path: root/75130-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75130 ***

=Transcriber’s Note:= The chapter numbering in this book is as printed:
there is no Chapter VIII and no Chapter XII.





TEX




[Illustration: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos]




                                   TEX

                          A CHAPTER IN THE LIFE
                                    OF

                       ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

                                    BY
                             STEPHEN McKENNA

                              [Illustration]

                                 NEW YORK
                          DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
                                   1922

                             COPYRIGHT, 1922,
                     BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

                            Printed in U.S.A.

                           VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
                         Binghamton and New York




                                    To
                               ALFRED SUTRO

I dedicate to you this slight tribute to the memory of our friend. You
were the luckier, in knowing him the longer. I shall be more than content
if you find, in reading this book, as I found in reading his letters
again, that he has returned to us even for a moment and that a whim of
his language or an echo of his laughter has recreated the triple alliance
which he founded.




I trust also you may be long without finding out the devil that there
is in a bereavement. After love it is the one great surprise that life
preserves for us. Now I don’t think I can be astonished any more.

                                        ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: _Letters_.




TEX




Alexander Teixeira de Mattos




I


“_A great translator_,” one friend wrote of Teixeira, “_is far more rare
than a great author._”

Judged by the quality and volume of his work, by the range of foreign
languages from which he translated and by the perfection of the English
in which he rendered them, Teixeira was incontestably the greatest
translator of his time. Throughout Great Britain and the United States
his name has long been held in honour by all who have watched, cheering,
as the literature of France and Belgium, of Germany and the Netherlands,
of Denmark and Norway strode along the broad viaduct which his labours
had, in great part, established.

Of the man, apart from his name, little has been made public. His love
of laughing at himself might prompt him to say: “When you write my
_Life and Letters_ ...”; but his modesty and his humour would have been
perturbed in equal measure by the vision of a solemn biography and a
low-voiced press. “I was a little bit underpraised before,” he once
confessed; “I’m being a little bit overpraised now.” Since the best of
himself went impartially into all that he wrote, his conscience could
never be haunted by the recollection of shoddy workmanship, even in the
days before he had a reputation to jeopardize; nor, when he had won
recognition, could his head be turned by the announcement that he had
created a masterpiece. If he enjoyed the consciousness of having filled
the English treasury with the literary spoils of six countries, he
dissembled his enjoyment. In so far as he wished to be remembered at all,
it was not as a man of letters, but as a friend, a connoisseur of life,
a man of sympathy unaging and zest unstaled, a lover of simple jests, a
laughing philosopher. Of their charity, he wished those who loved him to
have masses said for the repose of his soul; he would have been tortured
by the thought that, in life or death, he had brought unhappiness to
any one or that, dead or living, he had prompted any one to discuss him
with pomposity. “Are you not being a little solemn?” was a question that
alternated with the advice: “Cultivate a pococurantist attitude to life.”

“If there had been no _Alice in Wonderland_,” said another friend, “it
would have been necessary for Tex to create her.”

Those who knew the translator of Fabre and Ewald, of Maeterlinck and
Couperus only by his awe-inspiring name must detect in this a hint that
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos had a lighter side to his nature; the
suspicion can best be established or laid by the evidence of his own
letters.

The present volume is an attempt to sketch the man in outline for those
readers who have recognized his talent in scholarship without guessing
his genius for friendship. “The apostles are not all dead,” he wrote,
in criticism of the legends that were growing up around the men of the
nineties; “many of them are your living contemporaries; you could, if you
like, receive at first hand their memories of their dead fellows.” ... It
is the purpose of this sketch to present one ‘apostle’ as he revealed
himself to one of his disciples. A biography and bibliography will be
found in the appropriate works of reference. Only a single chapter has
been attempted here; of those who knew him during the nineties, which
he loved so well and of which he preserved the tradition so faithfully,
perhaps one will write that earlier chapter and describe Teixeira in the
position which he took up on their outskirts. And one better qualified
than the present writer should paint this sphinx of the bridge-table,
with his perversity of declaration and his brilliance of play. “You have
made your contract,” admitted a friend who was partnering him for the
first time; “but ... but ... but _why_ that declaration?” “I wanted to
see your expression,” answered Teixeira with the complacency of a man
who did not greatly mind whether he won or lost, but abominated a dull
game. Those who knew him all his life may feel, with the writer, that the
last half-dozen years constitute, naturally and dramatically, a chapter
by themselves. They are the period of his literary recognition and,
unhappily, of his physical decline; of his emergence from seclusion; of
his first public services and his last private friendships.

By 1914 Teixeira stood in the forefront of English translators; and,
through his labours, translation had won a place in the forefront of
English literature. Almost simultaneously with the outbreak of war,
he was attacked by the heart-affection that ultimately killed him;
and the record of this period is the record of an invalid. Ill-health
notwithstanding, he offered his energy and ability to the country of his
adoption; and, in an emergency war-department largely staffed by men of
letters, the most retiring of them all became enmeshed in the machinery
of government. From his marriage until the war, Teixeira had lived an
almost monastic life, only relaxing his rule of solitary work in favour
of the bridge-table. Once set in the midst of appreciative friends,
this sham recluse found himself entertaining and being entertained,
joining new clubs, indulging his old inscrutable sociability and almost
overcoming his former shyness.

For three-and-a-half out of these last seven years, one of Teixeira’s
colleagues worked with him almost daily at the same table in the same
room of the same department. The rare separations due to leave or illness
were countered by an almost daily correspondence, conducted in the spirit
of an intimate and elaborate game; and, when the work of the department
ended, the letters—sometimes interrupted by a diary or suspended for a
meeting—kept the intimacy unbroken.

So written, they are as personal, as discursive and—to a stranger—as full
of allusion as the long-sustained conversation of two friends. It is to
be hoped that, in their present form, they are at least not obscure; of
these, and of all, letters it must not be forgotten that the writer was
not counting his words for a telegram nor selecting his subjects for
later publication.

From his half of the correspondence—in a life untouched by
drama—Teixeira’s personality may be left to reconstruct itself. Not every
side of his character is revealed, for an interchange conducted primarily
as a game afforded him few opportunities of exhibiting his serene
philosophy and meditative bent. The absence of all calculation from his
mind—a part of his refusal to grow up—may, for want of counter-availing
ballast, be interpreted as flippancy. And, as the man was greater than
the word he wrote and the word he translated, his letters have to be
supplied by imagination with some of the radiance which he shed over
preposterous story and trivial jest. Charm, which is so hard to analyse
in the living, is yet harder to recapture from the dead; but, if the
record of a single friendship can suggest loyalty, courage, generosity
and tenderness, if a whimsical turn of phrase can indicate humour,
patience and an infinite capacity for providing and receiving enjoyment,
Teixeira’s letters will preserve, for those who did not know him, the
fragrance of spirit recognized and remembered by all who did.




II


In the autumn of 1914 a censorship department was improvised in the
office of the National Service League. A press-gang of two, working the
clubs of London and the colleges of Oxford, established the nucleus of
a staff; and the first recruits were given, as their earliest duty, the
task of bringing in more recruits. As the department had been formed to
examine the commercial correspondence of neutrals and enemies, the first
qualification of a candidate was a knowledge of languages; and, in the
preliminary search for recruits, Alfred Sutro convinced the friend who
had succeeded him in translating Maeterlinck that a man who was equally
at home in English, French, German, Flemish, Dutch and Danish, with
a smattering of ecclesiastical Latin, was too valuable to be spared.
Teixeira joined the growing brotherhood of lawyers, dons and business
men in Palace Street, Westminster, advising on intercepted letters and
cables, curtailing the activities of traders in contraband, assimilating
the procedure of a government department and being paid stealthily each
week, like a member of some criminal association, with a furtive bundle
of notes.

It was his first experience of the public service, almost his only taste
of responsibility; and it marked the end of the cloistered life. Though
he brought to his new work a varied knowledge of affairs, Teixeira had
participated but little in them since his marriage in 1900. The friends
of his youth, when he was living in the Temple,—John Gray and Ernest
Dowson, William Wilde (whose widow he married) and William Campbell,—such
acquaintances as Oscar Wilde and Max Beerbohm, Robert Ross and Bernard
Shaw, Leonard Smithers and Frank Harris, were for the most part scattered
or dead; and, though he kept touch with J. T. Grein, Edgar Jepson, Alfred
Sutro and a few more, he seemed at this time, after Campbell’s death, to
lack opportunity and inclination for making new friends.

His gregarious years, and the varied experience which they brought,
belonged to an earlier period. Coming from Amsterdam to London in 1874
at the age of nine, the son of a Dutch father and an English mother,
Teixeira[1] placed himself under instruction with Monsignor Capel and
was received into the Holy Roman Catholic Church. In blood, faith and
nationality, the Dutch Protestant of Portuguese-Jewish extraction had
thus passed through many vicissitudes before he married an Irish wife,
became a British citizen and died a Catholic. Traces of the Jew survived
in his appearance; of the Dutchman in his speech; and his intellectual
and racial mixed ancestry was betrayed by a cosmopolitan outlook.
Ignorant of many prejudices that are the native Briton’s birthright, he
remained ever aloof from the passions of British thought and speech. If
he respected, at least he could not share the conventional enthusiasms
nor associate himself with the conventional judgements of his new
countrymen. He wrote of his neighbours among whom he had lived for
more than forty years, with an unaffected sense of remoteness, as “the
English”; after his naturalization, he was fond of talking, tongue
in cheek, about what “we English” thought and did; but, in the last
analysis, he embodied too many various strains to favour any single
nationality.

After being educated at the Kensington Catholic Public School and at
Beaumont, Teixeira worked for some time in the City and was rescued for
literature by J. T. Grein, who made him secretary of the Independent
Theatre. By his work as a translator and as the London correspondent of a
Dutch paper, he lived precariously until his renderings of Maeterlinck,
whose official translator he became with _The Double Garden_, called
public attention to a new quality of scholarship. Though he flirted with
journalism, as editor of _Dramatic Opinions_ and of _The Candid Friend_,
and with publishing, in connection with Leonard Smithers, translation
was the business of his life until he entered government service. He is
best known for his version of Fabre’s natural history, which he lived
to complete and which he himself regarded as his greatest achievement,
for the later plays and essays of Maeterlinck, for the novels and stories
of Ewald and for the novels of Couperus. These, however, formed only a
part of his output; and his bibliography includes the names of Zola,
Châteaubriand, de Tocqueville, President Kruger, Maurice Leblanc, Madame
Leblanc, Streuvels and many more. One work alone ran to more than a
million words; and he married on a commission to translate what he called
“the longest book in any language”.

The improvised censorship was not long suffered to function unmolested.
The home secretary, learning that his majesty’s mails were being opened
without due authority, warned the unorthodox censors that they were
incurring a heavy fine for each offence and advised them to regularize
their position. Simultaneously, the Customs were thrown into difficulty
and confusion,[2] by the proclamation of the king in council, forbidding
all trade with the enemy: in the absence of records, investigation and an
intelligence department, it was impossible to say whether goods cleared
from London would ultimately reach enemy destination; and the censors who
were watching the cable and wireless operations of Dutch and Scandinavian
importers seemed the natural advisers to approach. At this point the
embryonic department, which had risen from the ashes of the National
Service League, joined with a licensing delegation from the Customs to
form the War Trade Department and Trade Clearing House.

Drifting about Westminster from Palace Street to Central Buildings, from
Central Buildings to Broadway House and from Broadway House to Lake
Buildings, St. James’ Park, the War Trade Intelligence Department, as it
came to be called, was made the advisory body to the Blockade Department
of the Foreign Office, with Lord Robert Cecil as its parliamentary
chief, Sir Henry Penson, of Worcester College, as its chairman, and H.
W. C. Davis, of Balliol, as its deputy-chairman. Teixeira, as the head
of the Intelligence Section, controlled the supply of advice on the
export of “prohibited commodities” to neutral countries; as a member
of the Advisory Board, he came later to share in responsibility for
the department as a whole. Among his colleagues, not already named,
were “Freddie” Browning, the first organizer of the department, O.
R. A. Simpkin, now Public Trustee, H. B. Betterton, now a member of
parliament, Michael Sadleir, the novelist, R. S. Rait, the Scottish
Historiographer-Royal, John Palmer, the dramatic critic, and G. L.
Bickersteth, the translator of Carducci.

When the department came to an end, Teixeira resumed his interrupted task
of translation, which had, indeed, never been wholly abandoned; his daily
programme during the war was to work at home from 5.0 a.m. till 8.0 a.m.
and in his department from 10.0 a.m. till 6.0 p.m. or 7.0 p.m., then to
play bridge for an hour at the Cleveland Club, returning home in time for
a light dinner and an early bed.[3]

Leisure, when at last it came to him, was not to be long enjoyed:
early in 1920, a further break in health compelled him to undertake
a rest-cure, first at Crowborough and then in the Isle of Wight. He
returned to Chelsea in the spring of 1921 and spent the summer and
autumn working in London or staying with friends in the country, to all
appearances better than he had been for some years, though in play and
work alike he had now to walk circumspectly. Towards the end of the year
he went to Cornwall for the winter and collapsed from _angina pectoris_
on 5 December 1921.

In a life of nearly fifty-seven years Teixeira escaped almost everything
that could be considered spectacular. Happy in the devotion of his wife
and the love of his friends, unshaken in the faith which he had embraced
and untroubled by the misgivings and melancholy that assail a temperament
less serene, he faced the world with a manner of gentle understanding
and a philosophy of almost universal toleration. His only child—a
boy—died within a few hours of birth; Teixeira was troubled for years by
ill-health; he was never rich and seldom even assured of a comfortable
income. Nevertheless his temper or faith gave him power to extract more
amusement from his sufferings than most men derive from the plentitude
of health and fortune. Of a malady new even to his experience he writes:
“Is death imminent? Why do I always have the rarer disorders?” He loved
life to the end—the world was always “God’s dear world” to him—; to the
end, he, who had known so many of the world’s waifs, continued forbearing
to all but the censorious. “I was taught very early in life,” he writes,
“to make every allowance for men of any genius, whereas you look for a
public-school attitude towards all and sundry.... You see, if one cared
to take the pains, one could make you detest pretty well everybody you
know and like. For everybody has a mean, petty, shabby, cowardly side to
him; and one had only to tell you of what the man in question chooses to
keep concealed.” ...

“Life,” said Samuel Butler, “is like playing a violin solo in public
and learning the instrument as one goes on.” Those who met Teixeira
only in his later years must have felt that he was born a master of his
instrument; it is not to be imagined that there could ever have been a
time when he was ignorant of the grace, the urbanity, the consideration
and the gusto that mark off the artist in life from his fellows.




III


Though his letters contain scattered references to the principles which
he followed in translation, Teixeira could never be persuaded to publish
his complete and considered theory. His excuse was that he had never
been able to write more than eight hundred words of original matter, a
disability that once threatened him with disaster when he was invited
to lecture on the science and art of bridge to the members of a club
formed for mutual improvement and the pursuit of learning. After being
entertained at a fortifying banquet, Teixeira delivered his eight-hundred
words. As, at the end of the two and three-quarter minutes which his
reading occupied, the audience seemed ready and even anxious for more,
he read his address a second time. Later, he began in the middle; later
still, he ran disgracefully from the hall.

The method which he followed in translation has, therefore, to be
reconstructed from the internal evidence of his books and from personal
experience in collaboration.

“I shall not,” wrote Matthew Arnold in criticizing Newman, “in the least
concern myself with theories of translation as such. But I advise the
translator not to try ‘to rear on the basis of the _Iliad_, a poem that
shall affect our countrymen as the original may be conceived to have
affected its natural hearers’; and for this simple reason, that we cannot
possibly tell _how_ the _Iliad_ ‘affected its natural hearers.’”

The first quality that distinguishes Teixeira from most of the
translators whose work and methods of work have swelled the controversial
literature of translation is that he confined himself to modern authors.
Unacquainted with Greek and little versed in Latin, he was never faced
with the difficulty of having to imagine how an original work affected
its natural hearers. Maeterlinck and Couperus were his personal friends;
Fabre and Ewald, who predeceased him, were older contemporaries; it is
only with de Tocqueville and Châteaubriand that he had to gauge the
intellectual atmosphere of an earlier generation. In judging whether
his English rendering left on the minds of English readers the same
impression as the original had left on its “natural hearers”, he had
a court of appeal always available; and, while the English reader is
“lulled into the illusion that he is reading an original work”, the
foreign author can testify to the fidelity with which his text has been
followed and his spirit reproduced. “What a magnificent translation _The
Tour_ is!” Couperus writes; “what a most charming little book it has
become! I am in raptures over it and have read it and reread it all day
and have had tears in my eyes and have laughed over it. You may think it
silly of me to say all this; but it has become an exquisitely beautiful
work in its English form. My warmest congratulations!”

To achieve this illusion, Teixeira began his literary life with the
most essential quality of a translator: an equal knowledge of the
language that was to be translated and of the language into which he was
translating it. English and Dutch came to him by inheritance; French
and Flemish, German and Danish he added by study; and throughout his
working life he was incessantly sharpening, polishing and adding to
his tools. Limitless reading refreshed a vast vocabulary; meticulous
accuracy refined his meanings and justified his usages. His dictionaries
were annotated freely; and the margins of his manuscripts were filled
with challenges and suggestions for his friends to consider, until his
own exacting fastidiousness had at last been satisfied. Apart from
professional lexicographers, it would have been difficult to find a man
with more words in current use; it would have been almost impossible
to find one who employed them with nicer precision. Learning sat too
lightly on his shoulders to make him vain of it, but no one could hear
or correspond with him without realizing the presence of a purist; he
seldom quoted, mistrusting his memory, confessed himself an amateur
in colloquial dialogue and refused with equal obstinacy to venture on
English metaphors and English field-sports. “I do not know the difference
between a niblick and a foursome,” he would protest. “When you say that
your withers are unwrung, I do not know whether you are boasting or
complaining. What are your withers? Have you any, to begin with? Do you
‘wring’ them or ‘ring’ them? And why can’t you leave them alone?”

Not content with mastering five foreign languages, Teixeira created a
new literary English for every new kind of book that he translated. His
versions of Maeterlinck’s _Blue Bird_, Couperus’ _Old People and The
Things That Pass_, Fabre’s _Hunting Wasps_ and Ewald’s _My Little Boy_
have nothing in common but their exquisite sympathy and scholarship;
four different men might have produced them if four men could be
found with the same taste, knowledge and diligence. Fabre’s ingenuous
air of perpetual discovery demanded the style of a grave, grown-up
child; Maeterlinck’s mystical essays invited a hint of preciosity and
aloofness, to suggest that omniscience was expounding infinity through
symbols older than time; and the atmospheric sixth-sense of Couperus
had to be communicated by a sensitiveness of language that could create
pictures and conjure up intangible clouds of discontent, guilty terror,
suppressed antagonism or universal boredom. In reading the original,
Teixeira seemed to steep himself in the personality of his author until
he could pass, like a repertory actor, from one mood and expression
to another; his own mannerisms are confined to a few easily defended
peculiarities of spelling and punctuation.

For a man who must surely have divined that his calibre was unique,
Teixeira was engagingly free from touchiness. In translating a book, as
in organizing a department, he was magnificently grateful for the word
that had eluded him and for the criticism which he had not foreseen. A
purist in language and a precisian in everything, he realized that a
living style is throttled by too great obedience to rules; but he was
afraid, even in dialogue, of unchaining a wind of colloquialism which
he might be unable to control; and, in constructing the deliberately
artificial speech of his Maeterlinck translations, he recognized that he
lacked his readers’ age-old familiarity with the English of the Bible.
Though his passion for consistency led him to say: “My name ought to
have been Procrus-Tex,” he stretched out both hands for an authority
that would justify him in broadening his rule. “I have always spelt
judgment without an e in the middle,” he declared in 1915, when, with the
gravity that characterized his more trivial decisions, he had abandoned
violet ink, because it seemed frivolous in war-time, and the long s (ſ),
because it bore a Teutonic aspect. “I am too old to change now; and you
know my rule, All or None.” Four years later he announced: “In future
I shall spell ‘judgement’ with an e in the middle. The New English
Dictionary favours it; you assure me that it is so spelt in your English
prayer-book; and Germany has signed the peace terms.”

No comparison with other translators can be attempted until another
arise with Teixeira’s range of languages and his volume of achievement.
He himself could never say, within a dozen, how many books he had
translated; but in them all he created such an illusion of originality
that they are not suspected of being translations until his name is seen.
In a wider view, he undermined the pretensions of those who boasted
that they could never read translations; and, if no one is likely to be
found with all his gifts, he at least prepared the way for a new school
of translators. It may be hoped that, after the battles which he fought,
important foreign authors will not again be sacrificed to illiterate
hacks at five-shillings a thousand words: it may even be expected that
competent scholars will no longer disdain the task of translating
contemporary works. All literary predictions are rash; but there seems
little risk in prophesying that Teixeira’s renderings of Fabre, Couperus
and Maeterlinck will be read as long as the originals.

The tangible fruits of his astonishing industry are only a part of his
achievement: it is to him, in company with Constance Garnett, William
Archer, Aylmer Maude and the other undaunted pioneers, that English
readers owe their escape from the self-satisfied insularity with which
they had protected themselves against continental literature. When
publishers have been convinced that translations need not be unprofitable
and when a conservative public has discovered that they need not be
unreadable, a future generation may be privileged to have prompt access
to every noteworthy book in whatsoever language it has been written,
without waiting as the present generation has had to wait for an English
rendering of Tolstoi, Turgenieff, Dostoieffski and Tchehov.

In conversation Teixeira took little pleasure in discussing himself;
in correspondence he could not help giving himself away. The reader
will deduce, from his slow surrender of intimacy, the shyness that ever
conflicted with his sociability; the absence of all allusions to his
literary work, save when he fancied that a second opinion might help him,
is evidence of a personal modesty that amounted almost to unconsciousness
of his position in letters. Diffidence and sociability, first
conflicting, then joining forces, led him in his departmental work to
discuss every problem with a friend; and in all personal relationships,
he needed an hourly confidant because everything in life was an adventure
to be shared and might be worked in later to the saga with which he
strove to make himself ridiculous for the diversion of his company.
“Thus,” he writes of a childish freak, “do the elderly amuse themselves
for the further amusement of a limited circle.” Weighty commissions were
assembled, daring expeditions set out under his leadership to choose a
dressing-gown for country-house wear; the grey tall-hat with which he
surprised one private view of the Royal Academy was no less of a surprise
to him and even more of an abiding pleasure. For a year or two afterwards
he would telephone on the first of May: “If you will wear your goodish
white topper to-day, I will wear mine”; and once, when these conspicuous
headpieces were in evidence, he led the way to Covent Garden Market, with
the words: “It is not every day that the women of the market see two men
in such hats, such coats and such spats, standing before a fruit-stall
with their canes crooked over their arms and their yellow gloves
protruding from their pockets, consuming the first green figs of the year
in the year’s first sunshine.”

