath that he was in bed when the
doctor called just before noon yesterday, and that the following
dialogue took place:--
MINISTER (_in bed_)--Good morning, Doctor, I am glad to see you.
What can I do for you?... I mean, I am glad to see you. Pray excuse
the inadvertence of my phrase, it is one that I have lately had to
use not a little.
DOCTOR--Pray let me look at your tongue and feel your pulse. So. We
are getting along nicely. At what hour were you thinking of rising?
MINISTER--At twelve, my usual hour. I see no reason for lying in
bed, Doctor. (_There was a despairing tone in this phrase_). I am
well enough, Doctor, well enough. (_Here he gazed sadly out of
the window into St. James’s Park_). I am a Minister, but I cannot
minister to a mind diseased (_this rather bitterly_). There is
nothing the matter with me.
DOCTOR (_cheerily_)--My dear Mr. ----, do not talk so. You will be
spared many, many useful years, I hope. Indeed, I am sure. There
is, as you say, nothing the matter--nothing organically the matter;
this lassitude and nervous exhaustion from which you suffer is a
distressing, but a common symptom of mental activity. (_Here the
doctor dived into a black bag_). Let me sound the chest.
MINISTER--Will it hurt? (_This was said rather anxiously_).
DOCTOR--Not a bit of it. I only wish to make assurance doubly
sure--as we say in the profession. (_He put the stethoscope to the
chest of the Cabinet Minister_). Now, draw a deep breath ... no,
deeper than that ... a really deep breath.
MINISTER (_gasping_)--I can’t.
DOCTOR--Tut, tut.... Well, it’s all a question of lungs. (_Here he
moved the stethoscope again_). Now sing.
MINISTER--La! La!... La!
DOCTOR--Nothing wrong with the lungs. Only a little feeble perhaps.
Do you take any exercise?
MINISTER (_wearily_)--Oh! yes ... I walk about.... I used to walk
a lot in Ireland.... I’m not like Ch----n; he never takes any
exercise (_bitterly_); but then, he was brought up differently.
(_Sadly_) Oh Doctor! I am so tired!... My back aches.
DOCTOR--Well, Mr. ----, a little rest will do you all the good in
the world. You have the Easter recess in which to take a thorough
rest. Do not lie in bed all day; get up about five and drive to
your club. Whatever you do, don’t write or think, and don’t let
them worry you with callers. (_The Doctor here prepared to leave_).
MINISTER (_hopelessly_)--Doctor ... there is something I want to
ask you.... _Can’t_ I give it up?
DOCTOR (_firmly_)--No, Mr. ----, no. Upon no account. I have told
your uncle and your cousins so fifty times. It is a point upon
which I must be firm. Politics are a necessity to you all. I would
not answer for you if it were not for politics. (_Sympathetically_)
You are none of you strong.
MINISTER (_heaving a deep sigh_)--No. I am not strong.... Alas!...
Chaplin is. But then, Chaplin’s built differently.... I wish you
would let me give it up, Doctor?
DOCTOR (_kindly_)--No, my dear Mr. ----, _No!_ Pray put such
thoughts out of your head. Every man must occupy his brain and
body. Most men discover or choose an occupation, but I have not
been a family doctor for thirty years without distinguishing these
from such rare organisms as yours--and your family’s. The House
of Commons is the saving of you. (_The Doctor here paused, gazed
anxiously at Mr. ----, and said slowly_) Perhaps, though, you take
your work too seriously. It is often so with highly strung men. Do
as little as you can.
MINISTER--I do ... but still it wearies me inexpressibly..
DOCTOR--Not so much as writing a book would, or travel, or country
walks.
MINISTER (_shaking his head_)--I never felt so tired after “It
May be True,” nor even after “I Greatly Doubt It,” as I do now
(_smiling a little_). They sold well.
DOCTOR--And why? Because you were engaged in politics. Believe me,
dear Mr. ----, without that one regular employment you would do
little or nothing. It is the balance-wheel that regulates your
whole system. Change the rules, and, if you will, limit debate to a
minimum, but do not think of giving up the one thing that keeps up
your circulation. More men die from inanition than I care to tell
you.
MINISTER--Very well, Doctor ... (_weakly and quietly_) it is nearly
one; I must sleep ... Good-bye.
_The Doctor here went out on tip-toe. The Minister slept. There was
a great silence._
* * * * *
The _Evening German_ suffered severely, and would have been ruined
but for the prompt action of the Frankfort House; and the whole
incident shows as clearly as possible what perils surround the most
tempting, but the most speculative, sort of journalistic enterprise.
The student may tell me--and justly--that I have offered him none
but negative examples. I will complete his instruction by printing
one of the best chosen Revelations I know.
At the time when a number of letters addressed to Mr. Kruger by
various public men were captured, and very rightly published, a
certain number were, for reasons of State, suppressed. To Dr.
Caliban, reasons of State were no reasons; he held that no servant
of the people had a right to keep the people in ignorance.
Within a week, a detective in his employ had brought a little
sheaf of documents, which, judged by internal evidence alone, were
plainly genuine.
They were printed at once. They have never since been challenged.
I.
497, Jubilee Row,
B’ham,
19.7.’99.
Dear Sir.--We must respectfully press for the payment of our
account. The terms upon which the ammunition was furnished were
strictly cash, and, as you will see by the terms of our letter
of the 15th last, we cannot tolerate any further delay. If we
do not hear from you relative to same by next mail, we shall be
compelled to put the matter into the hands of our solicitors.
Yours, &c.,
JOHN STANDFAST,
Pro Karl Biffenheimer and Co.
II.
Yacht _Fleur de Lys_.
Prince ne Daigne.
