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diff --git a/76494-0.txt b/76494-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a7b662 --- /dev/null +++ b/76494-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7408 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76494 *** + + + + + + TWENTY-FIVE + + + + + _By Beverley Nichols_ + + PRELUDE + + PATCHWORK + + SELF + + + + + 25 + + BEING A YOUNG MAN’S CANDID RECOLLECTIONS + OF HIS ELDERS AND BETTERS + + _By_ + BEVERLEY NICHOLS + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1926, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + 25 + —B— + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER ONE + + IN WHICH SOME ENGLISH GENTLEMEN SET OUT + ON A STRANGE JOURNEY 11 + + + CHAPTER TWO + + PRESIDENTS--LEAN AND FAT 21 + + + CHAPTER THREE + + CONTAINING A FRUITLESS SEARCH FOR AMERICAN + VULGARITY 31 + + + CHAPTER FOUR + + JOHN MASEFIELD, ROBERT BRIDGES, W. B. YEATS 36 + + + CHAPTER FIVE + + IN WHICH MR. G. K. CHESTERTON REVEALS HIS + FEARS AND HIS HOPES 50 + + + CHAPTER SIX + + IN WHICH MRS. ASQUITH BEHAVES WITH CHARACTERISTIC + ENERGY 56 + + + CHAPTER SEVEN + + IN WHICH MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL LOSES HIS + TEMPER, AND MR. HORATIO BOTTOMLEY WINS + HIS DEBATE 62 + + + CHAPTER EIGHT + + BEING AN IMPRESSION OF TWO LADIES OF GENIUS 73 + + + CHAPTER NINE + + IN WHICH WE MEET A GHOST 84 + + + CHAPTER TEN + + IN WHICH I JOURNEY TO GREECE 99 + + + CHAPTER ELEVEN + + CONCERNING THE CONFIDENCES OF A QUEEN 112 + + + CHAPTER TWELVE + + STRANGE TALES OF A MONARCH AND A NOVELIST 120 + + + CHAPTER THIRTEEN + + FROM THE REGAL TO THE RIDICULOUS 133 + + + CHAPTER FOURTEEN + + IN WHICH SIR WILLIAM ORPEN AND MRS. ELINOR + GLYN REVEAL THEIR SOULS 146 + + + CHAPTER FIFTEEN + + CONCERNING TWO ARTISTS IN A DIFFERENT + SPHERE 156 + + + CHAPTER SIXTEEN + + HANGED BY THE NECK 165 + + + CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + + TWO PLAIN AND ONE COLOURED 174 + + + CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + + A LAMB IN WOLF’S CLOTHING 183 + + + CHAPTER NINETEEN + + TWO BIG MEN AND ONE MEDIUM 189 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY + + A MEMORY--AND SOME SONGS 201 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + + HICKS--HICKS--AND NOTHING BUT HICKS 210 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + + SHOWING HOW A GENIUS WORSHIPPED DEVILS IN + THE MOUNTAINS 218 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE + + A DEFENCE OF DRAMATIC CRITICS 224 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR + + IN WHICH WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM MAKES + A DELICATE GRIMACE 232 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE + + IN WHICH MICHAEL ARLEN DISDAINS PINK + CHESTNUTS 240 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX + + CONTAINING THE HIDEOUS TRUTH ABOUT NOEL + COWARD 248 + + + CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN + + IN WHICH I ALLOW MYSELF TO BE ENTIRELY + SENTIMENTAL 255 + + + + + _to_ + GEORGE AND BLANCHE + + + + +FOREWORD + + +Twenty-five seems to me the latest age at which anybody should write an +autobiography. It has an air of finality about it, as though one had +clambered to the summit of a great hill, and were waving good-bye to +some very distant country which can never be revisited. + +A delicious age, you may agree, but an age too irresponsible for the +production of autobiographies. Why, I ask you? The bones of a young man +of twenty-five (according to the medical profession) are duly set, his +teeth are ranged in their correct places, and many arid pastures have +been made beautiful by the sowing of his wild oats. Why then, not write +about some of the exciting people he has seen, while they still excite +him? + +That is the essence of the whole matter, to write of these things +before it is too late. This is an age of boredom, and by the time one +is thirty, I am terribly afraid that the first flush of enthusiasm may +have worn off. It is quite possible that by then I shall no longer be +thrilled by the sight of Arnold Bennett twisting his forelock at a +first night, and that the vision of Elinor Glyn eating quantities of +cold ham at the Bath Club (a sight which, to-day, never fails to amuse) +will not move me in the least. + +It is also possible that my indignations will have suffered a similar +cooling, that I shall no longer feel faintly sick at the sight of the +new Regent Street, and shall be able to view the idolization by the +British people of Mr. George Robey, if not with approbation, at least +with tolerance. + +It is to be hoped that this will not be the case, but you must admit, +from your own experience of young men who have grown up, that it is +quite on the cards. They are faithless to their first hates, they have +forgotten their first loves. They turn from the dreams of Oxford to the +nightmares of the city, just because the dream is difficult, and the +nightmare is so easy. In fact, they grow old. + +That is why I have written this book. And from the decrepitude of +thirty I shall write another on the same lines. It will be called +‘Making the Most of Twenty-Eight.’ + +B. N. + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +In which some English Gentlemen set out on a Strange Journey + + +Had one been a Prime Minister there would be every reason for talking +of one’s first tooth and devoting a chapter or two to its effect upon +the history of our times. There would then follow, in succeeding +volumes, sketches of the youthful genius from every aspect, with +appropriate legends at the top of each page, such as ‘Backward at +School,’ ‘A Daring Frolic,’ ‘Visit to the Tomb of William Pitt.’ + +But since one has not been a Prime Minister, and since all first teeth +greatly resemble one another, and since most small boys are very much +alike (for if they aren’t, they are horrid)--since, in fact, there is +no excuse for being dull, we must begin by making things happen. And I +can think of no better moment for ringing up the curtain than when, at +the age of nineteen, two months before the Armistice, I was given leave +to go to America as Secretary to the British Universities Mission to +the United States. + +It sounds deadly, but it was really exceedingly amusing, for this +mission, before it finished its tour (which was largely for propaganda +purposes), was to come in touch with most of the leading men in +America, from President Wilson downwards. Even in England, there were +celebrities hanging round us, all telling us with various degrees of +pomposity the sort of things which Americans expected Englishmen to do, +and the best way not to do them. + +Ian Hay was the first man who gave me any information about America +that was worth having. I can see him now, standing against a window in +the Ministry of Information, a tall, slim figure, in a rather shabby +uniform, saying: + +‘Whatever else you do, don’t refer to the Americans as “children.” It’s +such a damned insult.’ + +I demanded further suggestions. + +‘Dozens, if you want them. Don’t leave your boots outside the hotel +door. Don’t get ruffled if a porter slaps you on the back and calls +you “boy.” Don’t be surprised if they refer to their country as the +peculiar property of the Almighty. For all you know they may be right. +It’s a marvellous country. And the people! Lovable isn’t the word for +them. They’ll kill you with kindness.’ + +All this I had heard before, but from Ian Hay it sounded different. It +is not surprising that he was a success in the States. He is very like +his own heroes, who, even when they are talking fourteen to the dozen, +give one the impression of being strong and silent. Add to this quality +a charming smile, the faintest possible flavour of a Scottish accent, +and an air of modesty which is not usually associated with the Creators +of best-sellers, and you will have the main ingredients of one of our +most typical authors. + +If Ian Hay had accompanied us on our Mission he would have had +material for a comic masterpiece of English literature. There was the +representative of Oxford, who was to lose his boots in every American +hotel we were to frequent. There was dear old Sir Henry Jones, whose +Scottish-Welsh accents, combined with a heavy beard, an almost complete +lack of teeth, and a heavenly smile, were so to intrigue American +audiences; Professor J--, the brilliant Irish scientist, who was +our official pessimist, and foretold shipwreck, train-wreck, and +motor-wreck with unfailing hope; Sir Henry Miers, from Manchester, +cool, calm, and capable, who found the Oxford representative’s boots +for him and helped to interpret some of Sir Henry Jones’s more obscure +utterances; and last, but certainly not least, Sir Arthur Shipley, the +urbane Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, who never lost his boots, who +spoke perfect English, who had always exactly the right word to say +to exactly the right person, and without whom we should all probably +have been arrested within twenty-four hours of our arrival as a band of +undesirable mountebanks. + +I wonder if all the English missions which tour the United States, +which march in dignified processions through the streets, which blink +up at the skyscrapers, which sneeze over the grape-juice and stagger +back from the serried headlines of the newspapers ... I wonder if they +are all made up from such human and fallible men as was ours. + +Take the case of Sir Henry Jones, one of the sweetest characters and +the most generous men I have ever met. He had, in his head, a tooth. +One tooth, and no more. The first memory I have of him was in the early +morning, when we were ploughing our way through a choppy sea, with the +coast of Scotland misty to the starboard. He put his head through my +porthole, and complained bitterly that there was no fresh water in his +cabin. ‘What did he want fresh water for?’ I asked, looking sleepily at +his flowing beard. He waved his toothbrush through the window, and I +gave him my carafe. I wish we were all such optimists. And I hope this +story is not too impertinent. A very faint hope, I fear. + +Again, Professor J--. It is with no lack of respect that I refer to the +more humorous side of his character. Any scientist, from San Francisco +to Petrograd, will tell you what the world of astronomy owes to his +researches into the theory of the Martian canals. Anybody but a fool +would pay homage to his intellect. None the less, for sheer pessimism I +have never met his like. + +‘I took a bath this morning,’ he said to us, one day at breakfast, ‘and +I did it at the peril of my life.’ + +We wondered what made him think that a bath was so particularly +perilous. He explained. In taking his bath it had been necessary for +him to take off his patent waistcoat. It had also been necessary for +him to take off his clothes. In view of the fact that we were at the +moment, in a part of the ocean which was regarded with particular +affection by German submarines, both actions had been highly +inadvisable. The patent waistcoat for obvious reasons. The dangers of +the state of nature, however, he described at greater length. ‘If a +body enters the water,’ he said, ‘death takes place by chill just as +often as by actual drowning. I have made researches into the matter and +I find that a body covered with clothes does not chill so fast as a +body with nothing on. Hence the danger of baths in a situation such as +this. Supposing a torpedo had hit us while I was in my bath!’ + +While we were on the water, a torpedo did actually hit a liner off the +Coast of Ireland, though it was not our own vessel. As soon as the news +came through, J-- was convinced that one of his own relatives, an aged +aunt, must have been on board. The fact that she had been bedridden +for eight years, the fact that there was no conceivable reason why she +should have got up at all, far less have ventured across the Atlantic, +weighed with him not at all. He was born like that, and I think he even +took a certain grim pleasure in it, realizing the futility of human +existence. + +When I add that there were in our Mission two ladies, Miss Spurgeon and +Miss Sedgwick, the introductory passage to this book is complete. + + * * * * * + +Have you ever noticed--you who have crossed the Atlantic--the +extraordinary effect that the Statue of Liberty has upon those who +pass for the first time beneath its shadow? It brings out all sorts of +hidden traits in even the most secretive of the passengers. Men who +have spent the entire voyage in the bar, whom nobody would accuse of +sentimentality, rush out and stand strictly to attention, chin well +out, eyes fixed on that impressive brazen lady, much as a dog would fix +its eyes on its mistress. Young and flapping ladies, who have lain on +the decks in attitudes which they apparently consider seductive, stand +with open mouths and unpowdered noses, trying to remember the date +of the American Declaration of Independence. Fathers bring out their +children and regard the statue with an air of proprietorship as though +they themselves had been largely responsible for its erection. And as +for the poets.... + +We had on board one rather celebrated young poet who I am sure will +never forget the Statue of Liberty--whether or no the statue will ever +forget him is another question. His name was Robert Nichols, and he +was being sent out by the English Government as the most accomplished +of all our war poets. He had created rather a sensation at home by +his volume, _Ardours and Endurances_, which contained, in the opinion +of the critics, much the best war poetry which had been produced. +During the voyage over I fear he had not been much in the mood for +writing poetry, unless it were of the style of Rupert Brooke’s dreadful +‘Channel Crossing,’ for he had been groaning with sea-sickness in his +cabin. But the statue cured him of all that. As soon as he heard that +we were about to pass under it, he emerged pale but determined and came +up to me, where I was standing by the railings. + +‘I’m going to salute the statue,’ he said. + +‘Well, hadn’t you better get your hat?’ I asked. ‘You can’t salute +without a hat on.’ + +‘I don’t care a damn about the hat,’ replied Robert, and without any +more ado, swung his hand behind his ear, where it remained quivering +like any guardsman’s. Further conversation under these circumstances +would, I realized, be sacrilege not only on the spirit of liberty but +on the spirit of poetry as well, and so I held my peace. But it was a +pity that Robert had somewhat miscalculated the distance we still had +to run, for after a few minutes he was forced, from sheer cramp, to +lower his arm again. It would have been better if he had got his hat. + +I fear that Robert Nichols did not greatly enjoy himself in the States. +He could not get that ‘platform’ which had been anticipated for him, +and he always looked a little afraid, when one saw him on Fifth +Avenue, as though a skyscraper would fall on him before he had finished +his last sonnet. He might indeed have been reading a Keats poem: + + When I have fears that I may cease to be + Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, + Before high-piled books, in charact’ry + Hold like full garners the full-ripen’d grain ... + +All of this, however, is not getting us to America, to Presidents and +millionaires, and all those other engaging things. + +Landing in America in this autumn of 1918, for an Englishman at least, +was exactly like a page out of an H. G. Wells novel. The aeroplanes +circling round us, the little pilot boat coming with newspapers that +told us the end of the war was in sight, the sudden glimpse of a new +radiant continent, with houses sparkling with a million lights--it was +the lights that we found most surprising. After stumbling about in +darkened streets at home, after being given hell by the police if we so +much as allowed a chink of light to escape through the window (for fear +of air raids, of course), it seemed almost indecent to see this blaze +of light coming from every window. In absolute exultation, as soon as +I reached my room (we were staying at the Columbia University Club), I +turned on all the lights, drew the curtain, and threw open the window, +thinking--‘there, look at that, and be damned to you,’ the remark being +addressed to imaginary zeppelins, thousands of miles away. + +And then--the banquet that night! There was butter. Lots of it, making +the pale wisps of grease on which we had lately fed seem like some +loathsome memory of a nightmare. There was sugar, not done up in little +bags, and shrunk to the size of a pea, but fat, glistening sugar, +shining and sparkling like any diamond. There was meat, not brought +to one in exchange for a coupon, but perched on the plate, proud and +abundant. Sir Henry Jones’s one tooth was working overtime that night. + +At this dinner I met my First Great American--Nicholas Murray +Butler--President of the Columbia University. + +For the benefit of English readers I should here point out that the +Presidents of great American Universities occupy far more prominent +positions in the life of the nation than the Vice-Chancellors of Oxford +or Cambridge. These latter gentlemen are hardly known to the public at +all. The only Vice-Chancellor of Oxford of whom the newspaper-reading +public has ever heard is Ex-Vice-Chancellor Farnell, who set the whole +University on edge by medieval restrictions, and who has now retired +to the obscurity from which his faintly ridiculous personality should +never have been dragged. Apart from this regrettable exception, English +Vice-Chancellors have usually figured only in small paragraphs at the +bottom of the sober columns of _The Times_, when they are reported as +having given degrees to various earnest youths and maidens. + +In America it is very different. Here, when the President of a great +college delivers himself of an utterance, great treble headings +announce the fact in all the principal newspapers. He is given almost +as much publicity as a successful horse. His judgments are made the +subject of leading articles, his portrait is almost as well known as +that of the baser type of politician in England. I do not know whether +this is because knowledge is more venerated in the United States than +in England. It just happens to be the case. + +Well, Nicholas Murray Butler was a super-President, and, next to +President Wilson and Charlie Chaplin, he was the most ‘talked-of’ man +in the States. As I said before, he was the First Great American I met, +and it is with a feeling of regret that I have to admit that I was not +in the least impressed. He struck me as the epitome of the commonplace. +Charming, yes--a dear, kind smile, a loud and penetrating voice, +but--my God! what a mind! It was stocked with every platitude that has +bored us since Adam first yawned into the disillusioned face of Eve. + +He made a speech. Such a speech. It was filled with tremendous pauses, +in which the hand would be raised, and the finger held aloft, and then, +like the booming of a gun, the platitude. For example. Silence. A row +of expectant faces, and eager eyes. A row of set mouths (except of +those who were munching salted almonds). And then ... ‘I say to you, +and I say it as my considered opinion, that War is a terrible thing. It +is a cruel thing, ladies and gentlemen, a brutal thing. But ...’ again +the silence, and the munching mouths are stilled ... ‘wars happen. They +occur. They break out. They are declared. They exist. They ...’ + +Oh dear, I thought. If all American speeches are like this, I am in +for a bad time. Of course, we were very soon to discover that they +weren’t, and that American oratory is among the finest in the world. +But Nicholas Murray Butler was a bad beginning. It is a matter of +absolute mystery to me how people listen to such things, or how they +read his books. For example, I picked up, the other day, a book by +him called _Is America Worth Saving?_ It was incredible. It contained +page after page of the dullest moralization, page after page devoted +to the proving that black is generally black, and that white, more +often than not, is white. And yet, when you get him by himself, Butler +is better. When we went to see him at Columbia University he kept Sir +Arthur Shipley and myself giggling faintly for twenty minutes over his +description of some of the difficulties of the educational career. I +remember in particular one reply he made which was typical of a certain +broad, dry humour. Sir Arthur had asked him, with reference to a little +party of English boys who had gone out west, if they were still at San +Francisco. + +‘Not always so very still,’ replied Butler with a smile. + +I had a long talk with Nicholas Murray Butler, but I gained no +enlightenment from it. He told me that the young had a great advantage +over the old because the young had longer to live, but after all the +old had an advantage over the young because they had lived longer. Or +some equally penetrating generalization. After talking to him for ten +minutes, in an atmosphere of linked Star Spangled Banners and Union +Jacks, I came to the conclusion that he probably had so original and +destructive a mind that he was forced to send out this smoke-barrage of +commonplace in order not to be arrested as a revolutionary. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +Presidents--Lean and Fat + + +If you wish to sip the very essence of democracy, you must pay a visit +to the White House and talk with the President of the United States. +The more urgent your business, the more stirring the occasion, the more +completely unpretentious will be your reception. + +We arrived in Washington in late October, already somewhat battered by +an existence in which every meal was a banquet, and on the day after +our arrival found ourselves drawing up at the gates of the White House, +duly attired, cleaned and brushed, in order to make the most favourable +impression on President Wilson. + +The simplicity of the first home of America is, in some ways, more +alarming than the pomp of an ordinary Court. There were no beautiful +footmen, no drifting diplomats to waft us higher and higher until we +were at length admitted into the presence. Indeed, it was more like +going to see a dentist than a President. + +We were shown into a pleasant white room, with the usual dentist’s +array of newspapers and periodicals, slightly soiled by many democratic +thumbs. At this point it might be mentioned that the pet mascot of the +Mission also entered the White House with us, concealed in an overcoat. +This was Cuthbert, a stuffed rabbit, which had been presented by a +frivolous friend to the Mission on our departure from England. Cuthbert +had been a sure help in trouble and had grown more than human. When the +sea was rough, he would be propped up on the edge, looking over, in +case he might be overcome. When it was calm he would be allowed to bask +in the sunshine. And when we were passing under the Statue of Liberty +he was stood to attention until the statue was passed. He couldn’t +salute, because toy rabbits aren’t made that way. + +Cuthbert was adored by every member of the Mission, except the +representative of Oxford, who thought that such things were naughty. He +was taken to the tops of skyscrapers to survey New York by night. He +was taken on the Hudson to survey New York by day. And I was damned if +I was going to allow Cuthbert to depart from America without entering +the White House. And so, he was carefully stuffed into the capacious +pocket of Sir Arthur’s overcoat (unknown, one must in fairness admit, +to Sir Arthur). He was not taken, however, to see the President. There +are limits. + +Mr. Lawson, the Secretary for the Interior, was with us when we +entered, but the real thrill of the morning was to come when a +manservant poked his head through the door and said, ‘Are you men +waiting to see the President?’ We all bridled slightly at this historic +question. ‘How divinely American!’ we thought. Were we ‘men’ waiting +to see the President? Men. _Men_, if you please. The world’s greatest +authority on bugs. A man. The world’s greatest authority on the canals +of Mars. A man. The world’s greatest authority on Greek something or +other. A man. Men--all men. Except, of course, the women. We said, yes, +we were waiting to see him. + +‘Then you’d best come along with me,’ said the manservant. + +We came along with him. We came along through a passage, from which +outside you could see the short drive, the white buildings of +Washington, the bustling life of the city passing by, and we stepped +through some folding doors, on to a great space of highly polished +floor, in the centre of which, like a waxwork, was standing the world’s +most important figure--President Wilson. + +The first thing that struck me was that he looked very clean. +Immaculate. Not that I had expected to find him dirty. But there +was something about the stiff white cuffs, the gleaming collar, the +sparkling pince-nez, the beautifully pressed trousers, that suggested +he had dressed in a disinfected room with the assistance of a highly +efficient valet, who had put on his clothes with pincers. Again the +dentist feeling. He _was_ like a dentist. Or a distinguished surgeon. + +In silence we were introduced, and slid over the polished floor until +we were grouped round him in a sort of semicircle. I had a ridiculous +feeling that we were all going to sing ‘Here we come gathering +nuts-in-May.’ Everything was suddenly so dignified. No question now of +being mere ‘men.’ We were all diplomats, in the centre of the universe. + +And then Wilson began to speak, quietly and calmly, weighing his +words, telling us exactly what was passing in his mind. I remember +being struck by two things--foolish, no doubt. The first was a feeling +of strangeness that he should speak with an American accent. One had +imagined him as belonging to the world, forgetting that after all, he +only belonged to America. The second was that he was just an ordinary +man, in a hideously difficult position, applying the ordinary standards +of decent conduct to the world situation. + +He talked about affairs in France, compared them with that of last +year, and drew conclusions. And then he said something extraordinarily +interesting: + +‘My principal difficulty,’ he remarked, ‘is that we are dealing with +people whom we can’t trust. I wonder if you can understand how baffling +that is, when one is honestly trying to find a way out? If Germany were +like any other country, if we could count on certain promises, certain +assurances being fulfilled, then we should know where we are. But we +can’t count (he almost shouted the last words) on that. I write a note. +I receive an answer. I write another note. I receive another answer. +I _go on writing notes_. And I am left in exactly the same situation +as before, because I have learnt, from bitter experience, that the +promises contained in that answer will be broken as soon as the first +convenient opportunity presents itself.’ + +All the time he spoke he stood looking straight in front of him, +with his hands behind his back. He looked terribly tired. I gathered +afterwards that he had scarcely time to sleep, that often he would be +up all night trying to unravel the hopeless tangle of lies and evasions +which was almost daily served up for him. + +He continued in this strain for some time, until there suddenly came +into his voice a note of passion, ‘America is not going to leave the +Hohenzollerns in power. It would mean leaving a running sore in the +heart of Europe.’ He made a little grimace of disgust. + +I won’t attempt to give any long précis of his remarks. Generalizations +are never interesting, and even if they were, you can discover all of +them in the newspapers of the period. Sir Arthur had a talk with him +on the way out about his life at Princeton, and with his usual genius, +managed to smooth the wrinkles out of his face and to make him laugh. +The last words I heard him say were in reference to the Princeton +professors. ‘They kicked me upstairs,’ he said. A very long way +upstairs, most people would think. + +That was one of the most interesting mornings of my life. I only wish +that Cuthbert could have been concealed behind the curtain. + + * * * * * + +Where Wilson impressed one with a feeling of respect (if not +reverence), Taft filled one with a bouncing spirit of good will--a sort +of ‘Pippa Passes’ spirit--that as long as Taft was in being, all must +be right with the United States. + +I met him at a dinner given about this time in Washington, and was at +once captivated by him, because he seemed to make a point of being +particularly charming to the people who didn’t matter. There was a +tremendous reception after dinner, and half the time Taft was standing, +a round Colossus, talking to persons of no importance, and ignoring the +crowd of millionaires and diplomats who clustered round him. + +Somehow or other, I found myself talking to him. He said: + +‘Well, young man, and aren’t you getting rather sick of trotting round +with a lot of old professors?’ + +I indignantly disclaimed any such suggestion (which happened to be +quite untrue). + +However, Taft only winked, and said Englishmen were always so tactful, +weren’t they, winked again, heaved his shoulders, and shook. Then, +apropos of nothing he said: + +‘I heard a wonderful story yesterday about a Scotchman.’ + +One has always just heard wonderful stories about Scotchmen, but not +always from Ex-Presidents of the United States, so I listened politely. + +‘A Scotchman,’ said Taft, speaking in a loud whisper, and keeping one +eye on the crowd of millionaires behind him, ‘went out one cold day on +the links, did the whole eighteen holes, tramped back, and at the end +of it all gave his caddy threepence.’ + +Here he heaved again. I wondered if that was the end of the story, when +Taft continued: + +‘The caddy looked at the man and said, “D’ye ken I can tell yer fortune +by these three pennies?”’ + +(Heavens! I thought. He can speak Scotch. No wonder they made him +President of the United States.) + +‘The man shook his head,’ said Taft, ‘and the caddy looked at the first +penny. + +‘“The fir-r-rst penny,” he said, “tells me that you’re a Scotsman. Eh?” + +‘“Yes.” + +‘“The second tells me that you’re a bachelor.” + +‘“Yes.” + +‘“And the thir-rd penny tells me that yer father-r was a bachelor too.”’ + +And with that Taft turned on his heel, roaring with laughter, leaving +at least one young Englishman a staunch Anglo-American for the rest of +his life. + + * * * * * + +It was also in Washington that I first met Elihu Root. Everybody, ever +since my arrival had said, ‘Ah! but you must meet Elihu Root,’ rather +in the same sort of way as Sydney people say, ‘Ah! but you must see +our harbour,’ or Cambridge people, ‘Ah! but you must see our Backs.’ +He seemed to have a quite unique reputation--the reputation of being a +thoroughly honest politician. I used to ask, ‘Why in that case is he +not made President?’ And the reply invariably was, ‘He is too good, too +honest, too impeccable.’ All of which seemed very strange. + +However, when one met him, the mystery was explained. Elihu Root struck +me as ‘a very parfit gentle knight.’ His conversation was like a man +thinking aloud. He shut his eyes and frowned and then spoke, and you +knew that the man was telling you what he really thought. It was at one +of the inevitable banquets that he first appeared, and after it was +over I boldly went up to him and asked him some sort of question about +Anglo-American friendship. + +‘That rests with you, young man,’ he said, and shut his eyes. ‘Youth +to youth, young heart to young heart’--and he sighed a little +sentimentally. + +I asked him the usual stock question which one asks on these +occasions--if there was no means of dissipating some of the ridiculous +clouds of mistrust and delusion which still hung over the Atlantic, +blotting out the true features of each nation from one another; if +there was no means of bringing the Press, at least, to realize the +importance of the Anglo-American ideal. + +‘Ah--the Press. Did you ever study the question of sovereignty at +college?’ he said. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Have you ever tried to put your finger on a certain monarch, a certain +body of men, a certain institute and say, “Here is sovereignty--here +is the ultimate authority”? And have you, when you have decided that +sovereignty lies here, or there, suddenly realized that the true power +still eludes you? Have you realized that those men are elected by the +people and that in consequence sovereignty lies in the people? And +have you, going even further, realized that the force that makes the +people vote, i.e., the force that moulds the people’s wills, is really +the true sovereign? Think about it. And then you will realize the true +importance of the remark you made to me just now.’ + +All this was delivered with eyes shut and with head tilted back. A +very straight and honest man, Mr. Root, typical of all that is best in +American life. + + * * * * * + +From Washington we travelled to Boston, staying with President Lowell +of Harvard. Harvard made us all feel a little depressed. It was so very +rich, so very efficient, so very prosperous, so entirely different +from the bankrupt universities of England. I looked with green eyes on +undergraduates’ rooms fitted with telephones and bathrooms, and served +with a central heating apparatus that made the frozen apartments of +Balliol seem a little torturous. + +And then, after Boston, Chicago. Our arrival in Chicago was +sensational. Mr. Hearst, the newspaper proprietor, had declared the +war to be over, although it was still raging gaily, and had another +forty-eight hours to run. As a result of Mr. Hearst’s enterprise, +all the country people within a hundred miles of Chicago had come to +‘celebrate,’ and they travelled with us, dressed in their best, and +taking liberal swigs of whisky. When we actually arrived, we found a +mad city. Paper littered the streets, bells clanged everywhere. And +when we came to the club (decency forbids me to mention which one it +was) every waiter in the place was drunk, and we had to tread our way +upstairs over recumbent figures, while our bags remained in the hall. + +‘Terrible,’ said the representative of Oxford. ‘I am beginning to +understand why the Americans have so urgent a need for Prohibition.’ + +I am afraid I did not agree with him. It all seemed to me very jolly. +For one thing, all the telephone books in the club had been taken to +the roof where they had, throughout the day, been slowly torn into +little pieces by intoxicated fingers, in order that the streets might +have a festive and confetti-like appearance. As a result, though we +could be rung up, we could not ring up, and that, for the secretary +of an educational mission was, I assure you, a blessing not at all in +disguise. + + * * * * * + +However, that was one of the only two occasions when I ever saw anybody +intoxicated in America. The other was some weeks later when we were +down in Texas. We had been travelling all night, and we emerged, one +cold morning before breakfast, at the town of--(I had better leave it +blank), to visit the local university. Half the professional staff were +lined up on the platform to meet us, and they certainly had the warmest +ideas of hospitality, for from the overcoat pockets of at least half +a dozen of the more venerable members of the staff protruded the neck +of a bottle of rye whisky. Now rye whisky is, at all times, a potent +drink, but taken before breakfast, on a cold morning, it is not only +potent, it is deadly. Nor was this all. For when we had driven to the +university, we were greeted by a festive board at which the chief item +of diet appeared to be egg-nog, well flavoured with rum. However, we +all enjoyed ourselves very much, though I fear that this part of the +tour cannot have been very fruitful from the educational point of +view, however much it may have strengthened the Anglo-American ties of +friendship. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +Containing a Fruitless Search for American Vulgarity + + +I noticed more and more in America that vulgarity (which one finds, of +course, all over the world, even in the South Sea Islands), seemed to +be in inverse ratio to wealth. The people who were really tiresome, +who talked about their automobiles and their incomes, and their +emeralds, and their trips to Europe, were nearly always the people +with comparatively small incomes. They might be rich, but they weren’t +‘rolling,’ like the Goulds or the Vanderbilts. + +For example, a perfectly appalling little woman to whose box at the +opera I was once unwillingly lured, suddenly, during an _entr’acte_, +produced from her stocking a cheque for a hundred thousand dollars, +and waved it in my face, saying, ‘Say, what d’you think of that for a +birthday present?’ A most unsavoury proceeding, and as I afterwards +discovered, a complete fake. The woman’s husband had not a hundred +thousand dollars in the world, and went bankrupt only a few weeks later. + +How entirely different are the super-millionaires! They have enough +money to roof their houses in gold and diamonds, but they behave +with the simplicity of an English parson. It seems foolish to have +to say it, and one’s only excuse is that there is still in England a +ridiculous prejudice against rich Americans. + +It would be a good thing if people who have such a prejudice could meet +a man like, for example, Jack Pierpont Morgan. No nicer creature ever +trod the earth, in spite of his mansions in New York, Grosvenor Square, +Scotland, Cannes, and a few other places. He was one of the last +people I saw in New York, and one of the best. + +One cannot think of Jack Morgan, of course, without thinking of his +library, although it is somewhat depressing for an Englishman to think +of it, since so vast a multitude of English treasures have found their +way there. When he showed me over it I was absolutely staggered by the +collection of our manuscripts which he has amassed. There is hardly a +novelist or poet of any repute whose faded pages are not treasured in +this house. And not only their manuscripts, but their portraits, their +personal belongings, in fact anything of interest that is even vaguely +connected with them. + +I was browsing round among these treasures when I suddenly saw, under +a glass case, a thrilling object. It was a little lock of hair, bound +together with a piece of ribbon, and underneath was a label which read: +‘A lock of the hair of Keats. Given to Shelley by Keats’ friend--’ And +then there was a description of the time and place at which the lock +had been given. + +This object so excited me that I could not drag myself away from it. + +Jack Morgan came up. + +‘What are you looking at?’ he said. ‘Keats’ hair? Like to hold it for a +minute?’ + +He produced a key from his pocket, undid the case and put the precious +thing into my hand. I felt an almost schoolboy emotion at the thought +that this hair had grown from the head in which the Ode to a Grecian +Urn had been conceived. + +Suddenly Morgan said, ‘Give it to me for a moment.’ Reluctantly I +handed it over. And then, marvel of marvels, he extracted a single hair +from the lock--(a long, curly one) put it on a piece of paper, dropped +a spot of sealing wax on one end of it and then wrote, as a sort of +testimony: + +‘Keats’ hair. From a lock in my possession. J. P. Morgan.’ + +This hair he gave to me, and, as all writers of autobiographies so +constantly assert, ‘it is one of my most treasured possessions.’ After +he had done that, he took off the key from its ring, handed it to his +secretary and said: + +‘That’s the last hair from that lock that I give away. If we take any +more we shan’t have a lock, we’ll have a bald patch. Don’t you let me +have that key--not if a dozen young Englishmen come along and beg for +it on their bended knees.’ + +Morgan is like a father among his children when he moves among these +marvels. He pretends to know nothing very much about them, but he +knows a great deal. He knew, for example, what I had never quite +understood--the exact sequence in which Poe had written ‘The Bells.’ +Poe’s manuscripts seemed to convey a special charm for him, as indeed +they might, since Poe was incomparably the greatest creative genius +that America has produced. His manuscripts were the very reverse +of what one would have expected. There were no wild scrawls, no +blotches, no hasty writing. On the contrary, they were all beautifully +transcribed on clean paper, in a hand that would have won a prize in +the copybook of a schoolboy. + +I fell quite in love with American newspapers--bad taste, I +suppose--but quite comprehensible if you have strength enough to +survive the first shock of them. Everybody has written everything that +there is to be written about American journalism, and I won’t add to +it. But one episode does deserve to be recorded as a classic example of +New World enterprise. + +The two ladies of our Mission, after a few weeks of racket and bustle +and sleeping-cars, arrived at Detroit in such a state of exhaustion +that they retired straight to their rooms, refusing to see anybody, +whether they were professors, or journalists, or presidents, no matter, +in fact, how distinguished they might be. There arrived on the scene a +young man with a speckled face who demanded an immediate interview with +these ladies. + +‘Impossible,’ I said. + +‘I’ve got to get it.’ + +‘Can’t help that.’ + +‘I _shall_ get it.’ + +‘You won’t.’ + +Pause. The speckled gentleman spat on the floor, sniffed, and then +said, ‘Well, we shall see.’ + +What he meant I did not even guess. But the next day there appeared +an immense interview, together with pictures of the two ladies in +question, under a head-line that informed all and sundry that ‘Dishpans +Lose Their Lure For Female Sex in England Say Prominent British Women +Educators.’ + +To an American reader, this must sound quite dull. Its only value, +as a story, is that, to an Englishman, it sounds almost impossible. +The ladies, rising refreshed, and eating a hearty breakfast, looked +up from over their grape-fruit to see this astounding account of the +interview which they had never given, and choked with fury. + +‘How dare they?’ said one. + +‘How monstrous!’ said the other. ‘Barbarism, savagery!’ they cried. + +‘Not at all.’ It was imperative to soothe the ladies a little. ‘Don’t +you see that it’s really extraordinarily funny? A speckled young man +demands an interview and doesn’t get one. He therefore invents it. You +ought to feel flattered that your views are so much sought after.’ + +They did not feel flattered, however. + +‘Besides,’ I added, ‘it is probably perfectly true that Dishpans have +Lost their Lure. Haven’t they?’ + +‘Dishpans have no more to do with the case than the flowers that bloom +in the spring,’ said the ladies. + + * * * * * + +And there, I am going to leave America. I am well aware that these few +pages represent only a very small and quite superficial fragment of a +great many exciting happenings. The truth, however, is that I was too +young to pick out what Americans call the ‘high spots.’ The rest of +this book will, I trust, be different. + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +John Masefield, Robert Bridges, W. B. Yeats + + +In January, 1919, I went to Oxford. That seems about the shortest way +of relating a fact that is of singularly little interest to anybody +but myself. What _is_ of interest is that Oxford, at that time, was a +regular nest of famous singing birds gathered together in the aftermath +of the War, choosing Oxford as a sheltered resting-place, as though +their wings were a little weary and their feathers rather draggled. + +W. B. Yeats had come to rest from the storms of Ireland in a quiet, +green-shuttered house in Broad Street; John Masefield was writing his +marvellous sonnets in a cottage on Boar’s Hill; Robert Bridges, the +Poet Laureate, was near by, occasionally producing a few lines of +verse which had more satire in them than poetry, to say nothing of +such young men as Aldous Huxley, Robert Nichols, and Robert Graves. I +must also pay tribute to Leslie Hore-Belisha, who is now perhaps the +most brilliant of our younger M.P’s. He did not write poetry, but his +quite unmatched eloquence at the Union will always linger as one of my +keenest intellectual (I almost said emotional) pleasures. + +Of all these men, by far the greatest, to me, at least, was John +Masefield. He was the strangest blend of passion, and ethereality. He +was, moreover, the most generous of men. As soon as I went to Oxford +I decided, in company with a little band of equally impertinent young +men, that what Oxford needed was a new literary magazine which should +reflect the new spirit of the university after the War. Delicious +innocence! One really was under the impression that one was doing +something, not only terribly important, but quite new. + +After endless cigarettes and a quantity of mulled claret we decided on +two things--the title and the price. It was to be called _The Oxford +Outlook_, and people were to pay half a crown for it. It is still +called _The Oxford Outlook_ to this day, which must be something of a +record for ’varsity papers. The price, however, is only a shilling. + +Now came the question of contributors. Although we were properly +idealistic we were also shrewd enough to realize that unless we got +some big names, apart from those of the undergraduates, our publication +would stand little chance of creating any very great stir in the +world outside, which was what we secretly desired. Somebody therefore +suggested Masefield. And that night I sat down and wrote to Masefield, +telling him what we were doing, and asking him if he could possibly +send us a few lines for our first number. + +By the next post came a most charming letter from Masefield, wishing +us all good luck, and enclosing two of the best sonnets he has ever +written--poems which any editor of any country in the world would have +been proud to publish. Here is the first of them, which has since been +included in the collected edition of his works: + + +ON GROWING OLD + + Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying, + My dog and I are old, too old for roving; + Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying + Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving. + + I take the book and gather to the fire, + Turning old yellow leaves. Minute by minute + The clock ticks to my heart; a withered wire + Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet. + + I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander + Your mountains, nor your downlands, nor your valleys + Ever again, nor share the battle yonder + Where your young knight the broken squadron rallies, + Only stay quiet, while my mind remembers + The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers. + +And that he sent to somebody whose name he had never even heard, +knowing full well that we could not afford to pay for them. + +A few weeks later I met Masefield himself. He had promised to read +some of his poetry to a little literary society which we had gathered +together, and we all assembled in my rooms to await his arrival. It was +a bitterly cold night, with driving snow, and he lived some eight miles +out of Oxford, in a region where there were neither taxis nor buses, +so that he would have been perfectly justified in ’phoning us to say +that he could not come. However, he turned up only a few minutes late, +having bicycled all the way, in order not to disappoint us. + +One never forgets Masefield’s face. It is not the face of a young +man, for it is lined and grave. And yet it is not the face of an old +man, for youth is still in the bright eyes. Its dominant quality is +humility. There were moments when he seemed almost to abase himself +before his fellow-creatures. And this humility was echoed in +everything he did or said, in the quiet, timid tone of his voice, in +the way in which he always shrank from asserting himself. + +This quality of his can best be illustrated by his behaviour that +night. When the time came for him to read his poems, he would not stand +up in any position of pre-eminence but sheltered himself behind the +sofa, in the shade of an old lamp, and from there he delivered passages +from ‘The Everlasting Mercy,’ ‘Dauber,’ ‘The Tragedy of Nan,’ and +‘Pompey the Great.’ He talked, too, melodiously, and with the ghost of +a question-mark after each of his sentences as though he were saying +‘Is this right? Who am I to lay down the law?’ And when it was all +over, and we began to discuss what he had said, all talking at the top +of our voices, very superficially, no doubt, but certainly with a great +deal of enthusiasm, it was with a sudden shock that I realized that +Masefield had retired into his shell, and was sitting on the floor, +almost in the dark, reading a volume of poems by a young and quite +unknown writer. + +I saw a good deal of him after that. He lived in a little red house +looking over the hills and valleys about eight miles out, and on fine +days one could see from his window the grey spires and panes of Oxford +glittering in the distance. + +‘Oxford is always different,’ he said to me once. ‘Always I see her in +a new mood of beauty from these hills.’ We were looking down on the +city from the distance and I too knew how he felt. Oxford from the +hills is a dream eternally renewed. Under the rain, when only a few +spires and towers rise above the driving sheets of grey, on an April +morning, when the whole city is sparkling and dappled with yellow +shadows, by moonlight when it is a fantastic vision of the Arabian +Nights. + +Like many other literary geniuses, Masefield is clever with his hands. +He will, with equal complacency, make a model of a ship or mend a +garden gate. But since he was himself a sailor--since he has himself +known the sea in every mood of loveliness or of terror, it is only +natural that, when he does model, he should turn, by instinct, to +ships. He showed me, at his house, a most exquisite model in wood of an +old sailing vessel of the eighteenth century. There was nothing of the +dilettante about that work. Every spar, every rope, every mast, every +tiny detail was there, modelled to scale. It would have satisfied the +most ardent technician, and yet it had a grace and a poetry that only +Masefield could have given it. + +‘You must keep this in a glass case,’ I said to him. ‘It’s far too +precious, too dainty, to knock about like the other things.’ + +He shook his head. ‘She’s not going to stay here,’ he said. ‘I made her +for a friend who has been very kind to me.’ + +That was like Masefield, I thought, to spend weeks and weeks of labour +to please ‘a friend who had been kind to him.’ + + * * * * * + +Anybody more different from Masefield than the Poet Laureate, Robert +Bridges, it would be difficult to imagine. One was always longing to +put him on a pedestal, to thrust a sceptre into his hand, and a crown +on his head, and then to wait for the lightning. A most leonine and +noble gentleman. Even when he wandered round the streets of Oxford clad +in shabby knickerbockers, with a large, dirty satchel full of books +on his bent back, it was impossible to forget either his great height +or the immense head, modelled after Meredith, with a snowy beard and +silvery locks, flowing with just that touch of abandon which made one +wonder if, after all, Nature had not been a little improved upon. + +Just as Masefield’s favourite word was Beauty, so, according to +popular tradition, Bridges’ favourite word was Damn. We all know his +celebrated retort to Horatio Bottomley, who had suggested in the House +of Commons that in view of the exceedingly limited output of the Poet +Laureate, it might be advisable to grant him, instead of his salary, +the ancient Poet Laureate’s privilege of an annual cask of wine, in +order that his tongue might be a little loosened. Bridges, in reply to +all these criticisms, merely wrote and said, ‘I don’t care a damn.’ +It was typical of him, but most of us thought that the criticism was +justified, for, at the time, there _was_ a war on, he _was_ Poet +Laureate, and he _wasn’t_ writing a word. + +The only time I ever heard Bridges deliver himself of this word was at +a tea-party at his house on Boar’s Hill. He damned the Press, he damned +the university, he damned, also, more than one of the modern poets whom +we were so ill-advised as to mention. When I mentioned Masefield he was +most generous to him, which made me realize how little truth there was +in the story which some wit had sent round the university at the time, +concerning Bridges’ criticism of Masefield. However, though fictitious, +it is amusing enough to recall. + +‘“Masefield’s Sonnets”?’ he is alleged to have said. ‘Ah! yes. Very +nice. Pure Shakespeare. Masefield’s “Reynard the Fox”? Very nice too. +Pure Chaucer. Masefield’s “Everlasting Mercy”? Mm. Yes. Pure Masefield.’ + +The other literary celebrity who at this time had chosen Oxford for a +home was the Irish poet, W. B. Yeats. Yeats always seemed to me to move +in a mist. + +He was like ‘men as trees walking.’ He certainly did not do it on +purpose, as Bridges may have done. He would wander along the street +with his head in the air and his hands behind his back, always wearing +an overcoat, even in the warmest weather, with a long loose bow, and a +mouth perpetually open. To walk behind him was in itself an adventure, +for when he crossed the street he never took the faintest notice of any +traffic that might be bearing down upon him, but dawdled over oblivious +of the stream of cars, bicycles, horses and motor-lorries that were +rushing past. + +A lovable man, Yeats, but, I should imagine, that some people would +have found him a trying fellow to live with. When I left my college +rooms I went to a divine old house with a rickety staircase, and low +ceilings, which looked out on to one of the fairest views in Oxford, +the Sheldonian library. To this house after a little time, drifted +Yeats, complete with his wife and his baby. It was a time when the +servant problem was at its height, and occasionally, if the house was +more than usually under-staffed, all the undergraduates and other +occupants of rooms, including Yeats himself, used to gather to eat a +communal luncheon. + +On the first of these luncheons, Yeats arrived very late, and after +absently toying for a few moments with a little cold asparagus, turned +to me and said: + +‘Were you at the Union last night?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, what did you think of it?’ + +It was difficult to say what one thought of it. The debate had centred +round the ever-green subject of Ireland. There had been a great deal +of bad temper, and not very many arguments. Before I could reply Yeats +said: + +‘I thought it was terrible. The appalling ignorance of English Youth +about anything remotely connected with Ireland. I was astonished. Why, +they don’t know the first thing about us.’ + +He darted a limp stick of asparagus into the open mouth, looked away +for a moment and then said: + +‘Why can’t they understand that the Irish people are Irish, and not +English? Why can’t they realize that over there they’ve got a race of +peasants who believe in fairies, and such-like, and are quite right +to do so? Why, I’ve seen myself the saucers of milk which the Irish +peasants have put outside their doors for the pixies to drink.’ + +He talked absently for a little longer, and then said, in a dreamy +voice: + +‘_If the English could only learn to believe in fairies, there wouldn’t +ever have been any Irish problem._’ + +However, Yeats was not made entirely from dreams. He had a good +business streak in him as well. He knew to a ‘T’ the best market for +his poems, although like all poets he also knew from bitter experience +that verse as a means of livelihood was impossible. + +‘America pays best for poetry,’ he said to me once; ‘but even America +pays badly. They will give you twice as much for a poem in America as +in England. But for an article they will give you three times as much. +I wonder why?’ + + * * * * * + +Among the most entertaining people in Oxford at this time (and, I +may add, among the most entertaining people in Europe), were the +brothers Sitwell. I suppose the Sitwell trio--Osbert, Sacheverell, and +sister Edith, have been talked about as much as any literary family +in England. Apart from their merits, they have had a great advantage +over most writers to whom publicity is not distasteful--they possess +a label. A label is tremendously important if you want to impress +yourself on the British public. It seems that there are a certain +number of niches in the contemporary temple of Fame, and that unless +you fit into one of these niches you will never be recognized. There +is a niche labelled ‘Paradox Mongers,’ another niche labelled ‘Psychic +Storytellers’ and a whole series of geographical niches labelled +‘Dartmoor Scribes,’ ‘Irish Prophets,’ ‘Sussex Poets,’ ‘East End +Recorders,’ ‘Yorkshire Romancers,’ etc. If by any chance, a describer +of Sussex gorse strayed into the Dartmoor heather, he or she would be +disowned. If Mr. Michael Arlen were to get into the wrong omnibus and +be observed alighting guiltily at Selfridges, his reputation would be +tarnished beyond hope. And if a man who had gained a reputation as a +writer of ghost-stories began to make paradoxes, the result, as they +say in the Bible, would be confusion. + +The particular niche which the Sitwells occupy is that of ‘Chelsea de +Luxe.’ It is a very definite and not unprofitable niche. At the time +of which I am writing nobody was inclined to take them seriously. In +fact, we used to think that if the Sitwells’ papa had been anything +else but a baronet with fierce ginger hair, if they themselves had +dropped their h’s instead of dropping their rhymes, their united +efforts would not have created much of a stir, and that _Wheels_ (the +only true schoolboys’ magazine published outside a school) would have +been passed over in comparative silence. Since then, however, Osbert +has written some of the finest short stories in the English (or the +French) language, and Sacheverell has produced a work of real genius in +_Southern Baroque Art_. + +Sacheverell was ‘up’ at Oxford at the same time as myself, and +introduced a very pleasant flavor of Bohemianism--(there really is +no other word)--into those dingy quarters. He hung his rooms with +drawings by Picasso and Matisse, which were the subject of lewd comment +among the more athletic members of the college. There was one drawing +by--I believe, Picasso--called Salome, which represented a skinny and +exceedingly revolting old lady prancing in a loathsome attitude before +certain generously-paunched old men who looked like the sort of people +you meet at a Turkish Bath when your luck is out. One day a certain +charming don--(an ardent Roman Catholic)--strolled into Sacheverell’s +rooms, saw the picture, paled slightly and then asked him what it was +all about. + +Sacheverell said something about ‘line.’ + +And then the don let go. ‘Line,’ he said, was the excuse for every +rotten piece of work produced by modern artists. If a leg was out +of drawing, or a face obviously impossible, if the whole design was +grotesque and ridiculous, the excuse was always ‘line.’ And he stamped +out of the room leaving untouched the very excellent lunch which +Sacheverell had prepared for him. + +But Sacheverell stood his ground in all his conflicts with the +authorities. At the end of every term a terrible ordeal takes place +known as ‘collections,’ or more colloquially, ‘collecers,’ which +consists of an examination on the work done during term. When +Sacheverell came up for his viva voce, he was greeted with black faces +and remarks of that strange and curdled quality which, in academicians, +passes for sarcasm. ‘As it is obviously superfluous to comment on your +knowledge--which is non-existent--we are only left with your style, Mr. +Sitwell,’ said one of the examiners. ‘You appear to write very much in +the manner of Ouida.’ + +‘That,’ remarked Sacheverell calmly, ‘is my aim.’ + +I am not surprised that Sacheverell describes himself in _Who’s Who_ as +‘Educated Eton College, Balliol College, Oxford. Mainly self-educated.’ + +Osbert, Sacheverell’s brother, is the wittiest of God’s +creatures--(forgive me, Osbert, for that expression)--whom I have +ever met. He has infused even more wit than Sacheverell into _Who’s +Who_--that badly constructed work of fiction. As far as I know, the +editor of _Who’s Who_ is not aware of the pranks which Osbert has +played in the 1925 edition. May I enlighten him? + +Take first that wonderful phrase ‘Fought in Flanders and farmed +with father.’ One day I am going to write a beautiful fugue in F to +accompany that phrase, but at the moment it is only necessary to call +attention to the source from which it sprang. For that, you must cast +your eye to the preceding paragraph, which is devoted to Osbert’s papa. +There you will read: ‘Being unfit for service, farmed over 2,000 acres, +producing great quantities of wheat and potatoes.’ + +Take again ‘Founded Rememba Bomba League in 1924.’ It sounds so exactly +like the sort of thing which most of those who appear in _Who’s Who_ +would do. There is no such organization as the ‘Rem....’ No, I won’t +be quite as obvious as that. But I might explain that the telegraphic +address ‘Pauperloo,’ which appears at the bottom of the paragraph, +being interpreted, means ‘Pauper Lunatic Asylum.’ + +‘Deeply interested in any manifestation of sport.’ One has a feeling +that Osbert’s page has got muddled with that of Lord Lonsdale, or Dame +(Clara) Butt. Until finally, one is informed that his recreations are: +‘Regretting the Bourbons, repartee, and Tu Quoque.’ + +Repartee, most certainly. I have laughed as much with Osbert as with +anybody in the world. I shall never forget his reply to a certain +publisher, who had been endeavouring, unsuccessfully, to shield the +body of W. J. Turner from the darts of scorn which Osbert was aiming +at it. ‘Personally,’ said the publisher (and when people begin with +that word one always knows they have nothing to say), ‘personally, I +find W. J. Turner rather a lovable person.’ + +Osbert put his head on one side and smiled. ‘I know what it is,’ he +said, with an air of discovery, ‘you used to keep tadpoles.’ + +He once told me, with that perfect modesty which his enemies find so +disarming, that he gave his superior authorities more trouble during +the War than any other officer they had ever known. I suppose it _must_ +have been a little trying to the colonel who came up to him and asked +if he were fond of horses to be told ‘No. But I adore giraffes.’ And it +must have been positively exasperating to the outraged military police +to find him, an officer in the Grenadiers, carrying on an intimate +conversation with a very private soldier in a very public place. Even +worse, when at the subsequent cross-examination, the private soldier +turned out to be Epstein (whose taste in birds differs so strangely +from that of the British public). + +He began a naughty movement during the War to urge that all those who +had served in France and had no desire to serve again should first +be voluntarily denationalized and then compulsorily deported. It +never came to anything. But in spite of its failure, he survived, and +still walks from time to time down the grey pavements of Piccadilly, +negligently tripping up an occasional poetaster or Royal Academician +who has the temerity to cross his path. + +One more story. It is set on the said grey pavements, and Osbert was +walking over them with another man who was staying with him. There +came into sight a mutual acquaintance, whom we will call Lady C. Now +Lady C. knew perfectly well that Osbert’s friend was staying with him, +but she calmly ignored Osbert and said to the friend, ‘Do come and dine +with me on Friday.’ The invitation was accepted. They passed on. + +The day of the dinner arrived, and with it, a postcard from Lady C. on +Osbert’s breakfast table saying, ‘I should be so glad if you would come +and dine to-night as well as Mr. --’ + +This was too much. Osbert went grimly to the telephone. + +‘Hullo? Is that Lady C.? I’m sorry, but I shan’t be able to dine +to-night. But listen.... Will you lunch with me last Thursday?’ + +Yes--England needs its Sitwells. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +In which Mr. G. K. Chesterton reveals his Fears and his Hopes + + +Among the questions which will present themselves to the future +literary historian, none will be more difficult to answer than ‘Was Mr. +G. K. Chesterton afraid of his wife?’ There are several passages in +his books which indicate that the answer will be in the affirmative, +and among them one might quote that charming essay from _Tremendous +Trifles_ which is called ‘On Lying in Bed.’ He confesses to an +overwhelming desire, while lying in bed, to paint the ceiling with a +long brush. ‘But even,’ he adds, ‘my proposal to paint on it with the +bristly end of a broom has been discouraged--_never mind by whom_; by a +person debarred from all political rights.’ + +The first time I ever asked myself this question was in Cornmarket +Street at Oxford, on a windy night in May. G. K. Chesterton was +alighting, with a certain amount of difficulty, from a taxi-cab, and as +soon as he had safely emerged, he stood in the gutter, his mackintosh +flapping loudly in the wind, while he assisted a charming and +diminutive figure in a cloak. The diminutive figure was his wife. But +even in these strange circumstances, with the wind tying her cloak into +knots, and the rain-spots slashing against her veil like cold bullets, +she seemed completely mistress of the situation of the moment, which +was ‘When should the car come back to fetch them?’ + +Chesterton turned to me--(for he had come to debate with us at the +Union)--‘When _shall_ we want it, do you think?’ he said, a little +pathetically. + +Before I could reply the diminutive figure said, in a sweet, firm voice: + +‘When will the thing be over?’ (a great deal of feminine contempt in +that sentence). + +‘At eleven. But there’s a sort of reception afterwards.’ + +She immediately turned to the driver. ‘Be here at eleven.’ + +‘But ...’ began Chesterton. + +‘And,’ said Mrs. Chesterton, ‘is this the way in? It’s raining, and my +husband has a cold.’ + +So we meekly followed her to the debating hall. + +One has so often been told that Chesterton is an enormous, +elephantine creature, that the actual sight of him is really a little +disappointing. He _is_ a big man, of course, but not as big as all +that. If it were not for his cloak, and his longish hair, and the bow +which he sometimes wears, one would not say that he was an exceptional +figure in any way. It seemed to me that he took a secret joy in +making himself as large as possible, like some little boy who stuffs +his overcoat with cushions. G.K.C. has such a passionate love of the +grotesque that if it were suddenly ordained that he should be four +times his present size he would give a whoop of joy. + +Yes. The more one thinks of it--the more it seems that he _did_ +purposely accentuate his largeness. His mackintosh was the mackintosh +of a man several sizes larger than he. The wide-brimmed Homburg hat +seemed specially designed to exaggerate his face. Even his glasses +could, without difficulty, have been cut in half. And I noticed that +he took a sort of impish delight, as soon as he was introduced to the +committee, of placing himself next to the Junior Librarian, a very +diminutive young man, whom he addressed as from a pinnacle, holding +himself well erect, swelling his shoulders, and even puffing his +cheeks, to improve upon the already imposing body with which nature had +provided him. + +We all trooped into the debating hall, which was absolutely packed, +for Chesterton’s paradoxes are always a draw with youth. The subject +for debate was ‘That this house considers that the granting of any +further facilities for divorce will be against the true interests of +the nation,’ or words to that effect. I was speaking against this +motion (being one of those who have never seen how the interests of the +nation are served by perpetuating the union between a sane husband and +a lunatic wife, or a law-abiding wife and a murderer husband), and as +soon as my speech was over I went to the ‘Ayes’ side of the house where +Chesterton was sitting and sat beside him. + +‘You shouldn’t have referred to me as eloquent,’ he said. ‘Wait till +you hear me speak. I’m not a bit eloquent. I can’t speak off the bat. I +must always have notes.’ + +I looked down and saw that he had a sheet of paper in his hand, on +which he had been scribbling in pencil. But the ‘notes’ were not words, +they were little pictures. A grotesque dragon had been hastily drawn +in one corner, and a tiny sketch of a very fat man in another. There +were also several comic faces, among which I recognized that of the +secretary, who was sitting with his profile to us. It was typical of +him to call these sketches his ‘notes,’ and it was even more typical +when he got up to make a very brilliant speech, that he left his notes +behind him. + +I forget what he said except that it struck one as irrelevant. To hear +Chesterton speak is in itself an explanation of his writing. He pours +out his words, suddenly says something which pleases him by its touch +of fantasy, pauses, and then with a face that grows more and more +smiling and eyes that grow more and more bright, proceeds to develop +the idea, to chase it, to leap ponderously after it, so hurl paradoxes +in its wake, to circumvent it with every ingenious conceit. For +example, he said, almost in an aside, that doubtless divorce would soon +be part of the regular curriculum at Oxford, and when he had said it, +was so entranced by the prospect opening up before him, that he almost +lost his head, and ended by drawing for us a picture of the future +in which M.A. instead of meaning Master of Arts should mean ‘married +again’ and should be accompanied by the B.A., three months later, which +would mean ‘bachelor again.’ + +Perhaps his most vivid conversation came after the debate was all over. +When we were standing in the hall, waiting for the car, he delivered +himself of a second speech which so interested me that afterwards I +went straight home to write it down. + +‘Somebody said in the debate,’ he remarked, ‘that I am the slave of +symbols, that I believed in magic, that in a ceremony or an institution +or a faith I merely examined what was on the surface and took it all +quite literally, like a peasant in the Middle Ages. + +‘But it isn’t I who am the slave of symbols. It is you. I venerate the +idea which lies behind the symbol, you only venerate the empty shell. +Take this case of monarchy. Somebody remarked to-night that we had +taken away half the duties and prerogatives of the King, and that the +monarchy still remained. They went on to say that we could take away +half the duties and prerogatives of marriage, and that marriage would +still remain. Perhaps it will, but what will be the use of it? + +‘Because I bow down to the sceptre, and because I take the words +“honour and obey” quite literally, you say that I am the slave of the +symbol. But I bow down to the sceptre because I believe in the power +that lies behind it. I keep to the smallest details of the marriage +service because I believe in marriage. If you believe neither in the +sceptre nor in the service, and yet bow down to them, then you are the +slave of the symbol.’ + +He looked away. Somebody presented him with his mackintosh. He +struggled into it, got it half on, and then, with one arm still waving +in the air he exclaimed: + +‘A time will come--very soon--when you will find that you want this +ideal of marriage. You will want it as something hard and solid to +cling to in a fast dissolving society. You will want it even more +than you seem to want divorce to-day. Divorce ...’ and here, with a +sort of groan, he thrust his second arm through his mackintosh--‘the +superstition of divorce.’ + +The small figure of Mrs. Chesterton appeared in the doorway. She, as +usual, was quite unperturbed. The fiery words, the tangled eloquence of +the evening seemed to have passed over her unnoticed. + +‘The car is here,’ she said, ‘and we are already five minutes late.’ + +G.K.C. shook hands hurriedly, and vanished through the door. The last I +saw of him was the flap of his mackintosh in the wind. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +In which Mrs. Asquith behaves with characteristic Energy + + +Oxford at this time was a ferment of political activity. It was full of +young ex-soldiers, who considered, with pardonable presumption, that +having endured Hell for five years, they were justified in suggesting +the lines along which the New England (the Lloyd-Georgian England) was +to be remodelled. And so we formed ourselves into clubs, concocted +newspapers, wore ties varying from the noblest shade of blue to the +bloodiest tint of red, and extracted a great deal of pleasure out of it. + +On the outskirts of Oxford lived Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, watching with +interested eyes this ferment of budding talent. I do not know if Mr. +Asquith ever actually said ‘Catch ’em young,’ but, to use his own +type of phraseology, he was not unaware of the advantages which might +conceivably be expected from a judicious sowing of the Liberal Seed +among mentalities still unprejudiced and alert. It was only to be +expected therefore that when I, in company with two staunch friends of +the same College, formed the Oxford University Liberal Club, he should +accept the position of President with alacrity. + +As soon as the club was formed, we arranged a monster meeting in the +Oxford Town Hall, and decided that it would be rather fun to have a +thoroughly pompous dinner beforehand. We therefore invited various +celebrities, who all, to our astonishment, accepted; and when the +plans were well in hand, I departed to tell the Master’s wife of our +intentions. + +Now, it has been suggested to me that the Master’s wife did not +absolutely ‘appreciate’ Mrs. Asquith. At any rate, although it was +understood that Mrs. Asquith was to dine at Balliol, there was trouble. +So much trouble, in fact, that it seemed as though the dinner could not +take place at all. + +This was a dreadful situation. We had already asked Mrs. Asquith to +dine. She had already accepted. It was quite impossible to put her off. +What was the matter? + +It was afterwards suggested to me, by an ingenious scholar of Balliol, +that the college authorities feared that Mrs. Asquith would have a +disruptive influence on callow youth. A foolish reason, of course. If +we wanted, we could have asked Mrs. Asquith to dine with us in our +rooms on every day of the week, Sundays included. She would not have +accepted, but that is another story. + +However, I never did discover the real reason, and, as a matter of +fact, there was no need to do so, for the Master’s wife, in the +interests of Liberalism, very kindly asked Mrs. Asquith to dinner +herself. And so, that was how we dined,--the men in one building, the +women in another, as closely segregated as though we had been members +of some strict religious order which forbade the intermingling of the +sexes. + +Asquith was in great form at dinner. I had never seen him before, and +if first impressions are of any value, be it recorded that he struck +me as having a head far too large for his body. His face was of a +pleasant, rosy hue, rather like that of a genial baby, his body was +short and rather inclined to stoutness. Two things only about him +suggested the sheather of swords--his hair and his voice. The former +was long and white and so silky that one longed to stroke it. His voice +was deep and rich with a quality that also suggested silk. + +The first thing he said to me after we had been introduced was: + +‘Did you get my box?’ + +This cryptic remark needs a little explanation. As soon as Asquith had +consented to speak for us he sent word by his secretary saying that +it was most important that we should prepare for him a box, some ten +inches high and twelve inches broad. This object must be covered in +green baize, and placed on the table at which he was going to speak. It +was destined, as we afterwards learnt, to carry his notes. + +Such a request was, at first, a little surprising. One had always +thought of Asquith as a man with an endless flow of language, who did +not have to rely upon written memoranda in his speeches. However, the +more one learns about apparently impromptu oratory the more does it +appear in its true light, as carefully prepared. Winston Churchill has +told us that the speech that gained him his greatest reputation as an +impromptu was written out six times with his own hand. Bright used to +have an entire synopsis hidden between the palm and fingers of his left +hand, and I am sure the more ‘mountainous’ districts in Lloyd George’s +perorations are carefully hacked and hewn beforehand. So at least +Asquith was in good company. + +During dinner I asked him if it was true that he had once laughingly +summarized the most valuable attribute of Balliol men as a ‘tranquil +consciousness of superiority.’ + +‘A tranquil consciousness of _effortless_ superiority,’ he corrected. +‘Don’t forget the “effortless.” That’s the whole point of it. But,’ he +added, ‘I don’t want to corrupt the youth of Balliol by such agreeable +theories as that.’ + +He had an extraordinary thirst for knowledge about post-war Oxford--a +thirst that was almost pathetic, so clearly did it indicate a love of +the very stuff, one might almost say, the very smell, of scholasticism. +Was there much unrest among the undergraduates? Did they find it hard +to settle down after the War? How many people were abandoning the +classics? And what was their chief reason for doing so? Was it lack of +time or lack of thought, or mere laziness? One could not help thinking +what an admirable Master of Balliol Asquith would have made if he had +ever chosen to abandon politics for university life--(his natural +element). + +Dinner passed quickly under this fusillade of questions, and I was +longing to see how Mrs. Asquith had fared in her comparatively solitary +dinner. It cannot have been a very inspiriting one, for when we all +trooped over to the lodge, and joined them in the big room upstairs, +the atmosphere was gloomy, not to say strained. Mrs. Asquith was +sitting on a table, swinging her legs, which were encased in grey +Russian top-boots, and she greeted our arrival with a whoop of delight, +and started to talk very quickly, as though she had been pent up for +years. How wonderful of the undergraduates to give her a bouquet of red +roses! Had they guessed that she was going to wear a red hat? And did +they mind her not dressing? No? How charming of one to say that she +looked nice in anything, etc., etc. + +The Master’s wife, on the other hand, said nothing at all, but remained +by the fireplace in what appeared to be deep melancholy. I went up to +her and said, ‘We really ought to be going along to the Town Hall now. +The meeting starts in five minutes.’ + +At this she brightened considerably, and said: + +‘Is Mrs. Asquith going?’ + +I explained that it was snowing outside, and that the other guests had +to be disposed of first. Mr. and Mrs. Asquith would bring up the rear, +as they were the most important people. + +‘Oh, I see,’ she said, ‘Mrs. Asquith’s the climax, is she?’ + +I was very thankful when we were all safely landed at the Town Hall, +and the meeting had begun. + +I needn’t say anything about the meeting itself, except that everybody +made admirable speeches, which called forth a great deal of applause, +and set the fires of Liberalism blazing fervently. A few extra lines +may, however, be inserted to make this sketch of Mrs. Asquith a little +less shadowy. + +I am perfectly certain that this lady has been very much maligned by +the British public. A section of that public regards her as vulgar +because she is enthusiastic, prejudiced because she is loyal, conceited +because she is frank, and generally a very tiresome creature. They +have not the wit to realize that she is, in reality, a woman almost +unbearably sensitive, who is aggressive only in self-defence, and that +she is so emotional that she does things in public which some people +regard as outrageous only because they do not understand her. + +I shall never forget, for example, seeing her at the end of the +meeting, put her hand on her husband’s shoulder while they were playing +God Save the King, and, as soon as the King was saved, throwing the +flowers from her bouquet into the stolid faces of the crowd below. How +I sympathized with her at that moment. I should have liked to jump to +the roof with elation. The only difference was that Mrs. Asquith had +the courage to do what she wanted, and I hadn’t. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +In which Mr. Winston Churchill loses his Temper, and Mr. Horatio +Bottomley wins his Debate + + +You may, or you may not, have heard of the Oxford Union Society. It has +a habit of producing future Prime Ministers. Among its past presidents +it numbers such illustrious names as Gladstone, Salisbury, Asquith, +Birkenhead, etc., etc., to say nothing of such minor fry as occasional +Archbishops, diplomats and ambassadors. + +Among its past presidents it also numbers myself. A matter again of no +importance, except for the people with whom it brought me into touch. + +Now, every president of the Oxford Union Society can invite, during his +term of office, not more than two distinguished statesmen to address +the Society. As soon as I had been elected I looked round for two +men who might bring a little live blood into our somewhat academic +discussions, and there seemed no better couple, for this purpose, +than Winston Churchill, the Secretary for War, and Horatio Bottomley, +M.P., who is at present languishing in gaol. Both expressed themselves +as delighted to accept, and dates were fixed for their respective +appearances. + +A terrible problem faced me as Winston’s arrival drew near. I had to +give a dinner, not only to him, but to his guests (four of them), and +about a dozen others. When one dines in this fashion, one has to dine +well, with Moët 1914 and all the usual things which go to make good +oratory. Being quite devoid of funds, and having long before exhausted +my allowance in riotous living, there seemed no alternative but to +make a descent on an already overburdened parent. Then suddenly, a +charming friend, who is now brightening a not very brilliant House of +Commons, suggested that we should all dine with him ... a suggestion +which was carried _nem. con._ + +Winston was the first great English statesman who ever dined with me +(probably the last also). Remembering that it was he who had, on his +own responsibility, given orders to the British Fleet at the outset +of the War which were probably instrumental in saving the Empire, I +sat gazing at him in a sort of awe. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘is the face +that launched a thousand ships.’ And yet there was something a little +incongruous about Winston Churchill in this tiny room. He was so +vigorous, he breathed so hard, and spoke so quickly that one feared +he might at any moment seize all his knives and forks and glasses and +arrange them in the form of a field of battle to illustrate his martial +theories. + +This he actually did. I happened to mention that, in order to help our +memory of the campaigns of Napoleon, I and several others who were +working together, had composed a series of rhymes round the tributaries +of the Po, which we found of the greatest value. + +That set Winston off. He seized a knife, a fork, and a salt cellar +and made with them a little plan round which he marched the imaginary +armies of Napoleon. I have never heard anybody talk of war with such +gusto. With each martial adjective, a light seemed to be turned on +inside his head, his eyes gleamed, his lips parted, and he talked so +vividly that the slight impediment in his speech, which he has always +so pluckily fought, was forgotten. And when he had finished he gave me +an exhaustive list of military treatises on Napoleon, which, needless +to say, I did not attempt to read. + +Winston was a wonderful talker that night--not only of war, but of +other arts, notably of literature and painting. He asked how long it +had taken me to write my novel _Prelude_. + +‘I haven’t the least idea,’ I said, ‘because it was done in bits and +patches over a period of about five months.’ + +‘Didn’t you work at it regularly?’ + +‘No. I don’t see how you can do work in that manner if it is to have +any sort of claim to be emotional.’ + +‘Nonsense.’ + +I sat up, and Winston began to put forward some very interesting +theories on the writing of books. + +‘You should go to your room every day at nine o’clock,’ he said, ‘and +say to yourself, “I am going to sit here for four hours and write.”’ + +‘But suppose you _can’t_ write? Suppose you’ve got a headache, or +indigestion....’ + +‘You’ve got to get over that. If you sit waiting for inspiration, you +will sit there till you are an old man. Writing is a job like any other +job, like marching an army for instance. If you sit down and wait till +the weather is fine, you won’t get very far with your troops. It’s +the same with writing. Discipline yourself. Kick yourself. Irritate +yourself. But write. It’s the only way.’ + +Advancing years have taught me that there is a good deal more than half +of the truth in what Winston said. The ideal combination would seem +to be a little of both spirits--the spirit that enabled Mozart to sit +down, like an accountant, and write his divine melodies at his desk, +and the spirit that urged Beethoven out into the woods and forests when +the storm was at its height. + +To return to Winston. He made a very good speech--(it was about +Russia)--quite as good as those of the undergraduates who were opposing +him--won his motion, and then trotted off to bed, with the cheers of a +thousand young throats ringing in his ears. + +The next day I called on him after breakfast and suggested that it +might amuse him to walk round some of the colleges. ‘All right,’ he +said, and we set out forthwith, while I tried to recall the names of +the various buildings which one passed every day, but never recognized. + +However, Winston strode along gloomily, smoking a cigar, tapping +his stick on the pavement, and taking not the faintest notice of my +chatter, which showed his good sense. Still, I wanted to know the +reason for his ill-humour, and was about to ask him if he had got out +of bed on the wrong side, when he said: + +‘There was a shorthand reporter there last night, of course?’ + +I shook my head. ‘No. We don’t run to that.’ + +He glared at me in astonishment. ‘But there was a man from the _Morning +Post_?’ + +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but he only takes extracts. Did you want a report?’ + +‘I should damned well think I did,’ replied the Secretary for War. +‘I said a lot of very--er--delicate things last night and it’s most +important for me to know what I _did_ say.’ + +I remembered, with exquisite clarity, his remarks about footpads, +assassins and other gentlemen with whom His Majesty’s Government, of +which he was a prominent member, were at that period negotiating. And +I also appreciated the fact that he was honest enough to stand up for +his personal convictions at the risk of being severely censured by his +colleagues. However, there seemed nothing to be done. + +‘Perhaps,’ I remarked, with singularly misplaced brightness, ‘it may +be a good thing in view of the delicacy of the discussion, that there +_was_ a certain vagueness about what you actually said?’ + +For reply, he merely clasped his hands behind his back, made a clucking +noise with his teeth and said: + +‘Is that Lincoln or Exeter?’ + +That night, in the House of Commons, several indignant gentlemen rose +to their feet to draw the attention of the House to the indiscretions +of the Secretary for War at Oxford. Many uncomplimentary things were +said before the matter was allowed to drop. For one night, at least, I +experienced something of the thrill of government. + + * * * * * + +It is a long step from Winston Churchill to Horatio Bottomley, but +not quite as long as might at first be imagined. Both men have a good +deal in common--(this is meant as a tribute to Horatio rather than a +reflection on Winston)--and if Horatio had been to Harrow instead of +to a little school in the East End of London, it is not impossible +that he would have risen to Cabinet rank, have stirred the nation with +patriotic speeches, and have gone down to history as one of the great +men of our times. + +At any rate, he seemed to me a fascinating figure, and one who should +enliven any debate in which he spoke. + +I therefore wrote to him, suggesting that he might care to visit us. By +return of post I received a reply, typed on the sort of notepaper that +is described by stationers as ‘superfine,’ and couched in the third +person. It stated that ‘Mr. Bottomley considered himself honoured by +the invitation, which he had great pleasure in accepting. Mr. Bottomley +would also like to know the subject of the debate. If he had any say +in the matter he would prefer to speak in favour of the Independent +Political Party. Failing that, he would like to attack the League of +Nations, which he considered a useless and a pernicious institution.’ +The Independent Party won the day. + +On the night of Bottomley’s arrival, I was suddenly sent into a panic +by the news that a gang of undergraduates, who considered that the +dignity of the Union was being outraged by including Bottomley among +its ‘distinguished visitors,’ had arranged to kidnap him. The plan was +to meet him at the station before anybody else could get near, to hurry +him into a motor-car, and to drive straight up to Boar’s Hill, where he +would be given a good dinner, and allowed to depart in peace after the +debate was over. I immediately went down to the station, seized several +burly porters and informed them of the situation. Whether or no these +measures had the effect of nipping the plot in the bud, history will +never know. He arrived safely. + +A grotesque figure, one would have said at first sight. Short and +uncommonly broad, he looked almost gigantic in his thick fur coat. +Lack-lustre eyes, heavily pouched, glared from a square and sallow +face. He seemed to have a certain resentment against the world at +large. It was not till he began to talk that the colour mottled his +cheeks and the heavy hues on his face were lightened. + +Was there any excitement at his coming? Yes? He smiled like a child. +A lot of big men came down to speak, didn’t they? Asquith, Winston, +Lloyd George? Yes? ‘And now, Horatio.’ He rubbed his coarse hands and +chuckled. + +At the entrance to the hotel he stood sunning himself in such publicity +as was afforded by the gaping hall porter and his underlings. He +stumped across to the office, his fur coat swinging open, drew from +his pocket a heavy gold pen, and signed his name with a flourish. The +signature was illegible, but the gesture was Napoleonic. + +He dined with me that night, and kept the small gathering of +undergraduates I had invited in a constant splutter of unholy laughter. +‘Do I pay my income tax?’ he said. ‘Not I.’ And he told us, with a +dazzling display of figures, exactly how he managed to avoid that +obligation. To my dying day I shall regret that I forget his method. He +discussed religion, with his tongue well out in his cheek. He drew for +us a little portrait gallery of contemporary politicians, as crude but +as vivid as the work of an inspired pavement artist. Birkenhead seemed +to be the sole politician for whom he entertained any genuine regard. + +‘When Birkenhead was seriously ill a few months ago,’ he said, ‘I was +the only man he allowed into his room. I would go and sit with him for +hours, sometimes talking, sometimes just silent. Funny, isn’t it?’ + +We adjourned to the debating hall, were greeted with uproarious +applause, took our places. As the debate proceeded, I looked from time +to time at Bottomley. He seemed, suddenly, to have grown nervous. +His face was flushed and hot, and from time to time he mopped his +forehead with a large silk handkerchief. The light and airy chatter, +the brilliant irrelevancies, of the Oxford Union seemed to be filling +him with a certain mistrust. He had never known an audience like this. +Every phrase, every gesture, he watched with narrowed eyes, leaning +forward intently. And then he rose to speak. He took the wind out of +our sails from the very beginning. + +I had been afraid that before this, ‘the most critical audience in +the world,’ he would try to assume an air of culture that was foreign +to him, that he would endeavour to put on airs. He did exactly the +reverse. After his opening sentence there was a moment when everything +hung in the balance. He made some rather inapt historical reference, +paused, and was for a moment at a loss. And then, quite calmly and +deliberately, he looked round and said: + +‘Gentlemen: I have not had your advantages. What poor education I have +received has been gained in the University of Life.’ + +Dead silence. I sat back, marvelling at the consummate stagecraft +of the man. After that brief remark, any men who laughed at his +pronunciation or his mannerism would be cads, and they knew it. And he +knew that they knew it. + +From that moment, he sailed on triumphantly. His eloquence was uncanny. +For sheer force of oratory I have never heard anyone like him. Compared +with him, Asquith was a dry stick. (I am talking of the manner, not of +the matter.) And his aptness of retort was modelled on the best Union +styles. For instance, he happened to use, during one of his passages, +the phrase ‘the right to work.’ A Welsh miner who was in the gallery, +and who was, as usual, on strike, cried out ironically, ‘’ear, ’ear.’ + +Bottomley did not look at him. He merely added, in exactly the same +voice as he had used before, ‘a right which I am sure we will gladly +grant to the honourable member.’ Delicious. + +Nor was his repartee merely flippant. One of the preceding speakers +had made a great hit by referring to him, somewhat contemptuously, as +‘a voice crying in the wilderness.’ Bottomley took up the gage and +hurled it with unerring skill back into the face of his opponent. ‘All +my life,’ he cried, ‘I have been a voice crying in the wilderness. All +my life I have battled alone, fought alone, struggled for causes that +other men have deserted as hopeless. A voice crying in the wilderness! +Yes, gentlemen, and I am proud of it!’ Thunders of applause. + +He won his motion by several hundred votes, and when he left the hall, +they cheered him to the echo. + +But he did not seem particularly elated by his success. When he +returned to a party I gave for him at my room afterwards, the voting +had totalled about 1,100--a few less than a record attendance. ‘I’d +hoped I should draw the biggest house you ever had,’ he said with a +sigh. ‘Are you sure there was no mistake in the counting?’ + +I assured him that the tellers were thoroughly trustworthy. + +He nodded. ‘Well, it can’t be helped. Still--it’s a pity.’ + +Further regrets were stopped by the discovery that nobody could open +any of the champagne. ‘Give me a bottle,’ said Bottomley. ‘I’ll show +you a trick.’ + +He seized a bottle in his podgy hand, went to the door, half opened +it, shut it again, gave the bottle a pull, and lo!--the cork was +removed. As he drank our healths he looked across and said ‘Damned fine +champagne.’ + +He was either a liar or a very bad judge of champagne, for it was the +worst wine I have ever tasted. + + * * * * * + +We had arranged to breakfast together the next morning, and at nine +o’clock I arrived at the hotel. It was a drizzling, dreary sort of +morning, with a cold wind, and an indeterminate mist over the roofs. +Bottomley came downstairs looking very tired. The lustre had faded from +the heavy eyes, the bulky frame had lost all elasticity. + +‘And what would you like for breakfast?’ I asked him. + +He protruded the tip of his tongue, paused, and then gave me a wink. +All Whitechapel was in that wink. + +‘A couple of kippers,’ he said, ‘and a nice brandy and soda.’ + +I gave the order, as gravely as possible, to the waiter, and watched +him gulp his brandy, leaving the kippers untouched. He cheered up after +that, and by the time his cab had arrived he was quite gay. ‘I’ve +enjoyed myself,’ he said to me when I bade him good-bye. ‘Enjoyed +myself like hell.’ + +It will need a clever man to write _finis_ to an analysis of the +character of Horatio Bottomley--part genius, part scoundrel, and yet, +wholly human. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +Being an Impression of Two Ladies of Genius + + +So far the feminine element has not obtruded greatly into these pages, +not for lack of females, but for lack of distinguished ones. It is +a matter of little significance to the reader that in May I met a +charming girl called Jean, and in June lost my heart to a languorous +beauty named Helen. But at about this time (the summer of 1920) I did +meet and get to know two very remarkable women. + +The first was Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She was staying at a house whither +I journeyed in late July to escape the heat of a London summer. My +first sight of her was as I emerged from the car; very dirty and +dishevelled after a long journey, in which somebody had spilt a bottle +of champagne all over my trousers. I entered the hall, and observed +a strange, dark woman in orange looking at me, wondered who she was, +wondered still more when she advanced and said in a deep booming voice: + +‘Oh, young man. Run upstairs quickly before you go in to see them. The +room is full of earls and cocktails.’ + +This remarkable announcement (which was true in so far as there was an +earl somewhere in the distance, and the clinking of ice in glasses) was +followed by a mutual introduction. + +A fiery, billowing, passionate, discontented creature of genius--that +is my impression of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She absolutely dominated the +party during my whole visit. I fell passionately in love with her, with +the shy, ridiculous love of twenty-one for--? + +Try to see her as I see her now. The tall, cool dining-room, the Romney +smiling from the wall, the long dining-table, and, near the end, Mrs. +Patrick Campbell, hunched up, scowling, smoking a cigar, and as she +puffed the smoke into the face of the lady opposite (whom she detested) +telling the following story: + +‘Do you know’ (oh! the mellow boom of that magical voice!) ‘the story +of the old hen that was crossing the road and that was run over by +a Rolls-Royce? There was a flutter of feathers, a shrill cackle and +then--’ (turning to her neighbour) ‘what do you think the hen said as +she died? _My God, what a rooster!_’ + +I don’t think anybody was ever quite so rude to people as Mrs. Patrick +Campbell. She would stand in front of the glass, tugging fitfully at +her dress, and then, with her head on one side, she would say, in +dreamy but resounding tones: + +‘Isn’t it awful? I try to look like a lady and all I look like is +Miss --.’ The fact that Miss -- was standing just behind her, made no +difference at all. + +At this house there was a swimming bath--rather on the Roman model, +with pillars of pale blue marble mosaic, and little nooks and corners +where one could drink cocktails before summoning up the energy to +dive in. It was a very hot summer and the bath was in great demand, +especially after tennis. On one of these occasions we all assembled, +in dressing-gowns of varying gorgeousness, and plunged into the water. +Enter Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She herself was in a tea-gown, having no +intention of bathing. Lying on a couch, she surveyed the splashing +throng. Suddenly, as a pretty girl in a _décolletée_ bathing dress +scrambled up on the diving board the great voice rang out: + +‘I’m sure you wouldn’t appear like that before the man you loved!’ + +I don’t know what happened. I only know that the two never spoke to one +another again. + +And yet, when one got her by herself, she was the most fascinating of +creatures. She was, at the time, moving into a little house near by, +and whenever the opportunity occurred, we would go over to assist her +in her task. It is probable that the ‘assistance’ considerably delayed +her entry into possession, for though we had all of us very decided +ideas upon house decoration, we had not the remotest idea of how to +carry them out. I remember standing in a small and dishevelled room for +nearly an hour, while we all argued exactly where a set of the works +of Bernard Shaw (which the author had given her) should be placed. +Finally, with a gesture that would have done credit to an empress, +Mrs. Patrick Campbell swept the whole lot on to the floor, drew from +her pocket the manuscript of a one-act melodrama by Clemence Dane, +and tramped round the room reciting it, her golden voice echoing over +the empty house. She must have quite demoralized the young man who +was putting in a new bath, and she certainly created havoc among the +various vases and oddments with which the floor was strewn. + +After that, we decided that we would leave the house to itself for an +hour or two, and go into the village to buy garden implements. I wish +you could have seen Mrs. Patrick Campbell stalking into that provincial +ironmonger’s shop. She stood in the entrance, drawing her furs around +her, swept out her hand and pointed to some extraordinary instrument +covered with knobs and spikes (probably designed for the uprooting of +turnips). + +‘What,’ she boomed, ‘is that?’ + +The man, like a startled rabbit, tried to give her some indication of +its use. + +‘Give it to me,’ she cried. + +The next thing was a rake. She asked for a r-r-rake, rolling her r’s +and her eyes as though she were asking for some esoteric poison. When +she held the rake at arm’s length she reminded one irresistibly of a +Britannia of the decadence. Choppers, trowels, insecticide, squirting +things--enough to staff a place four times the size of her own--were +all ordered and bundled into the car, so that when eventually we set +out for home we must have looked like a party of _sans-culottes_ +departing to arm their local legion. + +The actual use of these instruments was never fully discovered. The +rake was of course a simple matter, and was employed with great aplomb +in removing the remaining gravel from the centre of the drive to the +sides, where it served as a very effectual choker of the drains. The +clippers also wrought confusion with the grass borders, and became +caked with earth and grit. But the spiked thing remained a complete +mystery. + +I never understood how Mrs. Patrick Campbell wrote her autobiography. +When I saw her it was apparently due at the publishers towards the +end of the next month, although not a word of it had been written. She +would suddenly get up in the middle of a conversation, and rush away to +her room saying, ‘Now, I am going to write.’ But half an hour later she +would invariably be back again, booming at us from the sofa. + +This habit of leaving things to the last moment undoubtedly explains, +to a large extent, the fact that her later career has not been marked +with the same triumph as she enjoyed during her earlier years, in spite +of the fact that she is still the superb genius, shining with a dark +radiance that hardly any of her younger rivals possesses. + +Does she allow that genius to run to waste? I wonder. She does not +appear to have the capacity for taking pains. Philip Moeller, the +author of _George Sand_, told me that she was anything but word-perfect +in the title-rôle. ‘At the final dress rehearsal,’ he said, ‘she was +sweeping about the stage with the text in her hand, reading it, word by +word. She carried it off somehow, by gagging--magnificent gagging, if +you like--but still, you can’t expect to play a part on those lines.’ + +A pity, a decided pity. For so fine and sensitive an artist must have +suffered tortures when she first saw inferior artists taking her place. +And when she had to appear at the music-halls it must have been like +putting a queen in a pillory. I once heard a marvellous story of her in +this connection. + +It is alleged to have occurred at some London music-hall where--sadly +to relate--she had to share the honours with some performing sea-lions. +Think of it! Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who had swept London off its +feet in _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_, having to appear in the unworthy +company of beasts of that nature, which probably eat their young and +sleep all the winter. These animals were apparently incapable of +appreciating true art, for during the whole of her act (which preceded +their own), they made the most appalling noises off stage, booming and +bellowing for food. They were, of course, kept hungry in order that +they might go through their tricks with proper alacrity. + +Mrs. Patrick Campbell, according to the story, put up with the +sea-lions for two performances, but after that, she had had enough. +On the following evening she therefore paid an early visit to the +theatre, a strange bundle under her arm. In this bundle was a packet +of succulent fish with which she proceeded to feed the sea-lions one +by one, addressing them, as she did so, in terms of great affection. +After a couple of fish the bellowing ceased, and gave way to contented +licking of lips.... + +Mrs. Patrick Campbell went through her act in a deathly silence that +night. But when the sea-lions came on, the general impression of the +audience was that it was a very poor show. + + * * * * * + +I cannot better introduce the other lady who at this time so impressed +me than by quoting a very penetrating sentence that was written about +one of her books by Mr. Middleton Murray. It referred to _Vera_ (by the +authoress of _Elizabeth and Her German Garden_), and he called it ‘A +Wuthering Heights written by a Jane Austen.’ + +For Lady Russell--if one may be so unkind as to strip from her the mask +of anonymity which she is always so careful to preserve--is just like +that. It is as though she dwelt in an early Victorian drawing-room, +listening to some passionate dialogue of life that was being carried +on outside the window. The voices rise and fall, the rain splashes +against the bright panes, the wind moans and whistles round the stoutly +built walls. Then, there is a lull, and in the silence may be heard the +scratching of her little quill pen, transcribing the violent things +she has heard in a tiny, spidery handwriting, catching the thunder in +a polished phrase. And when she has finished writing, there, on the +paper, is a story as full of tension, fierce and frightening as any +that dwells in the broken, passionate sentences of Emily Brontë. + +When one meets her, inevitably she suggests Dresden China, with her +tiny voice, tiny hands, tiny face, tiny manners. And then suddenly, +with a shock, you realize that the Dresden China is hollow, and is +filled with gunpowder. Not that Lady Russell will tell you. You simply +sense it, and stand back a little, wondering. + +After I had returned to London, I was trying to endure one of those +dull Septembers which seem to concentrate in themselves all the heat +and stuffiness of a summer that has outstayed its welcome, when +somebody rang up and said, ‘Come to lunch. I want you to meet a very +charming lady.’ + +I went to lunch, and there were certainly several very charming ladies, +but one knew them all before. Until, twenty minutes late, the door +opened, and a little figure with blue eyes floated across the floor +saying, ‘Du forgive me, will yiu? I feel I must be late.’ And then +everything was changed. + +There really ought to be some sort of musical notation for giving the +exact timbre of people’s voices. Lady Russell’s is a delicious voice, +like a dove that has become slightly demoralized by perching too long +on a French hat. Her ‘U’ sounds are startlingly French, and yiu, +pronounced _à la française_, is the only way you can write it. She does +not really talk, she croons aloud. And here again, one comes up against +the Austen-Brontë combination. No other woman could possibly deliver +herself of such remarks in so utterly dulcet a tone. + +It was at the time when her (?) book _In the Mountains_ was being so +well reviewed, and there was just enough doubt as to whether she really +had written it to lend piquancy to the discussion. + +‘In the Mountains?’ she said. ‘It sounds like a Bliu Guide.’ + +‘You wrote it--you _know_ you wrote it.’ + +‘_Yiu_ may know I wrote it. I haven’t even read it.’ But if _yiu_ like +it, it must be improper. So I shan’t read it.’ + +She swore till the very last that she did not write it. + +‘I couldn’t have written it, could I, because I only published a book +last year, and I write terribly slowly. Scratch out all the time. I +want to write a play.’ + +‘Why don’t you?’ + +She sighed. ‘It’s so difficult to know what’s going to happen to a +play. Yiu always know with a novel that it will be published, but with +a play yiu never know, du yiu? I once had a play produced and I was so +thrilled that I used to go every night and sit all by myself in the +pit, thinking “What a clever girl am I.” But I think the little man at +the door began to think I must be in love with him and so I stopped. +And so did the play.’ + +Suddenly--(this was after lunch)--‘Let’s write a play _now_.’ + +‘What sort of a play?’ + +‘A play with heaps and heaps of tiny scenes, all lasting only about +five minutes. With Bach fugues in between. Beautifully lit. Tiny +tragedies. Tiny comedies. Like the things that happen in one’s life. +Some of the plays might be silent. And then--oh, _du_ lets’--and then +after each funny little emotion, one would always have the fugue to +recall one back to life.’ + +It sounds a fascinating idea, and I wish she would do it. Perhaps she +will. So that if ever a unique entertainment by an anonymous writer is +produced in London, of the type sketched above, you will know who is +responsible for it. + +Lady Russell has her own way of administering criticism to bad +writers--the sort of way which makes one swear never to do it again. +In one of my novels, which she had read, there comes a passage of a +very lurid and foolish nature, where a villainous vicar strikes an +adventuress across the face. One develops fairly quickly, and I knew, +almost as soon as the book was published, that this passage was rotten +stuff. I met Lady Russell shortly after she read it and she said, ‘I +_du_ like your book. And I _loved_ the bad old man who hit the girl on +the mouth.’ Silence. Utter silence. And then a laugh. I went straight +home and threw that silly novel into the fire. + +But that is not nearly so damning as she can be. I shall never forget +my thrill of delight when I heard of her quite classic rebuke to one of +the world’s most tiresome women. The scene had better remain veiled in +mystery, but one can say that she had several amusing people staying +with her. There suddenly arrived in the neighbourhood Lady --, who, as +everybody who knows her will tell you, will go miles in any weather +to be near a celebrity. She was full of her latest discovery, a very +decorative young soldier, who had won far more than his share of medals +in the war. Lady -- talked about him till everybody felt inclined to +scream: how she had lunched with him in Paris, how he had done this, +that and the other. ‘And do you know,’ she added, in a vibrating voice, +‘he was wounded in sixteen places!’ + +Lady Russell looked at her with a plaintive smile. ‘I didn’t know men +_had_ so many places,’ she said. + +It would be interesting to know what she really thought of life, or +failing that, what she really thought of her own work, but very few +people have ever managed to get behind the mask of anonymity, and they +all come back with different stories of what they have seen. One thing +I do know, and that is that _Vera_ _had_ to be written. The terrible +brute of a man, the feeling of suspense which hangs over the pages like +a menace--they were as inevitable as a human birth. + +‘Did you like writing that book?’ I asked her once. + +‘I hated it,’ she said, in a whisper. And then, looking down at the +floor, ‘Isn’t he a brute? An absolute brute? Have you ever known +anybody so horrible?’ She shuddered as though she were talking of a +very real person. + +Whatever one may say of her, the fact remains that she occupies a +place in modern literature that is unique, because to the public she +is only a pen, and not a person. When they think of anybody like +Sheila Kaye-Smith, they call to mind bobbed hair, black eyebrows, and +a cottage on the Sussex downs. When they think (as they apparently +sometimes do) of Hall Caine, they call up visions of a beard, private +suites at the Savoy, and countless mysterious legends of his doings +in the Isle of Man. When they hear of Stephen McKenna it is always +with the knowledge that he has either just been to or returned from +the West Indies and is either going or has gone to some party or other +in London. But they never think at all of Lady Russell, because they +simply do not know she exists. They are caught up in the fascination of +her work, they wonder for a moment what manner of man or woman produced +it. And all they have to guide them is a blank title-page. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +In which We Meet a Ghost + + +At this point in the narrative it seems fitting to introduce a +spiritual element which, up to the moment, has not been very noticeable. + +You may have seen, two Christmases ago, a sensational article in the +_Weekly Dispatch_, by one Lord St. Audries, telling of a ghostly +midnight adventure which he had experienced with two friends in a +Devonshire house. The article made something of a sensation at the +time. The _Daily Mail_ devoted a leading article to the subject, +and many American papers quoted it in full. The full story of that +adventure, however, has never been told. And since the two other +conspirators mentioned in the article were my brother and myself, it +seems that the time has now come when the true story of that very +remarkable evening may be told in full. + +It was the first week in June when Peter--as it is shorter to call +him--came down, and it was in the third week in June that the thing +happened. In case you might imagine that the atmosphere of my home +was favourable to ghosts, it is necessary to state that we had lived, +during those two intervening weeks, the most distressingly healthy of +lives. Most of my morning had been spent in wrestling with the foreign +policy of Queen Elizabeth or the political theories of Mr. Aristotle, +a task that was not made any the more pleasant by the thud, thud of +tennis balls which came from the lawns below. But in the afternoon we +would always set out together, sometimes to motor up to Dartmoor and +picnic in heather, but more often down to the sea, where we bathed, +and spent the long hot afternoons lazing about on the beach. + +One Sunday--the last Sunday of Peter’s visit--we all went to evensong. +It was a glorious evening when, at about seven o’clock, we came out +of church, and we decided to walk home, taking the short cut by the +road over the hill. This road, I may say, runs straight from the +church, past various houses, until it reaches the gates which guard the +approach to our own home. + +A full moon hung over the hills--a little pale in the fresh light of +dusk--and after we had been walking a few minutes, Peter stopped, +looked over a wall and said: + +‘What a fearful house.’ + +We looked with him. It was a house which I will call Weir. It had been +untenanted for nearly thirty years and was falling to rack and ruin. +The roof had long ago disappeared, the paint was peeling from the +faded green shutters, and as we looked a bat flew out of one of the +second-story windows, showing that the glass had also vanished. + +‘Why has it been allowed to get like that?’ asked Peter. + +‘Haunted,’ said my brother. ‘At least, that’s the legend.’ And then he +told him how nobody could ever live in it, how strange sounds, screams +and the pattering of hurried feet were heard by passers-by, how it was +narrated that in years gone by there had been a terrible murder there, +in fact, all the usual things which are told in Christmas numbers of +popular magazines. + +Peter interrupted him. + +‘I’m for going in,’ he said. + +‘What on earth for? You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’ + +‘No. Nor disbelieve in them. But, it would be rather fun.’ + +And that was how it began, and how we found ourselves, three hours +later, walking back over the road by which we had come. + +The road was quite deserted, for the town went to bed at early hours, +and as we swung along, wearing our flannels, for it was a hot night, +I took a certain interest in the state of mind of my two companions. +My brother was, frankly, a little on edge. He had a candle in one +pocket, and a crucifix in the other, to meet the respective powers of +darkness with which we might be confronted. Peter was just--how shall +I say?--alert. He had had experiences which might be described as +psychical in the past, and he was more or less prepared for anything +that might happen. And I was just enjoying the whole thing, quite +confident that we should see nothing at all, but none the less amused +by the possibility that, perhaps, if we were lucky.... + +We clambered over the wall, for the gate was locked, walked down some +steps, through some bushes, and round to the front of the house. It +stood about thirty yards back from the road, and the main grounds +stretched out in front. As it was built on sloping ground, the tangled +grass and shrubberies in front were on a level with the basement, +through which we had to enter. The first floor was on a level with the +road behind us. + +It was an absolutely still night, so still that the poplar trees +behind us were etched against the moon in a motionless trelliswork of +silver leaves. + +‘Come on,’ said Peter. We decided to enter the house through one of +the windows in front of us. The glass was broken, and there was no +difficulty in raising the sash. We opened the window and as soon as +we had done so, it fell down again with a bang. The sash had long ago +rotted. + +‘Give me your stick,’ said my brother. ‘I’ll prop this thing up. We +might have to come out in a hurry, and we don’t want to crash into a +lot of broken glass.’ + +I gave him the stick, and he wedged the window firmly into position. It +is lucky that he did so. + +We clambered in one by one, groping our way in the semi-darkness. +As soon as the candle was lit, a room of indescribable melancholy +flickered into view. The plaster had fallen in great lumps from the +ceiling, so that we walked with a crunching noise that echoed all over +the house. Wooden boxes and planks strewed the floor. The wall-paper +had almost all peeled from the walls, though some of it still clung in +strips, like pieces of decaying skin. + +‘Where?’ said Peter. + +‘Upstairs, I think--don’t you?’ + +‘Right.’ + +We spoke in whispers, as though afraid of disturbing something that +might be lying asleep above, and one by one made our way up a narrow +twisting staircase that led into the main hall. + +In this hall we paused, undetermined where to go next. Right before us +was the front door, and on the left, the two principal rooms of the +house. Both of their doors were open, and through them one caught sight +of a floor on to which the moonlight poured abundantly. To the right +was a corridor leading to some rooms that were shrouded in darkness. +Just by us was the continuation of the staircase, which in the old +days had led up to the rooms above, but which now led (after turning a +corner beyond which we could not see) straight up to the sky. + +We began to make a tour of the house, and chose, firstly, one of the +big rooms on the left. There was hardly any need for a candle here, +since the moonlight was so brilliant, but we took it for the sake of +dark corners. We found absolutely nothing. Only a big, silent room, +looking out on to the garden, with a single cupboard, which was empty. +A most prosaic room it must have been in daylight, and even now, there +was nothing particularly alarming about it. + +‘So far, so good,’ said my brother. + +‘Let’s try the other room now,’ I said. + +I went outside, and stood in the hall, waiting for them to follow. +I was not feeling ‘creepy,’ although I should not in the least mind +admitting it. As a matter of fact, I was rather disappointed that +nothing had happened. I stood there waiting, looking into the darkness +of the corridor on the right. + +And then suddenly, the first alarm. It was not in the least the most +important thing that happened that night, but since it happened to me, +I take a particular interest in it. + +As I stood there, I was thinking in the odd, inconsequent way in which +one does think, of an essay which I had been writing that morning, when +suddenly I thought--‘I am thinking very slowly. My brain does not seem +to be working properly.’ And then, with a thrill of dismay I realized +that exactly the same physical process was taking place in my head as +takes place on those dreary occasions when I have been forced to have +an anæsthetic. The left side of the brain starts to be covered with +a black film (almost like the shutter of a camera), which gradually +closes over, from left to right. While this is going on I can think +perfectly clearly with the right side. Thought and consciousness do not +cease until the film has closed completely over. Then, everything is +blackness. + +This was now happening to me, but with two differences. The film was +spreading over my brain far more quickly, and the agent which was +responsible for it was not anæsthetic but a force which I can only +describe as a form of suction, coming very distinctly from a room down +the corridor on the right. + +‘Hullo! What’s up?’ + +I saw them standing before me. With every effort of concentration, I +managed to say, in an absurdly stilted voice: ‘The candle. Quick, the +candle. Outside.’ I found the candle placed in my hand. My feet carried +me downstairs, I half fell to the window, and then--the film closed +over. + +A minute later I found myself sitting up on the grass, feeling +absolutely normal again, though strangely tired. What had happened? It +was exceedingly difficult to say. Nothing--and yet, everything. All I +knew was, that here in the garden I was safe. But inside.... + +‘I wish to goodness you wouldn’t go in again,’ I said. + +However, they were now more determined than ever to make a thorough +investigation, and after waiting to see that I was all right, they +clambered once more through the window. + +Not one corner, not one crevice of that house did they leave +unexamined. It was a very simple house to explore, because apart from +the fact that the only possible entrance was by this particular window, +the rooms themselves were square and stoutly built, and there were +but few cupboards, and absolutely no mysterious closets or any other +contrivances which might be thought to harbour ‘ghosts,’ or even, +failing a ghost, a harmless tramp. + +They spent about twenty-five minutes over their examination, and came +out reporting that they had been everywhere--including the little room +from which I had felt the ‘influence,’ and had found absolutely nothing. + +‘And now,’ said Peter, ‘I’m going in _alone_.’ + +‘Alone? Good Lord, man, haven’t you had enough of this business?’ + +He shook his head. ‘No. I believe Paul’s an “anti-influence.” Sort of +lightning conductor. He keeps them off. Perhaps it’s the crucifix,’ he +laughed. ‘Anyway, you remember that nothing happened to you until you +went out in the hall away from him. And nothing happened to me, perhaps +because we were together all the time.’ + +We tried to persuade him not to go. But he insisted, and we let him go +in on the condition that he should take the candle, and that we should +whistle to him every few minutes, while he would whistle back, to show +that he was still there. + +Once more, for the third time, he went into that house, while we sat +down on the grass and listened to the sound of his footsteps as he +clambered up the stairs. We heard him walk across the hall and sit +down, as I judged, on the bottom of the steps, waiting. Then there came +a faint whistle, and we whistled back. + +Silence. We whistled again, and the answering echo sounded clearly. +Another whistle, another answer. And so the minutes passed away. + +Then--terror! + +It was about twenty minutes after Peter had climbed through the window, +and nothing had happened. The last whistle we had heard, which was +about two minutes before, had been particularly shrill and cheerful. +It seemed quite evident that we had drawn a blank, and I turned to my +brother to suggest that we should call Peter out, and go home. + +But, over our heads there came something which was not a sound, for +there was no sound; not a wind, for the trees were still; nothing +visible, for we saw nothing. A second later, a cry from the house, in +Peter’s voice, the like of which I hope I shall never hear again. It +was a long-drawn ah-h-h! The sort of cry that a man would give who had +been stabbed in the back. + +We sprang to our feet, and rushed to the window. As we did so, a single +cloud which had long been drifting slowly to the moon, started to +obscure the light. Clambering through, we found ourselves in utter +darkness. The planks and boxes which, by candlelight had been so easy +to surmount, appeared gigantic. To add to the distraction there came +from upstairs the wildest thuds and crashes, as though several men were +struggling together. + +‘For God’s sake, matches.’ + +‘Haven’t got any.’ + +‘We must get some.’ + +We scrambled to the patch of light made by the window, rushed through +the bushes, the noise of the struggle inside increasing all the +time, vaulted the wall into the garden of the house next door, whose +occupants were fortunately well known to us, pushed wide the front door +which was fortunately open, seized a lantern which, by a miracle lay +just inside the hall, tore back again, over the wall. As we vaulted the +wall we heard a noise which was like a whole platoon of men stumbling +down the stairs. + +And then, ‘Oh, my God! ’ in Peter’s voice. + +We met him as he emerged, staggering round the corner, his face dead +white, his hair, his hands and his clothes covered with plaster and +dirt. We took him into the next house, dosed him with brandy, and +listened to the following story: + +‘When I got into the house,’ said Peter, taking a plentiful gulp of +brandy, ‘I couldn’t at first decide where to take up a position. I +eventually chose the bottom of the staircase, for two reasons. It was +central--that is to say, it commanded a view of nearly every door on +the ground floor, and it also allowed me to face the corridor on to +which opened the little room from which you’ (turning to me) ‘felt the +influence coming. + +‘I wasn’t particularly hopeful of seeing anything. However, something +seemed to tell me that if there _were_ to be any manifestations, that +is to say, quite crudely, if there was a ghost, the centre of its +activity would be in that little room. My attention seemed constantly +switched in that direction, and after a few minutes I sat quite still, +my eyes fixed on the door of the little room, which I could just make +out as a patch of greyish light in the darkness of the corridor. + +‘The minutes sped by, bringing nothing with them. I heard your whistles +outside. I whistled back. And though the echo of my whistle sounded a +little uncanny in the lonely house, I still didn’t feel in the least +“ghostly.” I felt extraordinarily matter of fact. I remember even +wondering if the wood on which I was sitting was damp. + +‘I suppose that about twenty minutes must have gone by like this, and I +was seriously thinking of giving it up as a bad job. Your last whistle +had just sounded, and, growing impatient, I began to rise to my feet, +intending to have a final look at the little room, and then to go home. + +‘Then, the thing happened. Out of that room, down the darkness of the +corridor, something rushed. I don’t know what it was, except that it +was black, and seemed to be shaped like a man. But two things I did +notice. The first that I could see no face--only blackness. The second +was that it made no noise. It rushed towards me over that bare floor +without a sound. + +‘I must have taken in those two facts subconsciously, for I had only +two or three seconds in which to think. After that I was knocked flat +on my back by some overwhelming force. I had a sickening, overwhelming +sensation of evil, as though I were struggling with something beastly, +out of hell. + +‘After that I remember struggling--it seemed to me for my +life--staggering with an incredible effort to my feet--and fighting my +way downstairs. If one’s sensations in moments of half-consciousness +are of any value, then I must have been fighting not with one thing, +but with two or three. How I managed to get down the stairs, God knows. +There was nothing but darkness and a hundred filthy influences sapping +my strength. The next thing I remember is meeting you outside.’ + +Before I go on to the sequel to this story, just let me remind you +of two things. Peter was, once again, a perfectly normal and healthy +creature, going through the war like any other young man, fond of +country life, the reverse of neurotic. Secondly, whatever it was that +knocked him down, it was not a human being. That room from which the +‘thing’ emerged was empty. It had no cupboards, no secret doors. There +was no possible way of entering it. + +The sequel is as follows. We were naturally very anxious, after this +exceedingly unpleasant experience, to find out a little more about +Weir, and its antecedents, and with this object we paid a visit +to a certain very charming lady who lived close by and who had an +international reputation in things psychic. She knew all about it. She +heard our story quite calmly, and without the least surprise. + +‘But do you mean to say,’ she said, when we had finished, ‘that you +didn’t _know_?’ + +‘Didn’t know what?’ I asked impatiently. + +And then it transpired that some forty years ago, Weir had been the +scene of a particularly brutal double murder, in which a semi-insane +doctor had done to death first his wife, and then a maid-servant. The +actual scene of the murder was in the bathroom. _And the bathroom was +the little room at the end of the corridor from which I had felt the +influence coming and from which the thing had rushed at Peter._ + +I could tell you a lot more about Weir if I had time--how when it was +renovated, and re-inhabited a short time ago, no door in the place +would keep shut, and how even the stodgiest tenants were forced to +admit that something very devilish was on foot. How no dog can be got +past the house after a certain hour. How--but one might go on like that +for ever, and so I shall leave the facts as they stand. + + * * * * * + +Before leaving this question of ghosts, however, I cannot refrain from +telling another story of the same kind, which also had Peter as its +main victim. You may disbelieve it or not as you choose, but at least, +even if you decide to treat it as pure fiction, it makes very good +reading. And it is, as a matter of fact, the unadulterated truth. + +The scene was laid about six years ago at St. Audries, a rambling, +pleasant old place in Somersetshire. Peter had come home from London +the night before, and apart from his sister, there was nobody there +except the servants. On the second night, he was rather tired, and so +at about ten o’clock he went to his room, which lay at the end of a +long wing, a good distance away from the main body of the house. By +half-past ten he was sound asleep. + +Some hours later, in the middle of the night, he suddenly found himself +awake, with that strange feeling that one has been disturbed by some +noise outside. He rubbed his eyes, and sat up. Yes--distinctly there +was a noise in the corridor. Wondering who on earth it could be at this +time of night, he called out. There was no answer. Called again. Still +no answer. Mystified, he rose from bed, put on a dressing-gown, and +opened the door. + +Outside, there was an old woman with a candle, standing a few yards +away from him, regarding him with calm, wide eyes. He had never seen +her before, and he spoke to her. She did not reply. + +He then took a step towards her, and as he did so, she suddenly turned +and began to walk away. Exceedingly curious, he began to follow, but +she broke into a run. He too started running, and he chased her down +corridors, along passages, up little staircases, faster and faster. + +Suddenly at the other end of the house, when he was only a few yards +behind, she turned into a corridor that led to a room from which there +was no escape. There was the sound of a door slamming, and a second +later he flung it open. Bright moonlight flooded the room. It was +empty, silent, deserted. + +Peter stood there, wondering. The only exit from the room was by the +door through which she had just entered. Unless of course one jumped +out of the window, from which there was a sheer drop of forty feet on +to a hard lawn. But the window was locked and barred. Nobody had opened +it for years. + +Shrugging his shoulders, he walked back to his room, a little +disturbed, and greatly puzzled. Before he turned out the light to go to +sleep again he glanced at his watch. It was two minutes to one. + +The next morning, the whole adventure seemed so fantastic that he +decided to say nothing about it. He therefore went down to breakfast, +talked quite normally and cheerfully, and kept his peace. + +As he rose to go out, his sister suddenly said to him: + +‘Oh, Peter. The clock on the mantelpiece has stopped, and it’s a +terrible nuisance to wind. What is the right time?’ + +Peter looked at the clock. It registered two minutes to one. He took +out his own watch. That also marked two minutes to one. + +‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll go outside and tell you.’ + +But in the hall the same thing had happened. The grandfather clock, +which was usually kept fast, had also ceased ticking--at two minutes to +one. The clocks in all the other rooms had stopped--at two minutes to +one. Even a clock over the staircase, which could only be reached by a +ladder, and of which he alone held the key, had stopped at two minutes +to one. + +That is all. There is no explanation, no ‘sequel’ of any kind. It just +happened. It has never happened again. + +Since these events I have looked the other way whenever I have seen any +spiritualists coming down the street. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +In which I Journey to Greece + + +It was not easy, in the unrest and turmoil of the year 1921, for +any young man to settle down to a definite occupation. There was a +great outpouring from Oxford in that year, mainly consisting of those +who had been to the war, had returned to the University to finish +their studies, and had taken the shortened course. Men of that type, +prematurely matured, seemed indeed to many of us, quite middle-aged, +though most of them were not twenty-eight. And naturally having already +lived many lives and died many deaths, the prospect of beginning all +over again and being treated like children was not altogether pleasing. + +Everybody who has done much public speaking at the University is +always told that he ought to go to the Bar. It seems destined for him, +as something almost inevitable--why, I could never quite understand, +because mere eloquence is not nearly so great an asset at the Bar as +the capacity to spurn delights, to live laborious days, and to make up +your mind that for several years at least you must be content to be a +very dull dog indeed. + +I, too, was caught in this spirit of unrest. I went to London in +search of a job, had no idea how to set about it, wrote odd articles, +spent all my money, and returned home. Something had to be done, so I +sat down and occupied the next four months in writing _Patchwork_, a +novel of the new Oxford. It was published in the autumn, had a certain +_succès d’estime_, and brought me in about enough money to pay my +tailor’s bill. + +And then one day, there came a letter which set my heart beating +quickly and filled me with a sense of adventure which made life seem +more than worth living again. It was from my publishers, and it told me +the following story: + +A new revolution, it seemed, was on the point of breaking out in +Greece. That unfortunate country was in the direst distress, being +ruled by a monarch (the late King Constantine) who was not recognized +by the Allies, who had already been exiled once, and who, unless +drastic measures were taken, would be exiled again. The national +exchequer was empty, the national spirit almost broken, and the +national manhood practically exhausted by the war against Turkey, which +had already lasted, on and off, for seven years. + +The only way in which Greece could be saved was by the recognition of +King Constantine by the Allies. Such an event was, at the moment, out +of the question, since ‘Tino’ was regarded in France and England and +America as an Arch-Traitor, a sort of miniature Kaiser, who by his +treachery and his double dealing had imperilled our cause throughout +the whole of the Near East. + +But that legend of Tino, it was now alleged, was false. It had been +carefully built up, during the war, by interested agents, on a fabric +of complete falsehoods. The astounding nature of these falsehoods +was contained in a collection of documents which was being carefully +guarded. In those documents was material for a book which would cause a +sensation throughout Europe as soon as it was published. + +Would I go to Athens and write that book? I should be given immediate +access to the documents, I should be under the special protection of +the Greek Government, I should have, as a matter of course, the entrée +to every circle of Greek Society which I might desire to investigate, +from the Court downwards. And all my expenses would be paid. + +Would I go to Athens? Would I go to heaven? Just imagine if _you_ had +just come down from Oxford, were still at heart an undergraduate, +and were suddenly given the opportunity of embarking on an adventure +which gave every promise of situations as fantastic as ever occurred +to the peppery imagination of William le Queux! For, naturally, one +guessed that, in an undertaking of this sort, there would be a certain +element of danger. The Balkan countries have never been exactly a +health resort for political adventurers, and what should I be but a +political adventurer, delving into secrets of which, at the moment, I +knew nothing, in a distant and romantic capital which was alive with +intrigue? + +Would I go to Athens? Without a moment’s delay I sat down and wrote a +telegram, saying that if necessary I would start to-morrow. + + * * * * * + +Let us get straight on to Greece, for it is easier to do that in +a book than in the so-called _train-de-luxe_ which totters across +Europe, falling over bridges, blundering through ravines, and waiting +for a whole day at deadly looking hamlets in strange countries. It +is all right until you reach Fiume. Till then you have a comfortable +dining-car with regular meals, and a sleeping compartment in which it +is possible to sleep and not to freeze. But after that, God help you. +They take off the dining-car, and you have to depend for sustenance on +what you have got with you. And if you have got nothing, it means that +you have to clamber out of bed in the middle of the night and go into +some filthy little railway café, to bargain for black olives and dusty +chocolate and sour bread. At least, that was how things were in the +winter of 1921. + +A word about Belgrade, the capital of Yugo-Slavia, because it is, +of all the cities I have ever seen, the most sinister and the most +melancholy. It would appeal to Poe. We arrived at about dawn, and I +woke up to look out on a dreary, broken-down station, snow-bound, and +to hear the monotonous echo of some soldiers singing round a little +fire which they had built on the platform to keep them warm. I dressed +and went outside with some Greeks, who spoke bad French. We were all +terribly hungry and were determined to eat some breakfast or die in the +attempt. + +What a sight when we stepped outside the station. You must imagine +a background of leaden skies, and long, almost empty streets along +which an occasional bullock cart silently plodded. In the foreground, +however, all was colour and noise and animation, for it was market day, +and the peasants from the outlying districts had all come in to sell +their cattle. Never can there have been such