In conversation he once boasted that he was never bored; and, though
every man and woman at the table volunteered the names of at least six
people who would bore him to extinction, the boast was justified in
that, however irksome one moment might be, it could always be invested
afterwards with the glamour of an eccentric adventure. Somewhere,
among his immediate ascendants, there must have been a not too remote
ancestor of Peter Pan. On his fifty-sixth birthday, Teixeira was having
a party arranged for him, with a cake and fifty-six tiny candles; for
days beforehand he had been asking for presents of any kind, to impress
the other visitors in his hotel; and, if he knew one joy greater than
receiving presents, it was finding an excuse to give them.

With the heart of a child in all things, he had the child’s quality of
being frightened by small pains and undaunted by great; a cut finger was
an occasion for panic, but the threat of blindness found him indomitable.
Herein he was supported throughout life by the faith which he had
acquired in boyhood and which he preserved until his death. “I save my
temper,” he once wrote, “by not discussing religion except with Catholics
or politics except with liberals. There’s room for discussion in the
_nuances_; there’s too much room for it with those who call my black
white.” ... While it was generally known among his friends that he was
a devout Catholic, only a few were allowed to see how much reliance he
placed in religion; and he would grow impatient with what he considered a
morbid protestant passion for worrying at something that for him had been
immutably settled.

In political debates he would only join at the prompting of extreme
sympathy or extreme exasperation. His native feeling for the Boers in
the Transvaal was little shared in England during the South African
war; and his loathing for English misrule in Ireland was too strong to
be ventilated acceptably among the people whom he met most commonly in
London. His connection with the Legitimist cause came to an end with the
outbreak of war: though he had hitherto delighted in penetrating between
the sentries at St. James’ Palace and placarding the wall with an appeal
to all loyal subjects of the rightful king, he was unable to continue
his allegiance when Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria became an enemy alien.

Legitimacy and Catholicism, apart from other claims on his regard,
gratified a love for ceremonial and tradition that would have been more
incongruous in a liberal if Teixeira’s whole equipment of beliefs,
practices and preferences had not been a collection of incongruities.
Though he detested militarism, he could never understand why the English
civilians omitted to uncover to the colours; hating pomposity, he enjoyed
the grand manner in address and, on being greeted by a peer as “my dear
sir,” replied “my dear lord” in a formula beloved by Disraeli. As a
relief to an accuracy of expression which he himself called Procrustean
and pernickety, he would transform any word that he thought would look
or sound more engaging for a little mutilation. It was a bad day for the
English of his letters when he read Heine and entered into competition
for the most torturing play upon words; his case became hopeless when
he was introduced to a couple of friends who could pun with him in
four or five languages. It was this bent of mind that may justify the
description of him[4] as the son of Edward Lear and the grandson of
Charles Lamb.

Underlying the whimsical humour of his letters and peeping through the
mock solemnity of his speech was a young child’s concern for the welfare
of his friends: himself never growing up, he never outgrew his generous
delight in any success that came to them; their ill-health and sorrow
were harder to bear than his own; and he shewed a child’s impulsive
generosity in offering all he had in comfort. Sympathy, help, experience
and advice were at hand for whosoever would take them: he had too long
lived precariously to forget the tragedy of those who failed and failed
again; he knew life too well to grow impatient with those who failed
through no one’s fault but their own.

Love of life, enduring to the end, knowledge of life, increasing every
day, combined to join this heart of a child to the experience of an
old man. As a connoisseur of food and wine, as of style and manner, he
belonged to a generation that ranked life as the greatest of the fine
arts. To lunch with him was to receive a liberal education in gastronomy,
though his course of personal instruction sometimes broke down for lack
of material: from time to time he would announce with jubilation that
he had discovered some rare vintage in some unknown restaurant; a party
would be organized to sample it, only to be informed that the last bottle
had been consumed by Mr. Teixeira the day before.

As an explorer, he remained, to his last hour, at the age when a
boy lingers rapturously before one shop after another, enjoying all
impartially, sharing his enjoyment with every passer-by, confident that
life is an unending vista of glittering shop-windows and that the day
must somehow be long enough for him to take them all in.




IV


Max Beerbohm’s caricature of Teixeira, discovered later—to the subject’s
delight—in the waiting-room of an eminent gynaecologist, emphasizes
the most strongly marked natural and acquired characteristics of his
appearance: a big nose and a liking for the fantastic in dress. There is
hardly space, in the drawing, even for the tiny hat of the music-hall
comedian, so devastating is the sweep of that nose, outward from the
lips, up and round, annihilating forehead and cranium until it merges
in the nape of the neck. Of the dress no more need be said than that it
looks like a valiant attempt to live up to the nose.

As this caricature has not been published in any collection of Max
Beerbohm’s drawings, it was probably unknown to most of those who were
brought into the Intelligence Section of the War Trade Intelligence
Department, there to be introduced to its head, to receive the handshake
and bow of a courtier and to wonder how Tenniel could have drawn the
old sheep in _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_ without Teixeira as a
model. Tall and broad-shouldered, with thick black hair and a white face,
tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, and a cigarette in a holder, taciturn,
impassive and unsmiling, Teixeira never failed to conceal that he was
more shy than his visitor. With articulation as beautifully clear as
his writing and in words not less exquisitely chosen than the language
of his books, he would introduce the newcomer to those with whom he was
to work. Messengers would be despatched to bring an additional chair
and table. In the resultant confusion, the immense, silent figure would
walk away with a heavy tread, to find that a pile of papers, two feet
high, had risen like an Indian mango where there had been but six inches
a moment before. A voice of authority, rolling its r’s like the rumble
of distant artillery, would telephone for more messengers; in time the
pile would dwindle until the spectacles and then the nose and then the
cigarette-holder were visible. In time, too, the newcomer recovered from
his fright and set about learning the business of the department.

It was a pleasant surprise to hear “this Olympian creature”, as Stevenson
called Prince Florizel, addressed by Sutro as “Tex”; and, although the
first terror was disabling, even the newcomer realized that every one in
the section seemed happy. The Olympian creature never lost his temper, he
condescended to jokes and invented nicknames; the appalling gravity was
found to be a mask for shyness and a disguise for bubbling absurdity.

In the summer of 1915 the machinery of the blockade was still making.
The department, overworked and understaffed, was inadequately housed
in a corner of Central Buildings, Westminster. In the autumn it moved
to Broadway House, in Tothill Street; and one newcomer was invited to
sit at Teixeira’s table as deputy-head of the section. Thenceforth,
until the armistice, we worked together daily, save when one or other
was on leave or ill and during the early summer of 1917 when I was
sent to Washington. The office, changing almost weekly in personnel,
underwent reconstruction when the blockade was modified in 1918: Teixeira
became secretary to the department; I succeeded him as head of the
intelligence section; and, when I left in 1919, he stayed behind to help
in dismantling the old machine and in assembling a new one to supply
economic information to the peace conference.

Our correspondence for the last three years of the war was restricted to
the times when one of us was away. These absences grew more frequent as
Teixeira exchanged one illness for another. His letters present him as
a government servant rejoicing in his work, tingling with the new sense
of new responsibility and, “from his circumstances having been always
such, that he had scarcely any share in the real business of life”,
suggesting irresistibly a comparison with Dr. Johnson at the sale of his
friend Thrale’s brewery, “bustling about, with an ink-horn and pen in his
button-hole, like an exciseman”. So much of them, however, is taken up
with departmental business that I have drawn sparingly upon them.




V


The first five months of 1916 were a time of relatively good health for
Teixeira; and our correspondence contains little more than an invitation,
which he acknowledged in departmental language.

I wrote:

                                          _Tuesday, Jan. 4th, 1916._

    _Though long I’ve wished to bid you come and dine,_
        _Your way of life stood ever in the way;_
    _For you, I gather, go to bed at nine_
        _And rise at five (or five-fifteen) next day._

    _Yet Tuesday brings my chance. At half-past eight_
        _I go to guard my king; but, ere I go,_
    _With meat and wine I purpose to inflate_
        _My sagging stomach for an hour or so._

    _Then will you join me? Seven o’clock, I think:_
        _The Mausoleum Club is fairly near:_
    _Whate’er your heart desire of food and drink,_
        _And any kind of clothes you choose to wear._

                                                           _S. McK._

    _We should be glad, ~replies Teixeira~, if this application
    could come up again in say a fortnight’s time._

                                             _A. T._
                                             _Trade Clearing House._

When next I was summoned for duty as a special constable, the application
was submitted again; and Teixeira dined with me at the Reform Club. Later
in the year, though he had been warned by William Campbell, the greatest
friend of his middle years, that a man who laughed so much would never
be admitted to membership, I was allowed to propose him as a candidate;
and from the day of his election he became one of the most popular
figures both in the card-room and in the south-east corner of the big
smoking-room, where his most intimate associates gathered.

His hours of work, to which the first stanza refers, have already
been mentioned; his methods call for a word or two of description.
The library in Cheltenham Terrace looked out over the Duke of York’s
School and was lined with book-cases wherever windows, fire-place or
door permitted. The furniture consisted of a sofa, which was used for
hat-boxes and more books; a writing-table, which was used for anything
but writing; a revolving book-case, filled with works of reference; and
the editorial chair from the office of _The Candid Friend_. Seating
himself in dressing-gown and slippers, between the fire-place and the
revolving book-case, Teixeira dug himself into position: a despatch-box
under his feet raised his knees to an angle at which he could balance
a dictionary upon them, with its edge resting on a miniature bureau;
on the dictionary rested a blotting-pad; and every book that he needed
was in reach either of his hand or an elongated pair of “lazy-tongs”;
scissors, string, sealing-wax, india-rubber and knives were ingeniously
and menacingly suspended from nails in the revolving book-case; on the
top stood cigarettes, matches, a paste-pot and a vast copper ash-tub;
and the colour of his violet carpet was chosen to conceal the occasional
splashings of a violet-ink pen. With a telephone on one side to put him
in touch with the outside world and with a bell on the other to secure
his morning coffee, Teixeira could work without moving until evicted by
force.

In the beginning of June, he was ordered to Malvern.

    _No news, ~he writes on the 10th~, except that I have arrived
    and had some tea...._

    _There are hawthorns at Malvern and rhododendrons of -dra but
    also the most bloodthirsty hills. And there was an officer
    in the train who told me that the feeling in Franst was most
    “optimistic”._

    _The proprietress of this hotel pronounces my name Teisheira.
    This must be looked into._

    _I s’pose I’m enjoying myself, ~he writes next day~. I feel
    very restless._

    _~[My cook]~, I forgot to tell you, was mounting guard over the
    dispatch-box like a very sentinel, with hands duly folded: a
    most proper spectacle. I nearly died, but not entirely, hunting
    for my porter up and down the length of the longest train you
    ever saw (I am sure this must be correct, in view of the fact
    that you never did see this particular train)...._

    _This hotel is not so uncomfortable: I slept eight hours; I
    have a writing-table in my room; my bath was too hot to get
    into; these are signs of human comfort, are not they? Nor
    is the food nasty. Fortunately, there is not much of it. I
    ordered me a bottle of Berncastler Doctor. They brought me
    Liebfraumilch. I waved it away, saying that hock was acid and
    gave me gout. Then, persuaded to be a Christian, I sent one
    running after it before the doctor was opened and drank two
    glasses; and it was delicious; and I have no gout._

    _Why I sit boring you with this dull stuff I do not know: it is
    certainly not worth including in the Life and Letters._

Two days of solitude set him athirst for companionship.

    _Good-morning, fair sir, ~he writes on 12.6.16~. I hope this
    finds you as it leaves me at present, a little improved in
    health. But I would not wish my worst enemy the weariness from
    which I am suffering.... Picture me buying useless things so
    that I may exchange a word with a shopman; for no one talks to
    me here. Also the weather is bitterly cold._

And next day:

    _I have ... talked at length to a highly intelligent Dane, with
    a massy pair of calves that do credit to his pastoral country.
    But he has returned to town this morning._

    _They play very low at the club, fortunately, for I lost 13/-,
    which would have been £10, had I been playing R.A.C. points.
    Also they make me too late to dress for dinner, which doesn’t
    matter: nothing matters in this world._

    _For the rest, I have reason to think that I shall begin to
    cheer up from to-morrow and to remain cheerful until Saturday.
    That is “speech-day”—I presume at Malvern College—when I expect
    to see an awful invasion of horribobble papas and mammas._

    _Bless you._

    _The hoped-for cheerfulness has not yet arrived, ~he laments
    on 14.6.16~. I live in one of the most tragic of worlds. But
    ... I have had more conversation. The place of the Dane with
    the fatted calves ... has been taken by a parson, a passon, a
    parsoon, an elderly parsoon with the complete manner of the
    late Mr. Penley in ~The Private Secretary~: he would like
    to give every German a good, hard slap, I am sure. He is a
    much-travelled man; and his ignorance of every place which he
    has visited is thoroughly entertaining...._

    _I am becoming popular at the club: they took 12/- out of me
    yesterday. I must set my teeth and get it back though._

    _The influx of odious parents, ~he writes on 18.6.16~, with
    their loathy, freckled criminals of offspring has flustered
    the waiters and is spoiling all my meals. What I do now is to
    change for dinner after all and come in exactly an hour late
    for meals. They have some way of keeping the food—such as it
    is—piping hot; and so I do not suffer unduly for avoiding the
    sight of some, at least, of the carroty-headed boys and their
    thick-ankled sisters...._

    _Ah well! I can begin to count the days until I am back among
    you; and a glad day that will be for me! Nobody in the world, I
    think, hates either rest or enjoyment so much as I do._

    _Good-bye. I am going for a walk. I tell you frankly, I am
    going for a walk. I tell you this frankly...._

On Teixeira’s return to the department, our correspondence was suspended
until I went to Cornwall for a week’s leave in August. When I wrote in
praise of my surroundings, he replied with a warning:

    _You are probably too young ever to have heard of ... a
    play-actress ... who brought a breach of promise action ... and
    earned the then record damages of £10,000. She took a cottage
    somewhere the other day and brought her mother to live in it.
    The mother said, “This is just the sort of place I like; I
    shall be happy here,” then fell down the stairs and was dead in
    half an hour...._

    _... Remember me to the Atlantic...._

The next letter contained a story from Ireland:

                                            _Sligo, 18 August 1916._

    _... Here, in this most distressful country, we are about to
    experience again the blessings of coercion, administered by
    Duke, K.C., and Carson, high priest of the cult. In Sligo, the
    other day, two ladies treating each other in a public-house,
    the barman intervened at the tenth drink, saying:_

    _“Stop it now; ye can’t have any more; troth, I won’t sarve ye
    again. Don’t ye know it’s Martial Law that’s on the people?”_

    _Whereupon one of them enquired of the other:_

    _“For the love of God, Mrs. Murphy, what’s he talking about at
    all? Who’s Martial Law?”_

    _To which her friend replied ~sotto voce~:_

    _“Whist, don’t be showing your ignorance, ma’am! Don’t ye know
    he’s a brother of Bonar Law’s?”..._

As official papers accompanied every letter, a trace of departmental
style is occasionally visible in private notes:

               _War Trade Intelligence Department, 23 August, 1916._

    _“Harry Edwin” ate a grouse last night and drank many glasses
    of port. You can imagine the sort of grumpy ~commensal~ that he
    is to-day._

                                _A. T._

    _“Harry Edwin.”
        To see.
        23.8.16._

    _Seen and approved.
        H. E. P._

    _... Don’t overbathe, ~he adds as a postscript~. Why be so
    reckless? You remind me of the London city “clurks” who arrive
    in Switzerland one evening, run straight up the Matterhorn the
    next morning. I believe that two per cent of them do not drop
    dead._

    _The Sehr Hochwohlgeboren und Verdammter Graf Zeppelin, ~he
    writes on 25.18.16~, did some damage last night at Greenwich,
    Blackwall (a power-station) etc. For the rest, no news. I am
    picking up not wholly unconsidered trifles at the Wellington
    and benefiting your Uncle Reggie ~pro rata~. ~[Bridge
    winnings at this time were thriftily exchanged for War Savings
    Certificates.]~ This morning I (pro)-rated the girl ... at the
    post-office for not “pushing” those certificates. I said that,
    whenever any one asked for a penny stamp, she should ask:_

    _“May we not supply you with one of these?”_

    _It went very well with the audience._

    _This morning, ~he writes later~, I have bought my thirteenth
    fifteen-and-sixpennyworth of Uncle Reggie. Mindful of my
    injunction to “push” the goods, the post-office girl ... urged
    me to buy a £19.7. affair which would be good for £25 in five
    years’ time. Alas! Still, there are hopes._

In his preface to _The Admirable Bashville_, Bernard Shaw explains his
reason for throwing it into blank verse: “I had but a week to write it
in. Blank verse is so childishly easy and expedious (hence, by the way,
Shakespeare’s copious output), that by adopting it I was enabled to do
within the week what would have cost me a month in prose.” Pressure of
work sometimes drove Teixeira to a similar expedient in rimed verse:

    _Letter just received, ~he writes in haste on 26.8.16. to
    acknowledge the account of a bathing mishap~:_

    _With great relief at noon I found_
    _That S. McKenna was not drowned._

    _Many thanks for the pendant to these lovely ~verses~._

    _P.S. I note—and we all note—~he adds~—that you never express
    the wish to see us all again. How different from my Malvern
    letters! Ah, what a terrible thing is sincerity!_




VI


On Holy Saturday, 1917, I was asked by the deputy-chairman whether I
would represent the department on the mission which Mr. Balfour was
taking to Washington with a view to coordinating the war-organization of
Great Britain and the United States.

For the next two months Teixeira and I communicated whenever a bag passed
between the British Embassy and the Foreign Office, overflowing into a
brief journal betweenwhiles. He also disposed of my varied correspondence
with uniform discretion and with a courage that only failed him when
unknown mothers asked him if I would stand sponsor to their children.

    _The enquiries into the cause of your absence, ~he writes on
    12.4.17~, have been distressing. More people ask if you are ill
    than if you are being married. The unit of the last idea was
    Sutro, who then went off to Davis and found out what he wanted
    to know...._

                                                         _13 April._

    _The work is pretty stiff and I doubt if I can make this
    desultory diary as gossipy as I could have wished. And, after
    all, it will seem pretty stale and jejune by the time it
    reaches you...._

    _Your whereabouts are known now in the dept. and will be at the
    club to-morrow, if any one asks me again. Hitherto great wonder
    has reigned; but the “no blame attaches to his name” stunt has
    worked exquisitely._

The figure of Max Beerbohm’s caricature is seen in the following
paragraph:

    _I have ordered eight new coloured shirts, bringing the total
    up to 23. Then I have about a dozen black-and-white shirts;
    and only seven dress-shirts, I find. This makes 42 in all. My
    father’s theory was that no gentleman should have fewer than
    eighty shirts to his name. Times have changed; and we are a
    petty and pettyfogging generation of mankind. On the other
    hand, I have 33 ties, exclusive of white ties. I feel almost
    sure that my father did not have so many as that. And I outdo
    him utterly in boot-trees, of which I have just ordered a pair
    to be marked “L8” and “R8,” meaning thereby that it is my
    eighth pair. ~Sursum corda.~_

Teixeira believed with almost complete sincerity that he would die on
21 April 1917. The origin of this belief he never explained to me; and
I do not know whether he confided it to others. This accounts for the
following entry:

    _Shall I live, I wonder, till the 22nd, to write to you that I
    am still alive? When I allow my thoughts to dwell upon 21.4.17,
    now but six brief days off, there rises to them the memory of
    the horrible Widow’s Song which Vesta Victoria used to sing. I
    will start the next page with the chorus; for you, poor young
    fellow, know nothing of the songs that brightened the Augustan
    age of the music-halls._

    _Read and admire:_

    _He was a good, kind husband,_
    _One of the best of men:_
      _So fond of his home, sweet home,_
      _He never, never wanted to roam._
    _There he would sit by the fire-side,_
      _Such a chilly man was John!_
    _I hope and trust_
    _There’s a nice, warm fire_
      _Where my old man’s gone._

    _Gallows-humour, my dear executor, gallows-humour!_

                                                         _16 April._

    _Yesterday being a fine day, I have caught cold. A bad
    look-out, executor, a bad look-out!_

    _Adieu, cher ami._

    _You will observe a brief hiatus, ~he writes on 19 April,
    1917~. A letter begun to you on the 16th is reposing in my
    drawer at the department, where I have not been since then,
    having succumbed to an attack of bronchitis. And ~[my doctor]~
    will not let me out till the 21st (“der Tag!”) at the earliest._

_Der Tag_ was reached ...

                                                   _21 April, 1917._

    _It was a comfort and a joy to read this morning that your
    party has arrived safely at Halifax. I propose to pass this
    bloudie day without any cheap philosophizing. I am about cured
    of my bronchitis, I think, though fearsomely weak; and, if
    I “be” to “be” carried off to-day, it’ll be a motor-bus or
    -cab that’ll do for me. Look out for a letter from me dated
    to-morrow. I hope the voyage has done you all the good in the
    world...._

... _and survived_.

                                                   _22 April, 1917._

    _Ebbene, caro mio Stefano! You will be able to tell your
    grandchildren that you once knew a man who for twenty years was
    convinced that he would die on the day when he was fifty-two
    years and twelve days old and who lived to be fifty-two and
    thirteen...._

    _Bottomley has turned against the new government and is
    adumbrating his ideal government. He retains the present
    foreign secretary, but nominates H. H. A. as lord chancellor
    and Sir Edward Holden as chancellor of the exchequer. He wants
    Beresford as minister of blockade. Oof!_

    _Robbie Ross has a story of a German poet, one Oskar Schmidt,
    “a charming fellow,” who, armed with the best letters of
    recommendation, went to Oxford and spent several agreeable
    weeks there. The fine flower of his observations was:_

    _“Der Oxfort oontercratuades, dey go apout between a melangolly
    and a flegma.”..._

                                                   _24 April, 1917._

    _Your name appeared in the ~Times~ yesterday; and I am now
    able to read daily, or I hope, shall be, how Mr. McKenna
    bowed, raised his hat and, escorted by cavalry, took his first
    cocktail on American soil. I do hope that you are not only
    having the time of your life but feeling amazingly well. J.
    pictures you a victim of indigestion; but I, knowing your
    justly celebrated strength of character, have no fears on that
    score. ~Cura ut valeas.~_

                                                      _4 May, 1917._

    _This is a private-view day. The sun is blazing truculently. I
    am wearing a new shirt, white with black and yellow lines (the
    Teixeira colours), and the white hat and all’s well in God’s
    dear world._

That these sartorial efforts were not wasted is shewn by the next entry:

                                                      _5 May, 1917._

    _... From yesterday’s Star:_

                      _“Society Sees the Pictures_

    _“The beautiful spring day induced one Beau Brummel to sport a
    white box-hat”!!!_




VII


In the middle of May I cabled to Teixeira in code, asking him to forward
no more letters; and I did not hear from him again until my return to
England in the second week of June.