Palerme,
Sicile.
Ci, la feste de l’Assomption de la T.S.V.
(Vieux Style)
L’an de N.S.J.C. MCM.
(1900).
Monsieur Mon Frère.--Nous vous envoyons nos remerciemens pour
vos souhaits et vous assurons de la parfaicte amictié qui liera
toujours nos couronnes alliées. Faictes. Continuez.
Agréez, Monsieur Mon Frère, l’assurance de notre consideration
Royale la plus distinguée.
ORLÉANS,
pour le Roy,
_Chétif_.
Vu, pour copie conforme,
_Le Seneschal_, BRU.
III.
Offices of the _Siècle_,
Paris,
Chef-lieu of the
department of the Seine,
France.
6, Thermidor, 108.
My good Kruger.--It is evidently necessary that I should speak
out to you in plain English. I can’t go into a long dissertation,
but if you will read the books I send herewith, _The Origin of
Species_, Spencer’s _Sociology_, Grant Allen’s _Evolution of the
Idea of God_, &c., you will see why I can’t back you up. As for
your contemptible offer, I cast it back at you with disdain.
My name alone should have protected me from such insults. I
would have you know that my paper represents French opinion in
England, and is now owned by an international company. I am the
irremovable editor.
Yours with reserve,
YVES GUYOT.
P.S.--I have been a Cabinet Minister. I send you a circular of
our new company. It is a good thing. Push it along.
IV.
The Chaplaincy,
Barford College,
Old St. Winifred’s Day,
1900.
My dear Mr. Kruger.--Your position is at once interesting and
peculiar, and deserves, as you say, my fullest attention. On the
one hand (as you well remark) you believe you have a right to
your independence, and that our Government has no moral right
to interfere in your domestic affairs. You speak warmly of Mr.
Chamberlain and describe him as lacking in common morality
or (as we put it) in breeding. I think you are hardly fair.
Mr. Chamberlain has his own morality, and in that summing
up of all ethics which we in England call “manners,” he is
indistinguishable from other gentlemen of our class. He has had
a great deal to bear and he has latterly borne it in silence. It
is hardly the part of a generous foe to taunt him now. I fear you
look upon these matters a little narrowly and tend to accept one
aspect as the absolute. The truth is that international morality
must always be largely Utilitarian, and in a very interesting
little book by Beeker it is even doubted whether what we call
“ethics” have any independent existence. This new attitude (which
we call “moral anarchism”) has lately cast a great hold upon our
younger men and is full of interesting possibilities. If you
meet Milner you should discuss the point with him. I assure you
this school is rapidly ousting the old “comparative-positive”
in which he and Curzon were trained. There is a great deal of
self-realization going on also. Lord Mestenvaux (whom you have
doubtless met--he was a director of the Johannesberg Alcohol
Concession) is of my opinion.
Believe me, my dear Mr. Kruger, with the fullest and warmest
sympathy for such of your grievances as may be legitimate, and
with the ardent prayer that the result of this deplorable quarrel
may turn out to be the best for _both_ parties,
Your affectionate Friend of old days,
JOSHIA LAMBKIN, M.A.,
Fellow and Chaplain.
V.
(Telegram.)
Send orders payable Amsterdam immediate, Liberal party clamouring
... (name illegible) risen to ten thousand, market firm and
rising. Waste no money on comic paper. Not Read.
(Unsigned.)
Finally this damning piece of evidence must close the terrible
series.
VI.
To the Rev. Ebenezer Biggs, Capetown.
The House of Commons,
April 10th, 1899.
My dear Sir.--You put me in a very difficult position, for,
on the one hand, I cannot, and would not, work against the
interests of my country, and, on the other hand, I am convinced
that Mr. Chamberlain is determined to plunge that country into
the war spoken of by John in Revelations ix. Anything I can
do for peace I will, but for some reason or other the _Times_
will not insert my letters, though I write to them twice and
sometimes thrice in one day. Sir Alfred Milner was once very rude
to me. He is a weak man morally, mainly intent upon “getting
on;” he has agreed since his youth with every single person of
influence (except myself) whom he happened to come across, and
is universally liked. I fear that no one’s private influence
can do much. The London Press has been bought in a lump by two
financiers. Perhaps a little waiting is the best thing. There is
sure to be a reaction, and after all, Mr. Chamberlain is a man of
a very low order. His mind, I take it, is not unlike his face.
He thinks very little and very clearly ... I have really nothing
more to say.
Always your sincere friend,
EDWARD BAYTON.
No one knew better than Dr. Caliban that a Revelation is but
weakened by comment. But the war was at its height, and he could
not read without disgust such words, written in such a place by
such a man.
He added the note:
“We understand that the law officers of the Crown are debating
whether or no the concluding sentences of this disgraceful letter
can be made to come within 26 Edward III., cap. 37, defining high
treason. It is certainly not a physical attack upon the Person,
Consort, or offspring of the Crown, nor is it (strictly speaking)
giving aid to the Queen’s enemies. On the other hand, it is
devoutly hoped that the attack on Mr. Chamberlain can be made to
fall under 32 Henry VIII., 1, whereby it is felony to strike or
‘provoke’ the King’s servants within the precincts of the Palace.
The infamous screed was certainly written in a palace, and Mr.
Chamberlain is as certainly a servant of the Queen. He certainly
was provoked--nay nettled. The latter clauses of the act,
condemning those who attack the doctrine of Transubstantiation
to be roasted alive, have, of course, fallen into desuetude. The
earlier, milder, and more general clauses stand, and _should be
enforced_.”
Let me not be misunderstood. I think it was an error to pen that
comment. Strong expressions, used in a time of high party feeling,
may look exaggerated when they survive into quieter times. But if
it was an error, it was the only error that can be laid to the
charge of a just and great man in the whole course of forty years,
during which period he occasionally edited as many as five journals
at a time.
SPECIAL PROSE.
SPECIAL PROSE.
Mrs. Caliban begged me to add a few words on “Special Prose,”
and to subjoin an example of that manner. She has suggested for
the latter purpose Mrs. Railston’s “Appreciation of William
Shakespeare,” written as a preface for the Charing Cross
Shakespeare in 1897. She has even been at the pains of asking Mrs.
Railston’s leave to have it included in this volume, a permission
that was at once granted, accompanied with the courteous request
that Mrs. Railston’s name, address, and private advertisement
should accompany the same.
Were I dependent upon my own judgment alone, the wisdom of
adding such a division at the close of these essays might seem
doubtful. Special Prose is an advanced kind of literature, too
great an attraction to which might at first confuse rather than
aid the student; and I should hardly make a place for it in a
straightforward little Text-book.
Mrs. Caliban’s wishes in all matters concerning this work must be
observed, and I have done what she desired me, even to the degree
of printing Mrs. Railston’s advertisement, though I am certain that
great Authoress does herself harm by this kind of insistence ... It
is no business of mine....
It is only fair to add that prose of this sort _is_ the highest
form of our Art, and should be the ultimate goal of every reader
of this Guide. If, however, the student is bewildered in his first
attempt to decipher it (as he very well may be), my advice to him
is this: let him mark the point to which he has persevered, and
then put the whole thing aside until he has had some little further
practice in English letters. Then let him return, fresh from other
work, some weeks later, and see if he cannot penetrate still
further into the close-knit texture. Soon he will find it almost
like his own tongue, and will begin to love and to understand.
Not many months will pass before it will mean to him something more
than life, as he once imagined, could contain.
Having said so much, let me hasten to obey Mrs. Caliban’s command.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
_An Appreciation._
BY MARGARET RAILSTON.
How very manifestly well did not Montaigne (I think it was) say in
his essay upon Value that the “inner part of Poesy is whilom hid,
whilom bare, and it matters little whether it be bare or hidden.”
That was a sentence such as our Wordsworth might have quoted at
the high court of Plato when the poets were arraigned as unworthy
to be rooted in his Republic. For the most part these dear poets
of our tongue will rather have it bare than hidden, leaving the
subtleties of “The Misanthrope” to another race, and themselves
preferring the straight verbal stab of “The Idiot Boy” or “Danny
Deever;” so that many of us see nothing in the Rhymed Heroics of
the Grand Siècle. Yet Molière also had genius.
“Molière a du génie et Christian été beau.”
That sentence given nasally by a Coquelin to a theatre-full
of People of the Middle-Class should convince also us of the
Hither-North that flowers may blow in any season and be as various
as multiplicity may.
William Shakespeare, without all question and beyond any repining,
is--or rather was--the first of our Poets, and was--or rather
is--the first to-day. So that, with him for a well and the
Jacobean Bible for a further spring of effort, our English Poets
make up (“build” Milton called it) the sounding line. But William
Shakespeare also is of us: he will have it on the surface or not at
all; as a man hastening to beauty, too eager to delve by the way.
And with it all how he succeeds! What grace and what appreciation
in epithet, what subtle and sub-conscious effects of verb! What
resonant and yet elusive diction! It is true Shakespeare, that
line--
“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.”
And that other--
“Or stoops with the Remover to remove.”
And these are true Shakespeare because in each there is we know
not what of ivory shod with steel. A mixture of the light and the
strong, of the subtle and the intense rescues his simple words from
oblivion. But another, not of our blood, would have hidden far
more; he shows it all, frankly disdaining artifice.
Also the great Elizabethan needs room for his giant limbs, for
his frame of thought and his thews of diction. Cite him just too
shortly, choose but a hair’s breadth too mickle an ensample of his
work, and it is hardly Poesy, nay, hardly Prose. Thus you shall
have Othello--the Moor they call him--betrayed and raging, full of
an African Anger. What does he say of it? Why very much; but if you
are of those that cut out their cameos too finely; you slip into
quoting this merely:--
_Oth._ Hum! Hum!
And that is not our Shakespeare at all, nor e’en our Othello. Oh!
no, it is nothing but a brutish noise, meaning nothing, empty of
tragedy, unwished for.
It was Professor Goodle who said that “none needed the spaces of
repose more than Shakespeare,” and taught us in these words that
the poet must have hills and valleys; must recline if he is to
rise. But does not Shakespeare, even in his repose, seem to create?
The Professor will indeed quote to us the mere sprawling leisure of
Stratford, and shame us with such lines as--
MAC.--The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon,
Where got’st thou that goose look?
Which is Shakespeare at full length. But we also, that are not over
sure of Shakespeare’s failing, can answer him with such excerpts as
these:--
HEN.--Therefore do thou, stiff-set Northumberland,
Retire to Chester, and my cousin here,
The noble Bedford, his to Glo’ster straight
And give our Royal ordinance and word
That in this fit and strife of empery
No loss shall stand account. To this compulsion
I pledge my sword, my person and my honour
On the Great Seal of England: so farewell.
Swift to your charges: nought was ever done
Unless at some time it were first begun.