As soon as I was ready to take his place, he went to Harrogate for a
cure and remained there for six weeks. For part of the time I took his
place in another sense of the phrase. At the end of July the Air Board
commandeered my flat; and, until I could find, decorate and furnish
another, Teixeira and his wife most kindly placed their house at my
disposal. This will explain the following extract:

                                         _Harrogate: 15 July, 1917._

    _Here is the key. Come in when you like, make yourself as
    comfortable as you can and forgive all deficiencies. I feel a
    compunction at not having the physical energy to “clear” things
    a bit for you; but there you are...._

    _I have started my cure, ~he writes on 18.7.17~, which promises
    to be a most strenuous, arduous and tedious affair. I have to
    take daily two soda-water tumblers of strong sulphur water and
    two ordinary tumblers of warm magnesia water; and on alternate
    days (a) a Nauheim bath and (b) a hot-air bath...._

    _It is raining steadily. This doesn’t matter. But that
    sulphur-water, on an empty stomach, at 8 a.m.! Two-and-twenty
    ounces of it, hot! The stench of it! It is said to remind one
    of rotten eggs; but, as I have never smelt a rotten egg, it
    reminds me of nothing and only suggests hell._[5]

Sugar seems to have been more scarce in Harrogate than in London; and
Teixeira’s appeals and contrivances were always pathetic and sometimes
frantic.

    _My wife did manage to get half a pound of it flung at her
    head this morning, ~he writes on 19.7.17~. I had so entirely
    forgotten the essential rudeness of the people of Yorkshire
    that its discovery came upon me as an utter surprise. I amuse
    myself by overcoming it with smiles. Smiles are unfamiliar
    symptoms to them and take them aback._

    _You may tell Sutro that I have bought a dozen silk collars._

After weary weeks of nauseating treatment, he writes:

    _It will be an awful sell if this cure ends without doing me
    good. Still I always hope. Whatever happens I shall want at
    least a week’s after-cure which I should probably take here:
    simply a rest and air, without any waters or baths. But what is
    your Cornish date?_

I replied, 27.7.17.

    _By this time you will have seen that our minds have been
    working on parallel lines towards the same conclusion that an
    after-cure is quite essential. It will suit me perfectly well
    to stay here until, and including, Friday the 24th, or later if
    you like. My Cornish arrangements are quite fluid...._

    _For all your pagan pose, ~he writes~, you are a fine old Irish
    Christian gentleman, as is proved by your suggestion of an
    after-cure, dictated no doubt at the identical moment when I
    was writing my answer to it. At any rate, I prefer to think of
    you as a Christian brother rather than as a Corsican brother.
    As I said, I shall probably take that after-cure, but take
    it at Harrogate, which is about as bracing a spot as any in
    the three kingdoms. To go straight to the sea might set up my
    rheumatism again, if indeed it is suppressed; there is no sign
    yet of that desiderandum...._

It is necessary to insert my letter of 30.7.17 in order to explain
Teixeira’s reply to it.

    _I went home for the week-end, ~I wrote~, and travelled up this
    morning with C. H. C. has a new and most amusing game. It
    consists of inviting people to stay with him for the week-end
    and encouraging them to bathe in the river Thames and only
    disclosing, when the damage has been done, that the bed of that
    ancient river is richly studded with broken bottles. There was
    a small boy in the carriage with one badly injured foot as a
    result of C.’s pleasantry. I did a conspicuous St. Christopher
    stunt and carried the boy on my shoulders the entire length of
    the arrival platform at Paddington...._

    _I, ~Teixeira answers, 30.7.17~, once carried Willie
    Crosthwait, then aged 14, the whole length of the Euston
    departure platform. That beats you (and perhaps caused the best
    part of my present troubles). He is now an army chaplain; and I
    sit moaning at Harrogate._

    _Ululu!_

My eviction took place in the first week of August; and on 3.8.17 I wrote
to Teixeira:

    _I am thinking of moving to Chelsea on Tuesday.... You may
    remember a story of Benjamin Jowett in connection with
    two undergraduates who persisted in staying up at Balliol
    throughout the Long Vacation. Jowett, by way of gently
    dislodging them, insisted first that they should attend Chapel
    daily. The undergraduates grumbled, but obeyed. Jowett, seeing
    that his first attack had failed, arranged with the kitchen
    authorities that the food served to these recalcitrant young
    scholars should be entirely uneatable, and in the course of
    time their spirit was so much broken that they left him and
    Balliol in peace. He is reported to have said, as he watched
    them driving down to the station: “That sort goeth not forth
    but by prayer and fasting.” So with me. I have manfully
    withstood the stalwart labourers who break walls down all
    round me throughout the night; but, when the porters are paid
    off, the maids deprived of their rooms, the hot-water supply
    disconnected and the gas cut off at the main, I feel that I may
    retire with dignity and the full honours of war...._

    _Make yourself as comfortable in Chelsea as you can, ~he
    answered on 4.8.17~. As at present advised, we return on
    Wednesday fortnight, the 22nd...._

    _The days here speed past on wings, thanks to their monotony.
    Waters at 8; again at 10.30; a bath or baths at 11; lunch at
    1.30; a jog-trot drive from 3 to 4; bridge; dinner at 7.30;
    massage at 9; all this with unfailing regularity. I believe
    far more in my masseuse (she lives at this house) than in my
    doctor. It will amuse your father to hear that this genius is
    prescribing for me in the matter of rheumatism, neuritis and
    fibrositis in the arm without having once had my shirt off!
    I make suggestions, at the instance of the masseuse, and he
    promptly annexes them as his own:_

    _“Tell me, doctor, may I do so-and-so?”_

    _“You ~are~ to do so-and-so; and this very day!”_

    _The doctors here generally have the very worst name; but there
    is nobody to pull them up or show them up._

    _The place teems with people whom I know and don’t want to see._

    _The rain it raineth every day and all day...._

    _My cure is now over, ~he writes on 12.8.17~; it has been long
    and costly; it has done me no good at all. Indeed my main
    affliction is worse; certain movements of the right arm which
    were possible with comparative ease before I came down are now
    nearly impossible. On Saturday, at the final consultation, when
    I took leave of my doctor and paid him five guineas, he told
    me for the first time that I have no neuritis but that I have
    bursitis. All the while, mark you, he has been treating me for
    fibrositis. It is a consolation to know, however, that I have
    no arthritis. What I have been having is what the vulgar would
    call a hi-tiddlyhitis high old time...._

A week later I went again to Cornwall on leave.

    _Do devote yourself, ~wrote Teixeira, 25.8.17~, at any rate for
    the first ten days of your absence, to becoming very well and
    strong. I have never seen you quite so ill as yesterday and I
    was infinitely distressed about it. Treat yourself as though
    you were an exceedingly old man like me. Then when you have
    entered upon your rejuvenescence you can begin to play pranks
    with yourself again...._

Later he added:

    _Be careful not to honour the Atlantic with more than one
    immersion a day...._

    _~And, 30.8.17.~ I am exceedingly busy, but I am enjoying it
    all. My health is as bad as ever and I have recovered my famous
    lead-poisoning hue. I expect you, however, to return with the
    bloom of roses and the stains of coffee on your cheeks. So make
    up your mind to sleep and do it...._

In the first week of September there began the most persistent series of
air-raids that occurred at any stage during the war.

    _Last night, ~Teixeira writes, 5.9.17~, was made hideous by a
    pack of confounded Germans who came over London and created no
    end of a din. I looked out of the window, saw one shell burst
    in a south-easterly direction, debated whether to go below or
    remain in bed and remained in bed._

    _~[My cook]~, from her basement, appears to have obtained a
    much clearer aural view:_

    _“Didn’t you hear them two raiders firing bom-m-ms at each
    other, sir?”_

    _There spoke your Sinn Feiner: they were both raiders to her.
    The row lasted for over two hours; and I feel an utter wreck.
    Lord knows what mischief the brutes have done this time._

    _Vale et nos ama._

Next day, in a letter dated, _City of Dreadful Nights_, he adds:

    _Last night no air-raid was possible, because of an appalling
    thunderstorm, which kept me awake for another three hours. If
    you have ever heard thunder rolling for fifty seconds without
    intercession and giving sixty of these rolls to the hour, you
    will know the sort of thunderstorm it was._

This description prompts him to an anecdote:

    _“Then there’s Roche, the resident magistrate. Don’t go
    shooting Roche now ... unless it’s by accident. What does he
    look like? Well, if ye’ve ever seen a half-drowned rat, with a
    grey worsted muffler round its neck, then ye know the kind of
    man Roche is!”—Speech quoted before the Parnell Commission._

On my return from Cornwall, my flat was not yet ready for me, but the
Teixeiras’ hospitality allowed me to continue staying with them.

    _You will be as welcome on Thursday night as peace at
    Christmas, ~wrote Teixeira, 9.9.17~. ~[My cook]~ is away on a
    holiday and there is a possibility that she will not be back
    by then; and in the meantime there is nobody else. You may,
    therefore, have to submit to a modicum of discomfort: ... your
    boots will probably have to accumulate to some extent before
    they are cleaned on the larger scale. You have so many boots,
    however, that I venture to hope that this will not incommode
    you unduly._

This welcome was seasoned later by a story which Teixeira invented,
describing his efforts to dislodge me. According to this, he used to fall
resonantly from his bedroom to his study at 5.0 each morning and, if this
failed to rouse me, he would mount the stairs again and continue to throw
himself down until I waked. At 6.0 a cup of tea would be brought me;
at 7.0 the morning paper; at 8.0 my letters. When I went to my bath at
8.30, Teixeira used to assert that he flung my clothes into a suit-case,
tiptoed downstairs and laid the case on the doorstep. His tactics failed
because I only waited until he was locked in the bathroom before creeping
down and retrieving the case.

As our leave was over for the year, there was no further exchange of
letters save when one or other was absent from our department.

    _I have read the new Maeterlinck play[6]—a good theme
    infamously treated, ~I find myself writing, 27.12.18~. I beg
    you to scrap the third act and with it your regard for M’s
    feelings; then rewrite it with a little passion, a great deal
    of fear and unlimited un-understanding horror. The invasion
    of Belgium wasn’t a Greek tragedy where the afflicted prosed
    and philosophised—with a chorus dilating on cattle-yas; it was
    noisy, bloody and, above all, unbelievable. Maeterlinck has
    brought no nightmare into it...._

    _Letter just received, ~he replied next day~. You are a highly
    illuminated and illuminating critick. Your remarks upon that
    play are exactly right (as I now know, having just read my
    first three Greek plays)...._

    _I enclose, ~he writes 10.8.18~, 1¾ chapters of the Couperus
    classical comedy-novel ~[The Tour]~, which I amused myself
    by doing because you insisted so emphatically that the book
    should be done. But I will go no further till I have your
    verdict. Don’t trouble to do any work on this; the marginal
    refs. were merely inserted as I went along. Just see if the
    thing is the sort of thing that’s likely to take on; and talk
    to me about it when you see me...._




IX


In 1918 Teixeira’s health had so much improved that he was able to
dispense with all violent and disabling cures.

This was the period when he was, socially, in greatest request. I
introduced him, in the spring, to Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, who shewed him
much hospitality and great kindness from this time until his death. His
leaves were now usually spent with them at Sutton Courtney; but, since he
required to take little or no sick-leave, the number of letters exchanged
in this year is small.

At the armistice, he left the Intelligence Section to become secretary
to the department; and, though we worked in the same building for two or
three months more, I naturally saw less of him than when we shared the
same table. The last communication that passed between us as colleagues,
like the first, written three years before, contained an invitation. Its
form must be explained by reference to Stevenson’s and Osborne’s _Wrong
Box_. Rudyard Kipling has mentioned, in _A Diversity of Creatures_, the
sublime brotherhood to whom this book is a second Bible.

    “I remembered,” [he writes in _The Vortex_], “a certain Joseph
    Finsbury who delighted the Tregonwell Arms ... with nine ...
    versions of a single income of two hundred pounds, placing the
    imaginary person in—but I could not recall the list of towns
    further than ‘London, Paris, Bagdad, and Spitzbergen.’ This
    last I must have murmured aloud, for the Agent-General suddenly
    became human and went on: ‘Bussoran, Heligoland, and the Scilly
    Islands’—‘What?’ growled Penfentenyou. ‘Nothing,’ said the
    Agent-General, squeezing my hand affectionately. ‘Only we have
    just found out that we are brothers.... I’ve got it. Brighton,
    Cincinnati and Nijni-Novgorod!’ God bless R. L. S.[7]...” One
    of the greatest living authorities on _The Wrong Box_ was a
    member of the Reform Club; and, on joining, Teixeira found it
    necessary to his self-protection to study the most aptly-quoted
    work in the world.

    My invitation was couched in the cryptic terms of the
    brotherhood:

        _MATTOS. Alexander William de Bent Teixeira,
                 if this should meet the eye of, he
                 will hear something to his advantage
                 by lunching with me to-day at the far
                 end of Waterloo Station (Departure
                 Platform) or even at Lincoln’s Inn._

                 _War Trade Intelligence Department._

                                                _30 December, 1918._

On leaving the department early in 1919, I saw and heard little of
Teixeira until he invited me to collaborate in the translation of _The
Tour_. Occasional divergencies of opinion about translating Latin words
in the English rendering of a Dutch novel had the very desirable result
of making Teixeira set out some few of the principles which he followed.

    _Couperus sends me this postcard, ~he writes, 29.4.18~:_

    _“Amice,_

    _“You are of course at liberty to act according to your taste
    and judgement. I do not however understand the thing: in every
    novel treating of antiquity the classical word sometimes gives
    a nuance to the untranslatable local colour. And every novelist
    feels this: See ~Quo Vadis~, in Jeremiah Curtius’ translation.
    However, do as you think proper._

                               _“Yours,_
                               _“L. C.”_

    _He has us on the hip with his Jeremiah Curtius. And I feel
    more than ever that you were too drastic in your views and I
    too weak in yielding to them...._

    _We should always guard ourselves against the bees in our
    bonnets. When I produced Zola’s ~Heirs of Rabourdin~, the
    stage-manager said his play-actors couldn’t pronounce Monsieur,
    Madame and Mademoiselle to his liking: might he try how it
    would sound with Mr., Mrs., and Miss Rabourdin? He tried!_

    _If your principle were carried to any length, you would
    have to call a pagoda a tower, a jinrickshaw a buggy,
    a café a coffee-house, a gendarme a policeman (i.e. a
    ~sergent-de-ville~), a toga a cloak, a gondola a wherry, an
    Alpenstock an Alpine stick, a ski a snowshoe: one could go on
    for ever!_

    _Yet I am ever yours,_

                                                              _Tex._

In the spring and summer of 1919 our letters became more frequent.
Though Teixeira spent most of his time in his department, I employed
the first months of liberation in staying with friends. The translation
of _The Tour_ went on apace; and arrangements were made for the English
publication of _Old People and the Things That Pass_. If he had given his
readers no other book by Couperus or by any other writer, he would still
have established two reputations with this.

    _It’s a funny thing, ~he writes~, 21.5.19; 4:57 a.m.; but I
    find that I can no longer trs. Latin, even with a dictionary.
    I suppose it’s because I can’t construe it. Would you mind
    putting a line-and-a-bit of Ovid into English for me? Here it
    is:_

    Materian superabat opus, nam Mulciber illic
    Æquora celarat.

    _... My intentions are to go down to I. for 5 or 6 days on the
    5th of June and to join my wife at Bexhill on or about the 18th
    for 3 or 4 weeks._

    _“Bexhill-on-Sea_
    _Is the haven for me,”_

    _sang Clement Scott in a visitors’-book discovered by Max
    Beerbohm, who tore him to pieces for it in the ~Saturday~, in
    an article signed “Max.” Scott, pretending not to know who Max
    was, flew to the ~Era~ and wrote his famous absurdity, “Come
    out of your hole, rat!” Gad, how we used to laugh in those
    days!..._

My reply began:

    _I resent your practice of heading your letters with the
    unseemly time at which you leave a warm and comfortable bed.
    ~And I dated my own~: 22 May, 1919. Cocktail-time. What would
    you think of me if I headed my letters with the equally
    unseemly time at which I sometimes go to bed? I have been
    working so late one or two nights last week and this that the
    times would coincide, and you might bid me good-morning as I
    bade you good-night...._

    _I went ... to a musical party.... I felt that it was incumbent
    upon me to see whether you had done anything in the matter of
    the Belgian quartette.[8] You will be shocked to hear that the
    quartette is not only still in existence, but has added a
    supernumerary to turn over the music of the pianist...._

    _~On 7.6.19, he wrote from Somersetshire~: You are—it is borne
    in upon me that you must be—a secret autograph-hunter. Here am
    I, hoping to do nothing but sleep 26 hours out of the 24, to
    do nothing ever, to the great ever; and here come you, hoping
    for a letter, lest you be pained. A scripsomaniac, my poor
    Stephen, a scripsomaniac you will surely be, if you do not
    check yourself in time._

    _Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I know that I am Satan rebuking sin;
    but was Satan ever better employed? Far rather would I see him
    rebuking sin than prompting letters for idle hands to write._

    _Well, I know that I am staying in Somersetshire with I., who
    is at this moment speeding towards the Hôtel du Vieux Doelen
    at the Hague, to nurse a sick friend. Ker pongsay voo der sah?
    And I am happy as the day is long, petted and coddled by his
    delightful mother, lolling from the morning unto the evening in
    the open air and doing not one stroke of work. And utterly at
    my ease, not even blushing when my brother cuckoo mocks me from
    the tree-top, as he does sixty times to the minute._

    _I return on the 12th; on the 13th I go cuckooing at the Wharf,
    returning on the 16th; ... on the 18th I join my wife at
    Bexhill; how, I ask you, can I come a-cuckooing in Lincoln’s
    Inn?_

    _Nor do see any chance of touching ~The Tour~ while I am here.
    I am really too busy to do aught but play the sedulous cuckoo
    in Cockayne. So let my visit to you be a pleasure (to both of
    us) postponed...._

    _~To this I replied, 14.7.19~: I lunched yesterday with one
    Butterworth, who is opening up a publisher’s business. In the
    course of conversation I mentioned to him your translation of
    ~Old People and the Things that Pass~. More than that, I took
    upon myself to lend him my copy of the American edition so that
    he might have an opportunity of forming his own opinion of it.
    You may, if you like, call me interfering and presumptuous,
    but I have not committed you in any way to anything, and
    yesterday’s transaction may be regarded as no more than the
    loan of a book from one person to another. I, as you know, feel
    it a reproach that that book is still unpublished in England,
    and, if Butterworth thinks fit to make you a good offer, no one
    will be better pleased than me...._

    _~On 26.7.19 he wrote from Bexhill~: If it comes on to rain
    as it threatens daily, I shall be returning ~The Tour~ to you
    quite soon; and in any case it will go back to you before I
    leave here on the 15th of July: I must reduce the weight of my
    luggage; I had to run all over the town to find two stalwart
    ruffians to carry it to the attic where I sleep._

    _You need not look at it before we meet unless you wish; but
    you may like to do Cora’s song[9] in your sleep meanwhile; and
    my additional comments and queries are few._

    _I am leading here that methodical humdrum life which alone
    makes time fly. When I return to town you shall see me
    occasionally at the opera, but not oftener than twice a
    week. You will have to look for me, however, for I shall be
    stalking behind pillars, cloaked in black, like Lucien de
    What’s-his-name, hiding from my black beast, Lady...._

    _P.S. Can you tell me if Beecham intends to do any light operas
    at Drury Lane in addition to that tinkly, overrated ~Fille de
    Madame Angot~? I am dying to hear the whole Offenbach series
    before I die._

A letter from Bexhill, dated 2.7.19, touches on one general principle of
translating:

    _... With all deference, a translator’s first duty is not to
    translate. His first duty is to love God, honour the king
    and hate the Germans. His next duty is to produce a version
    corresponding as near as may be with what an English original
    writer, if he were writing that particular book, would set
    down. His last duty is to translate every blessed word of the
    original...._

Next day he wrote:

    _~T. B. [Thornton Butterworth]~ is taking “O. P.” ~[Old
    People]~ and coming down here to see me on Saturday._

    _Ever so many thanks for your generous offices in the
    matter...._

On Peace Day, in a letter dated from Finsbury Circus, Teixeira writes:

    _Here sit I, putting in four or five hours before a train
    leaves to take me to Herbert George and Jane Wells at Easton
    Glebe and reading ~Quo Vadis~. Already, in 99 pages, I have
    discovered 21 expressions which you would undoubtedly have
    condemned in ~The Tour~._

    _... This is interesting: ~[the author]~ says that in Nero’s
    day it was already becoming a stunt among the Romans to call
    the gods by their Greek Names. Tiberius was not so much
    earlier—was he?—than Nero that the practice might not have
    begun even then. If so, we can let Couperus have his way and
    retain those few names. They are very few, I think. I can
    remember at the moment only Aphrodite and Zeus and possibly
    Eros. It may be that Juno is mentioned as Hera, but I doubt it._

    _There is a charming garden, with a most beautifully kept lawn.
    The flowers ... consist entirely of the only three that I
    dislike: fuchsias, begonias and red geraniums._

    _Still ..._

    _I hope that you are spending the day as peacefully and that
    this will find you well and happy...._

    _Two east-end Jews within hail of me are talking Yiddish and
    sharing a Daily Snail between them. There is a cat. There is or
    am I. And there are those fuchsias._

On 18.8.19, I wrote:

    _The North of Ireland seems beating up for a storm, does not
    it? I suppose there is no point in my reminding you that a
    perfect gentleman would not fail to present himself at Euston
    next Friday at 8.10 p.m. to tuck me into my sleeper and see
    me safely off? My address in Ireland from Aug. 23rd to 31st
    is (in the care of Sir John Leslie, Baronet) Glaslough, Co.
    Monaghan...._

    _At 8.10 on Friday, ~he replied, 20.8.19~, this perfect
    gentleman will be eating his melon at Huntercombe Manor House,
    Henley-on-Thames (in the care of Squire Nevile Foster), but
    for which he would undoubtedly come to see you oft in the
    stilly night. I wish you safely through the war-zone, happy
    and interested in this, your first visit to Ireland and
    prosperously home again. Now do not write and answer that you
    have paid eighteen visits to Ireland before: those eighteen
    visits have always been and always will be to my mind as
    mythical as the travels of Mungo Park or Mendes Pinto...._

Feeling that I must acquaint Teixeira with my safe arrival in Ireland, I
wrote, 28.8.19:

                                          _Glaslough, Co. Monaghan._

    _... I am here; yes, but how did I get here? I am here; yes,
    but shall I ever get away? I left London on Friday with my
    young and very lovely charge, encountered engine-trouble and
    reached Holyhead an hour late. I sat on the boat-deck with
    her (but without an overcoat), watching the dawn until I
    was chilled to the marrow and any other man would have been
    delirious with pneumonia. The breakfast-car train had left, so
    we took a later one from Dublin. Being faced with the prospect
    of waiting 2½ hours at Clones, I got out at Drogheda to send
    a telegram to the Leslies, begging them to meet us there by
    car. Unhappily, the train went on without me, bearing away my
    young and very lovely charge, my suit-case, my despatch-box, my
    umbrella and my hat. I was left with a pair of gloves and my
    charge’s ticket.... I bought myself a cap of 4/6 and a clean
    collar for /4d, and spent the day writing letters, contriving
    epigrams and lunching off scrambled eggs and Irish whiskey._

    _I have been taken to the McKenna grave at Donagh and
    presented—by Shane—to the clan as its head, which I am
    not. The recognition of Odysseus by his old nurse was
    eclipsed by the recognition accorded me by an old woman who
    remembered—unprompted—my coming to Glaslough twelve years ago
    and thanked God that she had been spared to see me again. It is
    a very lovely place that the Leslies have taken from us._

    _But how to leave it? It is Horse Show week, and every sleeper
    has been booked for three weeks. I shall have to cross from
    Belfast to Liverpool, I think, and try to get my sleeping done
    on the boat. And that means that I shall not be home till
    Tuesday. Can’t be helped._

On 31.8.19 Teixeira wrote to greet me on my return from Ireland:

    _After your preliminary wanderings, my dear Stephen O’Dysseus,
    welcome home again! You were always the worst courier in the
    world; I’ve not ever known you to bring one of your young and
    very lovely charges to her destination without encountering
    cataclysmal adventures on the road.... Still, would that I had
    known that you can buy collars, clean and therefore presumably
    new collars, at Drogheda for fourpence apiece. Yesterday I paid
    fifteen shillings for a dozen...._

On 21.12.19 he writes to offer me good wishes for Christmas:

    _The one and only thing that the Fortunate Youth appeared to
    me not to possess will reach you in a little registered packet
    to-morrow evening.... You are to accept it as a token of the
    happiness which I wish you during this Christmas and the whole
    of the coming year._

    _That was a very jolly party on Wednesday: I enjoyed
    everything: the gay and kindly company, the admirable
    foodstuffs, even the music; and, if it be true, as I told you,
    that Covent Garden has shrunk in size since my young days, I am
    compelled to confess that your box was a larger than I ever saw
    before._

    _At this season of excess, ~he writes on Christmas Day~, I am
    allowed to indulge my passion for chocolates, but not to buy
    any for myself; and it was most thoughtful of you to pander to
    my taste. Thank you ever so much. And thank you also for your
    good wishes...._

    _I must be off to mass, but not without first begging you to
    hand your mother and sister my best wishes for a happy New
    Year. As to you, I shall see or talk to you before then.... My
    young Sinn Feiner has written a novel[10] which to my mind is
    a most remarkable production and which will have to be read by
    you at all costs. It is published in Dublin; and it is doubtful
    whether a single other copy will find its way to this foreign
    land._

In April Teixeira and his wife went to Hove: and on 27.4.20 he writes:

    _It is blowing what-you-may-call-it here: ’arf a mo’, ’arf a
    brick, half a gale. Apart from that, we are well and send our
    love._

Commenting on a house-party which I had described, he adds:

    _All we can do, my dear Stephen, is to ask you to remember the
    old adage:_

    _Birds of a feather flock together;_

    _and the modern variants:_

    _Birds of a beak meet twice a week;_
    _Birds of a voice share a Rolls-Royce;_
    _Birds of a kidney are Alf and Sydney;_
    _Birds of a tail are hail-fellow-hail;_
    _Birds of a crest are twins of the best;_
    _Birds of a gizzard are witch and wizzard;_
    _Birds of a chirrup are treacle and syrup;_
    _The hawk and the owl sit cheek by jowl._

                                            _Yours ever,
                                            Alexander and Lily Tex._

The next letter was from his wife and brought the news that Teixeira’s
health had taken an unexpected turn for the worse. His life was not in
immediate danger, but henceforward he must regard himself as an invalid
and must work under the conditions imposed by his doctor.




X


As soon as he was well enough to be moved, Teixeira came up from Hove
and, after a few days in Chelsea, went to a nursing-home in Crowborough
for the summer.

Nothing is more characteristic of him than that the first message he sent
after the beginning of his illness was one of reassurance and optimism:

    _Sent you a wire this morning, ~he writes~, lest you be
    seriously distressed. Really much better after nine hours’
    sleep.... I expect I shall be quite well by Saturday, when we
    return but I shall have to be jolly careful...._

    _Thanks for your letters, ~he writes, 8.5.20, when we were
    arranging to meet~. Nothing you can do for me at present except
    converse with me in the form of: Tex. Very short questions:
    Stephen. Very long answers. I’m getting plaguily impatient
    at the slowness of my recovery: it’s very wrong, wicked and
    impatient of me._

    _I enclose._

    _A. Two lines from your favourite “poet” (save the Mark
    Tapley)!_

    _B. Some wedding-effusions which remind me that Burne-Jones,
    when they told him that marriage was a lottery, said:_

    _“Then it ought to be made illegal.”_

While undergoing his rest-cure, he not infrequently communicated with me
by means of annotations to the letters which I wrote him. His comments
are given in parenthesis.

    _I ... went to see ~As You Like It~ at the Lyric Theatre,
    Hammersmith, ~I wrote, 15.5.20~. It is a good production but
    an uncommonly bad play, like so many of that author’s. If any
    dramatist of the present day served up that kind of musical
    comedy without the music, but with all the existing purple
    patches, I wonder what your modern critic would make of it._

    _(Laurence Irving used to go about saying, “Teixeira says
    that Shakespeare wrote only one decent play: ~Timon of
    Athens!~ Wha-art d’ye think of that? The mun’s mud!” Talking
    of Shakespeare, if you want to laugh, really to laugh, ~ce
    qu’on appelle~ to laugh, read (you will never see it acted) a
    stage-play called ~Titus Andronicus~....)_

    _(Help! A man waved to me on the lawn y’day: an Ebrew Jew ...
    had motored down to see his sister here; told me I’d find her
    very “bright.” She’s fifty ~bien sonnés~. Told him I’d feel too
    shy to talk to anybody for weeks. But I’m lending her books.
    Help!)_

Strictly limited in the amount of work which he was allowed to do,
Teixeira in these weeks read voraciously; and his letters of this period
contain almost the only critical judgements that I was able to extract
from him.

On 25.5.20. he writes:

    _Was Pearsall Smith the inventor of the pedigree tracing the
    descent of the English from the ten lost tribes of Israel?_

                              _Isaac_
                                 |
                                 |
                            _Isaacson_
                                 |
                                 |
                              _Saxon_

    _What was the other famous book, besides ~Erewhon~, which
    George Meredith (whom I am beginning to dislike almost as much
    as Henry James and Pearl Craigie) caused Smith, Elder & Co. to
    reject? Was it ~Treasure Island~ or something quite different?_

    _Which Samuel Butlers am I to buy now? I have (in the order of
    which I have enjoyed them):_

    The Way of all Flesh
    Alps and Sanctuaries
    The Notebooks
    Erewhon Revisited
    Erewhon

    _The machinery part of the last-named bored me; the philosophy
    also; and I fear I missed much of the irony. But the style!
    It’s unbeaten. It’s as good as Defoe. It knocks Stevenson silly
    because it’s so utterly natural. Hats off to that for style._

    _Should I enjoy ~The Humour of Homer~, though knowing nothing
    or little about Homer? ~The Authoress of the Odyssey~: would
    this be wasted on me? What is ~The Fair Haven~ about? I don’t
    want to read Butler’s religious views—all you Britons think
    and talk and write much too much about religion—nor his views
    on evolution: he is too much in sympathy, I gather, with that
    dishonest fellow, Darwin._

    _What shall I read of that same Darwin, so that I may do my own
    chuckling? Please name the best two or three, in their order
    as written._

    _Where shall I find the quarrels between Huxley and Darwin?
    That accomplished gyurl, my stepdaughter, had read all about
    them before she was sixteen but was unable to point me to the
    book._

    _At your leisure, my dear Stephen, answer me all these
    questions. As you see, I’m making progress. I have neither
    capacity nor inclination (thank God) for work yet, but I can
    read day without end._

    _Pearsall Smith’s ~Stories from the Old Testament~ would amuse
    you. It’s too dear; but it would amuse you, in parts._

In discussing Darwin’s books, I suggested that Teixeira should find out
whether the members of his church were encouraged to read them.

He replies, 28.5.20:

    _... I am very glad that Darwin is on the Index and I hope that
    this interferes with his royalties...._

And on 2.6.20:

    _Pray bear with a postcard. I noticed that you used “detour” on
    two occasions.... I sympathize. There’s no English equivalent
    save Tony Lumpkin’s seriocomic “circumbendibus.” But I meant to
    tell you of my recent discovery that Chesterton uses “detour,”
    ~sic~ without an accent or italics. And it’s well worth
    considering. I, for my part, have made up my mind to adopt
    it in future, by analogy with “depot” and, for that matter,
    “tour,” which is never italicized._

    _I also intend to adopt your “judgement”...._

    _What a lot one can still write for a penny!_

                                                              _Tex._

In acknowledging one of his translations, I wrote:

    _Two of my worst faults as a reader are that I always finish a
    book which I have begun and always begin a book which has been
    presented to me by the author or translator._

Teixeira comments:

    _(I always thought highly of your brain till now. I regret to
    tell you that the only other human being who has ever confessed
    that vice to me is J. T. Grein’s mother.... Drop that vice.
    Why, I once “began” to read the Bible!...)_

    _With most of your criticisms I agree, ~my letter continued.
    Teixeira had been reading the manuscript of some short
    stories;~ though there are one or two points on which I remain
    adamant. If you wish to shorten your life, ask any Coldstreamer
    whether he belongs to the Coldstreams. It is always either the
    Coldstream Guards or the Coldstream...._[11]

    _(I suspected you of being right, but I was not ashamed to ask
    you. You may or may not have observed how much less of a snob
    I am than most of the people you strike. Cricketing terms,
    nautical terms, military terms, Latin quantities, those endless
    excuses for the worst forms of British snobbery, all leave me
    cold.)_

In discussing methods of work, he writes:

    _(... It will interest you to know that Oscar Wilde dropped
    all his pleasures when he wrote his plays; retired into rooms
    in St. James’ Place, hired ~ad hoc~, to write the first line;
    and did not leave them till he had written the last. And one
    of them at least, ~The Importance~, was a perfect work of art,
    whatever one may think of the others.)_

Though he enjoyed his rest-cure, it gave him—he complained—no news to
communicate:

    _You’re not interested in my brown dog and I speak to no one
    else._

On my pointing out that I could not be interested in an animal of which I
had hitherto not heard, Teixeira wrote, 4.6.20:

    _... It must have been my morbid delicacy that prevented me,
    knowing your dislike of dogs, from mentioning the brown dog
    before. As a man gains strength, he loses delicacy: that
    explains though it does not excuse my late reference to him.
    He is an Irish terrier, endowed with a vast sense of humour,
    who runs about on three legs (which is one more than I, who am
    eighteen times his age, can boast) and plays with me from ten
    till half-past six (when I go to bed). He saves me from all
    boredom and I am grateful to him...._

    _Little by little I am beginning to itch for work.... I can’t
    work yet; but I regard the itching as a good sign. And I no
    longer find these longish letters so much of a strain. It takes
    a lot to kill a Portugal._[12]

    _Bring me to the gentle remembrance of your charming host and
    hostess. I wonder if I shall ever meet either of them at one
    of your pleasant dinners again. I wonder if I shall ever dine
    with you again at all...._

On 8.6.20 he writes:

    _... I send you a letter from ... a Beaumont master and
    scholastic in minor orders. Apart from its nice misspelling,
    its noble, broad-minded casuistry will explain to you why
    I love the Church, as it explains to me why you hate it.
    ~Cependant~ I suppose that I must set to work and read me a
    little Darwin._

    _I am making fair progress, as my recent letters must have
    proved to you. But I do not yet consider myself near enough to
    complete recovery to return to town...._

In June Teixeira was created a Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II. My
letter of congratulation was annotated on this and other subjects:

Referring to a criticism of _Kipps_, I had written:

    _It is excellent stuff, and I always regard Wells as being one
    of the ... greatest ... comedy-writers. But I always feel that
    in ~Kipps~ and all the earlier books he is only working up to
    ~Mr. Polly~, which is the most exquisite thing that he has
    done in that line._

    _(I have read both down here and prefer ~Kipps~. The phrases
    underlined, quoted in the ~Times~ notice (attached) of Wells’
    Polly-Kippsian “~History of the World~” reminds me irresistibly
    of the old lady who, witnessing a performance of “~Anthony and
    Cleopatra~,” by your Mr. Shakespeare or our Mr. Shaw, observed:
    “How different from the home life of our dear queen!”)_

    _... Let me offer you—a trifle belatedly perhaps—my
    congratulations on your new dignity._

    _(“Thanks.” A. Kipps)_

    _Certainly you should tell the ~[Belgian]~ Ambassador that
    it is not only inconvenient but impossible for you to be
    invested in person and that he must send you the warrant and
    insignia...._

    _Did I ever tell you the story of Mr. G.’s search for a
    decoration? The Kaiser refused to give him one on any
    consideration, and he therefore toured Europe, lending or
    giving money to one government after another in the hope of
    being ultimately rewarded with the 4th class of the Speckled
    Pig. In every court he was promised his decoration, but, when
    he presented himself for the investiture, the court officials
    turned from him with just that expression of loathing and
    nausea which he had formerly observed on the face of the
    Kaiser. It was only when he reached Bulgaria that he found the
    Czar and his court less squeamish. On payment of a considerable
    solatium he was invested with the 19th class of the Expiring
    Porpoise and returned in triumph to his native Stettin. Here,
    however, his troubles were only beginning, as he was unable to
    obtain permission to wear the Expiring Porpoise at any public
    function in Germany. Seeing that he had paid one considerable
    sum to the Bulgarian Czar and another to the firm of jewellers,
    who substituted diamonds for the paste of the jewel he felt,
    naturally enough, that he was receiving little value for his
    lavish expenditure. Bulgaria, it seemed, was the only country
    where the Expiring Porpoise could be worn. Accordingly he
    returned to Sofia and paid a further sum to be invited to the
    banquet which the burgomaster of Sofia was giving on the Czar’s
    birthday. Here he was at length rewarded for so many months of
    disappointment and neglect. Before the soup had been served,
    the Czar had hurried round to his place and was kissing him on
    both cheeks. “My dear old friend!” said he, “No, you are not to
    call me ‘sir’; henceforth it is ‘Fritz’ and ‘Ferdinand’ between
    us, is it not? How long it is since last I saw you! I have been
    waiting to express my heart-felt regret for the unpardonable
    carelessness of my Chamberlain. When it was too late and you
    had left Sofia (I feared for ever), my Chamberlain discovered
    that you had been invested with the 19th Class of the Expiring
    Porpoise. You must have thought me mad, for no sane man would
    offer the 19th class to a person of your distinction. It was
    the 1st class that I intended. This bauble that I am wearing
    round my neck to-night. Tell me, my dear Fritz, that it is not
    too late for me to repair my error.” With that word the Czar
    removed the collar and jewel from his own neck and slipped it
    over the head of G. taking in exchange G.’s despised collar and
    jewel of the 19th class. It was only when our friend returned
    to his hotel that he discovered the new jewel to be of the most
    unfinished paste, as cheap or cheaper than the paste which he
    had previously removed at such expense from the jewel of the
    19th class._

    _(This is a splendid story.)_

    _I am afraid, ~I added~, that I have no idea who is the
    official to whom you apply for leave to wear these things...._

    _(My dear Stephen, you had better here and now adopt as your
    maxim what I said to Browning soon after he had engaged my
    services on behalf of H.M.G.: “I yield to no man living in
    my ignorance on every subject under the sun.” You outdo and
    outvie me. You never know anything. In other words, you know
    nothing. But I’ll wager that these are worn without permission.
    What’s the penalty? ~The Morning Post~ to-day names a couple of
    dozen to whom it’s been granted.)_

Evidently feeling that I was living too much alone, Teixeira enclosed a
copy of _The Times’_ list of forthcoming dances:

    (_Don’t wait for invitations, ~he urged in a postscript~. Ring
    the top bell and walk inside._)

The next letter needs to have Teixeira’s use of the word palimpsest
explained. His good-nature in reading his friends’ manuscripts was
inexhaustible. I never intended him to do more than give me a general
opinion; but his critical vision was microscopic, and he filled the
margins with questions and comments. In returning me one manuscript, he
wrote:

    _I have made some 800 notes, of which 600 are purely frivolous.
    Six are worth serious attention._

While this textual scrutiny was quite invaluable, Teixeira seldom gave
that general opinion of which I always felt in most need at the moment
when I had lately finished a book and was unable to regard it with
detachment. Accordingly, the manuscript, on leaving him, was usually sent
to another friend, who commented not only on the text but also on the
marginalia. As her occasional controversies with Teixeira (expressed in
such minutes as:

“Pull yourself together, Mr. T!”

“You men! One’s as bad as the other, you know.”

“Never mind what Mr. T. says, Stephen: _I_ understand.”

“I _wish_ my brain worked as quickly as that.”)

and with me invited rejoinders, the first version of a manuscript
sometimes took on the appearance of a contentious departmental file. It
was in this form that Teixeira called it a palimpsest.

On 22.6.20 he writes:

    _Thanks for your letter and the palimpsest.... I’ve studied it
    amid distressing circumstances, in a long-chair, on a lawn,
    beneath the sun, surrounded by breezes and patients, who being
    forbidden to speak to me, dare not help me to collect the
    scattered pages...._

    _Lady D. is another of England’s darlings. In the first place,
    she nearly always agrees with me and there she’s right: I have
    told you time after time that, if only everybody would agree
    with me, the world would be an infinitely sweeter place. In
    the second place, she dislikes Browning almost as much as I
    do. No one can dislike him quite so much; but she certainly
    disapproves of your particular taste in extracts from the
    burjoice mountebank’s rhymed works._

    _I can understand that she sometimes unsettles you by
    condemning you for the quite logical behaviour of the male
    characters in your trilogy: you might meet this by presenting
    her with a copy of ~Thus spake Zarathustra~ in addition to
    those pencils which will mark which you already had in mind for
    her. On the other hand, I think that you may safely take her
    word for it when she says:_

    _“Oh, Stephen, women aren’t like this!”_

    _Send me more! Send me more!_

In a letter of 22.6.20, he wrote:

    _To-morrow I make my way up to Oxford for the House Gaudy but
    before leaving I may find a moment to report my movements._

Teixeira comments:

    _I have heard of the House Beautiful but never of the House
    Gaudy. Now don’t be a British snob but answer like a little
    Irish gentleman, as I should answer if you asked me what
    “acht-en-tachtig Achtergracht” mean in Dutch. Of course,
    working it out in the light of my own intelligence, I feel
    that, if “House” is an Oxford sobriquet for Christ Church and
    “gaudy” Oxford slang for a merrymaking of sorts, you ought to
    have suppressed that capital G and written “the House gaudy,”
    in distinction from the Balliol gaudy, the Magdalen gaudy, etc._

    _You are not a Hottentot (Loud cheers), but you are as fond of
    capital letters as a Hottentot is of glass beads._

    _I’m feeling rather full of beans to-day ... (as you
    perceive.)..._

The improvement was visibly maintained in his letter of 25.6.20:

    _Thanks for your two letters of the 23rd and 24th instant
    postum. Don’t start; instant postum is the ridiculous name of
    the toothsome beverage which my specialist ordered me to take
    instead of tea or coffee...._

    _I jump at the chance of playing the schoolmaster in the matter
    of those capital letters. It is too utterly jolly finding you
    in a compliant mood...._

    _My rule and yours might well be to start with a definite
    prejudice against capital letters in the middle of a sentence,
    combined with a resolve never to use them if it can be
    avoided. Having taken up this firm standpoint, we can afford
    and we can begin to make concessions. For instance, my heart
    leapt with joy, nearly twenty years ago, when the founders of
    the ~Burlington Review~ decided to abolish all capitals to
    adjectives, to print “french, german, egyptian, persian,” etc.
    You have no idea how well this affected the page. But what is
    all right in a majestic review (or was it magazine, by the
    way?) like the ~Burlington~ may look ultraprecious in a novel.
    Therefore I concede French, German, etc. Only remember that it
    is a concession, a concession to Anglo-American vulgarity. A
    Frenchman writes (and that not invariably: I mean, not every
    Frenchman). “Un Français les Anglais,” but (invariably) “L’elan
    français, le rosbif anglais”. The Germans and Danes begin all
    nouns with a capital (as the English did, in some centuries),
    but no adjectives whatever. The Italians, Norwegians and
    Swedes have no capitals to their adjectives; the Dutch are
    gradually discarding them; they are discarded entirely in
    scientists’ Latin: the Narbonne Lycosa (a certain spider of the
    Tarantula genus) in Latin becomes ~Lycosa narbonniensis~...._

    _Your question about “high mass” is, involuntarily, not quite
    fair. Mass quite conceivably comes within the category of such
    words as State and a few others, which are spelt with a capital
    in one sense and not in another.[13] I write “going to mass”
    (no French catholic would write “allant à la Messe!”) and I
    see no reason why catholics should write Mass except in a
    technical work. They would write “the Host” because of the real
    presence; but I see no more reason for the Mass than for Matins
    or Compline. Obviously, it is different in a technical work in
    translating Fabre, I speak of a Wasp, a Spider, a Beetle; in
    translating Couperus, I do not...._

    _“The Colonel, the Major, the Vicar,” in a novel; don’t they
    set your teeth on edge? As well write about the Postmistress of
    the village._

    _When in doubt, as I wrote to you on the subject of the
    hyphenated nouns, take little Murray[14] for your guide. He
    has the sense to begin the vast, the immense majority of his
    words with a lower-case letter. And there are doubtful words:
    Titanic, Cyclopean. I never know these without turning ’em up
    for myself._

    _To sum up:_

    _(a) take a firm stand against capitals generally;_

    _(b) be prepared to make moderate (i.e. grudging,) concessions;_

    _(c) have little Murray at your elbow._

After so long a letter, Teixeira contented himself with a few annotations
to one next day.