This also is Shakespeare in his repose, but a better Shakespeare
than he whom the Professor would challenge. For though there is
here no work or strain in the thing, yet it reeks of English. It
is like the mist over our valleys at evening, so effortless is it
and so reposeful, and yet so native. Note the climax “On the Great
Seal of England” and the quaint, characteristic folk-lore of the
concluding couplet, with its rhyming effect. Note also how sparing
is William Shakespeare of the strong qualificative, however just
it may be. For when our moderns will speak hardly of “the tolerant
kine” or “the under-lit sky,” or of “the creeping river like a
worm upturned, with silver belly stiffened in the grass,” though
they be by all this infinitely stronger, yet are they but the more
condensed and self-belittled. Shakespeare will write you ten lines
and have in all but one just and sharp adjective--“stiff-set;” for
the rest they are a common highway; he cares not.
And here he is in the by-paths; a meadow of Poesy. I have found
it hidden away in one of the latter plays; the flowers of his
decline:--
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Now thine earthly task is done,
Thou’rt gone home and ta’en thy wages.
Golden lads and lasses must,
Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”
There is in that a line I swear no one but Shakespeare would have
dared. “Thou’rt gone home and ta’en thy wages.” Commonplace? A text
on the wall? A sermon-tag? All you will, but a _frame for glory_.
This then is William Shakespeare in a last word. A man at work full
of doing; the Ϝ ἔργον: glad if you saw the mark of the chisel;
still more glad if you did not see it. And if it be queried why
are such things written of him? Why do we of the last and woful
days turn and return the matter of our past? We say this. _Vixere
Fortes_; that is, no fame were enduring save by continued iterance
and echo of similar praise, nor any life well earned in the public
sheets that dared not touch on any matter and remodel all. It is
for ourselves and for William Shakespeare that these things are
done. For ourselves, that is a private thing to hide under the veil
of the Home-lofe. For William Shakespeare, that is the public duty,
that his fame may not fail in the noise of new voices. And we can
borrow from him and return to him what he said of another with such
distinction of plane and delicate observance of value:--
“So long as men shall breathe and eyes can see,
This lives, and living, this gives life to thee.”
[_Notices in this manner can be furnished at reasonable notice
upon any poet, preferably a young or a modern poet, on the usual
terms. The style is produced in seven distinct sizes, of which
this is No. 3. Please state No. when ordering. All envelopes to
be addressed._
Mrs. MARGARET RAILSTON,
c/o Charlie Bernberg,
48, Upper Gannimore Gardens,
Shepherd’s Bush, W.
_All envelopes to be marked “Appreciation.” Accounts monthly. All
cheques to be crossed “Becker, Becker, & Bernberg.”_]
APPENDIX
PRICES CURRENT.
In all ordinary lines Prices were well maintained and rising
at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. They rose sharply
thenceforward till the second week of the war in South Africa,
since which date they have been sagging, touching bed rock in the
spring of this year (March, 1903). There has been a slight reaction
since the beginning of the season, but it is not supported, and the
market is still extremely dull. Patriotic Poems have fallen out
of sight, and Criticism is going begging: in some offices books
are no longer given to their reviewers: sub-editors have latterly
been asked to bring their own suppers. The pinch is being felt
everywhere. Police reports are on piece-work and the Religious
Column is shut down to half shifts. Leader writers have broken
from 1100 a year to 300. Editors have suffered an all-round cut
in wages of 25 per cent. Publishers’ carrying-over days are more
anxious than ever. Several first-class houses were hammered on
the last contango, and the Banks are calling in loans. Private
capital can hardly be obtained save for day-to-day transactions,
and even so at very high rates of interest. The only lines that are
well maintained are City Articles and Special Prose. Snippets are
steady.
The following list is taken from Hunter’s Handbook, and represents
Prices at the close of May:--
PROSE.
(_Prices in shillings per thousand words_).
RISE OR FALL.
Special Prose 30/- 35/- Unchanged.
Street Accidents 10/- 12/- - 5/-
Reviews 7/6 10/- - 20/-
Police Court Notices 15/- 18/- - 5/-
Guaranteed Libels 25/- 30/- - 3/-
Unguaranteed ditto 5/- 7/- + 2/-
Deferred ditto 14/- 16/- + 4/-
Pompous Leaders 8/- 10/- - 25/-!
Smart Leaders 9/- 11/6 + 3/-
Ten-line Leaderettes 10/- 12/- Unchanged.
Political Appeals 15/- 17/- - 30/-
Attacks on Foreign Nations 3/- 3/6 - 48/-!!
Dramatic Criticism 20/- 25/- Unchanged.
Historical Work -- 6d.? (Practically
no demand).
Religious Notes 12/- 18/- - 8/-
Attacks upon Christianity 4/- 4/6 - 5/- (A
very heavy fall for this
kind of matter).
VERSE.
(_Prices in pence per line_).
Bad Verse No price can be given--very variable.
Good minor Verse. 3d. (much the same as last year).
Special Verse 1/- (a heavy fall).
READY RECKONER.
_This Table does not profess any minute accuracy; it will, however,
be found amply sufficient for all practical purposes._
PENCE SHILLINGS PER SHILLINGS PER POUNDS PER
PER LINE. LONG COLUMN. SHORT COLUMN. THOUSAND
Pica. Minion.[18] Pica. Minion.[18] WORDS.
Bourgeois. Bourgeois.
¼_d._ 3/9 4/3 5/- 3/- 3/9 4/6 £0·16378.[19]
½_d._ 7/6 8/6 10/- 6/- 7/6 9/- £0·32757.
¾_d._ 11/3 12/9 15/- 9/- 11/3 13/6 £0·49135.
1_d._[20] 15/- 17/- 20/- 12/- 15/- 18/- £0·65514.
1½_d._ 22/6 25/6 30/- 18/- 22/6 27/- £0·98270.[21]
2_d._[22] 30/- 34/- 40/- 24/- 30/- 36/- £1·31028.
2½_d._ 37/6 42/6 50/- 30/- 37/6 45/- £1·63705.
No prices superior to this last for Prose.
Verse up to 1/- a line. See preceding page, not reckoned in cols.
or 1000 words.
(The Sections dealing with “THE DETECTION OF CLASSICAL AUTHORS” and
“THE VIVID PRESENTATION OF HISTORY,” have been omitted by request
of the Family. It is perhaps as well.)
NOTE ON TITLES.
The young journalist will never make an error as to the title of an
individual, and his proper style and address, if he will but learn
to trust the books of reference provided by the office.
They are far more accurate than other works of the kind.[23]
Contrast, for instance, Bowley’s _Peerage and Baronetage_ with
Bowley’s _Register of Events during the past year_.
What may be called “derivative titles” differ in the most
complicated manner according to the rank of the parent. It would be
quite impossible for the journalist to attempt to learn them. He
had far better write plain “Lord” and “Lady” where he has occasion
to, and on all other occasions whatsoever, “Mr.” or, if he prefer
the term, “Esquire.” In conversation no Lord should be addressed
as “My Lord,” but a Bishop should always be so addressed; no Duke
should be called “Your Grace” to his face, but it is courteous to
bestow this honour upon an Archbishop. It is still more important
to avoid the term “milady” in speaking to the consorts of the
above named, especially in the case of bishops’ wives, to whom the
title does not apply. Baronets, on the other hand, must always be
addressed as “Sir,” followed by a Christian name. The omission to
do this has led to grievous trouble. The principal English titles
are, Prince, Duke, Marquis, Marquess (a more recent creation),
Earl, Baron; then comes a division; then Irish Peers, Baronets,
Knights, and finally Members of the Victorian Order.
The principal foreign titles are Count, Viscount (which by the way
is also an English title, but I forgot it), Vidame, Chevalier,
Excellency, Graf, Furst, Margrave, Baron, Boyar, Monsignor, and
Grandee--the latter used only in Spain, Ceuta, and the other
Spanish dominions beyond the seas.
Imperial titles are:--the Maharajah, the Maharanee, the Akon of
Swat, the Meresala of Baghirmi, the Oyo of Oya, the Allemami
of Foutazallam, the Ameer, the Emir, the Bally-o-Gum of
Abe-o-Kuta,[24] and others too numerous to mention. All these
should, in general, be addressed as Your Highness.
Colonials are called “The Honourable.”
NOTE ON STYLE.
One does well to have by one a few jottings that will enable one
to add to one’s compositions what one calls style in case it is
demanded of one by an editor.
I would not insist too much upon the point; it is simple enough,
and the necessity of which I speak does not often crop up. But
editors differ very much among themselves, and every now and then
one gets a manuscript returned with the note, “please improve
style,” in blue pencil, on the margin. If one had no idea as to the
meaning of this a good deal of time might be wasted, so I will add
here what are considered to be the five principal canons of style
or good English.
The first canon, of course, is that style should have
_Distinction_. Distinction is a quality much easier to
attain than it looks. It consists, on the face of it, in the
selection of peculiar words and their arrangement in an odd and
perplexing order, and the objection is commonly raised that such
irregularities cannot be rapidly acquired. Thus the Chaplain of
Barford, preaching upon style last Holy Week, remarked “there is a
natural tendency in stating some useless and empty thing to express
oneself in a common or vulgar manner.” That is quite true, but it
is a tendency which can easily be corrected, and I think that that
sentence I have just quoted throws a flood of light on the reverend
gentleman’s own deficiencies.
Of course no writer is expected to write or even to speak in this
astonishing fashion, but what is easier than to go over one’s work
and strike out ordinary words? There should be no hesitation as
to what to put in their place. Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic
and Provincial Words” will give one all the material one may
require. Thus “lettick” is charming Rutlandshire for “decayed”
or “putrescent,” and “swinking” is a very good alternative for
“working.” It is found in Piers Plowman.
It is very easy to draw up a list of such unusual words, each
corresponding with some ordinary one, and to pin it up where it
will meet your eye. In all this matter prose follows very much the
same rules as were discovered and laid down for verse on page 86.
The second canon of style is that it should be _obscure_,
universally and without exception. The disturbance of the natural
order of words to which I have just alluded is a great aid, but it
is not by any means the only way to achieve the result. One should
also on occasion use several negatives one after the other, and
the sly correction of punctuation is very useful. I have known a
fortune to be made by the omission of a full stop, and a comma put
right in between a noun and its adjective was the beginning of
Daniel Witton’s reputation. A foreign word misspelt is also very
useful. Still more useful is some allusion to some unimportant
historical person or event of which your reader cannot possibly
have heard.
As to the practice, which has recently grown up, of writing
only when one is drunk, or of introducing plain lies into every
sentence, they are quite unworthy of the stylist properly so
called, and can never permanently add to one’s reputation.
The third canon of style is the _occasional omission_ of a verb or
of the predicate. Nothing is more agreeably surprising, and nothing
more effective. I have known an honest retired major-general, while
reading a novel in his club, to stop puzzling at one place for an
hour or more in his bewilderment at this delightful trick, and for
years after he would exclaim with admiration at the style of the
writer.
The fourth canon of style is _to use metaphors_ of a striking,
violent, and wholly novel kind, in the place of plain statement:
as, to say “the classics were grafted on the standing stirp of
his mind rather than planted in its soil,” which means that the
man had precious little Greek, or again, “we propose to canalize,
not to dam the current of Afghan development,” which means that
the commander of our forces in India strongly refused to campaign
beyond the Khyber.