On my telling him that I had congratulated a common friend of his son’s
“blue”, he interposed:

    (_I would write to A. P. if I knew what a “blue” was; but I
    really have not the remotest idea. Word of honour, I’m not
    conniegilchristing. I presume it has to do with cricket; and
    it’s a mere guess._)

    _I have studied your exposition of capitals, ~I continued~,
    with great interest and, I hope, profit, though there is a
    fundamental difficulty which I hasten to put before you.... So
    long as proper names intrude their capitals into mid-sentence
    you cannot arrive at flat uniformity, and a few capitals more
    or less do not offend me...._

    _I did not intend to be unfair about High Mass and first
    thought of suggesting for your consideration either Holy
    Communion or that hideous, hypocritical, pusillanimous
    compromise beloved of Anglicans, the “eucharist,” then
    substituted the name of a ceremonial in your own church. You, I
    see, write of the Real Presence without capitals._

    (_Gross knavery and insincerity on my part; rank scoundrelism.
    I’d have put caps, on any other occasion._)

    _I should give capitals to this and to such words as
    Incarnation, Crucifixion and Ascension, when used in a
    religious connection. Also to the word Hegira and any similar
    words culled from any other religion. As I told you before,
    I am without a rule and would let almost any word have its
    capital, if I could please it thereby. Words used in a special
    sense also have their capitals from me, as for example Hall,
    when that means a college dinner served in hall. No, I am
    afraid that a capital for colonel, major and vicar leaves my
    teeth unmoved, and I could write postmistress with a capital
    light-heartedly. On the other hand I should not use a capital
    for dustman, as this is not a title or office._

    _I am, as you see, quite illogical and inconsistent; and, if
    I try to follow your rules, it will be only in the hope of
    pleasing you. I cannot rouse myself to any enthusiasm for or
    against a liberal use of capitals and I do not think that it is
    a matter of great importance. On considerations of comeliness,
    I think the French printed page, with its vile type and
    vile, fluffy paper, is one of the ugliest things (Nonsense,
    nonsense, you unæsthetic Celt! The unsought, natural beauty
    and perfection of the page make up for all the inferiority of
    the material. Never say that again! Your friend Seymour Leslie
    would scratch and claw you for it.) ever allowed to issue from
    a printing press, but that may be only insular prejudice...._

    _Forgive a boring letter, I beg, but I am in a thoroughly
    boring mood. (Grawnted.)..._

A postscript to this controversy came on a postcard dated 28.6.20:

    _... Darwin spells “the king” with a small “k.”_

    _He is rather good in spelling, bad in punctuation, execrable
    in statement, logic, deduction. In ~The Descent of Man~ he
    says:_

        _“Music arouses in us various emotions, but not the
        more terrible ones of horror, fear, rage, etc.”_

    _He had never heard of me, though I was 17 when he died._

                                                              _Tex._

                _Crowborough, 30 June (alas, how time flies!) 1920._

    _For your two letters of 28, 29 June, many thanks. I really
    can’t write and congratulate H. on ~that~! How awful!_

    _And to think that, if Lionel ~[the recipient of the “blue”]~
    had been “vowed” to the B.V.M. in his infancy, he’d have worn
    nothing but blue and white, anyhow, till he came of age!..._

Objecting to my having enclosed the phrase “honest broker” in inverted
commas, he continues:

    _Lady Y., you may remember, said:_

    _“Good beobles, we come here for your goots.”_

    _“Ay,” they replied, “and for our chattels too!”_

    _I don’t want your chattels; but I am convinced that I came
    to England for your goots and to save you from degenerating
    into a lady novelist. The worst of it is that Lady D. agreed
    with you.... Seriously, however: suppose Winston were to use
    a perfectly commonplace metaphor, to say, ~e.g.~, that he had
    ordered the Gallipoli expedition off his own bat. Would that
    for all time raise those four words from the commonplace to
    the exceptional? Could you never employ that phrase except in
    “quotes”?..._

    _Be sensible. Do not fight against your rescuer. Let me, when I
    receive the Royal Humane Society’s medal, feel that my gallant
    efforts were not in vain, that I succeeded in saving your life
    and soul!..._

    _P.S. An invitation to the ... Oppenheim wedding has just
    arrived. Like the man who answered the big-game-hunter’s
    advertisement, I’m not going._[15]

    _Trusting that this will find you alive, ~he writes 7.7.20~,
    I write to thank you for your letter and to return the book.
    ~[The Diary of a Nobody]~. It amused me, though I am not
    prepared to go as far as Rosebinger, Birringer or Bellinger.
    I could certainly furnish a bedroom without it; in fact, I
    hope to die before I read it again; I don’t rank it with Don
    Quixote; and I have never seen the statue of St. John the
    Baptist, so “can’t say.” I think that Mr. Hardfur Huttle,
    towards the end, does much to cheer the reader._

    _I have bought pahnds and pahnds’ worth of books; I am
    rou-inned; and yet I never have aught to read. Can you lend me
    Huxley’s Collected Essays? Can you lend me anything in which
    somebody “goes for” somebody else? I yearn to read savage
    attacks; you know what I mean: not attaxi-cabri-au lait, but
    attacks free from all milk of human kindness._

    _Here is a typical quotation from your favourite “poet”, whom,
    by the way, Benjamin Beaconsfield disliked as much as I do:_

    “Out of the wreck I rise, past Zeus to the P(sic)otency o’er
    him.”

    _Nice and typical, isn’t it? But you mustn’t use it, as the
    first six words form the title of a novel by Beatrice Harraden
    which I have been driven to read down here by the dearth of
    books._

    _My last two purchases have just arrived; series i and ii of
    the New Decameron. Shall I enjoy them?..._

    _You will want something to read in the train, ~he writes on
    10.7.20~. Read this Muddiman’s ~Men of the Nineties~. But
    please return it to me; it will serve to keep the child quiet
    when she next comes down. And it served to make me feel very
    young again (seven years younger than you are now) to read
    of all those remarkable men with whom I foregathered in the
    nineties._

    _They would probably have accepted Squire and Siegfried
    Sassoon.[16] None of the other poets; none of the
    prose-writers, painters, “blasters” or blighters...._

In acknowledging the book, I objected to what I considered the excessive
importance that is still attached to the men of the nineties and to
their work:

    _I doubt, ~I wrote, 12.7.20~, whether the years 1890 to 1900
    have produced more permanent literature of the first order
    than any other decade of the 19th century—or the twentieth.
    Paris was discovered anew in those days and seemed a tremendous
    discovery, though its influence was meretricious, and the
    imitations from the French were usually of the worst French
    models. The discovery of art for art’s sake was, I always feel,
    the most meaningless and pretentious of all other shams. Even
    Wilde never made clear what he meant by the phrase, though
    he and his school interpreted it practically by a wholly
    decadent over-elaboration of decoration. The interest of the
    period lies in the astounding success achieved by this noisy
    and self-sufficient coterie in imposing itself on the easily
    startled, and easily shocked and still more easily impressed
    middle and upper classes of London society. But that is a thing
    that so many people can do and a thing that is so seldom worth
    doing._

In a later letter, I added, 15.6.20:

    _I believe that the great bubble of the nineties has been
    pricked for the present generation. All the work of Max, most
    of Beardsley and a little of Wilde have a permanent place;
    and, if some one would do for the poets and essayists of the
    nineties what Eddie Marsh has done for the Georgian poets, we
    might have one volume of moderate size containing the poetry
    of interest and good craftsmanship though of little power or
    originality...._

    _Whether ~[the artistic movement of the nineties]~ effected
    any great liberation of spirit or manner from the fetters of
    mid-Victorian literature I cannot say, though I am inclined
    to doubt it. That liberation was being achieved by individual
    writers such as Meredith and Kipling, who never had anything
    to do with the domino-room of the Cheshire Cheese. Never, I am
    sure, was any artistic group so void of humour as the men of
    the nineties._

    _Having damned them, their period and work so far, I may
    surprise you by conceding that they do still arouse great
    interest.... I have been thinking that it is almost your duty
    to put on permanent record your own knowledge and opinions
    about this school. Max Beerbohm is unlikely to do it, and you
    must now be one of the very few men living who were on terms
    of intimacy with the leaders of the movement.... Men under
    thirty have never heard of John Gray, Grackanthorpe or your
    over advertised American friend Peters. Your annotations to
    Muddiman’s book go some very little distance towards filling
    this gap, but I think you should undertake something more
    substantial. For heaven’s sake do not call it ~The History
    of the Nineties~, but is there any reason why you should
    not—from your memory and without consulting a single work of
    reference—compile a little book of ~Notes on the ’Nineties~?
    Make it an informal dictionary of biography, put down all the
    names of the men associated with that movement at leisure,
    record about each everything that has not yet appeared in
    print and correct the occasionally incorrect accounts of other
    writers. Such a book would be a valuable addition to literary
    history, it would be amusing and not difficult for you to
    write, it could be turned to the profit of your reputation and
    pocket...._

For this criticism Teixeira took me to task in his letter of 14.7.20.

    _And now, Stephen, tremble. How often have I not called you
    “the wise youth!” How constantly have I not believed you to
    be filled with knowledge, either acquired or instinctive
    and intuitive, of most things! And now your letter ... has
    disappointed me almost to tears._

    _Your only excuse would be that you took Oscar Wilde and
    Bernard Shaw to be and practically alone to be the men of
    the nineties. That is not so. And, if you agree with me that
    Oscar was a man of the eighties and that Shaw is a man of the
    twentieth century, you have no excuse whatever and 98% of the
    first paragraph in your letter is dead wrong._

    _I presume that you keep copies of your letters to me: you
    should; they will be useful for your ~Memoirs of a Celibate~
    (~John Murray: 1950; 105/- net~). Anyhow, here goes:_

    _There was no question of either a literary revival or
    revolution in the nineties and there was no sham, colossal or
    minute._

    _The men engaged were not pretentious, not conceited, not
    humbugs. They were a group of men, mostly under 30, who just
    wrote and drew and painted as well as they could, in all
    sincerity and with no view of financial gain. Dowson, Johnson,
    Horner, Image, etc., etc., etc., were the humblest, most modest
    lot of literary men I ever met._

    _Their output was not immense: it was infinitesimal, just
    because they were so careful to produce only work that was
    “just so.” Think, Stephen. What did Henry Harland, one of the
    few to live to over 40, put out? ~The Cardinal’s Snuff Box~,
    ~My Friend Prospers~, ~Mademoiselle Miss and Other Stories~:
    that is all! Ernest Dowson: two slim volumes of verse,
    half-a-dozen short stories, a collaborator’s share in two
    novels. John Gray: one slim volume of verse. Lionel Johnson:
    God knows how little. And so on. Arthur Symns has worked on
    steadily, but, though he is getting on for sixty, you cannot
    say that his output is immense or contains anything that was
    not worth doing._

    _Immensely advertised! Where? And by whom?_

    _Beardsley’s output was immense, for his years. Ought not the
    world to be grateful for it? He told me once that he had an
    itch for work; and it looked afterwards as if he knew that he
    was doomed to die at 24 or 26 and wanted to throw off all he
    could before. When he worked no one knew: no one ever saw him
    at work and he was always about and always accessible._

    _He was not conceited.... Rickets and Shannon were a little
    conceited: they had a way of “coming the Pope” over the rest,
    as Will Rothenstein once put it to me. (Will always took “a
    proper pride” in his excellent work, but no more). But, Lord,
    hadn’t they the right to be? Was ever a book more beautifully
    designed than ~Silverpoints~ (cover, page, type, typesetting by
    Ricketts)? Place Ricketts’ cover of the ~Pageant~ beside any
    other book in your library and tell me how it strikes you. Look
    at anything that Charles Shannon condescends to exhibit in the
    Academy and see how the quality of it slays everything around
    it exactly as a picture by Whistler or Rossetti would do._

    _To revert to immensity of output (I have to keep levanting
    and tacking about), I call immense the output of Belloc (the
    modern Sterne), Chesterton (the modern Swift), E. V. Lucas
    (the modern Addison); they themselves would be flattered at
    the comparisons. These chaps, though they can and sometimes do
    write as well as the men of the nineties, spoil their average
    by writing immensely; and they write immensely because they
    want a good deal of money. Now the men of the nineties hadn’t
    clubs, homes, wives or children; lunched for a shilling; dined
    for eighteen pence; and didn’t want a lot of money. They cared
    neither for money nor fame; they cared for their own esteem and
    that of what you call their coterie and I their set._

    _And that (to answer a question which you once asked me) is art
    for art’s sake; and I maintain that it is not right to call
    this meaningless or pretentious or a sham._

    _This coterie, or set, was not noisy: I never met a quieter; it
    was self-sufficient only in the best sense; and it in no way
    imposed or impressed itself on the middle and upper classes of
    London society. How could they? I doubt if any number of the
    ~Savoy~ ever sold 1,000 copies; certainly no number ever sold
    2,000. And they ... were never in society, were never in the
    outskirts of society and never wanted to be in either._

    _But there! I daresay you were thinking of Oscar all the
    time...._

    _Enter on the lawn a nurse bearing my dinner-tray. After dinner
    I retire to bed...._

    _One day, ~Teixeira added, 17.7.20~, I’ll return to those men
    of the nineties (I will never write a book about them: really I
    was too much outside them)...._

    _I trust that some Leonard Merricks are on the way: I’m nigh
    starved for books again. Don’t send me Zola or Balzac in
    English: I couldn’t stomach the translations. And I expect
    you’re right about Balzac’s French style. Those giants were
    awful chaps: Balzac, Rubens, the pylon-designing Baines,
    brrr!..._

On 22.7.20 he writes:

    _I beseech you, if you haven’t it, buy yourself a copy of ~The
    Home Life of Herbert Spencer. By “Two.”~ It is the book
    praised by “Rozbury” in his letter to Arrowsmith prefacing
    ~The Diary of a Nobody~. I bought it and began to shake with
    laughter at Rosebery’s being such an ass. But, after a few
    pages, I began to see what he meant; and then, time after time,
    I nearly rolled off my long-chair with laughing not at Rosebery
    but with him. I’d lend it you, but it’ll only cost you 3/6; and
    I want you to have it as a companion volume to ~The Diary~._

    _However, if you will not buy it, I will lend it to you. You’ve
    “got” to read it, or I will never write you another letter._

And on 23.7.20:

    _Some 32 years ago, “Pearl Hobbes” wrote to me that I ought to
    translate Balzac; and I am sorry it is too late for me to do
    ~Goriot~. I am rereading it all the same with much enjoyment,
    though I think that these gala editions should be at least as
    well translated as my Lutetian set of six Zola novels._

    _Huxley, in his little autobiography, writes:_

    _“As Rastignac, in the Père Goriot, says to Paris, I said to
    London:_

    _“‘A nous deux!’”_

    _I remembered that this came at the end of the book, turned to
    it and found:_

    _“Rastignac ... saw beneath him Paris, ... The glance he darted
    on this buzzing hive seemed in advance to drink its honey,
    while he said proudly:_

    _“‘Now for our turn—hers and mine.’”_

    _An epigrammatic tag sadly boshed, I think._

    _I find that “leave them nothing but their eyes to weep with”
    occurs in this book; so we must absolve poor old Bismark at any
    rate from inventing this bloodthirsty phrase._

    _And I find the Ukraine mentioned! The Ukraine! The dear old
    Ukraine! A sweet land of which I—and you? be honest! had never
    heard before the days of the W.T.I.D._

    _I have sent for a complete set of Heine from Heinemann; it
    just occurred to me that I have read little of this great
    man’s. And I am told that the translation is good...._

    _Do E. and J., ~he asks, 26.7.20~, ever perpetrate those plays
    upon words of which Heine was so fond? They are not exactly
    puns; I am not sure that quodlibets isn’t the word for them.
    E.G.: Herr von Schnabelowpski smites the heart of a Dutch
    hotel-proprietress. Over the real china cups she gazes at him
    porcela(i)nguidly._

    _That is not a very good example. This one is better: Heine
    calls on Rothschild at Frankfurt. Rothschild receives him quite
    famillionairly._

    _Good-bye. It threatens rain; and I propose to spend the day
    in bed, with the proofs of ~The Inevitable~...._

A criticism of Plarr’s Life of Dowson leads Teixeira, 27.7.20, to
annotate the letter that contained it:

    _... I was suggesting, I wrote, that the effect ... on the
    minds of a generation which knew not Dowson would be to make it
    feel that it did not want to know him...._

    _(Your cecession from catholicism, he replies, has done you
    McKennas a lot of harm. You flout tradition and go in for
    rational inference and deduction in its place. Horrible,
    horrible! The apostles are not all dead; many of them are your
    living contemporaries; you could, if you like, receive at first
    hand their memories of their dead fellows; and you prefer to
    make up your own mistaken impressions in the light of your own
    mistaken intellect. Well, well!_

    _And, if you write just that sort of life of me, I’ll wriggle
    with pleasure in my coffin.)_

    _This evening Henry Arthur Jones is giving a dinner ... to
    James M. Beck.... I have been bidden to attend...._

    _(Beck is the finest orator I ever heard; and I’ve heard
    Gladstone ~inter alios~._

    _Those Heine quodlibets about which I wrote y’day are, I
    believe, called “split puns,” though I doubt the happiness of
    the term. I made one in my sleep this morning: rowdies on the
    Brighton road indulging in a charabanquet....)_

    _I can never have news, as you may imagine, ~writes Teixeira,
    29.7.20~; my letters must be always replies to yours...._

    _I like your Cave-Brown-Cave story if it was true; it probably
    was, as a family of that name exists._[17]

    _I never heard John Redmond, I am sorry to say. He was, so to
    speak, after my time. I heard Parnell and, if I were only a
    mimic, could give you his curiously contemptuous, high-bred,
    high-pitched voice to-day. I heard Randolph; and at the time,
    in the eighties, both he and Arthur Balfour used to lisp. Does
    A. B. lisp now? Answer this: it interests me; and it has a sort
    of bearing on that passing-fashion competition which you were
    starting. So essential to birth and breeding was the lisp in
    those days that even the English-bred Comte de Paris lisped ...
    in French! I was at his silver wedding and well remember his
    reception of me._

    “Vouth êtes le bienvenu ithi!”

    _Incidentally I remember that good King Edward (“then Prince of
    Wales,” as the memoir-writers say) glared at me furiously on
    that occasion, because I was wearing trousers of the identical
    pattern as his: an Urquhart check with a pink line...._

In the course of a dinner-party given at this time, the conversation
turned on those men and women who had won everlasting renown with the
least effort or justification. The United States Ambassador (Mr. Davis)
proposed Eutychus, of whom little is known but that he fell asleep during
a sermon and tumbled from a window: I suggested the uncaring Gallio, who
did less and is better known. Some one else put forward Melchisedec.
Agreeing that every name in the Bible has a certain immortality, we
turned to secular history. At the subsequent instigation of Mr. Davis,
Lord Curzon of Kedleston propounded “the apple-bearing son of William
Tell.” I invited Teixeira to give his opinion.

    _I can’t compete with Curzon, ~he replied on 6.8.20~, though
    I’ve tried. After all, he was one of the Souls! I did think
    of Alfred and the cakes; but that monarch owes only 5/6 of
    his immortality to those cakes and young Tell owed all his to
    the apple. But stay! Many hold Tell and his offspring to be
    mythical persons. If so, what about the good wife who scolded
    Alfred? I should like you to find some one who will say that I
    have beaten Curzon...._

    _I shall be in town from 8 September to a few days later.
    If you want to see me, you must arrange your engagements
    accordingly. I am the colour which we can never get our brown
    shoes to assume till just before the moment when they drop off
    our feet. But I am as weak as ten thousand rats...._

On 7.8.20 he writes:

    _You will remember that ... I declined to join your Passing
    Fashion Research Society, or whatever you decided to call it.
    But I have no objection to being an honorary corresponding
    member. And I will set you a subject._

    _To establish the year in which it first became the vogue for
    smart British males to don a deliberately dowdy attire._

    _The dowdiness all burst upon my astonished eyes at once: the
    up-and-down collar worn with a top hat and a morning coat;
    permanently turned trousers worn with Oxford shoes, so as to
    display an inch or so of sock; tie usually to match the socks
    and often “self-coloured” and patternless. There are three
    items of sheer deliberate dowdiness for you. Another dowdy item
    was even a little earlier, I believe: the one-buttoned glove,
    showing a bit of bare wrist between it and the shirt-cuff. But
    the soft-fronted dress-shirt, also a piece of dowdy dandyism,
    came in much at the same time as the three specimens cited
    above._

    _I should guess the year to be either 1907 or 1908, but I am
    not quite sure. You, with your wonderful memory, may be able to
    place it, for 1907-8 marks the period when you burst upon the
    London firmament._

    _I—who can remember witnessing a departure for Cremorne—I, I
    need hardly tell you, remember much older and almost as strange
    things. I remember peg-top trowsers, skin-tight trowsers,
    bell-shaped trowsers, though I can’t fix the epoch of any of
    these phenomena; and I can remember when we deliberately wore
    our trowsers so long that we trod upon them with our heels and
    frayed them; and that was in 1880-1._

    _But all I ask that you should fix is the date of the
    deliberately dowdy well-dressed man...._

    _I think, ~he writes, 9.8.20~, that the time has come for you
    to write ... a big political novel, a big, serious, flippant,
    earnest, sarcastic, political novel.... Your book should be
    quite Disraelian in scope; it should be a ~roman a clef~ to
    this extent, that it would contain half—or quarter-portraits;
    and you ought to concentrate on it very thoroughly. I am
    convinced that the world is waiting for it._

    _Do you observe the comparative sweetness of my mood. It is
    doomed entirely to this glorious weather. For the rest, I hope
    and believe that you never resent those whacks with which, when
    the sky is overcast, I am apt to belabour my correspondents
    like an elderly Mr. Punch on his hustings._

    _My good, kind Brighton doctor—good because he is clever, kind
    because he charges me no fee—was over here from Brighton y’day
    to see me. He tells me that this peculiar susceptibility of
    mine to atmospheric influence is a symptom of convalescence
    rather than ill-health. He is much pleased with the improvement
    in my condition; and he approves of my winter plans, though he
    would rather have dispatched me to San Remo or even Egypt had
    either been feasible._

    _Read Max on Swinburne in the ~Fortnightly Review~ when you get
    the chance and contrast it with George Moore’s account of his
    visit to Swinburne, in which he can only tell us that he found
    the poet naked in bed. I forget where it occurs...._

In answering this letter I pointed out that Disraeli avoided the great
political issues of the days in which he was writing and that any author,
such as H. G. Wells in _The New Machiavelli_, Granville Barker in
_Waste_ and H. M. Harwood in the _Grain of Mustard Seed_, who attempts a
political theme is almost bound to impale himself on one or other horn of
a dilemma; if his novel or play revolve round a living controversy such
as the right to strike in war-time or the justice of ordering reprisals
in Ireland, the theatre may become the scene of a nightly riot and the
critics will consider their own political preferences more earnestly than
the literary merits of the book; if the action of play or novel be based
on a dead or unborn controversy, it will fail to arouse the faintest
interest. I was sure that the other admirers of the three works which I
quoted were unmoved by the endowment of motherhood, by educational reform
and by housing schemes.