This method, which is invaluable for the purpose of flattering the
rich, is very much used among the clergy, and had its origin in our
great Universities, where it is employed to conceal ignorance, and
to impart tone and vigour to the tedium of academic society. The
late Bishop of Barchester was a past master of this manner, and
so was Diggin, the war correspondent, who first talked of a gun
“coughing” at one, and was sent home by Lord Kitchener for lying.
The fifth canon of style is, that when you are bored with writing
and do not know what to say next, you should hint at unutterable
depths of idea by the introduction of a row of asterisks.
* * * * *
THE ODE.
The writing of Odes seems to have passed so completely out of our
literary life, that I thought it inadvisable to incorporate any
remarks upon it with the standing part of my book, but I cannot
refrain from saying a few words upon it in the Appendix, since I
am convinced that it is destined to play a great part in the near
future.
I will take for my example the well-known Ode (almost the only
successful modern example of this form of composition) which was
sung on the beach at Calshott Castle, by a selected choir, on the
return of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain from South Africa; and I will use
some passages from it in order to emphasize the leading principle
that _the Ode depends for its effectiveness almost entirely upon
the music accompanying it_.
Thus, Mr. Daniel Witton’s opening lines:
“What stranger barque from what imperial shores
The angry Solent dares to what mysterious goal?”
would seem tame enough were it not for the wonderful rising of the
notes, which accompany them; and the famous outburst:
“She to Southampton steers!”
is equally dependent upon the crash of music and the combined
voices of the whole choir. It is difficult for us, who have heard
it rendered in the Albert Hall, to appreciate what the words would
be without this adventitious aid. Even the lovely single line,
“Lift up your head, Southampton, dry your honourable tears,”
would be less without the delicate soprano floating above its
syllables.
I will admit that the passage on the body-guard of National Scouts
is very fine, but then, precisely in proportion as it is effective
_quâ_ literature, it fails to impress when accompanied by music,
though the author of the score was wise enough to set it to a
somewhat monotonous recitative. If the student will read the lines
slowly to himself, first with, and then without, the notes, he will
see what I mean.
“And who more fit than they
Whose better judgment led them to betray
An aged leader and a failing cause
Because--
Because they found it pay.”
Mr. Daniel Witton did not write that word “because” twice over in
his original manuscript. He put it in twice to please the musician
(whose ignorance of the English tongue was a great handicap
throughout), and, as I at least think, he made an error in so doing.
All that passage where the great politician
“ ... taking off his hat,”
comes into the palace at Pretoria, where
“ ... in awful state alone,
Alone, the scientific Monist sat,
Who guards our realm, extends its narrow bounds,
And to achieve his end,
Is quite prepared to spend
The inconceivably imperial sum of twice three hundred times five
hundred thousand pounds,”
shows the grave difficulty of wedding the verse to the music.
The last line is intolerably clumsy, when read without the air
accompanying it; and the whole illustrates very well my contention
that music should be the chief thing in the composition of an ode,
and that the libretto should be entirely subservient to it.
A still better example is found in the great chorus “Pretoria,”
which begins--
“Pretoria with her hundred towers
Acknowledges his powers,”
and “Johannesburg,” which ends--
“Heil! heil! hoch! heil! du ubermenslich’ wohl-gebornen Graf
von Chamberlein,
While underground,
While underground,
Such rare and scattered Kaffirs as are found
Repeat the happy, happy, happy, happy sound.”
And of course the lyric at the end--
“All in his train de luxe
Reading selected books,
Including Conan Doyle’s ingenious fiction
And popular quota-
Tions, verses by the way
For which he has a curious predilection,
And Mr. Werther’s work
Called ‘England shall not shirk,’
Or ‘The Cape to Cairo, Kairouan and Cadiz,’
And ‘Burke,’ and ‘Who is Who,’
And ‘Men and Women’ too,
And ‘Etiquette for Gentlemen and Ladies,’”
Et cetera, et cetera.
All that lyric depends entirely for its effects upon the little
Venetian air taken from Sullivan, who himself took it from Verdi,
who got it from a Gondolier. The words by themselves have no beauty
whatsoever.
Indeed, I think in the whole Ode there is but one exception to the
rule I have laid down, and that is at the very end, where they sing
of the accomplished task and, in a fine hyperbole, of the “Great
story that shall shake the affrighted years.”
The last five lines are such good music and such good verse that I
cannot dissociate one from the other:--
CHORUS. And now returns he, turns, turns he to his own--
TROMBONE. Ah, maddened with delight,
I welcome him upon the loud trombone.
THE BASS DRUM. I, in more subtle wise,
Upon the big bass drum.
THE TENOR. And I upon the trembling flute, that shrieks and
languishes and dies.
ALL THREE. Welcome, and make a widowed land rejoice:
Welcome, attunéd voice;--
Sweet eyes!
It is a very fine ending, and I congratulate Mr. Daniel Witton upon
it most sincerely....
* * * * *
It reminds one of the Bacchæ.
* * * * *
Should the student desire to attempt something of the kind for
himself, he cannot do better than to invite a musical friend and
compose the ode strictly in conjunction with him; neither should
write separately from the other, and let there be no quarrels or
tantrums, but let each be ready to give way.
I suggest, as a subject for this exercise, a Funeral Ode upon the
same statesman, to be sung when occasion serves.
ON REMAINDERS AND PULPING.
Should the student aspire to collect his journalistic work, or
the less ephemeral part of it, into book form, he will do well to
apply to some old and established firm of publishers, who will
give him a reasonable estimate for its production, plus the cost
of advertising, warehousing, wear and tear, office expenses, etc.,
etc., to which must be added the customary Fee.
The book so issued will be sent to the Press for notice and review,
and will, some weeks later, be either Remaindered or Pulped. It is
important to have a clear idea of these processes which accompany
an author throughout his career.
A book is said to be _Remaindered_ when it is sold to the
secondhand bookseller in bulk; 10 per cent. of the sums so
received, less the cost of cartage to and fro from shop to shop,
and the wages of the Persuader who attempts to sell the volumes,
is then credited to the author in his account, which is usually
pressed upon the completion of the transaction.
The less fortunate must be content with _Pulping_. In the midst
of their chagrin they will be consoled by the thought that their
book enjoys a kind of resurrection, and will reappear beneath some
other, and--who knows?--perhaps some nobler form. The very paper
upon which these words are printed may once have formed part of
a volume of verse, or of Imperialist pamphlets subsidised by the
South African Women’s League.
A book is said to be _Pulped_ when it is sold at so many pence the
thousand copies to the Pulpers[25] for Pulping. The transformation
is effected as follows:--First the covers are thoroughly and
skilfully torn off the edition by girls known as “Scalpers” or
“Skinners,” and the Poems (or whatnot), after going through this
first process, are shot in batches of twenty-four into a trough,
which communicates by an inclined plane with open receptacles
known technically as “bins.” Hence the sheets are taken out by
another batch of hands known as “feeders”--for it is their duty
to “feed” the marvellous machine which is the centre of the whole
works. The Poems (as we may imagine them to be) are next thrown by
the “feeders,” with a certain rapid and practised gesture, into a
funnel-shaped receiver, where they are caught by Six Large Rows of
strong Steel Teeth[26] known as the “Jaws,” which are so arranged
as just barely to miss each other; these work alternatively back
and forth, and reduce the hardest matter to shreds in an incredibly
short time.
The shreds so formed fall on to a wide endless band, which carries
them on into the “bowl,” where they are converted under a continual
stream of boiling water, into a kind of loose paste. Lest any trace
of the original Poetic (or Prose) composition could remain to
trouble the whiteness of the rapidly forming mixture, this water
contains a 30% solution of Sardonic Oxide, two kilogrammes of which
will bleach one thousand kilos of shredded Poems or Essays in from
thirty-five to forty minutes. When the Poems or whatnot have been
finally reduced to a white and formless mass, they are termed
_pulp_ and this pulp is laid out into frames, to be converted once
more into paper, Art, glazed, and medium.
This principle of “the Conservation of Paper” or, as Lord Balton
(Sir Charles Quarry) has himself called it, “the Circulation of
Literature,” is naturally more developed among the Anglo-Saxon
peoples than upon the Continent. The patriotic reader will be
pleased to hear that whereas of existing German books barely 35%
are pulped within the year, of French books not 27%, and of Italian
but 15%; of our total production--which is far larger--no less
than 73% are restored to their original character of useful blank
paper within the year, ready to receive further impressions of
Human Genius and to speed on its accelerated round the progress of
Mankind.
AMEN.
INDEX.
Abingdon, History of, by Lord Charles Gamber, see Pulping, p. 187.
Action, Combination of, with Plot, Powerful Effect of in Modern
Novels, see Pulping, p. 187.
Advertisement, Folly and Waste of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Affection, Immoderate, for our own Work, Cure of, see Pulping, p. 187.
All Souls, College of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Amusements of Printers and Publishers, see Pulping, p. 187.
Art, Literary, Ultimate End of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Astonishment of, Young Poet, see Pulping, p. 187.
Authorship, Vanity of Human, see Pulping, p. 187.
Baronets, Family Histories of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Benjamin Kidd, see Kidd.
Beaune, Wine of, Its Consoling Qualities, see Pulping, p. 187.
Beotius, Decline in Sale of Works of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Bilge, Literature so Termed, see Pulping, p. 187.
Bird, The Honourable, his “Essay on Popery,” see Pulping, p. 187.
Books, see Pulping, p. 187.
Bore, Books that, see Pulping, p. 187.
Boston, Effect of, upon American Culture, see Pulping, p. 187.
Cabs, Necessity of, to Modern Publisher, see Pulping, p. 187.
Cabs to Authors, Unwarrantable Luxury, see Pulping, p. 187.
Call, Divine, to a Literary Career, see Pulping, p. 187.
Curse, Publishers a, see Pulping, p. 187.
Curzon, Lord, his Literary Works, see Pulping, p. 187.
Damn, Expletive, When Used, see Pulping, p. 187.
Damn, Thirteen Qualifications of Same, see Pulping, p. 187.
Daniel in Lion’s Den Compared to a Just Author, see Pulping, p. 187.
Dogs, Reputation Going to the, see Pulping, p. 187.
Dowagers, Novels Written by, see Pulping, p. 187.
Doyle, Conan, see O’Doyle.
Dozen, Trade Term for Thirteen, see Pulping, p. 187.
Dreyfus, Literature upon, see Pulping, p. 187.
Education, Futility of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Eighty Club, see Female Suffrage, also Suffrage.
Elders, see Suzanna.
England, Source and Wealth of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Evil, Origin of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Fame, see Pulping, p. 187.
Fate, see Pulping, p. 187.
Finesse, see Pulping, p. 187.
Finland, Doom of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Francis of Assisi, Saint, Modern Books on, see Pulping, p. 187.
Fuss, Folly of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Genius, Indestructibility of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Hanging, Suicide by, when Caused by Failure, see Pulping, p. 187.
Heaven, Monkish Fables upon, see Pulping, p. 187.
Hell, ditto, see Pulping, p. 187.
Howl, The Sudden, When Excusable, see Pulping, p. 187.
“Huguenot,” pseudonym, his “Influence of Jesuits in Europe,” see
Pulping, p. 187.
India, Lord Curzon’s Views on, see Pulping, p. 187.