In reply, Teixeira wrote, 11.8.20:

    _... Don’t slay the suggestions of the big political novel
    off-hand or outright. I mean a bigger thing than you do; a
    thing that not Wells nor Barker nor Harwood ... could write,
    whereas you, I think, could; a thing as big as ~Coningsby~; a
    thing called ~The Secretary of State~ or ~The First Lord of the
    Treasury~, or some such frank affair as that._

    _You have kept up a “very average” logical position in life.
    You know a number of statesmen, but you know only those
    whom you like and you like only those whom you esteem. Your
    portraits of those whom you esteem could not offend them; your
    sketch even of a genial rogue ... could not offend him; and you
    don’t or ought not to care if your daguerreotypes of S., M. and
    B. offended them or not...._

    _Incidentally you might do no little good, to Ireland, which
    should have been your native land, to England, which by your
    own choice remains your home, and to the world in general, to
    which I hope that you bear no ill-will...._

In his next letter, 14.8.20, he returns to the same subject:

    _Your letter ... pretty well convinces me, at any rate about
    the Coningsby novel. Dizzy never wrote about the period in
    which he was just then living. All his novels are antedated a
    good many years. This by way of defending him against any idea
    that he ever offended by betraying private or official secrets
    in his novels...._

One of Teixeira’s last letters (19.8.20) from Crowborough contained a
translation of the terms (already quoted) in which Couperus congratulated
him on his version of _The Tour_:

Couperus writes:

    _“Your last envoi has given me a most delightful day. What a
    magnificent translation. ~The Tour~ is; what a most charming
    little book it has become! I am in raptures over it and read
    and reread it all day and have had tears in my eyes and have
    laughed over it. You may think it silly of me to say all this;
    but it has become an exquisitely beautiful work in its English
    form. My warmest congratulations!..._

    _“Thank McKenna for his assistance: the hymn has become very
    fine. For that matter the whole book is a gem, if I may say so
    myself.”_

    _So I’ve had one appreciative reader at any rate!..._

On 27.8.20 he adds:

    _Tell Norman ~[Major Holden, then liberal candidate for the
    Isle of Wight]~ that, should there be an election in “the
    island” before I leave Ventnor, he’ll find me both able and
    ready to impersonate the oldest inhabitant and gallop to the
    polling-station, in my bath-chair, and vote for him...._

And, finally, in praise of toleration:

                        _31 August 1920 (being the birthday of Her
                        Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands)._

    _It won’t do to insist on this racial aspect of things. I
    was never of those who called L. G. a damned little Welsh
    solicitor. He would have been just the same had he been Scotch
    or English or Irish. After all, our friend R. is little and
    Welsh and was a solicitor and will as likely as not be damned
    if he doesn’t join his wife’s church. And there is the converse
    case, when you hear men describing an outrage committed by
    Englishmen as “unenglish.” How can the things be unenglish
    which the English do?_

    _Like yourself, the late W. H. Smith was shocked when Parnell
    stood up and told the House of Commons ... that he had lied to
    them in the interests of his country. I like to think of you as
    occupying a subtler and more philosophical standpoint than the
    late W. H. Smith...._

    _I continue to feel better; and the arrival of two very pretty
    women patients has loosed my tongue and given me an outlet for
    many a childish and innocent jest. I excuse these jests by
    saying that they’re due to Minerva._

    _“Who’s Minerva?”_

    _“Mi-nervous breakdown. By the way, I hope you like your Alf?”_

    _“Our Alf? What do you mean?”_

    _“Your al-f-resco meals.”_

    _Just like that!..._




XI


For the next few days Teixeira was absorbed in his preparations for
leaving Crowborough. On arriving in London, he came to stay with me until
he and his wife went to the Isle of Wight for the autumn and winter.

In acknowledging, on 1.9.20 his instructions about the diet on which he
now lived, I wrote:

    _Many thanks for your letter written on the anniversary of Her
    Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands. Do not forget to date any
    letters you may write on Friday the anniversary of Naseby, the
    crowning mercy of Worcester and the death of O. Cromwell._

Teixeira interpolated here:

    (_And the birthday of my late aunt Judith Teixeira._)

On 2.9.20 he writes:

    _Dodd ~[Dodd, Mead and Co. Inc.]~ is going to reissue
    ~[Couperus’]~ ~Majesty~ in America and would like you to write
    a preface to it.... Will you do this? I should very much like
    you to. It involves re-reading the book, I fear; but after that
    you will not have much to do except to draw an analogy between
    the hero and the poor Czar, on whose character the recent
    articles in the ~Times~ have thrown an interesting light._

I reminded Teixeira that I had never read _Majesty_, as I had never been
able to secure a copy.

    _You’re perfectly right, ~he replied on 5.9.20~. I’ll bring the
    only copy in the world, that I know of, in my suit-case._

    _You will be able to point to some remarkable prophecies on
    C’s part (he foretold the Hague Conference years before it
    happened) and, for the rest, to let yourself go as you please
    on high continental dynastic politics. I doubt if any writer
    ever entered into the soul of princes as this astonishing youth
    of 25 or so did...._

    _I propose to revise ~Majesty~ so thoroughly that I shall be
    entitled to eliminate Ernest Dowson’s name from the title-page,
    even as I eliminated John Gray’s from that of ~Ecstacy~. There
    was no true collaboration in either case; and they did little
    more for me than you did in ~Old People~: not so much as you
    did in ~The Tour~. Neither had the original before him._

    _I look forward greatly to my stay with you.... Eimar O’Duffy
    ~[the author of The Wasted Island]~ has been married by another
    novelist and has gone to live with her in a cottage in Wexford.
    She spells her name Cathleen; and he has sent me his early
    poems, in which he spelt his name Eimhar. He tells me that
    this spelling was abandoned because it didn’t look well; this
    I accept. He adds that it is pronounced Avar: this I do not
    believe...._

On leaving me, Teixeira wrote 24.9.20 to tell me that he had reached
Ventnor without mishap:

    _This is not to acknowledge the receipt of any letter from
    you that may or may not be awaiting me at the County & Castle
    Club, an edifice into which I have not yet made my comital and
    castellated entry. Rather is it to announce my safe arrival,
    after four hours of wearying travel, and my complete revival,
    after ten hours of refreshing sleep, and to repeat my thanks
    for your utterly exceptional and debonnair hospitality._

    _The first impression of Ventnor is favourable...._

This pococurantist attitude, if I may employ a phrase beloved by
Teixeira, was not supported by his wife in the postscript which she added:

    _Poor fellow, he was so tired travelling and so good over it.
    This place one could wear rags in, it’s so antiquated; and
    we shall return confirmed frumps and bores. There is some
    miniature beauty in a low hill and a tinkly pier that would be
    blown away in a quarter of a gale...._

    _I have seen the sun and feel reasonably well and happy,
    ~Teixeira proclaims in a second letter on the same day~...._

From the end of September to the end of December, when I left England,
our letters—though we corresponded almost daily were much taken up with
business matters. I therefore only reproduce such extracts as throw light
on Teixeira’s literary opinions and on his life at Ventnor.

    _My dear Stephen, loyal and true, ~he writes on 3.10.20~; A
    thousand thanks for Lady Lilith, with its charming dedication,
    and for your letter.... I cannot well lend you the Repington
    volumes. I have them from the Times Book Club, which is all
    that my poor wife has to supply her with books. But seriously
    I advise you to buy them. They are as admirable as they are
    beastly. They form a perfect record of the war as you and I saw
    it; you will refer to them often in years to come; they mention
    every one that I know (except yourself) and a host more, every
    one that you know and a few more; and there is a very full
    index to them...._

    _No, do not send me the Tree book: it will arrive in the next
    parcel from the Times Book Club...._

There follows an account of a characteristic dialogue between Teixeira
and his dentist:

    _New (enumerating every action, like a comic-conjurer):
    “Spray!”_

    _Tex: “Oremus!”..._

    _I wish, ~he writes on 6.10.20~, that I had no correspondent
    but you: what good stuff I could write to you! But 19 letters
    in one day: think of it!..._

    _My age is a melancholy one. The man of 50 or 60 sees all his
    acquaintances and friends dying off in ones and twos: Heinemann
    and Williamson to-day; who will it be to-morrow? When he’s 70,
    he begins to be a sole survivor, with no friends left to lose._

    _You will find the Tree book amusing as you go on with it.
    Four-fifths of it represent the life of a dead fairy told by
    living fairies, one wittier and more whimsical than the others.
    I confess to tittering over Viola’s “screwing their screws
    to the sticking-point” and “peacocks held in the leash.” And
    that’s a glorious portrait of Julius, though, when I knew him,
    he was more mature and more majestic...._

On 11.10.20 he breaks into verse:

      _My very dear Stephen McKenna,_
        _I’m reading your Lilith again,_
      _With much intellectual pleasure_
        _And some little physical pain._
    _This jingle shaped itself within my head_
    _As I stepped to my table from my bed._

    _It’s that physical pain I’m after for the present. The book
    hurts my eyes...._

    _I’ve had a little petty cash from the Couperus books. It’s
    been amusing to see that ~Small Souls~ in a given six months
    produces 15 times as much in America as in this benighted
    country...._

Though he commonly kept his religion and politics to himself, Teixeira’s
sympathy with the Irish moved him to write, 27.10.20:

    _I’m angrily unhappy at the death of McSwiney. To kill a man
    with a face like that! Compare the faces of those who killed
    him!..._

    _It’s a brute of a world that the sun is shining on so
    brightly...._

I had contemplated spending the winter in a voyage up the Amazon, but
abandoned it in favour of one down the east coast of South America.
Teixeira comments, 29.10.20:

    _Your new voyage is the more sensible and interesting by far.
    What’s Amazon to you or you to Amazon? I pictured you and
    trembled for you, steaming slowly up that mighty river between
    alligators taking pot-shots at you with poisoned pea-shooters
    from one bank and hummingbirds yapping split infinitives at
    you from the other. You will be much better off on board your
    goodish coasting tramp...._

    _... It interested me, ~he adds, 30.10.20~, to read in this
    morning’s ~Times~ that Brazilian stock has risen a couple of
    points at the news of your contemplated visit. I hope that
    Argentine rails will follow suit...._

    _~[A lady]~ when returning Shane Leslie’s book, which I had
    lent to her and she enjoyed ... had the asinine effrontery
    to write to me ... of “McSwiney’s farcical death.” Isn’t it
    dreadful to think that the world has given birth to women who
    can write like that?_

    _Can death ever be farcical? We know that the epithet is
    wholly inapposite in the present instance. But can death ever
    be farcical? I told you, I think, of Major Johnson, who,
    throwing hot coppers from the balcony of the Grand Hôtel in
    Paris at the crowd cheering Kruger, overbalanced himself, fell
    to the pavement and was killed. That is the nearest approach
    to a farcical death that I can think of. But I should call it
    ironical. A farcical death. Alas!..._

On 31.10.20 he writes:

    _I fear you will have a hell of a windy time at Deal or Dover
    or wherever Walmer Castle has its being (Walmer perhaps, as an
    afterthought)? It is blowing half a gale here. The Dutch say
    “to lie like a horse-thief.” The English ought to say “to lie
    like a guide-book.” One lies before me at this moment:_

    _“In fact, Ventnor is a sun-box; and the east and north winds
    would have to confess that they have not even a visiting
    acquaintance with her.”_

    _At the same moment, these self-same winds are “a-sharting in
    my ear”:_

    _“We don’t confess to nothink of the sort!_
    _Ho, leave us in yer will before yer die!”_

    _’Tis well to be you, looking forward to sailing the Spanish
    Main...._

Of Philip Guedalla’s _Supers and Supermen_, Teixeira writes, 7.11.20:

    _I have got it out of the Times Book Club because of a kindly
    notice. There are two or three delicious plums in it...._

    _Among the happy phrases is one—“nudging us with his inimitably
    knowing inverted commas”—to which I would in my mean, Parthian
    way call your attention, as bearing upon one of our recent
    controversies...._

    _What is B.N.C., a Noxford college mentioned in Galsworthy’s
    book?[18] ~he asks, 10.11.20~. Bras(?z)enos? How I hate these
    initials!..._

On St. Stanislaus’ Day, he writes:

    _Many thanks for your letter of yesterday (which was the eve of
    St. Stanislaus) ... I have no ... bright social news for you._

    _Yet stay._

    _A card was left upon me, a few days ago, by Captain
    Cave-Brown-Cave, R.N., with a verbal message:_

    _“Would Mr. Teixeira-de-Mattos-Teixeira care for a rubber of
    bridge one afternoon?”_

    _Yesterday I accepted the soft invitation and took 14/- off
    Captain Cave-Brown-Cave and his fellow troglodytes. This would
    have been £7 at my normal points._

    _These are our island adventures._

    _Here is your ~Inevitable~._

    _Make me a list (will you?) of people who to your knowledge
    have entreated me hospitably during the past twelve-month, so
    that I may send them copies of this or some other book when
    Christmas cometh round._

    _With their addresses, please, of which I remembreth not one
    single one...._

I had been recommended to go from Buenos Aires across the Andes to
Valparaiso and to come home by Chile, Peru and the Panama Canal rather
than to sail twice over the same course between Buenos Aires and
Southampton.

Teixeira comments on this change of plans in his letter of 16.11.20:

    _They have had a cyclone, I see, at “Baires,” as the wireless
    used to have it at the W.T.I.D; but, as we had a gale y’day at
    Ventnor, there’s not much in that. On the other hand, how do
    you propose to travel from Baires to Paradise Valley? I ask in
    all ignorance: is there a railway? I know there are Argentine
    Rails; but are the Andes tunnelled? If not, what about it? You
    can travel from London to Ventnor ~via~ Cowes but also ~via~
    Ryde; in my days, the route from Baires to Valparaiso knew but
    one method: to Ride, if you like, but to Ride ~via~ Llamas. Let
    me warn you, a llama would spit in your eye as soon as look at
    you. And you not knowing a word of the language! How’s it to
    be done, Stephen, how’s it to be done? There are bits of the
    Andes where you cross a crevasse, llama and all, in a basket
    slung on a rope which stretches from precipice to precipice. Of
    all the cinematographic stunts! Well, there! Have you a nice
    revolver?..._

    _... Tell me what you think that you are going to eat
    between Baires and Valparaiso, ~he adds next day~. They grow
    comparatively few fish on the slopes or even on the crests of
    the Andes...._

    _As a matter of curiosity, write to me to-morrow what your
    weather was like now at 9.15 a.m. to-day. I am sitting at a
    wide-open window actually perspiring (saving your presence)
    with heat._

I reassured him as best I could (17.11.20):

    _... Those who know tell me that there is a perfectly good
    railway from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso with a permanent
    way, rolling stock, points and signals, tunnels to taste and
    all the paraphernalia that one might buy on a small scale at
    Hamley’s toy-shop. The Andes ought, of course, to be crossed
    on mule-back, but this takes long and I do not know any mules.
    Nor, from your exposition of their habits, am I desirous of
    meeting any llamas...._

    _My faithful Stephen, many thanks for your three letters, ~he
    writes, 21.11.20~. I’ve been feeling rather out of sorts these
    last few days and have not written to you since Thursday, I
    believe; not that I have much to tell you ... except that,
    were I weller and stronger, I should write and offer my sword
    to that maligned monarch, Constantine I. of the Hellenes. I am
    growing heartily sick of seeing countries meddling in other
    countries’ business...._

    _It were the baldest side on my part, ~he confesses on
    23.11.20~ to pretend that the weather here has not turned cold.
    The winds are what is known as bitter. But the sun is shining
    like blazes. And there you have what I was leading up to: once
    bitter, twice shining._

                                                _Ever yours,
                                                Alexander Crawshay._

Not content with emulating Mrs. Robert Crawshay’s wit and appropriating
her name, Teixeira laid his witticism before her and challenged her to
say that it was not of the true brand. There is a reference to this in a
later letter; his next communication was a picture-postcard of Ventnor,
annotated by himself:

    _A. ~[A bathchair man]~ This is not me._

    _B. ~[A child with a hoop]~ Nor is this, really._

    _C. ~[An indistinguishable figure]~ This might be._

    _D. ~[A picture of the hotel]~ But probably I am here, lurking
    in the Royal Hotel, where I can sea the sea but the sea can’t
    see me._

    _I think little of your latest joke, ~I wrote, 24.11.20~, and
    have myself made several of late that put yours into the shade.
    Thus, on learning that a woman of my acquaintance had left her
    rich husband and run away with a penniless lover, I added the
    conclusion that they were now living in silver-gilty splendour.
    I can assure you that that is far more in the true Crawshay
    tradition...._

My effort met with less than no approval:

    _My poor Stephen!, ~Teixeira wrote 25.11.20~. The worst of your
    jokes, when you attempt to play upon words, is that they have
    all been made before. It must be 36 (thirty-six) years (I said,
    years) since I saw at the old Strand Theatre a play called
    ~Silver Guilt~ parodying ~The Silver King~._

    _I am glad or sorry, whichever I should be, that your arm[19]
    has taken (~arma virumque cano~: beat that if you can! ~Virus~
    poison, acc. (I hope and trust) ~virum~)...._

    _My conscience smites me, ~he writes, 26.11.20~, for having
    omitted in either of my last two letters to express the
    sympathy which I feel with Seymour Leslie—and you—in this
    serious illness of his. What is it exactly? Whatever it may be,
    I hope that he will get the better of it...._

    _His aunt Crawshay has been good enough to pass “once bitter,
    twice shining.” She says that it “is a really worthy phrase and
    will be of use to us all!”..._

    _I have been reading a lot of French lately, in those very
    cheap, double-columned, illustrated editions. It is perfectly
    marvellous to see how happily the French draughtsmen succeed in
    catching their authors’ ideas, whereas one may safely say that
    “our” British illustrators do not catch them once in ten times.
    Why is this? I am not sure that a certain rough, unwashed
    Bohemianism is not at the bottom of it, achieving results which
    are beyond that prim, priggish mode of life which nowadays
    governs the artists on this side. I may be wrong: I certainly
    couldn’t elaborate my theory; on the other hand, I may be
    perfectly right...._

In an earlier letter I had asked why he sought a refuge where he could
see the sea but where the sea could not see him. The answer is given in a
postscript:

    _I might turn giddy if the ~sea saw~ me; but it would look very
    ugly if ~I saw~ it._

By way of revenge I reminded Teixeira that the gender of _virus_ was
neuter:

    _Alas!, ~he replies, 27.11.20~._

    _I suspected it at the time; and now my uprooted hairs are
    beglooming the pink geraniums below my window. I have taken my
    oath; and now you and I are pledged: no French, you; no Greek
    or Latin, I. It may be all for the best._

    _And ~arma virusqus cano~ would have sounded so much better!..._

Returning to the subject of French Illustration, he adds, 28.11.20:

    _It’s the knock-about, rough-and-tumble, café life in Paris
    I expect, that accounts for the greater success of the
    French illustrators. They all of them meet all the authors
    in the great ~Bourse à poignées de main~ that are the Paris
    coffee-houses. The subjects are discussed over a thousand
    books; and the draughtsman is not overpaid.... What I’m “after”
    is this, that the British illustrators, sitting at home in
    their neatly-swept fiats or studios, decorated mainly with
    Japanese fans, furnished with wives instead of mistresses, that
    these smug dogs, with their pappy brains, ~cannot~ turn out
    such good work or enter so well into the spirit of things, as
    the Frenchman. And, if all this sounds damned immoral, I can’t
    help it._

The shadow of Christmas fell across Teixeira’s mind so early as the
first day of December:

    _I ask myself, ~he writes~:_

    _“What shall I give this Stephen? A book?... But he’s got a
    book!... Ah, but has he a three-volume novel? No, bedad!...
    And, as I live, I don’t believe that ~Violet Moses~ is included
    in his collected edition of the works of that mighty writer,
    Leonard Merrick.”_

    _So here’s a first edition for you, with my blessing. ~[Your
    secretary]~ should try to remove the labels with that nastiest
    of utensils, a wet, hot sponge...._

For the first time in many months Teixeira was driven back on _The Wrong
Box_ to find an adequate comparison with the informative newcomer who now
disturbed the noiseless tenour of his way:

    _Joseph Finsbury has arrived, ~he writes, 2.12.20~. Overhearing
    me tell my wife that Bucharest is the capital of Roumania, he
    leant forward and asked me if I had been to Bucharest._

    _Tex: No._

    _Joseph: Oh, I thought I heard you mention Bucharest._

    _Tex: I sometimes mention places which I have never visited._

    _Joseph: Bucharest is a second Paris._

    _Tex: Grrrrrrrrmph!_

    _Joseph: Though I daresay it has been destroyed by now._

    _Tex: (to his wife).... Have you done with ~Femina~? If so,
    I’ll give it to those Dutch ladies._

    (_Stalks off to Mrs. and Miss van L._)

    _Joseph: (to an Irish widow) I have been to all the capitals of
    Europe ... (and holds the wretched Mrs. N. enthralled, so I am
    told, for two mortal hours)...._

    _Later. Joseph (to ~[my wife]~): How clever of your husband to
    speak Dutch to those ladies!_

    _~[My wife]~: Not at all! He’s a Dutchman._

    _Joseph: I know Holland very well. I have been to Rotterdam. I
    have been to Java. The finest botanical gardens in the world
    are at Buitenzorg near Batavia._

    _~[My wife]~: Re-e-ally!_

    _Can you ~Teixeira asks, 2.12.20~, lend me that book by James
    Joyce (~Portrait of the Artist~), which you once wrote to me
    about? I see Barbellion praises it enthusiastically in the new
    diary._

    _Would you like me to lend you ~A Last Diary~ or have you
    bought it?_

    _Your Uncle Joseph was in disgrace yesterday. We have a girl
    trio of musicians here, who play at tea-time and eke after
    dinner. The pianist reports that he said to her:_

    _“I have been to Japan. I was very ill there and I found myself
    in the arms of a Japanese woman.”_

    _To-day he stopped me in the road and said:_

    _“I wish I could speak Dutch, sir, as well as you speak
    English. I once learnt a continental language, but I mustn’t
    speak it now. What it was” (throwing out his arms) “you can
    guess....”_

I had read Barbellion’s two books without sharing Teixeira’s admiration
for them, in part because I thought that a book of self-revelation so
unreserved should only have been published posthumously, in part because
it was incongruous—to use no stronger word—to find a man, who had aroused
wide-spread compassion by what was taken to be the account of his last
hours, reading with relish the sympathetic press notices which it brought
him.