Inspiration, Sole Source of Poetry, see Pulping, p. 187.
Jesuits, Their Reply to “Huguenot,” see Pulping, p. 187.
Kidd, Benjamin, Philosophy of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Kruger, Memoirs of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Lamb, Charles, Centenary Edition of, see Pulping, p. 187.
London, Fascination of, see Pulping, p. 187.
“Lunaticus,” his Essays on Foreign Politics, see Pulping, p. 187.
Luzon, “How Old Glory Floats Over” (Putnam & Co., 3 dollars), see
Pulping, p. 187.
“Mamma,” “Darling Old,” Story for Children, by the Countess of K----,
see Pulping, p. 187.
Maché, Papier, see Pulping, p. 187.
Milner, Lord, Proclamations of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Moulds, Modern Books Printed from, see Pulping, p. 187.
“Mucker,” “To Come a,” Publishers’ slang, see Pulping, p. 187.
Name, Real, of “Diplomaticus,” see Pulping, p. 187.
O’Doyle, Conan, Political Works of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Opper, Caricatures of England by, see Pulping, p. 187.
Paper, How Procured, see Pulping, p. 187.
Profits, Half, System of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Pulping, p. 187.
Queen of Roumania, Verses by, see Pulping, p. 187.
Rhodes, Cecil, Numerous Lives of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Rot, Inevitable End of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Rubbish, Common Fate of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Sabatier, see Pulping, p. 187.
Soul, Human, What is the, by James Heading, see Pulping, p. 187.
Suffrage, Female, Arguments For and Against, by Members of the Eighty
Club, see Pulping, p. 187.
Suzanna and the Elders, Sacred Poem, see Pulping, p. 187.
Tax, Bread, Repeal of, see Pulping, p. 187.
_Times_ Newspaper, History of War in South Africa, see Pulping,
p. 187.
_Times_, Obituary Notices of, Reprinted, see Pulping, p. 187.
_Times_, All Republications from, see Pulping, p. 187.
Transvaal, Truth About, by Patrick FitzPatrick, see Pulping, p. 187.
Uganda Railway, Balance-sheet of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Vanitas, Vanitatum, see Vanitatum.
Vanitatum, Vanitas, see Pulping, p. 187.
Vindex, his Great Biography of Cecil Rhodes, see Pulping, p. 187.
W. X. Y. Z., see Pulping, p. 187.
PRINTED BY R. FOLKARD AND SON,
22, DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The governess invariably took her meals with the family.
[2] Miss Bowley, though practically permanently resident in the
family, was still but a guest--a position which she never forgot,
though Dr. Caliban forbad a direct allusion to the fact.
[3] Such as are sold and patented by my friend Mr. Gapethorn, of
362, Fetter Lane.
[4] Petronius.
[5] The Ladies were Mrs. Caliban, Miss Rachel and Miss Alethëia
Caliban, Miss Bowley, Miss Goucher, and Lady Robinson.
[6] “It is enough for me that I am an Englishman.”
[7] This Phrase closes the XXXIVth of Dr. Caliban’s “Subjects for
Sinners.”
[8] I reproduce the title in its original form. I was only too
pleased to know that my work would appear above his signature; nor
do I see anything reprehensible in what is now a recognized custom
among journalists.
[9] Let the student note, by way of warning, and avoid this
officer’s use of ready-made phrases.
[10] Of what?
[11] The student will find a list of Historical Personages to
praise and blame carefully printed in two colours at the end of
Williams’ _Journalist’s History of England_.
[12] The Holts are still Liberal-Unionists.
[13] The pet name of the white pony. The name is taken from the
_Arabian Nights_.
[14] The use of the name of an estate in the place of the name of
its owner or owners is very common with the territorial class in
our countrysides. Thus, people will say, “I have been calling at
the Laurels,” or “I dined with the Monkey Tree”; meaning, “I have
been calling upon Mrs. So-and-So,” or, “I have been dining with Sir
Charles Gibbs.”
[15] A seaport in Britanny.
[16] A large military port and dockyard on the coast of Hampshire.
[17] The generic term among the wealthy for French menials of the
weaker sex.
[18] Always allow minion for extracts and quotations.
[19] The student must be careful in calculations involving the
decimal point to put it in its exact place, neither too much to the
right nor too much to the left.
[20] This may be taken as the _normal price_ paid for Literature;
the other prices must be compared with it as a standard.
[21] Practically one Pound.
[22] No prices beyond this, save on first-class papers--the
_Spectator_, _Daily Mail_, and one or two others.
[23] They are often inaccurate with regard to the past history of
the families mentioned, and very often wrong in the spelling of
the family name; but these details are furnished by the families
themselves, upon whom the responsibility must rest.
[24] I omit the ex-Jumbi of Koto-Koto, a rebellious upstart whom
the Imperial Government has very properly deposed.
[25] Messrs. Ibbotson, of Fetter-lane, and Charlton and Co., of St.
Anne’s, are the best-known Pulpers.
[26] Until Lord Balton (then Sir Charles Quarry) invented this part
of the machine, poems, apologies for Christianity, &c., in fact all
kinds of books, had to be torn laboriously into minute pieces by
hand. It is difficult for us to realise now-a-days what exertion
this involved. We live in an age of machinery!
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote [18] is referenced twice from the table on page 175.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 66: ‘keep if for the’ replaced by ‘keep it for the’.
Pg 79: ‘and I wlll go’ replaced by ‘and I will go’.
Pg 98: ‘an insistance upon’ replaced by ‘an insistence upon’.
Pg 108: ‘were astonied at’ replaced by ‘were astonished at’.
Pg 126: ‘now no no longer’ replaced by ‘now no longer’.
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