To this criticism Teixeira replies, 5.12.20:

    _Thank you for your two letters and the loan of James Joyce....
    Barbellion I like and almost love—I should love him entirely
    but for a common strain in him that makes itself heard
    occasionally—but then I was taught very early in life to make
    every allowance for men of any genius, whereas you look for the
    public-school attitude towards all and sundry. Apart from this,
    B. seems to me to have borne almost unparalleled suffering
    with remarkable courage and to have shown a good deal of pluck
    besides in laying bare his soul in the midst of it all._

    _You see, if one cared to take the pains, one could make you
    detest pretty well everybody you know and like. For everybody
    has a mean, petty, shabby, cowardly side to him; and one has
    only to tell you of what the man in question chooses to keep
    concealed. B. chose to reveal it; that’s all about it...._

    _My wife bids you be sure to say good-bye, when you go on your
    travels, to the woman, whoever she may be, in whom you are most
    interested. Her reason is that she dreamt two nights ago that
    you were prevented from doing so. This does not imply that you
    will not return alive. It means only that something prevented
    you from saying good-bye to that person and that it would be
    fun to stultify the dream...._

On 7.12.20 Teixeira writes:

    _... I am reading James Joyce, skippily. The fellow has a great
    deal of talent, but much of it is misdirected. I should not be
    surprised if one day he began to write books that he and his
    country will be proud of...._

    _Incidentally I admire his ruthless suppression of capitals and
    am interested in his ditto ditto of hyphens...._

On Christmas Eve, he writes:

    _Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive them that Christmas
    against us._

    _What I want to know by your next letter and what you have not
    told me, though you may think that you have, is how you propose
    to travel home from the west coast of South America...._

And on 27.12.20:

    _I was asked to “recite” yesterday! I refused. I was asked
    to take part in a hypnotic experiment: would I rather be the
    professor or the subject?_

    _“The subject,” I replied. “But I would even rather be dead.”_

And on 29.12.20:

    _... This is the last letter but one or two which I shall be
    writing to you before you sail or puff down the Solent....
    Needless to add that I feel sad at the thought of your imminent
    departure and glad at the thought that you appear to feel a
    trifle sad too._

    _The ~Almanzora~! Well, God speed her across the Atlantic! But
    she’s got a plaguy hairdressing name. On my dressing-table
    stand two bottles and two only. One contains Anzora cream; the
    other Pandora brilliantine. Both are meant to preserve and
    beautify my already well-preserved and beautiful hair. I must
    try to “become” some Almanzora to keep them company...._




XIII


The diary which Teixeira kept for me during my absence in South America
was, so far as I am aware, his first venture in this kind of literature.
Approaching it with trepidation, he abandoned it with loathing. The
mystery of a double cash-column quickly palled; and he was not long
intrigued even by printed reminders of the moon’s phases and of the days
on which dividends and insurance-policy renewals became due.

                         30 December 1920.

    As a large number of these Diaries circulate abroad it may be
    well to point out that the Astronomical Data, such as phases of
    the moon etc. are given in Greenwich time.

    _Perhaps it may be as well, ~Teixeira concurs, 30.12.20~._

                         31 December 1920.

    _I did not see the old year out. I played 1/- bridge in the
    afternoon at Captain Cave-Brown-Cave’s, with him, Captain B.
    and Dr. F. and won_

                                                           _£—18.0._

    _which at normal points would have been_

                                                            _9.5.0._

    _(I presume that is what the right-hand column is for. But the
    left-hand column? Ah, that left-hand column!...)_

    _The last that I saw of the old year was a 68-7-0, grey-haired
    parson in pumps and a prince-consort moustache and whiskers
    waltzing a polka, or polkering a waltz—in short, dancing
    something exceedingly modern—with a 15-7-0 flapper. Then we
    went to bed, wondering how Stephen was spending his New Year’s
    Eve, on board the ~Almanzora~, in a south-westerly gale._

                       Saturday, 1 January.

    _When at 5.30 I switched on my light and rose, I saw a
    leprechaun standing on my writing-table, looking like a little
    sandwich-man. Fearlessly I approached; and he changed into a
    bottle of ~eau-de-Cologne~ with an envelope slung round his
    neck, inscribed, “To my Best Beloved.” Mark ~[my wife’s]~ bold
    capitals. And show me another couple whose united ages amount
    to 117 years or more and who still do this sort of thing. O
    olden times and olden manners!..._

                        Monday, 3 January.

    _Bridge at Cave’s with Captain B. and Dr. C._

    _~[My wife]~: “What did you talk about at tea?”_

    _Tex: “Jam.”_

    _This question and answer never vary, after my return from a
    visit to the C.-B.-C’s...._

    _I foresee that this compilation is going to rival the ~Diary
    of a Nobody~. And I am pledged to keep it up until the 7th of
    March. Kismet! Or, as the dying Nelson said, “Kismet, Hardy.”_

                       Wednesday, 5 January.

    Dividends due

    _What dividends?_

                        Sunday, 9 January.

    _Thank goodness that I have only space to thank goodness that I
    have only space wherein ... ~ad infinitum~...._

                       Thursday, 13 January.

    _Received from Stephen’s mother his letter to his mother...._

    _Received from Lady D. Stephen’s letter to ~[her]~ and wrote
    to her in appropriate terms, expressing doubts upon Stephen’s
    dietary while crossing the South-American continent, where
    there are neither fish nor eggs, save the eggs of condors and
    hummingbirds...._

                        Friday, 14 January.

    _... My bank-balance is overdrawn, but I make 19/6 at bridge._

    _... Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Martin arrive. I do not know if this is
    the ~Daily News’~ Irish correspondent whom the Black and Tans
    wanted to murder._

                       Tuesday, 18 January.

    _Begin Couperus’ ~Iskander: The novel of Alexander the Great~;
    two enormous volumes, which I may hardly live to translate.
    It is a great joy to see this artist building up his story
    with firm and elegant perfection from the very first page,
    with conviction and a fine self-confidence, no grouping, no
    floundering, no hesitation...._

                       Saturday, 23 January.

    _Need something happen every day at Ventnor? Danged if there
    need!_

                        Monday, 24 January.

    _... The new rich arrive, Rolls-Royce and all._

                       Tuesday, 25 January.

    _Those new rich! So new, so rich, so drearily unostentatious!
    Young new richard bald, pan-snayed, ill-dressed; young new
    wife and sister-in-law dowdy; young new secretary without a
    dinner-jacket to his backside; young new baby and young new
    nurse all over the place; young new Rolls-Royce, careering over
    the island, the only sign of wealth._

    _If only there were a few diamonds, a few banded cigars, a few
    h’s dropping on the floor with a dull thud, one could at least
    laugh. But the drabness, the gloom of these particular new
    rich: O my lungs and O my liver!..._

                       Thursday, 27 January.

    _It is terrible, the number of people who come to this hotel;
    and I regret the pleasant, non-“paying” days when we were six
    visitors and three musicians, with a full staff of servants
    to wait on us. There are now over thirty people at meals, one
    uglier than the other. And as soon as one goes two others take
    his place...._

                        Sunday, 30 January.

    _... To bed at 5, with my “special dinner” at 7, John Francis
    Taylor’s meal: “Give me some milk; and let the milk be hot.
    And give me some bread; and let the bread be inside the milk.”_

                        Monday, 31 January.

    The Insurance herein contained is not valid until your name has
    been registered.

    _I don’t care. Yer can ’ave the insurance._

    _The new rich have some business visitors._

                       Tuesday, 1 February.

    _... Departure of the new riches’ little thyndicate of friends._

    _Arrival of the dividend on my Benson & Hedges’ 10% 2nd
    pref., the only shares wherein I have ever invested that have
    ever paid any dividend whatever. Lord, how I have moiled
    and toiled to sink money in stumer companies! Shrewsburry &
    Talbot Hansoms! Galician Oilfields! Rubber substitutes! Cork
    substitutes! Tampico-Panuco Deferred! United Transport Co.! In
    the three last I still have holdings: about £250 in all. And
    the things that I have inherited: thousand of dollars’ worth of
    Mexican (and Turkish and Hungarian and Russian) rubbish, which
    would barely fetch a tenner, all told!..._

                       Thursday, 3 February.

    _... The new arrivals include a long, lean man ... and his
    wife. His hair is dyed to suggest 55; he is probably a
    cadaverous 77. He comes down to dinner in a white tie and
    tails. His digestion is of the weakest. He refuses soup, leaves
    the fish, refuses a cutlet, leaves the goose and seems to
    dine mainly on ~crême Beau Rivage~, which is a ~crême carmel~
    decorated with a blob of whipped cream and angelica. His
    conversation with his wife consists purely of whispered smiles._

                        Friday, 4 February.

    _I received letters from Stephen to me and from Stephen to his
    mother. I have still to receive a letter from Stephen to Lady
    D...._

    _On his return he will borrow from me Frank Harris’ second
    series of ~Contemporary Portraits~, just arrived from New York._

    _There is no bridge at the Home-Sweet-Homes. I go to the club,
    play with P. the local solicitor; Dr. W., of Harrogate; Mr. S.,
    of the same and win the sum of £——2½ d._

            Saturday, 5 February and Sunday, 6 February

    _An episode of “And oh, the children’s voices in the lounge!”
    was followed by my going to the office and saying:_

    _“I am going to bed lest these children be the death of me. May
    I have a special dinner, please?”_

    _“Certainly. What would you like?”_

    _“Send me some milk and let the milk be hot. And send me some
    bread and let the bread be inside the milk.”_

    _Next morning, having slept eight hours and fifteen minutes, I
    went to the manageress and:_

    _“People,” I said, “are far too proud of their children and
    too fond of displaying them in public.... There is nothing
    wonderful about parentage and nothing clever. Most people are
    parents. I have been one myself.... Children should be seen and
    not heard.... If they raise their voices in the public rooms,
    they should be sent to their bedrooms. Some would suggest the
    coal-hole; but I, as you know, have a gentle heart.... Remember
    that we live in an age of reprisals. The privilege of screaming
    and yelling is not confined to children. Adults enjoy equal
    rights. Next time a child raises its voice in my presence, I
    shall in quick succession bellow like a bull, roar like a
    lion, howl like a jackal, laugh like a hyena. If you drive me
    to it, I shall copy all the shriller domestic animals.... The
    matter is now in your hands.”_

                        Monday, 7 February.

    _Peace reigns at Ventnor...._

                      Wednesday, 16 February.

    _... I start my sock-and-tie stunt, which consists in
    “copycatting” daily, Austin Read seconding, an absurd young man
    of half my age. Thus do the elderly amuse themselves for the
    further amusement of a limited circle...._

                       Tuesday, 22 February.

    _Stephen’s letter of 20.1.21 to his mother arrives. ~[I
    again varied my itinerary and had decided to make my way to
    Valparaiso through the Straits of Magellan rather than across
    the Andes.]~ So he is travelling in the wake of H.M.S. Beagle
    and the late Charles Robert Darwin! He’ll be perished with
    cold; but he’s more likely to get a fish or two to eat...._

                       Sunday, 27 February.

    _Stephen’s birthday. His health shall be drunk in brimming
    barley-water; and, though I believe he has already had a
    birthday-present, he shall have a copy of ~The Tour~ the moment
    it arrives. Good luck to him!_

    _P.S. Absolutely a good notice of ~The Tour~ in the ~Sunday
    Times~. My wife says that the critic must have been drunk._

                       Monday, 28 February.

    _Arrival of a terrible Yorkshire group, two men and a woman....
    They foregather with ... a man who appears in carpet-slippers,
    like Kipps, and talk of nothing but food, in broad Leeds._

                         Tuesday, 1 March.

    _... “Ah had hum-und-eggs to my breakfast this morning. Ah
    was always partial to hum-und-eggs for breakfast.... Ah had
    new potai-i-toes ut the dinner. Ah said to McKanner, ‘These
    are too good to pass.’ We had summon with ’em, summon und new
    potai-i-itoes.”_

    _They seem to be bank-managers and to have dined with Reggie at
    some London City and Midland Bank-wet...._

                        Thursday, 3 March.

    _T. takes me to East Dene, the childhood home of Swinburne, now
    a convent of the Sacred Heart. I am shown over the entrancing
    grounds by the Mother Superior. Before taking me into the
    chapel:_

    _“You are not a catholic, I suppose?” she asks._

    _“Indeed I am.”_

    _“I mean, a Roman catholic?”_

    _“Reverend mother, are there any others?”_

    _“Oh, they all call themselves Anglican catholics nowadays!”_

    _Then on to Craigie Lodge, where Pearl Hobbes pesters the
    tenants with trivial spirit-messages._

    _Home, feeling cold as death...._

                        Saturday, 5 March.

    _... I am correcting proofs of ~The Three Eyes~ for Hurst &
    Blackett. Altogether I shall have four books out this spring._

        _~The Tour~, Butterworth._
        _~The Three Eyes~, Hurst & Blackett._
        _~Majesty~, Dodd._
        _~More Hunting Wasps~, Dodd._

    _Not so bad for an owld, infirm mahn!_

                         Sunday, 6 March.

    _It is pleasant to see the sun gain strength daily, with
    every sort of flower appearing, almond-blossoms in full
    swing, cherry-blossoms hard at it and pear-blossoms making a
    beginning._

                         Monday, 7 March.

    _Departure of ~[the married Yorkshire visitors]~._

    _“Thank God, they’re gone!” the survivor is heard to say._

    _Arrival of the survivor’s women-folk. He sees them to their
    rooms and comes down to gloat over some woman. When his wife
    returns to the hall:_

    _“Hullo, Helen!” he says. “Are ye dahn olready?” And repeats
    the bright question: “Hullo, Helen! Are ye dahn olready?”_

    _What a people, the men of Yorkshire!..._

                        Wednesday, 9 March.

    _I begin a collodial sulphur treatment ... for that picturesque
    right leg of mine. Irving’s left leg was a poem (Oscar Wilde);
    my right leg is a money-box, adorned with three patches the
    size of a shilling, a sixpence and a groat, all very nice and
    silvery. I asked ~[the doctor]~ whether it was leprosy or
    dropsy. He said it was soriasis, scoriasis, scloriasis: I don’t
    know which and I don’t care._

                        Thursday, 10 March.

    _The ~[other Yorkshire visitors]~ are to go on Monday, when I
    can say:_

    _“Thank God, they’re gone!”_

    _And I pray that the table next to ours may not be given to
    people with provincial accents. Let it be noted that the
    friend of “McKannar” is manager of the—branch of the L.J.C.M.
    at Leeds, so that, when I go to live at Leeds, I may bank
    elsewhere...._

                         Friday, 11 March.

    _At the club, I win 1861 points at bridge in 90 minutes._

                                                     £.    s.   d.
    _In money, at 2½d the 100, this represents_           _4_  _0_
    _At the Cleveland it would have represented_    _9_  _12_  _0_
    _At the Reform Club it would have represented_  _2_   _8_  _0_

                         Sunday, 13 March.

    _John (“Shane”) Leslie’s book on Cardinal Manning seems to
    me very good. Leslie is very nasty to Purcell, who no doubt
    deserves it._

                         Monday, 14 March.

    _Departure of ~[the last Yorkshireman]~, leaving his
    women-people behind him. He asked for it and he shall have it:_

    _“Thank God he’s gone!”_

    _He used to stare at me till I devised the retort: closing my
    eyelids and yawning at him like a lion._

    _I think I must talk to Reggie about him some day._

                        Tuesday, 15 March.

    _... The hotel is filling up madly for Easter. There will be
    more here then than at Christmas. Help!..._

                        Thursday, 17 March.

    S. Patrick ☽ First Quarter, 3.49 a.m.

    _Well, I went to church to pray for Ireland: what else was
    there to be done?_

    _Stephen’s return seems to be unduly delayed; and I’ve
    forgotten the name of his ship._

                         Friday, 18 March.

    _The sun shines in the morning._

    _The rain falls in the afternoon._

    _I play a little bridge._

    _The sun shines all day._

    _Thank God, a letter from Stephen and an end to this beastly
    diary!_




XIV


Teixeira continued to live at Ventnor until the beginning of May, with
spirits, health and powers of work all steadily improving. He returned
to London in time to welcome Couperus, who arrived in the middle of the
month and was entertained privately and publicly for five or six weeks.

    _I don’t know exactly when you’ll be back, ~he writes,
    11.3.21~, but I welcome you home with all my heart ... and with
    an S.O.S._

    _The title of ~[Couperus’]~ ~The Inevitable~[20] has been
    forestalled, in a novel publishing with Holden & Harlingham.
    And I want another good title in a hurry. Can you help me?_

    _There is always:_

        Cornélie.

    _Wilkie Collins would have called it:_

        Could She Do Otherwise?

    _George Egerton would have said:_

        The Woman Who Went Back.

    _(But that’s giving the solution away too soon)._

    _Is there a possible title with “Doom” or “Fate” in it?_

    _Henry James:_

        How Cornélie Ended.

    _Stephen McKenna:_

        The Reluctant Plover.

    _George Robey:_

        Did She Fall or Was She Pushed?

    _The Bible:_

        _(unquotable)_

    _Tex:_

        _Anything on the Wilkie Collins lines overleaf._

        The Lure of Fate.

        Could She Avoid It?

        It Had To Be.

    _And, as I said, there’s always:_

        Cornélie....

    _Welcome home, my dear Stephen, ~he writes, 19.3.21~...._

    _I look forward, with pleasure, to receiving your diary and
    soon you may look backward, with disgust, to having received
    mine._

    _My health has made very reasonable progress and my wife
    is exceedingly well. Frank Dodd visits us for two days on
    Thursday: how we shall be after that ... well, how ~shall~ we
    be after that?..._

On 27.3.21 he writes:

    _Dodd arrived on Thursday: I say, he arrived. He arrived by
    travelling from London to Southhampton in a luggage-van with a
    first-class ticket (what’s the penalty for that?); by running
    his boat into the mud 10 minutes from Cowes; by missing his
    connection; by changing at Ryde; and by repeating his offence
    “thence” and “hither”: ~i.e.~ travelling with the same ticket
    in a second luggage-van. At 9 p.m. he arrived, greeting me with
    the words:_

    _“I’ve had nothing to eat since breakfast.”_

    _You should have seen the poor fellow torn between two
    longings, with a plateful of soup before him while waiting
    for a Ventnor cocktail, consisting of 98% Plymouth gin and 2%
    orange bitters._

    _We motored him on Friday to Blackgang, to Chale, to
    Carisbrooke, to Newport, to Brading, to Bembridge, to Sandown,
    to Shanklin and back. Having already familiarized himself with
    Cowes and Ryde, he declared that he had now seen every city in
    the Isle of Wight except Freshwater._

    _I lay low about Yarmouth, but yesterday I walked him back from
    Bonchurch, after my doctor had motored us “thither.”_

    _We did a lot of talking in between, but he did not sap my
    vitality.... He left after tea for France, ~via~ Southhampton
    and Havre; and I was able to sit up, take nourishment and
    even stand and watch a ball-room full of people dance Lent
    out on what the festive programme called “Easter Saturday”:
    Christians, you may or may not be aware, call it Holy
    Saturday...._

And on 31.3.21:

    _... I booked a seat on a four-in-hand this morning to go
    to certain point-to-point races; cancelled it; received an
    invitation from my young doctor to take me there in his car;
    declined it, feeling too weak and sulphurous.... I have a leg,
    like Sir Willoughby what’s-his-name; but this leg is covered
    with patterns (Sir Willoughby Patterne, was it?) and to cure it
    I am covered and lined with brimstone. It is not curing; and I
    am just tempersome, that’s all...._

In answer to my question what he would like for a birthday present, he
replies, 3.4.21:

    _This is one of the days on which I feel like nothing on
    earth. Yet I must answer your three letters to the best of my
    enfeebled power.... I want a ~Catholic Dictionary~_

                                   or

    _Drummond’s ~Life of Erasmus~_

                                   or

                                     _a second-hand copy of either
                                     will be quite acceptable: the
                                         second is an old book and
                                           probably out of print._

    _five fumable cigars “from stock”; but a present I must have
    because I am working a stunt about the immense number of
    birthday gifts which I am sure of receiving. The Cleveland Club
    is being canvassed with this intent and the members urged to
    make canvass-backed ducks and drakes of their money: oh, how
    like nothing on earth I feel after being brought to bed of
    this joke! I am to have a cake with 56 candles in it from my
    doctor’s wife, which her name is Phyllis Twigg; so let no one
    send me an other. If I ate more than 56 candles at my age, I
    should have to go in cossack-cloth and ashes for the rest of
    my life; oh, like nothing on earth, Stephen, like nothing on
    earth!..._

The acknowledgement of the birthday present had to be delayed while
Teixeira described his effort to observe an eclipse:

    _I ordered a pail and some water (“and let the water be inside
    the pail”) to be placed on the lawn this morning, so that I
    might observe the eclipse of the sun. The eclipse was over
    before I got down; as the pail was bright white that made no
    difference. Things looked very uncanny from my bedroom window
    and I tried to tremble like a Red Indian: they tremble, as you
    know, like Red Indianything...._

It was written on the morrow of his birthday, 10.4.21:

    _Many thanks for your letter of the 8th, for your good wishes
    and for a noble ~Catholic Dictionary~, with which I was
    mightily pleased. It will be of great value to me if I live (a)
    to edit ~The Autumn of the Middle Ages~, by Huisinga and (b) to
    translate The Land of Rembrand, by Busken Huet, two monumental
    tasks which I have been discussing with Dodd...._

    _You have presumably bought ~Queen Victoria~, by the side of
    which ~Eminent Victorians~ is quite a dull book. And I read
    that, on Friday last, eight gentleman were seen sitting in a
    row in Kensington Gardens, all reading Strachey’s book. If,
    however K. G. were closed to the public on Friday, then the
    story is mythical...._

    _Your birthday-stunt worked wonders. Miracles never cease:
    R—— sent me an Omar Khayyam! R. a round or circular
    photograph-frame of a precious metal known as silver. N. F. 25
    cigars of the por Laranaga flavor. B. 50 of the flavour known
    as Romeo y Julieta. P. 100 cigarettes of the snake-charming
    flavour, which, being manufactured from the finest high-grade
    selected Turkish leaf tobacco, must be exchanged for the
    cigarettes of Ole Virginny when I am next in hail of one of
    Messrs. Salmon & Gladstone’s famous establishments._

    _This exhausts your list. Over and above these gifts, I
    received from S. an Umps, ~i.e.~ a biscuit-ware naked doll,
    with wings, practicable arms and a heart in the right,
    non-commital place, in the middle of its chest. Also, a neat
    black and grey tie. From Mrs. H. a tie.... From my wiff a tie
    and a pair of mittens, for elderly early-morning wear. From
    the manageress of the hotel, a knitted canary waistcoat with
    sapphire buttons to cover the nudity of the Umps. From an
    anonymous admirer, a smaller naked doll, made, I venture to
    think, of celluloid-georgette. From a lady staying at the
    hotel, a box of Sainsbury’s chocolates, which are the most
    toothsome in the world. From G. H., aged 80, and F., his wife,
    age 75, a box of other chocolates, and 50 De Reske cigarettes.
    From A. T., aged 6, bought with her own money, a bottle of ink
    and a ball of twine. From her mother, P. T., neé McKenna—nay,
    Mackenzie—two blue-bird electric-light shades._

    _The T’s, who belong to my local doctor, in the proportion
    of one wife and one daughter, also gave me a birthday
    party. To meet me were invited Dr. C., Dr. F., and Captain
    Cave-Brown-Cave. It opened with an ode or oratorio about
    fairies and happiness, intoned by Anne and Dr. C. to an
    accompaniment by Mrs. T. Then Anne put her arms round my neck,
    embraced me tenderly and told me not to mind what Mrs. Teixeira
    said about my touting for presents: Mrs. Teixeira didn’t mean
    it, couldn’t mean it; and Anne didn’t believe it, couldn’t
    believe it. With the tears streaming down the knees of my
    cashmere trouserings, I was led in to tea to see my name spelt
    in letter-biscuits and my birthday-cake surrounded by 56 pink,
    green, white and red candles. Then we played bridge and I won
    eight shillings. And I doubt if Queen Victoria ever described a
    birthday more fully._

    _No, she would not have forgotten, as I nearly forgot, that F.
    E. W. also sent me a tie...._

In the middle of the month, Teixeira began to make preparations, for his
return:

    _Should you happen, ~he writes, 14.4.21~, to buy a steam-yacht,
    in addition to a motor-car, before the 5th of May, you might
    send her for us: we would as soon travel that way, land at the
    Temple stairs and lunch with you while the yacht takes our
    luggage up-river to Chelsea...._

    _You have evidently misunderstood my motives in deciding to buy
    a car, ~I began to explain~._

    _Get a neat, unobstrusive disk with “Hackney Carriage” fitted
    to it, ~he interposed~: you can make a tidy income out of your
    car then, when the Muse (should I say the Garage?) fails you._

    _... If, ~he writes, 19.4.21~, you have not blewed or blued
    (which is it?) your last fiver, consider whether your library
    is really complete without the Greville Memoirs. Strachey’s
    book will probably have set you lusting for them._

    _They contain the original story about “speaking
    disrespectfully of the Equator.”..._

    _I send you the second edition of Harris’ life of Oscar. You
    have already read the first edition. But you will like to
    see such things, if any, in the appendix as may be new and
    certainly Shaw’s contribution to the end...._

I had the misfortune to offend Teixeira by quoting a passage from Sir
James Frazer’s _Golden Bough_:

    _I save my temper, ~he writes, 22.4.21~, by not discussing
    religion except with Catholics or politics except with
    liberals. There’s room for discussion in the ~nuances~,
    there’s too much room for it with those who call my black
    white. I never dispute the goodness of certain infidels nor
    the wickedness of many of the faithful. What I hate is the
    smug-smiling affectation of superiority displayed by the
    agnostics...._

    _Huxley I have proved guilty—at least to my own satisfaction—of
    intellectual dishonesty and financial turpitude; of Frazer I
    know nothing whatever. I vaguely pictured him as one of several
    distinguished compilers of whom I knew nothing; that beastly
    quotation at the head of one of your chapters came as a great
    shock to me, which grew into a very cataclysm when I found it
    followed by another and a longer one._

    _I won’t call you an Englishman again. But it is funny that
    you can’t write about yourself without going into the matter of
    what you think or do not think about religion...._

    _I forgot to tell you, ~he writes, 24.4.21~, that I received
    y’day, from Jack Tennant, from a house with an improbable name,
    in a Scotch county which I had never heard of (Morayshire), a
    salmon—the whole bird—weighing 7½ lbs. and measuring somewhere
    about 7½ feet. I distributed 3 lbs. to my doctor and 3 lbs. to
    the heir presumptive to the Cave-Brown-Cave baronetcy (with
    apologies for the radical source of the gift). My wiff and I
    ate 3 oz. of it to our dinner; and the remainder was consumed
    by the manageress, the bookkeeper and housekeeper of the Royal
    Hotel...._

Ten days later his preparations were complete.

    _Unless I ring you up at 11, on Friday, ~he writes, 3.5.21~, I
    will be with you at 11, as suggested in your letter—the morning
    is still my best time—and lunch at the club._




XV


In the summer and autumn of 1921 Teixeira enjoyed better health than
at any time in the last seven years. He supported without ill-effects
the strain of incessant luncheon and dinner-parties during the visit of
Couperus to London; he moved from house to house, staying with friends;
he completed his unfinished work and laid ambitious schemes for the
future.

    _I have written to Couperus, ~he told me, 13.5.21~, preparing
    him to be entertained by the Titmarsh Club and by the
    Asquiths...._

    _You might tell me in an early letter what to do in proposing
    ~[him]~ for temporary honorary membership of the Reform Club
    and when to do it...._

    _My dear Stephen, ~he writes, 16.5.21~;_

    _My dear Stephen, ~he repeats~;_

    _The second allocution sounds almost superfluous; but I will
    not waste a sheet of Ryman’s priceless Hertford Bank. I
    intended the “M” of “My dear Stephen” to form the “M” of “Many
    thanks for your letter of the 14th.” However, you may remember
    that the only difference between Moses and Manchester is that
    one ends in -oses and the other in -anchester; and there you
    are...._

    _I am calling on the Netherlands minister at half-past eleven
    this morning.... Bisschop (of the Anglo-Batavian Society) rang
    me up on Saturday evening.... There is to be a council-meeting
    at 4 o’clock on Friday at the International Law Association in
    King’s Bench Walk.... If you are back by Friday and likely to
    be at home, I’ll come on to see you from there. And I’ll write
    to you to-morrow about my call on Van Swinderen...._

    _P.S. to my former letter, ~he writes on the same day:~ Van
    Swinderen was most charming. He at once offered to have the
    Dutch reading at the legation.... I said that, if Van S. would
    make it an invitation matter, he would be doing a great honour
    to C. and giving a very welcome reception to the Dutch colony
    in London...._

    _He leapt at this; said he would give a dinner to twenty of la
    ~crême de la crême~; he could manage thirty at two tables; and
    ask up to a hundred to the reception...._

    _Everything is provisional to Mrs. Van Swinderen’s agreement;
    and I am to lunch there on Friday and hear more...._

When Couperus returned to Holland, my correspondence with Teixeira was
suspended. We were meeting or communicating by telephone almost daily;
and it was only when we left London to stay with friends that the letters
were resumed.

    _Weather hot and stuffy, ~he writes, 1.8.21, from Sutton
    Courtney~. Lawns running down to a perfectly full river and
    absolutely dry: and I with not much to tell you...._

    _I am sleeping beautifully and eating lightly; and I feel too
    indolent for words._

    _Good-bye and bless you!_

    _My wife, ~he writes, 5.8.21~, pictures me surrounded by people
    who, if she broke my heart by dying, would thrust women of
    forty on me, “dear, dearest Mr. Tex,” to look after me. Is it
    not a beautifully witty tag to a letter? I think so...._

To my reproach that he had left London without saying good-bye to me, he
replies, 16.8.21 with complete justification:

    _As our logical neighbours across the channel say:_

    _“Zut!... Zut!... Et encore zut!...”_

    _Had you profited as you ought by the careful bringing up which
    your kind parents gave you, you would have known that it is for
    those who go away to say good-bye, for those who arrive to say
    good-day. You left London before I did. I say no more in reply
    to your reproaches...._

    _If ever you leave London, however, at about the same time
    as I, remember, will you not, the etiquette (French) and the
    punctilio (Italian)?..._

    _... If you think that I have much to tell you, ~he adds,
    20.8.21~, you are mistaken. Y’day I went for a stroll, turned
    up a footpath which I imagined would bring me back here, found
    that it didn’t, after I had gone much too far to turn back, and
    plodded on and on—my apprehensive mind full of a picture of
    myself being devoured by onsticelli and stercoraceous geodurpes
    amid a fine setting of ferns and bracken—until I reached
    Abingdon. It might have been Oxford, so exhausted was I._

    _A boy was bribed to fetch me a car and I returned just before
    the search-party set out for me. I roam no more. There is a
    lawn here: let me walk up and down it...._

    _I do not despair about Ireland because I never despair about
    anything._

    _And I am ever yours,_

                                                              _Tex._

    _Your letter of the 23rd, ~he writes, 25.8.21~, found me still
    here. (The Wharf, Sutton Courtney): I go to-morrow to the
    Norton Priory till Monday ... and longer if they will have me
    longer. Then back home; and to Sutro’s for a brief week-end on
    Saturday._

    _Yes, I know Lancaster, its castle, where I have, and its
    lunatic asylum, where I have never, stayed...._

    _It were useless for me to pretend that I have not mislayed
    your list of addresses. I may find it in some other suit; but
    you might notify me of your next movement whenever you write.
    But do not translate m.p.h. as miles per hour. Master of
    phoxhounds, if you like, or miles per horam; but we English say
    an hour and not per hour...._

    _M. sent an enormous 120 h.p. (hocus pocus) land-yacht
    to meet me at Portsmouth, ~he writes from Norton Priory,
    27.8.21~, relieving me of the worst part of the journey....
    N. arrived from town before dinner, bringing with him a ...
    stockbroker.... They go up on Monday morning, but I stay on
    till Wednesday, like a gay limpet but a perfectly moral: M’s
    brother comes down on Monday._

    _For the rest, I have the same room, but have not yet cracked
    my skull against the canopy of the same fourposter; and I am
    perfectly happy...._

    _Your original waybill is found, ~he adds, 30.8.21~; but
    I have the receipt of no letter from you to acknowledge. N.
    ... went up after breakfast y’day and brother R. M. came down
    before dinner. He is a pleasant New Zealander and took a lot
    out of me at bridge._

    _Life here pursues its quiet course. I accompanied M. and W.
    to the sea’s edge yesterday but found the effort of ploughing
    through the shingle tolerably exhausting and shall not repeat
    it to-day. Indeed, the whole family, Miss T. included,
    are bathing now and I am writing twaddle to you under the
    pear-tree._

    _And, as I live, I think I’ll write no more. I have no more to
    say; and the papers have just come. I leave here after lunch
    (eon) to-morrow, spend an hour or two in Chichester cathedral
    and arrive home in time for my bread and milk...._

On his return to Chelsea and a typewriter, he says, 1.9.21:

    _You will be pleased to receive a letter from me in legible
    type, instead of in that hand which is becoming almost as
    crabbed as yours. And I continue to address you at Bamborough
    Castle, though that stronghold figures as something very near
    Zambuk Castle in your letter of 30 August._

    _N. filled me with fears of internecine feuds within your
    fortress, of bloody strife for the one shady nook of the
    orchard and so on. You say nothing of these things; and I
    assume that there has been no slaughter in your time. There
    was a horrid game when I became a British kid in the early
    seventies: I am king of the castle! Get out, you dirty rascal!
    I trembled at the thought of you and N. playing this game
    against ruthless border clansmen. All’s well that ends well...._

    _I lost twenty goodish guineas at three-handed bridge after
    Brother Roy arrived. He wanted to can everything on the estate:
    the apples, the pears, the fleas on the dogs’ backs, the
    flyaway ducks. He wanted to introduce New Zealand mutton-birds
    into this country...._

    _I had a tooth out yesterday, ~he writes, 3.9.21~,—until then
    I had thirteen of my own left, an unlucky number—and was not
    at my best.... The tooth was extracted at a high cost, in the
    presence of a dentist, an anaesthetist and my body-physician
    but without unpleasant consequences. And this afternoon I go to
    the Sutros for a brief week-end._

    _I have no news, except that I have bought some most attractive
    socks, or half-hose...._

    _... I have no news, ~he complains, 12.9.21.~ I write to you
    simply out of friendship and duty. I spent five hours at the
    Zoo y’day.... We lunched there; so did most of the beasts,
    heavily. You should have seen S. staggering under the weight
    of about nine pounds of the most expensive oranges, bananas,
    apples and onions, not to mention sugar, monkey-nuts, and two
    raw eggs. Say what you will, it is laffable to feed a small
    monkey with slices of apple till he has both pouches full, all
    four hands and his mouth. When you hand him the eighth slice,
    you wait in breathless expectation...._

    _I had a tooth extracted last week, reducing the number of my
    real teeth to twelve. To-day the number of my pseudo-teeth is
    to be increased to eighteen (quite correct: they swindle you
    out of a couple) and I propose to lunch at the Reform Club with
    many gaps in my mouth._

    _I have arranged terms for two luvverly rooms at the Tregenna
    Castle Hotel, St. Ives, from 1 November to 1 April. Rooms face
    south, away from the beastly ocean; breakfast in the bedroom;
    baths ~a volonte~. We hope to be well and happy there. I must
    see much of you before you go to Sweden...._

    _... I rejoice to hear that you are going to Copenhagen. It is
    a charming coquette of a little city, with which you will fall
    head over ears in love._

    _Not to take a second risk, I send this to Crosswood, ~he
    writes 13.9.21~, and I beg you to lay me at the feet of your
    gracious chatelaine; and, if E. is there, you can give her the
    love of her Uncle Tex._

    _At the Reform Club ... I played a little bridge ... and won
    29/-; then, finding my rate of progress rather slow, I veered
    off to Cleveland Club and won £7.12.0 more. This satisfied
    me; and I came home, ate two little fillets of sole, some
    apple-sauce and custard and (damn the expense) a ha’porth of
    cheese and so to bed._

    _To complete my ~Diary of a Nobody~, I am glad that you have
    changed your name from Gowing to Cumming and I am_

                             _ever yours,_

                                                              _Tex._

    _Many thanks for your letter of y’day, ~he writes, 14.9.21~,
    bearing traces of the pear skin and plumstones therein
    mentioned, not to speak of a spot of butter and a small burn
    from your after-brekker cigarette._

    _I have crossed Shap in a swift and powerful railway-train,
    with a whiskered and spectacled judge of the high court, in the
    opposite seat. I remember old Day’s teaching me how to observe
    whether one were going up hill or down by watching the roadside
    rills:_

    _“Water invariably flows downwards,” said he, gravely...._

    _Ecclefechan I don’t know and don’t want to; Carlisle, I do;
    Gretna Green I do: I never want to set eyes on either again.
    I have a desolating memory of brown fields between Carlisle
    and Gretna Green. By now you have, I expect, seen as much
    of England as you wish to see in the course of your natural
    life...._

    _To-day, seized with a sudden lech for art and beauty, my wiff
    and I are going to Hammersmith to hear ~The Beggar’s Opera~...._

    _I have again lost your waybill, ~he writes, 16.9.21~, and
    cannot tell if this will still find you at Glow-worm Castle._

    _~The Beggar’s Opera~ was a great affair._

    _Little has happened to me since._

    _But to-day Mrs. Asquith and her daughter are coming to play
    different forms of the game of auction bridge at the Cleveland
    Club._

    _And to-morrow ... ah, to-morrow! To-morrow I am going to stay
    for the week-end with a hostess, at or near Marlow, whose name
    I do not even know.... I am promised a perfectly good end;
    but so were any babies of old who ended in being eaten by the
    ogress._

    _We are never too old for adventures; but pray that I come
    safely out of this one._

On 30.9.21 he writes:

    _Very many thanks for ~The Secret Victory~, with the delightful
    dedication and preface. I am not at all sure that I shall not
    read the book again._

    _I have just returned from an interview with the local
    income-tax brigand which filled me with some apprehensions....
    After a ... jest or two, I left the brigand’s cave
    unscathed...._

    _I go to the Wharf to-morrow for a week and may stay on a day
    or two longer, if pressed: I always do, you know...._

I had been invited to deliver some lectures in Sweden and Denmark.
Teixeira was good enough to read the manuscript of these, as of almost
everything I wrote. With his letter of 3.10.21 he returned the first:

    _Here is your lecture ... I really cannot suggest any cuts. My
    one and only lecture read 2¾ minutes: this is no reason why
    yours should not read an hour and a quarter. Does any one want
    to go and sit in a hall, with free light and warmth thrown in
    for less than an hour and a quarter? No; the Swedes will admire
    your fluency and be pleased with you._

On my return to England, he asks, 14.11.21:

    _When do we meet? We have decided to leave on the 30th. I can
    lunch with you to-morrow, if you like, and bring you your two
    Ewald books._

Teixeira’s departure to Cornwall, already delayed by his wife’s illness,
had now to be postponed again, as he was prostrated with ptomaine
poisoning.

Both invalids were sufficiently recovered to face the journey on 2
December; and, next day, Teixeira sent me news of his safe arrival:

                                             _Tregenna Castle Hotel,
                                             St. Ives, Cornwall,
                                             3 December, 1921._

    _My dear Stephen:_

    _Thanks for your letter that reached me just before I left
    town. This is my address: what else would it be? And the
    enclosed ~[an invitation to lecture]~ is sent to show you that
    you are not the only Beppo on the peach (damn your British
    metaphors!): you might not believe it otherwise. But you may
    picture the courteous terms in which I declined._

    _There is nothing for nervous dyspepsia or gastric
    horribobblums like seven goodish hours in a swift and powerful
    railway-express. I have been free from pain or sickness for the
    first night since Wednesday week. But I slept little. From 1
    a.m. onwards I spent a sleepless, painless night._

    _The hotel is comfortable and commodious in an old-fashioned
    country-house way; no central heating, but big fires; a certain
    amount of intrigue with Lizzie the chambermaid to secure a
    really hot bath: you know the sort of thing; immense grounds, a
    very park of 100 acres, which I shall never leave, because, if
    I did, I should never get back: we stand too high._

    _Bless you._

                                                        _Ever yours,
                                                        Tex._

It was the last letter that I ever received from him; and on Monday,
December the fifth, as I was in the middle of answering it, a telegram
informed me that he had died that morning. As he was getting up, he
collapsed in his wife’s arms and slipped, unconscious, on the floor.
Death was instantaneous and, it may be presumed and hoped, painless. He
was buried in the Holy Roman Catholic Cemetery at St. Ives; and a requiem
mass for the repose of his soul was said at the Brompton Oratory.

Even those with best cause to suspect how nerveless was his grasp on life
could not readily believe that one who loved life so well was to enjoy no
more of it. “He was spared old age,” said one friend; but to another Tex
had lately confessed that he would like to live for ever.

Before he left London, we said good-bye for five months: he was to
winter in Cornwall, I in the West Indies. In seeing again the exquisite
handwriting of these many hundreds of letters that commemorate our
friendship for the last six years of his life, I at least cannot feel
that his voice has grown silent or that his laughter is at an end. The
big, solemn figure is vividly present; the favourite phrases and the
familiar gestures are stamped for ever on the memory of any one that
loved him.

I am writing four thousand miles away from St. Ives: and it may be
possible to fancy that he has been ordered to remain there longer than we
expected. This time there may be no diary; perhaps the only letters will
be those already written; he may seem not to hear all that he once loved
hearing; but, wherever he has gone, his personality remains behind.

It was an old-standing bond that the survivor should write of the other.
I have tried to make Teixeira paint his own portrait. If his letters
have failed to reveal him, what can I add? His literary position is
unchallenged; those who knew him how slightly soever knew his humour and
wit, his whimsical charm, his understanding and toleration. Those who
knew him best had strongest reason for loving him most deeply. Those who
knew him not missed knowing a ripe scholar, a fine and tender spirit, a
great and gallant gentleman, a matchless companion and the truest friend
on earth.

                                                        _BERBICE,
                                                        BRITISH GUIANA_
                                                        15 February, 1922.




FOOTNOTES


[1] The Jonkheer Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos san Paio y Mendes.
The family was Jewish in origin and was driven from Portugal by the
persecution of the Holy Office. Teixeira was naturalized a British
subject in the middle of the war and gave up his Dutch title. Even before
this, he had contracted his full style to Alexander Teixeira de Mattos on
ceremonial occasions, to A. Teixeira in departmental correspondence and
to Tex or T. in letters to his friends.

[2] I quote from Chapter VII of _While I Remember_, where the genesis of
the department is described, though only from hearsay.

[3] Even in Teixeira’s wide reading there were occasional gaps; and,
until I brought it to his notice, he was unacquainted with the celebrated
life of Sir Christopher Wren by Mr. E. Clerihew and Mr. G. K. Chesterton:

    ‘Sir Christopher Wren
    Said, “I am going to dine with some men.
    If anybody calls
    Say I am designing St. Paul’s.”’

After reading it, Teixeira’s nightly valediction as he left for his
bridge club was: “I think ... yes, I think I shall design St. Paul’s for
an hour or two.”

[4] From the notice of his death in _The Times_.

[5] Future letters were dated from ‘Hellgate’.

[6] The Burgomaster of Stillemonde.

[7] Frank MacKinnon K.C.

[8] A short time before, Teixeira, who affected a loathing for music, had
been invited to hear the same quartette. Abandoning his usual gentleness
of speech and spirit, he had accepted on condition of being allowed to
massacre the quartette.

[9] Hymn to Aphrodite.

[10] Eimar O’Duffy’s _Wasted Island_.

[11] Incidentally, my father lived 85 years, during all of which he
never spoke of his particular regiment, brigade, division or army corps
as anything but the Coldcream Guards; not in jest but in sheer, manly,
gentlemanly ignorance.

[12] Perfectly good seventeenth-century English.

[13] _Even the French write_, invariably, un coup d’Etat, le conseil
d’Etat, but l’état des coups, l’état du conseil.

[14] The Concise Oxford Dictionary.

[15] The reference here is to a story illustrative of the tricks which a
man’s memory sometimes plays him:

Reading in the _Morning Post_, that Mr. John Brown, of 500 Clarges
Street, is shortly leaving for Uganda on a big-game-shooting expedition
and would like a gentleman to come with him, sharing expenses, thought
no more of the advertisement and went about his day’s work. That night
he dined intemperately. On being ejected from his club, he was bound
for home when he recalled the forgotten advertisement and decided that
something must be done about it.

Driving to 500 Clarges Street, he demanded to see Mr. John Brown.

“Are you Mr. John Brown?” he enquired of a sleepy and illhumoured figure
in pyjamas.

“I am, sir,” answered John Brown.

“You’re the Mr. John Brown going shooting Uganda?”

“Yes.”

“You want shome one come with you?”

“Yes.”...

“Share ’spenshes?”

“Yes.”

“You put that ’vertisshment in _Morning Posht_?”

“Yes.”

“I thought sho. Shorry knock you up. Felt I musht tell you.... that I’m
not coming.”...

[16] They would have gone quite mad over the Russian Ballet.

[17] The story in question was of a member of the Cave-Brown-Cave family,
who, after conversing with a stranger in a railway-carriage, was asked
his name.

“Cave-Brown-Cave,” he replied. “And may I ask yours?”

“Home-Sweet-Home,” answered his infuriated interlocutor.

[18] In Chancery.

[19] In preparation for visiting South America I had been vaccinated.

[20] Ultimately this was published with the title: _The Law Inevitable_.



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75130 ***