a picturesque crew of +rascals--rather like a chorus in the Chauve-Souris. The men with black +beards, and stockings brightly worked in blue and crimson wools, the +women with green aprons and yellow jackets, and odd-looking belts that +seemed to be made of dyed leather. And they were all stamping about in +the snow, shouting out in that dark, stinging language which sounds +like Russian spoken by a devil. At least three fights were in progress, +and the way they treated their animals made me feel that, unless I went +straight into Belgrade, there would be a fourth. + +We pushed our way through this unsavoury collection, and walked down +the silent, desolate street in a sort of dream. There were no motors +(I did not see a single motor in the whole of Belgrade) and very few +horse-carriages. Almost every man we met was a soldier. And such +soldiers! Dreary, pale, half-starved-looking creatures, slouching along +like tramps, with uniforms that hung about them in rags and boots that +had long been unfit for any human beings. Then, suddenly, we saw three +officers, swaggering down towards us. A greater contrast it would be +impossible to imagine. They were not only smart, they were superb. They +glittered and shone and sparkled, they strutted, and puffed, and posed. +They were the complete musical-comedy officer of the Balkans, their +uniforms a dream of delight. And as they passed, a group of ragged +soldiers sprang to attention, and remained stiff as corpses for fully a +minute after the said officers had gone by. Discipline, what crimes are +committed in thy name! + +And then the breakfast! It was quite as depressing as a Dostoievsky +novel. We had it at the best hotel in the place, and it consisted of +bitter coffee, white butter made with goats’ milk, and bread so sour +that it was almost impossible to eat. There were no eggs, no meat, no +sugar. One was back in war-time England again, _with_ a difference. + +Only one word more about Belgrade, and that must be to record the +impression of amazement I had that this terrible hole of a place was +the capital of one of the largest countries in Europe, of the country +which, according to the economists, is going to be one of the most +prosperous in the whole world. Make no doubt about it, Yugo-Slavia is +a coming country. But if you could see its capital, the town which, by +the august dispensation of the Peace-Makers, has been set in authority +over many fair and cultured cities of the Austria that was, you would +say it was a back slum of London, set on a hill, subjected to an +earthquake, and then cursed by the Creator. + +They don’t build houses to last in Belgrade, because they know that in +ten years or so there will be another war, and the whole thing will be +blown to pieces again. That is the sort of spirit one met the whole +time. Nothing permanent. No trust. No faith. No hope. I looked into a +photographer’s shop and saw a photograph of the Parliament in session. +So pompous, so threadbare, so utterly, damnably sad. + +All this may have been the effect of a bad breakfast and a cold +morning. But I think that you will admit that it is borne out by the +facts. + +Let us hurry to Greece. The next scene in the journey was when, at +dawn, the train, with a last despairing effort, arrived at the frontier +town of Ghev-Gelli, and stopped, panting. And this was Greece! This +land of crystal sunlight, with the brown mountains against skies of +burning blue. Greece! I felt like Linnæus, who went down on his knees +at the first sight of English gorse; or like Cortez, when his eagle eye +first gazed upon the Pacific, through the medium of Keats’ Sonnet. Or +like a great many other popular people who may all be found in _The +Children’s Encyclopædia_. + +I dressed quickly, and went into a little restaurant that lay just +behind the station. A brown-eyed maiden bustled forward and showed me +to one of the four small tables. There was a spotless cloth on the +table, and a big earthen bowl of violets. And for breakfast there was +a huge glass of fresh milk, a chunk of coarse bread, and the sweetest +honey that even Greek bees can ever have distilled. One felt that on +such a diet, and under such sunshine, anybody could write masterpieces. + +I had just swallowed my last spoonful of honey, and lit a cigarette, +when there was a sound of tramping feet outside, a shouted word of +command, a moment’s silence, and then a babble of conversation. +Soldiers! Greek soldiers! These must be inspected at once. I went to +the door and saw, lined up, a small platoon of soldiers, clad in khaki, +standing at ease. They were burnt almost black with the sunlight, +were of rather under average height and were talking in a fierce and +indigestible language. But what most attracted the eye was the superb +young officer who was engaged in conversation with the conductor of the +wagon-lit. He was the first (and almost the last) Greek I ever saw who +gave one the impression of a statue come to life. And how smart he was! +How his sword glistened in the sunlight, how his leather shone and his +buttons sparkled! + +Suddenly he turned, pointed in my direction, and started walking +towards me. I hurriedly adjusted my tie, and wished that I had shaved. +It didn’t seem to make much difference, but it made one feel somehow +undressed. However, there was little time for regret. The officer was +already by my side. + +‘Monsieur Nichols?’ + +‘Oui.’ + +He saluted, turned, and shouted to the soldiers. They ceased talking. +Shouting again. They sprang to attention. Shouted again. They sloped +arms. + +This was terrifying. I also endeavoured to put a few inches on my +height, and frowned severely, which is reputed to have an effect of +making one look older. + +‘I come from the Military Commander of Macedonia,’ he informed me. ‘You +are to be under his special protection.’ + +‘Thank you,’ I said, in as deep and resonant a voice as possible. ‘It +is very gracious of him.’ + +‘I have also,’ he remarked, ‘to present you these documents.’ He handed +me some papers decorated with heavy seals. I took them, glanced at +them, and placed them inside my pocket. + +‘You will have no difficulty,’ added this excellent young man, ‘in such +things as customs. Athens has been informed of your arrival. Everything +will be done to ensure your comfort.’ + +‘I am more than honoured,’ I said. I felt an awful fraud, and was +thankful that the Military Commander himself was not present. If only +one could have grown a beard, or have developed pouches under the eyes, +or a cynical smile or _something_ which would have concealed the fact +that one was really only an undergraduate, and not the distinguished +author that they were expecting. How marvellously Hall Caine would have +suited an occasion like this. He would probably have emerged in a +black coat, looking like a minor prophet, and have made some profound +remark on the liberty of Greece. All I could do was to ask the young +man to stand his soldiers at ease, which seemed an excellent suggestion +and was promptly carried out. + +We talked for a little longer, and then, in order to end a situation +which was rapidly becoming unbearable, I informed him that I had +business in the train which must be attended to. He sprang to +attention, we shook hands, the soldiers clicked, sloped arms, right +turned and stamped rhythmically out of the station. The last thing I +saw was the glint of their rifles in the sun. + +After waiting nearly the whole day at Ghev-Gelli, the train puffed out +into the open country towards Athens at about five o’clock. I looked +out on to the mountains and flower-filled valleys, dreaming in the late +afternoon sunlight. The adventure had really begun. + + * * * * * + +And now, Athens. + +We arrived at about seven o’clock in the evening, and all the things +which my admirable and decorative soldier had foretold, came to pass. +Various imposing people met me, my luggage slipped through the customs +unopened, and I found myself outside the station while the other +wretched people were still wrestling with officials. + +Now, I am all for dramatizing the various episodes in one’s life in +order to get the utmost emotion from them. This seemed to be an episode +well worthy of such treatment. And so, for this night, I planned to +drive through the streets to my hotel in an open cab, have a jolly good +dinner, and then go up to the Acropolis by moonlight alone. + +I achieved all these delectable things. By various subterfuges I +managed to get rid of the people round about, and found myself in the +desired open cab driving slowly towards the main streets. + +The streets of Athens at night! Take, as a model, Paris, and set it +in surroundings of incredible beauty, hills that soar proudly above, +a sea that stretches below, lit with the lights of a thousand ships. +Fill it with dark, swarthy people, with eyes like stars, who do not +so much walk as sway. Plant along its streets rows of pepper trees, +whose feathery branches dance beneath the lamp-light. Sprinkle among +the crowd young giants in the most picturesque uniform of Europe--a +white kilt that makes them look, in the distance, like ballet girls. +Build your houses of white marble, scatter their gardens with flowers, +breathe over it all a spirit of gaiety and love, light it with a moon +so clear and clean that it might be carved from the marble of the +Acropolis--and then, perhaps, you will have a faint idea of Athens. +Unless, from sheer incapacity, I have inadvertently been describing a +Lyceum pantomime. + +And then, most important of all, one could dine like a king in this +paradise, and still can, for less than half a crown. The drachma was +not nearly as low then as it is now, but this was what my dinner cost: + + _Wine 15 cents_: A bottle of white wine--tasting of + the tiny yellow grapes that are + good enough to grow on the + slopes of Mount Parnassus. + + _Omelette Superb. Greek hens are worthy of + 12 cents_: special praise. + + _Pilafe de Volaille A pilafe that brings to the dinner, + 15 cents_: as the cigarette advertisements + say, something of the ‘romance + of the East.’ Made _à la_ Constantinople, + its rice flavoured + with essences which none but a + Turk could contrive. + + _Yaorti 10 cents_: It hailed originally from Bulgaria. + It is a perversely succulent dish + of sour cream and fresh cream + mixed, iced, and sprinkled with + sugar. + + _Savoury Apollo Born of an unholy but delectable + 12 cents_: union between the lobster and + the crab, and baptized with a + sauce of the cook’s own invention. + + _Turkish Coffee Again the Eastern element. Constantinople + 5 cents_: is close, you see--too + close for the comfort of Greece. + But, at least, it has taught them + how to make coffee. + +Grand Total, including wine, 69 cents. + +And that is in the best hotel in Athens. If you go to any of the other +restaurants, you will dine equally well for a good deal less. + +But I want to take you with me up to the Acropolis, before we part +company on this most thrilling of all nights. For the Acropolis is the +personification of all Greece, it is the Crown of Athens, the eternal +symbol raised aloft which proclaims that Greece has no kith nor kin +with the crowded barbarians to the North, or the massed savages to +the East. Oh! I know perfectly well that the Turk is a fine fellow--a +finer fellow than the average Greek, and that probably modern Greece +has little in common with the Greece that first lit the lamp of +civilization in Europe. But Turkey has no Acropolis. And as long as +those matchless columns hover, like a benediction over Athens, Greece +will be _different_ from her neighbours. + +It was the night of the full moon. As we rattled up the narrow streets, +the roads grew bumpier and bumpier, the lights more and more dim. A +wonderful place, one thought at each street corner, for a murder. It +would be dreadful to be murdered before seeing the Acropolis. After +seeing it, nothing would matter. That at least was how I thought, as +the cab swung round the final bend in the hill, drawing up beneath the +clustered buildings, dreaming on their narrow cleft of rock. + +How can I describe it, this milk-white miracle of beauty? Its beauty +does not come from its antiquity alone, for here, among the columns +of dim silver, stained with shadows of violet, one is away from Time. +The temples soar to the stars, like white flowers eternally born anew. +The same moon that lit the face of Alcibiades falls on each fragment +of glittering marble, gilding the stone arms of its warriors and the +silent faces of its maidens, and only yesterday it seems that the voice +of Socrates must have echoed here, carried by this breeze through the +cool, cleft spaces. + +At night-time even modern Athens seems to fit into the dream without +disturbing it. One stands by some broken, lovely fragment, looking +over the hills on to the sparkling city beneath. It is a box of jewels +spilt as an offering to the gods. The streets are strung into darkness +like glimmering necklaces, and from far below comes the muffled whir +and murmur of modern life. And then one shuts one’s eyes again, and +there is silence--the silence of eternal things.... + +I offer no apology for this sentimental outburst. I have no sympathy +with the man who does not grow sentimental among the columns of the +Acropolis. I have read about him in Freud, and he is a very dirty dog. + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +Concerning the Confidences of a Queen + + +On the next day I was summoned to the Queen. I must here admit, with +due shame and contrition, that I had never been to see a Queen before. +I really don’t know why. Still, the fact remains that I knew nothing +whatever about Queens, especially Balkan ones. I had read about them +in certain lurid accounts of themselves, from which I gathered that +they must all be very temperamental, and I had seen photographs in the +illustrated papers, from which I concluded that all photographers were +Republicans. Beyond that, my mind was a blank. + +Still, two things one knew instinctively about Queens. They liked to +be called Ma’am, and they had to be approached in a morning coat. The +ma’am business struck me as faintly ridiculous. I practised it while +dressing, and pranced round the sunlight-flooded room saying, ‘Yes +ma’am, no ma’am, three bags full.’ However, when one has on one’s +morning coat the ma’am becomes something rather awe-inspiring. + +I had to be at the palace at eleven, and at fifteen minutes before that +hour I entered a rickety ‘amaxa,’ drawn by two horses, and trundled +over the bumpy streets towards my destination. A blue, blue sky above +and all the houses glistening white. A faint breeze that drifted in +from the sea. In the distance the Acropolis could be seen gleaming, +like a white rose on a hill. Athens was bustling and wide awake. Little +flower stalls made bright splashes of colour under the pepper trees. +Outside on the boulevards people were drinking coffee and smoking +cigarettes. Now and then a lordly car would sweep by, and one would +catch a glimpse of a rich merchant and his lady, the latter with pale +face and crimson lips, and the glitter of diamonds that come from the +Rue de la Paix. A little bit of Paris, a little bit of the East, a +little bit of the classic past--that is Athens. + +We swept through some wide gates after a certain controversy with two +fierce sentries in white kilts. Charming people those sentries. I +have always wanted to have one for a servant. They would create such +a sensation in London. They have a scarlet turban, with a long tassel +that hangs over the left shoulder, a tight-fitting, blue jacket with +rows of buttons like a page, a white sort of ballet skirt, shorter and +more frilled than a kilt, long white stockings, and red shoes with huge +black woollen rosettes on the toes. They told me that the costume was +very comfortable, except for the shoes, which were always coming off. + +I don’t suppose we should ever have got past the gates had it not been +for the kindly offices of the Royal Chamberlain, who was waiting for +me, and took me straight to a reception room, then to another reception +room, then to a third such, and finally left me to wait. I had not long +to wait, for after about five minutes an aide-de-camp appeared and told +me that Her Majesty was ready to see me. + +I followed him, noting the universal blue in which the palace was +decorated. Blue curtains veiled the glare of the sunlight outside, +casting a sort of haze into the quiet corridors. There were blue vases, +and blue sweet-scented flowers, and an immense staircase covered with +a blue carpet that was like a summer sky. + +I negotiated the staircase successfully, walked down a few more miles +of corridor, and was eventually ushered into a long room, very like an +English drawing-room, in which Queen Sophie was standing. + +I shall never forget my first sight of her, for she had the saddest +face of any woman I have ever seen. Standing there, dressed entirely +in black, a bowl of lilies by her side, her face rose from the shadows +like one who has known every suffering. Beautiful? I am not sure about +that. A beautiful expression, certainly. A beautiful bearing, too. +But my first impression remains, also my last. The very air which she +breathed seemed heavy with sadness. + +(I don’t wish to convey the impression that she was a sort of mute, a +funereal figure. There were many days on which I saw her afterwards, in +which she was one of the gayest and most sparkling of creatures. But +the underlying note of tragedy would always recur.) + +Her first words were anything but tragic. + +‘I’m so glad,’ she said, ‘that you don’t try to kiss my hand. Some +Englishmen seem to think that they must do it, and they always look so +embarrassed.’ + +‘Ought I to have done it--ma’am?’ I said, wondering if I had let fall +the first brick. + +She spoke perfect English--or, rather, the sort of English that you and +I speak, which is probably very far from perfect, but at least could +not be accused of any foreign flavour. + +‘And now,’ she said, ‘before I tell you about Greece, for Heaven’s sake +tell me something about England. I haven’t been there since the war, +and’--here she shrugged her shoulders--‘I don’t suppose I shall ever be +able to go there again.’ + +I told her as much as I could. She was absolutely ravenous for +information. Did they still plant the tulips in Hyde Park? Was the +grass as green as ever in Kensington Gardens? (Oh, the green grass +of England!) Were people giving many parties now? And what were the +parties like, gay or sad? Had people got over the war at all? Were +there any very pretty girls running about? Had I any idea whom the +Prince of Wales was going to marry? + +I gradually realized, as I endeavoured to supply some form of answer to +this bewildering torrent of interrogatives, that here was a woman who +was sick at heart for the country in which she had played as a child. +For, after all, Kaiser’s sister or no Kaiser’s sister, Queen Sophie, +when a girl, was brought up by her grandmother, Queen Victoria. She +had Kensington Palace for her playground and her first paddling was +performed on the beach at Eastbourne. And now, to be exiled, through +no fault of her own, from the country which she loved so well, to be +forbidden to see her friends, her relatives.... + +‘I suppose you have heard a great many stories about me?’ she said, +when I had exhausted England as a topic of conversation. + +I nodded. + +‘For example?’ she asked with a smile. + +‘That’s not fair,’ I said. It was quite impossible to tell her even a +fraction of the things one had heard. + +‘No. Perhaps it isn’t. Well, I’ll tell you a few of them. I was +supposed, of course, to be in daily touch with my brother in Berlin, by +wireless. I never quite gathered where the wireless was, but I believe +they said it was in a tree in the garden. I was supposed to concoct +elaborate plans for the destruction of the British Army. How, I don’t +quite know, because my husband always tells me I know nothing whatever +about war. I was also reputed to teach all my children nothing but +German. I presume that is why I have had nobody to teach them but an +English governess who has been here for ten years, and whom you must +meet. She’s a very charming lady. In fact--I’m quite impossible. I +wonder you dare come to see me.’ + +She laughed, and then became serious again. + +‘I want you to realize,’ she said, ‘something of the absolute’--she +paused for a word, her hands tightly clenched together--‘the absolute +_agony_ of my position at the beginning of the war. I loved England. +I was brought up there. I had dozens of English relatives. I loved +Germany, too. My brother was the Emperor. That sounds, I suppose, a +crime, to love Germany. But try to clear your mind of the prejudice +of the war. Try to realize--as I think we can now--that every German +wasn’t necessarily a devil, and that every Frenchman wasn’t necessarily +an angel. And then you will realize something of what I have suffered.’ + +She paused, and then said a sentence which I shall never forget. ‘_I +was in a horrible No-Man’s-Land of distraction!_ + +‘What did I do? What _was_ there to do, except to shut my eyes, and to +think only of Greece? If I was to follow the struggle--first from this +side and then from that--I should have gone mad. And so, as I say, I +devoted myself to Greece. I nursed. I did my best in the hospitals. I +busied myself in the gardens. I did anything but think....’ + +She rose to her feet with a sigh. ‘Let’s go into the garden, and forget +all about it.’ + +She led the way from the room, and I followed her down endless +corridors, in which sentries sprung to attention as we passed, and +ladies-in-waiting smiled and curtsied from the shadows. Out in the +sunshine we paused, and she looked at me with a curious smile. + +‘Before we go any farther,’ she said, ‘I want to show you something +which will interest you. You have come out here to write a book, +haven’t you? Well--this thing which I shall show you, will make you, at +least, _think_.’ + +We turned to the left, skirted the front of the palace, went through a +sort of shrubbery, and then stopped. + +‘Look!’ said the Queen. + +I looked. Standing straight in front of me, against the wall, was a +fourteen-inch shell. Not a pleasant-looking object. It was about the +height of a child of six, and was, I should imagine, sufficiently +powerful to blow up half the palace if it had landed in the right place. + +‘That shell,’ she said quietly, ‘was a present from the French. Every +Englishman who sees it says that surely the French would not bombard a +neutral country? Surely the French, the apostles of culture, would not +bombard, of all places in the world, Athens, the birthplace of culture? +But you have a lot to learn. The date was December 2, 1916. Greece was +still neutral. The bombardment began at ten o’clock in the morning, and +went on intermittently till six at night.’ + +‘And where were you all that time?’ + +She laughed. ‘In the cellars. I can laugh at it now, but at the time it +was not a laughing matter. You see, my children were with me. They were +terrified. And I was distracted. Look at that shell, for example. If it +had fallen three feet farther to the right, it would have gone straight +through the window of my husband’s study. He was in there at the time. +It would not have been a very pleasant thing for the Allies, would it, +to have had the murder of the King of a neutral country on their hands?’ + +There was nothing that I could say. I muttered something about looking +into the matter. + +‘Yes. Look into it. That is all we ask of you, that you should try to +find out the truth. And don’t forget that though I may be the sister of +the Kaiser, I’m also the daughter of the Princess Royal.’ + +I was nearly six months in Athens, with every possible facility for +studying the truth, and I doubt even now if I discovered it. That the +Queen was utterly sincere and genuine, I do not doubt. That the French, +in the desperation of the struggle, behaved foolishly, I am convinced. +But as to the exact measure of blame, I remain undecided. + +However, I did not set out to write a book of political arguments, but +a book of human studies. And I hope that by this tiny sketch a few +people at least will see Queen Sophie in a more kindly light than has +hitherto been thrown upon her. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +Strange Tales of a Monarch and a Novelist + + +A fortnight later I was sitting in the lounge of the Hotel Grande +Bretagne, when a message arrived saying that Tino would like to see me +at six o’clock. + +It was then a little after four, and the hectic, unnatural pageant +of Athenian Society was drifting by in full swing. Look well at that +pageant, for Athens, in this January of 1922, seemed a sinking city in +a doomed land, and there is a romance about such cities which is denied +to the more prosperous metropoles of the West, a romance which comes +from the knowledge that everybody is playing a part, and that a hundred +undercurrents of intrigue are running between the apparently smooth +surface of the waters. + +There are several beautiful people in the lounge, and the most +attractive of all are Russians. There are, at the time, nearly ten +thousand Russian refugees in Athens, and their plight is such that, +thinking of them, it is not too easy to sleep at night. The women by +now have mostly found ‘protectors,’ accepting with a bored smile a +situation which, five years ago, they would have found impossible. +Some have attached themselves to rich merchants of the Levant, others +have wormed their way into the affections of the military, a few have +even achieved the success of an unhappy marriage. And now they are all +sitting in this lounge, smoking cigarettes, and blowing out the smoke +through purple and impassive lips, waiting. + +The men are worse off than the women. Look at this one who approaches +me. He was once an officer in the Imperial Guard. To-day he wears a +patched white coat, well tied in at the waist, and blue trousers of a +common Russian soldier. One thin white hand is grasping a stick, and +in the other is a little tray containing his paintings--such pathetic, +amateurish paintings, which he is trying to sell. He stands in front +of me and tries to smile. It is a grotesque caricature of a smile--a +little twitch of the lip. His whole body is trembling as though from a +violent chill. Shell shock, and one lung already destroyed. + +I buy one of his little paintings, and try to look as though I were +buying it because I wanted it. He is of the stuff which gentlemen are +made of. If there had been no war, he would have been a smart young +fellow playing gentle havoc with hearts in Petrograd. + +He passes on, and is lost in the crowd of cosmopolitan adventurers. +There is a fat man from Paris, who is reputed to be doing a big deal +in raisins, and looks as though he had eaten most of them in a fit +of absent-mindedness. There is a little row of very silly _soignée_ +Greek women, eyeing each other’s dresses, and pining for Paris. They +think it chic to talk French, and to affect to despise this backward, +out-of-the-way place that they call Athens. There are several young +officers on leave from the front. They stare moodily in front of them, +for they, at least, have a tale to tell, having been mobilized, some of +them, for seven years, and having seen the army gradually losing its +rifles, its boots, and its morale. There are several prosperous-looking +Germans, gabbling at the tops of their voices. One of them has a row +of enormous volumes on Greek statuary in front of him. + +I pay for my tea with a bank-note cut in half--a strange procedure +worthy of explanation. Greece was in the direst financial straits. It +was quite useless to suggest a new loan, for nobody would subscribe to +it. And so an ingenious chancellor suddenly thought of a way by which +the peasants could all be made to disgorge half of their savings. Every +paper note in the kingdom had to be cut in half. The left half must +be immediately given to the bank, where it would be credited to one’s +account, with an interest of 5 per cent. The right half might be used +as currency. Thus, a note worth a pound automatically became worth ten +shillings cash, the other ten shillings being placed in the bank. All +this cutting and snipping of notes had to be done in a fortnight. + +I arrived at the palace at six o’clock, and was shown up to Tino’s +study--a pleasant, English-looking room, with plenty of books, and +windows that gave on to one of the prettiest parts of the garden. He +was sitting down on the sofa, reading, and as he rose to greet me he +seemed enormous. He must have been at least six feet six, and six feet +six in a soldier who holds himself well erect is a good deal more than +many of the drooping six foot sixers one sees slouching down Piccadilly. + +It was characteristic of him, as I afterwards learnt, that as soon +as we had shaken hands he almost pushed me into a chair, practically +stuffed a cigar between my lips (I loathe cigars) and before I had time +to light it, plunged straight into the heart of the controversy which +was raging round his throne. + +‘You realize,’ he said, ‘that you’re talking to a King who’s disowned +by the greater part of Europe, and also by the United States. Don’t +you?’ + +I did realize it. + +‘Very well, then. We are therefore in a position to talk quite frankly. +I’ve certainly nothing to lose by telling you the truth.’ He paused. +‘However shocking it may be,’ he added with a grim smile, ‘I’m under +no sort of illusion as to how they regard me in England. I’ve seen +caricatures of myself in every conceivable attitude in the English +papers--some of them rather funny as a matter of fact, funnier, at any +rate, than the German ones. Perhaps it never struck you that they’d +caricature me in German papers? I assure you they do. You see, Germany +doesn’t like me any more than England. I am altogether a most unpopular +person. Except in Greece.’ Again the grim smile. + +‘However, we didn’t come here to talk about caricatures. I just want +to give you a few ideas, that’s all. You can verify them afterwards +at your leisure. The first thing on which I want you to fix your +attention is the beginning of the war. When war was declared I +received a telegram from the Kaiser. He writes admirable telegrams, my +brother-in-law. It suggested that I should at once throw in my lot with +the Central Powers. I was at Tatoy when the telegram arrived, having +a very innocent but a very excellent tea. As soon as I had read it I +remember saying to my wife “Good God! He seems to forget that Greece +is practically an island.” By which, I was referring, you see, to the +consummate foolishness of the Kaiser in thinking that any Greek in his +right mind--whatever his private sentiments--should consider, even for +a moment, declaring war against the rulers of the seas. + +‘I then summoned certain ministers, and drafted my reply. If you take +the trouble to look it up you will see that it was an emphatic refusal. +I tried to make it polite, but apparently the Kaiser didn’t think it +was polite enough. In any case, he was particularly rude to my minister +in Berlin, Monsieur Theotokis. + +‘Nobody has ever quoted that telegram. They probably never will, +because it doesn’t fit in with the Tino legend. However, it is there, +in all the blue books. Just have a look at it when you get the time. + +‘The next thing I want you to consider is my various offers of help to +the Allies. I shan’t particularize because you can find them all in +the official résumés of diplomatic correspondence which every country +publishes. Besides, dates and things of that sort are dull. + +‘What was my position at the beginning of the war? What was, rather, +the position of Greece? I will tell you. We were in a pretty bad way. +We had none too much money. We had been exhausted by a long series of +wars. We needed, above all things, rest. However, when the Great War +broke out, there were two courses open to us. We could either remain +neutral or we could join the Allies. The idea of throwing our lot in +with Germany was absolutely out of the question, for, as I have said +before, Greece is to all intents and purposes, an island, and it would +have been suicidal to fight England, even had any of us wanted to do +so. + +‘Well, as you will see in the blue books, I offered my assistance. It +was refused. Why? Because, according to Lord Grey, it was important not +to _froisser_ Bulgaria, not to annoy King Ferdinand!’ He brought his +fist down on the table with a bang which quite shattered my cigar ash. + +‘I warned Grey,’ he said. ‘I warned your Foreign Office, not once but +half a dozen times, that Bulgaria was arming against you, that she +was not to be trusted, that she was about to throw in her lot with +Germany. I was not heeded. I was either answered with polite shrugs of +diplomatic shoulders, or I was not answered at all.’ + +He stared in front of him gloomily, and when he resumed it was in a +quieter voice. + +‘You know the next stage. The Dardanelles. Now every third-rate +politician and every third-rate staff officer in the countries, not +only of the Allies but of the Central Powers, has very decided opinions +upon the Dardanelles. They say, “If only Tino had done this,” or “If +only Tino had done that,” or “If only the Turks had been a few days +later, or the Allies a few days sooner,” or “If only Winston had had +his way.” In fact they go on saying “if only” until the whole thing +becomes a tragic farce. + +‘But I tell you, young man, that I _know_ the Dardanelles. I _know_ the +Black Sea. I _know_ that there are certain ways in which Constantinople +can be attacked, and certain ways in which it can’t. I know a good +deal more about both the military and the naval sides of the question +than even your friend Mr. Winston Churchill, and my staff probably +know more than I do myself. Don’t you see that for generations the +eyes of Greece have been fixed on Constantinople? Don’t you realize +that in the heart of every Greek there lies the dream that one day he +will be able to throw his cap into the air at the news that Greece +has re-entered into the inheritance which every Greek regards as his +natural birthright? Why, there is even a legend that when there sits on +the Greek throne a monarch of the name of Constantine and a Queen of +the name of Sophie, ... Greece will capture Constantinople. A foolish +legend, perhaps you may say. But the conditions of it were fulfilled +when, thirty years ago, I married my wife. And the coincidence has been +working in my people’s imagination ever since.’ + +He paused, rose from his seat, and went over to the window. And when he +went on talking it was with his eyes fixed on the quiet lawns outside. + +‘Now,’ he resumed, ‘I’m not saying that this dream is right or wrong. +I’m merely telling you that the dream is there. And since it is there, +and since the Greeks, though they may be superstitious, are also a +practical people, it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that the Greek +Officers and Staff, not only of the army but of the navy, should have +the whole situation at their finger-ends? Doesn’t it? Tell me. Am I +being logical or am I not?’ + +I reassured him on that point. + +‘Very well then,’ he continued. ‘When I first heard of the Dardanelles +Campaign, I knew that it was doomed to failure. I knew it in my very +bones. I expressed my opinion in public and in private. I was called +a pro-German because I would not join it, because I would not send at +least 10,000 Greek soldiers to help the Allies. Was I right or wrong? +I knew that if I sent 10,000 soldiers that there would be 10,000 widows +in Greece in a few weeks. And I was damned if I would do it.’ + +And then he said something which made me sit up. ‘_If I had been +pro-German I could have wrecked the whole Allied course in the Near +East as easily as I can flick my fingers._’ And he flicked his fingers +in my face. + +‘How?’ + +He laughed. ‘You’re an inquisitive youth, aren’t you? Well, I’ll +explain. + +‘You may remember,’ he said, ‘that in the autumn of 1915 the Allies +were in a very bad way. The armies of Austria and Germany were +sweeping down through the Balkans like a great black cloud. Serbia was +overrun and desolated. The whole of the north was in the grip of the +Central Powers. Bulgaria was closing in on the east. The only refuge +was--Greece. + +‘I had already violated my neutrality in favour of the Allies by +allowing General Sarrail, the Allied Commander, to use Salonika as a +base for his troops. A fat lot of thanks I got for it--but that is by +the way. I was therefore in an exceedingly difficult position. If I +allowed the Allies to retreat over my frontier I could hardly, as a +neutral monarch, forbid the Germans from doing the same thing. To do so +would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Germany. + +‘Consider the position if you want to prove that I was _not_ +pro-German. Here was the Allied Army retreating into Greece, beaten +and exhausted. They were cut off from the north and from the east. +My own army was in their rear, fresh and intact. _If I had wished to +declare War on the Allies could you possibly imagine a more favourable +opportunity?_ I could have wiped out Sarrail without the loss of +more than a thousand men. The whole of the Balkans would have been +completely, irrecoverably German. And the war would not have ended as +it has done. + +‘But what did I do? For that I would again refer you, not to the +newspapers, but to the official documents. I sent a telegram to the +Kaiser stating that if one German soldier advanced a yard over the +Greek frontier, I should consider it a hostile act, and should declare +war. In other words, I saved the Allies at one of the most critical +moments of the struggle.’ + +He stopped abruptly. ‘And that,’ he said, ‘is all I’ve got to say to +you this evening.’ + +I rose to go, feeling a little bewildered. When I returned to my hotel +I wrote down the whole of the foregoing conversation, word for word, +and I think it is almost verbally accurate. + +And that is all I am going to write about the Greek question, for I +have discovered, on bitter experience, that people don’t care a damn +about it, and that the whole question bristles with difficulties. +I only write to ease my own conscience, and to pay a humble little +tribute to two people whom I learnt to regard as friends. + +One cannot, however, write about Tino without also writing about +Compton MacKenzie. It may seem a long step from the most hated monarch +of Europe to a man who used to be one of England’s most popular +novelists, but it is not quite so long as you might imagine, for, +according to Greek Royalists, Compton MacKenzie was the evil genius of +Greece during the war. + +In early 1915 (I think it was) he was appointed head of the +Anglo-French police in Athens. A curious appointment, one would think, +but those days of chaos abounded in curious appointments, and at least +one could say about Compton MacKenzie that he had a sense of style. +They told me that he fell out of a balloon somewhere in the Near East, +and was on the point of being invalided out of the army when this +appointment suddenly became vacant. He accepted it with alacrity, for +he had very clear ideas on the Greek question. The first of these ideas +was that Tino was violently pro-German and as treacherous as they +make them. The second was that he himself was called, whatever the +sacrifice, to lead a crusade of neo-Hellenism against the Turk, the +Bulgarian, the German, or any other nation that got in the way. + +His methods of work, they alleged, were remarkable. He is said to have +taken a little office, and there concocted his wicked schemes, clad in +garments more fitted for the less reputable colleges of Oxford than +for His Majesty’s Service. I was told of purple waistcoats, long black +walking-sticks, heavy cloaks lined with green silk, black stock ties. +It cannot be true, but at least there is something most intriguing in +the picture of this young and rather decorative relic of the nineties +carrying out Balkan intrigues against a background of classic pillars +and traitorous monarchs. + +They alleged also (I am scattering that blessed word ‘alleged’ +all over the place, as a sort of disinfectant against libel +actions)--they alleged that on several occasions he tried to murder +King Constantine--rather hot work for the head of the British police +stationed in a neutral and officially friendly country. I saw a +newspaper cutting of some Greek paper in which there was a photograph +of one of the King’s bodyguard, together with a long legend that +Compton MacKenzie had bribed him to put poison in the King’s wine. The +story ran something like this. MacKenzie, having found out that bombs +were too dangerous and that daggers made too much mess, decided that he +would employ the more cleanly and efficient aid of arsenic. He obtained +the arsenic and also managed, somehow or other, to get hold of a very +simple and child-like soldier who was in attendance on the King, at a +time when the King’s health was giving rise to grave anxiety. + +‘Do you know why the King is so ill?’ he is alleged to have said to the +Evson. + +‘No?’ + +‘Because he is bewitched by the Queen.’ + +Here the Evson began to take keen interest. He knew all about +witcheries, and such-like. + +‘Yes,’ MacKenzie is alleged to have continued. ‘And the only way in +which we can break the spell is for you to put this powder into his +glass when he is at dinner. It is a very wonderful powder--the crushed +essence of a herb that only grows in England. When he has drunk it you +will find that immediately he will be cured.’ + +After a little persuasion, the story runs, and a rather larger amount +of bribery, the Evson departed with the arsenic, promising faithfully +that he would give it to the King. But as the evening shadows fell +his courage failed him. Supposing that, after all, the herb should not +do its work? Supposing that it did his master actual harm? No. It was +really a little risky. And so he went to a certain Court official and +told him the story. Consternation. Curses against England. Salvation of +King Constantine. Tableau. + +A childish story of course. But it was believed by a great many +otherwise sane people. And it only shows you how careful you must be in +the Secret Service. + +Another, and even more lurid tale, was told about Mr. Compton +MacKenzie. I never saw any newspaper cuttings on the subject, because I +don’t think it got into the Press. But I _was_ furnished with a great +many strange-looking documents, much thumbed, and decorated at all the +available corners with red sealing-wax. This story was also concerned +with an alleged attempt by the English novelist on King Constantine’s +life--an attempt that, if it had been true, would have been about the +most ingenious piece of inventive work that he had ever done. + +In the summer of 1915 (I think that is the right date), the King’s +Palace at Tatoy--some twenty miles outside Athens--was burnt. For miles +round the heath and scrub were devastated by fire. The King was in his +Palace at the time and only escaped by a miracle. And even so, several +of his bodyguard were burned to death. + +All this, the Royalists alleged, was the work of Compton MacKenzie. +With devilish ingenuity he was described as having obtained the +services of some half-dozen of the riff-raff of Athens, among whom +was a German prostitute in the pay of the Allies, of having bought a +quantity of petrol and benzine, hired four motor-cars, and set out from +a low café at dawn in order to accomplish his dirty work. The plan was +to surround the Palace with fire from all sides, so that there should +be no possible escape, and with this object some six points had been +marked on a map, in the form of a wide circle, which were to be soaked +with benzine and set alight. The wind would do the rest. + +I myself saw a map which was supposed to have been stolen from +Compton MacKenzie’s headquarters, but had, as a matter of fact, been +manufactured by my informant. It showed a number of mysterious crosses, +and subsequent inquiry proved that fires had actually broken out, +almost simultaneously, at all these places, proving beyond a shadow +of doubt that the ‘accident’ was not an accident at all. But why poor +Compton MacKenzie should have been accused of it I could never quite +make out. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +From the Regal to the Ridiculous + + +Those little Balkan Courts were terribly pathetic. They always gave me +the impression of a rather threadbare musical comedy on tour. There was +so much pomp, such a glitter of uniforms, and so little money. I shall +never forget my first sight of a Royal car. Tino was in it, plumed and +feathered, and were it not for the large crown painted on the back, one +would have said that the car was a dilapidated Ford. So dilapidated +that the tyres were bound up with tape and seemed to be of different +shapes. I watched the car trundle out of sight, and just as it turned +the corner there was a loud bang. The first tyre had burst, and Tino +had to get out and watch his chauffeur struggling in the dust. + +If Queen Sophie had sold her pearls, which were amazingly beautiful, +the whole Royal Family would have had plenty for the rest of their +lives. But I suppose she could not do that, since they were Crown +jewels. As things were, the severest economy had to be used to make +both ends meet. + +One day I went to tea with her and after tea we walked, as usual, in +the garden. It was looking exquisite that evening, the bougainvillæa, a +mass of purple, dripping from the walls, and all the lemon trees heavy +with golden fruit. By and by we came to a little pond of marble, which +was empty. + +‘How lovely this must be when it is filled with water,’ I said. + +‘Yes. But I don’t know when we shall be able to fill it.’ + +‘Is the drought as bad as all that?’ + +She shook her head. ‘No. I wasn’t referring to the drought. The pond +has to be cleaned before it can be filled. And that means another +gardener. And gardeners cost 15 drachmæ a day.’ + +Now fifteen drachmæ, at that period, was about half a crown. Can you +imagine a Queen not being able to have a pond cleaned out because she +had not the necessary half a crown? + +And yet, during the war, people used to talk ridiculous nonsense about +the Greek Royal Family revelling in gold owing to the marriage of the +American millionairess, Mrs. Leeds, with Prince Christopher, the King’s +youngest brother. Sheer nonsense. She was not allowed to do so. I +believe that she was very generous and sweet in giving presents in the +ordinary run of affairs, but as for financing Tino’s family (let alone +financing Greece, as they said she did)--that was quite out of the +question. + +Princess Irene--one of the most attractive girls I have ever seen--once +said to me, ‘Isn’t the price of clothes appalling?’ + +Mindful of tailor’s bills, I fervently agreed with her. + +‘I want to get some new evening frocks,’ she added, ‘but I can’t get +any under twenty pounds.’ + +If only things had been different, what a paradise the Queen would +have made of Athens, and of the Palace in particular. ‘Before the +war,’ she said, ‘we had all the plans ready. We were going to have a +beautiful new hotel in Constitution Square, we were going to make the +roads good again, we were going to plant thousands of trees all over +the mountains. And I had dozens of English furniture catalogues which +I used to read and read, thinking of all the lovely things we should +have in the Palace. All that is finished--absolutely finished. We must +get along as we can. I can’t even afford to have the English magazines +now....’ + +And then, ‘Isn’t it perfectly _appalling_ the way we always talk +about money nowadays? I never used to. My mamma would have thought +it terrible. But now it’s, “I can’t afford this, and I can’t afford +that.” And it’s such a dreary topic of conversation. Let’s talk about +something else.’ + +We both laughed, and talked instead of England. + + * * * * * + +Endless comedies arose out of the fact that the Royal Family were not +recognized by the Allies, because the members of the British Legation +had to be officially unaware of their very existence. Francis Lindley, +our Minister at Athens, said to me that it was damnably awkward for +him, because sometimes he would meet Tino in the street, or driving in +a motor-car, and they both had to look the other way. + +A regular game of hide-and-seek sometimes ensued. I remember once going +with Bridget Lindley and some others from the Legation to play tennis +in the gardens of the British School of Archæology. We had a divine +game of tennis, and when it was over strolled round the garden looking +for flowers. We had just turned a corner when, there, a few yards in +front of us was the Queen of Greece, with a lady-in-waiting. With a +hoot of dismay the young ladies from the Legation turned on their heels +and fled. (It sounds rude, but it was the only thing they could have +done.) I was left alone to greet the Queen. + +‘Who were those girls who rushed away like that?’ said the Queen. + +‘Oh--they were just some people who have been playing tennis.’ + +‘Yes. But who _were_ they?’ + +I had to tell her that they were the Lindleys. + +She made a little gurgling noise of laughter. ‘I see. Isn’t it +ridiculous?’ And then ... ‘We might be such good friends. It’s a +pity....’ + +Occasionally, however, some man from the Legation, in an access of +boldness, _would_ visit the Palace, and a very good time he was given. +But these things had to be worked out with great secrecy, because +naturally, if the Minister knew, he would be forced to take severe +measures against the offenders. There was one young man (I can’t, of +course, give his name) whom we smuggled into the Palace one afternoon, +and the arrangements for getting him there and back were worthy of +an _opéra bouffe_ conspiracy. We had to go in a closed motor and be +hustled up a back staircase into the boudoir of a lady-in-waiting. It +was then arranged that the Queen and some of the Princesses should +cross the garden, come up another staircase, and enter a few minutes +later. We used to make absurd jokes about it, saying that the Queen +might suddenly shoot down the chimney, or that the Englishman should +disguise himself as a piano-tuner, and enter in that manner. + +It was at one of these tea-parties that the Queen, becoming serious +for a moment, gave us just a hint of some of the tortures she must +have suffered in exile. ‘When we were exiled from Greece,’ she said, +‘the only place which was open to us was Switzerland. We went there, +and stayed at an hotel. I wanted to be just like the other guests--I +wanted, as they said I was no longer a Queen, _not_ to be a Queen, +just to be an ordinary human being. Staying in the hotel were several +of my old English friends, whom in days gone by I had known quite +intimately. They used to be of my party in the opera; I have danced +at their houses, dined with them. One and all, they cut me dead. I +shouldn’t have minded that--for, after all, there are _ways_ of cutting +people, aren’t there? But they did it in the unkindest way possible, +publicly--not only to myself but to my husband--leaving any room that I +entered, and staring me straight in the face as they went out. Now--it +isn’t like English people to do that, is it? And yet they did. It was +not till I picked up some of the English papers, and learnt what they +were saying about us over there, that I realized the reason for it.’ + + * * * * * + +None of the restrictions which so hampered any members of the Legation +when they wanted to go to the Palace applied to me, because I had +no official position, and nobody seemed to know what I was doing in +Athens. But Athens is a very small place, and very soon some remarkable +legends began to spread about me. Some people said I was in the pay of +the Bolsheviks, others in the pay of Germany, others that I was a young +English millionaire forced to fly my country because of some scandal +connected with a Greek lady, and that I was in Athens to settle it +up. Being very young, I rather enjoyed these legends and had Compton +MacKenzie not apparently forestalled me, should probably have purchased +a wardrobe in keeping with the part I was supposed to be playing, +consisting of a red tie, a pair of check knickerbockers, and a heavy +gold watch-chain. However, I contented myself with a black evening +cloak, lined with pale grey satin, that called forth rude and Bacchic +remarks from the ladies of light virtue who lurked under the lemon +trees of an evening. + +I only realized, however, the true thrill of being a political +intriguer one night towards the end of my stay in Athens when I was +walking home, along the deserted sea-front, after a night’s gambling at +a little roulette place near the harbour. It sounds very dissipated, +and I suppose, in some ways, it was. Here is the story: + +The Greeks are born gamblers. They would gamble away their final +drachma on the slightest provocation, and frequently do so. Every +other day in the streets of Athens one sees boys going round with +long slender sticks, on which are pinned fluttering tickets of blue +and white--and very pretty they look, rustling in the wind. These are +lottery tickets, and have a tremendous sale. I had often purchased +them, without any result, and finding some sort of gambling essential +to existence, decided to throw in my lot with the roulette players of +the Piræus. + +I wish you could have seen that Greek gambling house. It lay in a +rather deserted position facing the sea, along a road that had never +been finished. On a moonlight night you could see from its windows +the white sails of the ships that search for sponges and tunny fish +among the waters of the Archipelago, but on other nights you would see +nothing at all except a solitary lamp-post outside the door. + +Inside, one discovered a sordid room, containing one long table, round +which were congregated a remarkable assemblage of persons. There were +Russian ladies of apparent wealth, Italians, swarthy and silent, +excitable Greek merchants, now and then a German, some odd-looking +Americans, and Venizelists and Royalists all jumbled together, drinking +quantities of bad whisky and smoking black cigarettes. + +The value of a classical education, in such surroundings, was +immediately apparent. For one thing, the numbers were almost exactly +the same as one learnt at school, and sometimes even the pronunciation +also. For example, ochto was eight and deka was ten. That was a great +help. In addition, ‘mavro,’ for black, sounded like an old friend, and +it was easy to recognize ‘coichinou’ the word cochineal (with which, if +I remember rightly, the Greek ladies used to dye their robes in days +gone by). + +Play seemed to me to be very high that night, although, as my later +and more abandoned years have taught me, it was not. Still, a man with +heavy pouched eyelids and a made-up bow had a habit of putting fifty +pounds on a single number, and sometimes winning it, which made my +hundred drachma pieces look very foolish. However, I successfully lost +twenty pounds, and feeling exceedingly irritable left the room. + +It was then about two o’clock in the morning. I hadn’t any money to pay +for a taxi, and in any case there were no taxis about. And so I started +on the walk home--about seven miles. + +Now, the streets of Athens at night, especially of this part of Athens, +are not as the streets of Piccadilly. For one thing, they are execrably +lit. For another they contain large holes in the middle of the road, in +which it would be quite possible to bury a dead horse. For another they +contain--dogs, lean, snarling, yellow-fanged dogs that rush out from +the darkness, growling and yelping, and taking an unhealthy interest in +one’s heels. + +Several such came out during my journey home. I put on a wooden +expression, lifted my feet very high, took quick short steps, and +muttered at intervals ‘pretty doggy, pretty doggy.’ It seemed the only +thing to do. And by and by the pretty doggies departed, though the +sound of their strident voices still echoed in the distance. + +I was now on a long, straight road, bounded on either side by pepper +trees and shrubberies of orange and lemon. Suddenly out of the shadows +appeared a figure ... the figure of a youngish man in a badly fitting +black coat. It sounds dramatic and it _was_ dramatic. Worse even than +the dogs. + +This person accosted me. Where was I going? (He spoke in French, and +was, I believe, a Frenchman.) + +I was going home, thank him very much. + +So was he. + +Indeed. + +It was pleasant, was it not, to have company on such a lonely road? + +Delightful. (Pretty doggy, pretty doggy.) + +Especially on so warm a night. + +Yes. + +Ah! but I had not experienced the summer. That was epouvantable. + +I looked at him quickly. How did he know that I had not ‘experienced’ +the summer? + +‘I know you quite well,’ he said. And he calmly gave my name, age, +address, and occupation. + +This was all very odd. I walked a little more quickly. Athens was still +some five miles away. I could see the Acropolis gleaming like a distant +rock of refuge. A nasty young man, I thought. + +Then he began to talk. He talked like a gramophone running at three +times its normal speed. A high unnatural voice. A superfluity of +gesture. And all about King Constantine. How he had betrayed the +Allies. How he had kept a private submarine. How he was a knave, a +poltroon, a pig, a female dog. How he had a hoard of German gold. And +how.... + +Here, at a bend in the road, he suddenly stopped, gripped my arm, +looked me straight in the eyes and said: + +‘And you--you who call yourself an Englishman--are helping him!’ + +I regarded him as calmly as the circumstances warranted. And in English +I said: + +‘You appear to be a little mad!’ + +‘Mad?’ He laughed hysterically, and then--(it sounds ridiculous, but it +is perfectly true)--he drew from his pocket a revolver, and though not +exactly levelling it at me, put it quite as close as was agreeable, and +said: + +‘This will tell you to speak of madness.’ + +Which was highly disturbing. The sudden cessation of the gabble of +chatter, the wild look on his face, the revolver. Something had to be +done. I did it. I smiled, drew in my breath, and executed a powerful +high kick. It hit him, by a miracle, on the wrist; the thing went off, +spluttering up the gravel; he dropped it with a howl; I kicked it again +on to the grass, and then I ran. + +All very unheroic. But, on the whole, safe. I ran and I ran down that +lonely road, and by the time I had finished running the first streaks +of dawn were in the sky, and I was feeling acute pains in my side, +my legs, my knees, my brain, everywhere. But at least one had the +satisfaction of having outwitted (or outdistanced) a very nasty young +man. + +Nothing like that ever happened again. I received anonymous letters, +all threatening things highly unpleasant. But whether they were +from the young man in question I never discovered. And they never +materialized. + + * * * * * + +My last night in Athens was spent at the Palace. The Queen had asked +me to stay on a little longer in order to trot round with her nephew, +Prince Philip of Hesse. I was very glad that I did so, for not only was +he a most agreeable young man but by staying those few extra days I +also met the Queen of Roumania, who had come hurriedly down to Athens +in order to be with her daughter (the Crown Princess of Greece) who was +seriously ill. + +I shall never forget my first sight of the Queen of Roumania. We were +all sitting down in the main salon--Tino, Queen Sophie, Princess +Irene, the Crown Prince and Princess of Roumania, some other members of +the Court, and myself. The door was slightly open, and through it one +could see a long corridor, dimly lighted. I looked down the corridor +and I saw coming towards us a figure in trailing robes of white, +walking slowly, with head erect, like some divine Lady Macbeth. As +she approached, and paused in the doorway, I thought that I had never +seen a woman more lovely. The long white sleeves of silk, the girdle +of silver at her waist, the hint of diamonds in her hair, the ropes of +pearls round her neck. And the face--wide eyes, a forehead that was +one hundred per cent. intelligence, a beautiful drooping mouth ... it +is rather useless to attempt to describe her. A photograph will do her +less injustice than my pen. + +Luckily, I was very soon able to have a long talk with her. + +Here, clipped of its ‘ma’ams’ and ‘majesties’ is what we talked about: + +MYSELF: Is it a fearful bore to be a Queen? + +THE QUEEN: It depends what sort of a Queen you are. + +MYSELF: But even a Queen like yourself? Don’t you long sometimes to be +able to get away from it all, to be terribly simple, to have all sorts +of adventures which you can’t have now? + +THE QUEEN (nodding, a little sadly): There are moods, of course. But +I like being a Queen because I glory in the fact that perhaps I am of +some use. + +Here she paused, and said, with a smile: ‘You know, I understand a +great deal more about life than you might believe. If I had been Marie +Antoinette, _I_ should never have asked why the people could not eat +cake. And you must not think that because I am a Queen, my knowledge of +life and “adventure,” as you call it, is only gained from novels. Do +you know one of my chief regrets? It is that I am not in a position to +publish a novel which would deal with life from every aspect. + +‘I said “publish,” not write. I could begin to write it to-morrow, if +I wanted, but when it came out, everybody would say, “How can she know +about things like this? How can a woman who sits half her life in her +palace” (the last thing I ever do) “know about the ways, the intrigues, +the marriages, the love-affairs, the sordid squabbles for money, that +are part of our daily lives?” And saying that, they would reject my +book in advance. But I _do_ know,’ (thumping her hand on the table), ‘I +_do_ know.... + +‘Then,’ I asked her, ‘do you manage to write at all? I mean, do you +find any way of getting rid of what one might call creative emotion?’ + +‘Oh, yes. I write fairy stories. Nobody can accuse me, in those, of +knowing more than I ought to do.’ She laughed. ‘Perhaps that does not +quite express my meaning, but you understand, don’t you? Fairy love, +fairy honour, fairy intrigue, fairy magic--in those I express all the +emotions which otherwise I should be forced to keep to myself. And +Roumania is full of fairies! Really it is. Full to the brim. When I +first came out there, from England, I hardly understood how deeply my +people were versed in folk-lore, how passionately real the little elves +and spirits were to every peasant on the hills. But I understand now, +and I, too, have caught something of that spirit. + +‘Do you know,’ she added suddenly, ‘that I have written a fairy film? +I wish you could see it. It’s rather fascinating. It has a method of +production which I think is rather new. Some parts of it have been +undeveloped, so that you get the impression of a moving _negative_. +That is to say, all the figures have white hair, white eyes, white +clothes, dark hands and faces, and all sorts of queer and very +attractive shadows. If you can imagine those figures made very small +(which is quite possible) and then imagine them dancing in a sort of +half-silhouette over the crest of a hill ... can you?’ + +She had spoken with such animation, such intense interest, that her +face was quite transfigured. + +A very remarkable woman, I thought, as she drifted away to talk to +somebody else. And largely because, of all the Queens in Europe, she +is the only one who really dramatizes her position. She is, in the +best sense of the word, a _poseuse_, by which I mean that she knows +exactly how to present herself to the public imagination. Realizing, +as she does, that in these days the Throne has to borrow a great +deal of thunder of the stage if it is to keep its position, and that +showmanship is half the craft of sovereignty, she acts accordingly. All +her gestures are studied ... sometimes daring, sometimes startlingly +‘unconventional,’ as her recent journalistic confessions have amply +shown. + +But they remain the gestures of a Queen. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +In which Sir William Orpen and Mrs. Elinor Glyn reveal their Souls + + +And now, on returning to London, I decided that it was time to +‘become a journalist.’ So many hundreds of otherwise sane young men +have made the same decision, without success, that it really might +be worth while to tell them just one thing about it. They have such +glorious dreams, at Oxford, over a cigarette and a whisky and soda, of +writing palpitating articles for vast prices, that it is only fair to +disillusion them. + +The one thing which the embryo journalist must realize is that mere +writing is only one-quarter of his equipment. He may be able to produce +brilliant articles, to star every page with epigrams, to compose +perorations that wring the heart, to evolve leaders that would stir the +Empire, and still not be a successful journalist. + +He must certainly begin at the beginning. And to do that he must have a +hide of brass. Brass, I said. No other substance is strong enough. He +_must_ ring up irate Duchesses at midnight and ask them what they think +of bobbed hair. He must do it, at any rate for a few months, for it is +only right for him to know how it feels. He _must_ go to successful +stockbrokers and ask them what they think of the financial situation. +He _must_ visit the Zoo and grovel about in dirty cages to see if the +latest lizard has laid an egg, or if the latest elephant has recovered +from its pain. He must do it, even though it makes him feel ill, even +though he blushes over the telephone, is terrified by elephants, and +feels like hitting the stockbroker fair and square on the chin. One +day he will be telling other people to do these things. He cannot tell +them unless he has done the things himself. + +For--and this is the whole point of the matter--three-quarters of +modern journalism consists in making other people say things, not in +saying them yourself. Do not hope, my young friend, that anybody will +pay any attention to _your_ articles. You may get them accepted from +time to time, but unless you are an overpowering genius you will not +make much of a living out of it. + +I could write a lot more on the subject but I won’t. Nobody ever wants +advice. It is enough to say that in the August of 1922 I ‘got on’ to a +paper. + +The first man I ever ‘interviewed’ was Sir William Orpen. Really, one +could hardly call it an ‘interview,’ for it merely consisted in having +tea with him, eating quantities of very excellent cucumber sandwiches, +and smoking many cigarettes. + +After about the tenth sandwich, I said, ‘I have to interview you, and I +haven’t the vaguest idea how to begin.’ + +‘Have another sandwich.’ + +‘I shall be sick.’ + +‘That’s what they’re for. I don’t want to be interviewed.’ + +‘But you said you would.’ + +‘Did I? Well, fire away.’ (Pause.) ‘You’re a dud sort of journalist, +aren’t you? Where’s your notebook? And your pencil that ought to leave +indelible ink stains all over your chin?’ + +All this, to be appreciated, would have to be written musically. +Orpen’s conversation, if one set it to music, would be pitched in the +alto clef, marked ‘prestissimo,’ and accompanied by a sort of Debussy +bass, intermittently striking weird gurgly sounds at the most effective +moment. + +It would also have to be played with an Irish accent, if that were +possible. The whole result, at any rate, is very intriguing, especially +as Orpen is practically never serious, except when he is working. And +then he is a devil. + +How we ever really got to business I don’t know. I thought ‘if all +interviewing is like this it will be very charming, and exceedingly +fattening, because it apparently necessitates the consumption, on the +part of the interviewer, of endless quantities of cucumber sandwiches.’ + +However, we did do it, and then he let me look at some of his work. +There was a picture of a woman (one of the most amusing women in +London) on the easel, in a delightful greeny dress. + +‘How you must have loved painting that dress,’ I said. + +‘Made her put it on.’ + +‘Can you?’ And then ... ‘What would you do if a woman with red hair +came and sat for you in a purple dress?’ + +‘Make her take it off.’ + +‘But supposing she wouldn’t?’ + +‘Take it off myself. Or else show her the door. Couldn’t paint that +sort of thing. Give me heart attack.’ + +‘What ought red-haired women to wear, then?’ + +‘Green, I should think. Depends on the hair. Fair-haired women look +fine in black. Dark women can wear orange. Anything bright. All this +is tripe anyway. Not a dress designer. Could do it, though. Might pay. +Bright idea. Have another sandwich?’ + +As a matter of fact, it would be rather a bright idea if a particularly +enterprising dress designer were to pay enormous fees to some artist +with a name to come for an hour a day, examine the faces and figures +of the clients, and say, ‘You ought to wear mauve georgette,’ or ‘You +would look wonderful in jade-green something or other.’ Can you imagine +John doing it? Or Orpen? The latter would probably say, ‘Wrap yourself +up in a rug and go home.’ + +‘Look at this,’ said Orpen. It was the picture of Lord Berkeley which +was hung in that year’s Academy, a brilliant, sparkling piece of work. +‘Nice splosh of colour. Yellow coat. Pink face. Bits of blue. Came off +pat. Not everything comes like that.’ + +It certainly didn’t. A friend of mine who has just had his picture done +by Orpen said that he painted out the face eleven times before he was +satisfied, and then scratched the whole thing because he didn’t like +the pose. + +The next time I saw him--this time unofficially--was just after the +discovery of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, when the first photographs of +the lovely things inside were beginning to be published in the English +papers. + +He was standing underneath the great window in his studio, stroking his +chin and looking at a full page of illustrations. + +‘My word,’ he said, when he saw me, ‘what an age to have lived in! Look +at that.’ + +He pointed to the photograph of a lotos vase in perfect condition. Even +the reproduction in flat grey colours gave one a thrill which one gets +rarely indeed to-day. + +‘Would you rather have lived with Tut-ankh-Amen than now?’ I asked him. + +‘What questions you ask. Getting better though. Didn’t do anything but +eat cucumber sandwiches when you first came. Never seen anybody eat so +many cucumber sandwiches. Disgusting. Would I what? Rather have lived +with Tut-ankh-Amen? Sounds improper. Yes, I should. No other age so +stimulating. Lovely lines. _Lovely_ lines. Just look at it. Put your +nose on it. Eat it.’ + +And he himself devoured the picture with his own eyes. + +We talked a lot about ages we should have liked to live in. I stood +up for Venice in the eighteenth century, with Longy’s masks and his +shadowy ladies who eternally hold their fingers to their lips in dim +rooms overlooking some secret canal. + +‘M’yes. Longy’s all right. Damn fine costume. Hides ugly legs. Can’t +always live at fancy-dress ball though. Jolly interesting to know if +an age _was_ like what the painters tell us. Middle Ages, now. Wish +Renaissance painters hadn’t chosen so many Church subjects. One Virgin +very like another. Beautiful, of course, but sick of ’em. Think if +they’d painted the life around them. Like Rembrandt.’ + +He got up and started pacing round the room, the alto clef of his voice +deepening a little.... + +‘Ever seen Rembrandt’s butcher’s shop? No? See it. Beauty, beauty, +beauty. All out of a lot of meat. No, not out of that. Out of +Rembrandt’s brain. Doesn’t really matter a damn what age you live in if +you’ve got the goods. _There._’ (Tapping his forehead.) + +I should think whatever age Orpen had lived in he would have reflected +life pretty brilliantly. + +‘Funny thing, you know,’ he added, taking up a tube of ultramarine and +sniffing it slightly, ‘how one’s got to get away from an age quite a +long way before you can judge it purely æsthetically. Look at Sargent’s +picture of that woman, Lady What’s-her name, with the big puffed-out +sleeves. Painted in the ‘nineties. Damned fine painting. Damned +ridiculous dress. You say to yourself, “Lord, what a frump!” In fifty +years you’d just look upon it as a design. Can’t do that yet. Funny. +Earth of the earth, earthy we are.’ (Pause.) ‘Got blue paint on nose. +Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ + +I left him sitting down on the hearthrug, underneath a bright +light, gazing at the photograph of the vase which had once been +Tut-ankh-Amen’s. I felt quite romantic. ‘Perhaps,’ I said to myself, +‘one of his incarnations had made that vase, and he is seeing in it +some of the beauty which he had once realized, and forgotten, and lived +again.’ Then I remembered the paint on his nose, and laughed. + + * * * * * + +There is nothing like variety, and journalism certainly gives you that. +Soon after the Orpen episode I came in contact with Elinor Glyn, whom +one never seems to meet in England except on business. + +This lady’s appearance is so exactly like that of her own heroines that +one can hardly believe she has not just stepped from between the covers +of _Three Weeks_. I really have no idea of how I ever was admitted +to the presence, for Elinor Glyn has a very good knowledge of the +commercial value of her utterances, and is usually so hedged round with +Press agents, publishers and literary agents, all waiting to see that +her emotions are duly registered, collected, and sold, that there is +little chance of gathering anything for nothing. I do not blame Elinor +for it. If I had her reputation, I would not express an opinion even on +the English climate without demanding a fee, payable in advance. + +However, I found myself, one dreary afternoon, in her flat overlooking +the Chelsea Embankment. This flat, with two exceptions, contained +nothing of the atmosphere which she herself carries with her. + +One felt quite sweet and simple in it. A few books, a few rather dull +pictures, and an exceedingly upright piano. The two exceptions were, +firstly a tiger skin, draped ‘negligently’ over the sofa, and secondly +a pile of cushions, purple and mauve and black. When I saw these, I +thrilled. I felt sure that when the authoress entered the room she +would leap on to the cushions and begin to talk about life in a hoarse, +strangled voice. She entered the room, but she made no sort of attempt +to lie on the cushions. On the contrary, she sat straight and still, +looked me full in the face, and said, ‘Who arranged this?’ + +I told her that I had not the faintest idea. + +She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never give interviews. Still, I suppose +it’s all right.’ + +Silence. How deadly a silence can be. Then suddenly, with a charming +smile: + +‘The most terrible people come to see me sometimes. People who ask +abominable questions, and look at me as though I were in a cage. You +don’t appear to do that.’ + +This interview was turning out to be completely different from +anything that I had anticipated. I had come prepared to listen to +views on the modern girl, and instead I was treated to a searching +cross-examination. Where was my father? Where did I live? I found +myself lured by the fascination of those green eyes and orange hair. +Suddenly she turned to me and said: + +‘Do you believe in re-incarnation?’ + +I gave an evasive answer. + +‘You should do. You, æons ago, were a horse.’ + +She may not have used these precise words, but she definitely stated +that if my family were traced back sufficiently far, it would +eventually prove to be equine in origin. + +‘And I,’ she added, ‘come from some cat tribe. Don’t laugh.’ + +She smiled herself, but I think she was serious, for she added: ‘The +English people completely misunderstand me. They only know things like +_Three Weeks_ and _The Visits of Elizabeth_. They think of me only +as a foolish, sentimental, rather sensual woman. They’re blind to +the philosophy in me. However--who cares? And anyway, we must get to +business. Now what do you want to talk about?’ + +I gave her a cue--something on the lines of the eternal modern girl, +and as soon as she heard that phrase her nostrils quivered, her eyes +glared like lamps, her backbone seemed to stiffen like that of a cat on +the offensive. And she looked extraordinarily beautiful. + +‘Women to-day,’ she said, ‘are revolting men’s senses. Look at me. Do +_I_ slouch into the room, with a guilty look, as though I had not been +to bed all night? Do _I_ take out a lip stick and slash it over my +mouth without caring where it goes? Do _I_ daub powder all over my nose +until it looks a totally different colour from the rest of my face?’ + +I answered her that, in our brief but entrancing acquaintance, she had +done none of these things. + +‘Look at my hands.’ With a gesture of scorn she held out five very +white and exquisite fingers. ‘Are _my_ hands yellow and horrible +through incessantly smoking bad cigarettes?’ She leant forward and +showed her teeth, looking like some furious goddess. ‘Are _my_ teeth +stained, for the same reason? I ask you? No, they are not.’ + +She relaxed, but she still looked very grim. ‘I can’t bear it,’ she +said, ‘this abominable slackness. If I saw my daughters slouching +through life like that, I should shoot either myself or them. It is +worse in England than anywhere else.’ + +And then she began to talk about America. ‘Perfect dentistry, perfect +knowledge of hygiene, and a universal common sense had made the +American girl the most wonderful type in the world to-day.’ I could see +that she adored America.... + +She said dozens of other things, but I forget them. And one cannot +really write about Elinor Glyn, so that I shall stop here and now, +leaving this thumbnail sketch as it stands. + +I liked her enormously. If there was ever any occasion on which I found +myself forced to use that nauseating word ‘queenly,’ it would be now. +She _is_ ‘queenly.’ She ought to have been born on some dark evening +when Balkan thrones were tottering like scenes on the back-cloths of +our less draughty London theatres. She ought to have been hustled over +the waters of the Ishky-Repoka by faithful nurses, while grizzled prime +ministers faced bloody men who demanded a new régime. She ought to +have grown up among surroundings of crêpe and asphodels. And then, one +day, she ought to have returned in a golden chariot, driven towards +a beflagged palace, walked slowly down immense corridors, stood on a +throne and started a world-war in a girlish caprice. + +It seems a great pity that such a fiery personality should have caused +only ink, and not blood, to flow. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +Concerning Two Artists in a Different Sphere + + +I have always been puzzled by the universal tendency of democratic +communities to attach the most revolting vices to those whom they +have chosen to govern them. It is considered a matter of course +that the King’s Speech should be composed by men in the last stages +of delirium tremens. And the majority of Cabinet Ministers are, of +course, devotees of such diversions as unnatural vice, unless their +fingers are perpetually itching to get at a hypodermic syringe. As an +entertainment, one can spend many elevating hours by fixing particular +vices to particular ministers, saying, for instance, that President +Wilson used to beat his wife, or that Clemenceau had a morning bath +of cocaine (which would still not account for his extraordinary +vitality). But when one remembers that these libels are uttered with +equal assurance by members of every party in the State, the consequent +reflection on representative government is not a pleasing one. + +Artists are a little luckier than politicians. It is taken for granted, +by the great public, that they _must_ be immoral, being artists, and +their immoralities are not therefore discussed with the same relish. +Instead, it is merely asserted that they are mad, a statement which +does no harm to anybody. + +I wish I could meet these mad artists. Time and again I have been +disappointed, and found, instead of straws in the hair, brilliantine, +and instead of a foaming mouth, lips pursed in eminently sane and +complacent judgment on mankind. + +Even when there is some apparent foundation for the stories, they are +always grossly exaggerated. Pachmann, for example. The most astounding +tales are constantly narrated about this great little man, how he +crawls under the piano in a gibbering search for Chopin, how he is +taken from a padded cell and led to the piano by a keeper. Nonsense--or +so I judged when, not long before leaving London, I had the pleasure of +meeting him. + +I had not seen Pachmann since, as a small and evil child, I had +once untied his bootlaces under my aunt’s piano, on which he used +often to perform. His behaviour on that occasion might possibly have +strengthened the mad legend, but on our second meeting, though one +realized his behaviour was a little odd, nobody but a fool would have +thought him mad. Nobody but a fool, indeed, would have failed to be +absolutely charmed by his dainty little mannerisms. He danced round the +room like some grey-haired Puck, waving his long white fingers on which +glittered two beautiful diamond rings. He was always talking nineteen +to the dozen, and never finished a sentence. Words seemed too clumsy +for him and he would flick his fingers to convey the sense he wanted. + +How we laughed and talked! He turned everything to music, even his +wine. He held up a glass of champagne to the light, pointing at it and +saying--‘Bubbles! Golden, sparkling bubbles! I show you.’ And before +one could rise to stop him, he had rushed into the darkness of the next +room, seated himself at the piano, and played, with magical perfection, +a shimmering treble passage from Chopin’s Third Scherzo. After which +the champagne tasted quite flat. + +He told me, after dinner, about one of his early love-affairs, in +Poland. + +‘It was at --’ (some unpronounceable place) he said. ‘There was, in the +same house as myself, a plump and lovely maiden, oh, so beautiful! I +fell in love with her a great deal, and one day I arrange a rendezvous. +But I forget all about the rendezvous, because I discover a cupboard in +which the lady of the house keeps a beautiful collection of jams--I eat +the jams and I forget my Louisa. Soon Louisa, she comes into the room +and says--“For why have you jilted me? Do you not love me any more?” I +take out a plum, and I eat it, and I look at her, and I say, “I love +you, Louisa. But I love the jams still better.”’ + +We went into the room which contained his piano, and after a lot more +prancing about he suddenly turned to me and said: + +‘Do you know why I like you?’ + +I certainly had no idea. + +‘Because,’ said Pachmann, ‘you do not ask me to play the piano.’ + +It would never have occurred to me to do so. But one has to observe +that the criminal habit of asking artists out to dine and then +expecting them to pay for half-cold entrées by playing or singing, is +still quite common, even among otherwise civilized hostesses. Dame +Nellie Melba told me that when she first went to New York it was almost +unknown for any mere singer to be asked out to dine in any other than +a professional capacity. She, of course, had already become almost a +royal personage in London, but in New York she was regarded merely as +a ‘singing actress.’ And when, one night, she went to dine with one +of the Four Hundred (whatever that absurd phrase means) all the guests +whispered: ‘What’s she going to sing?’ + +‘She isn’t going to sing anything at all,’ said her host. + +‘Not going to sing?’ + +They simply could not understand that a _prima donna_ could have any +place in society other than that of a _prima donna_. + +All of which is a digression from Pachmann. As soon as he had made the +remark about not being asked to play, he sat down at the piano and said: + +‘As a reward I shall play you some Chopin. And I shall play it in two +ways. First my old method. Secondly my new.’ + +He played one of the Chopin Études--not one of the best, but still a +very lovely thing. ‘That,’ he said, when he had finished, ‘is the old +way. Now listen to the new.’ + +He played it again. I confess that I did not notice much difference. +Both were exquisitely played, both had the Pachmann magic, which no +other Chopin player has ever been able to find. But that there actually +was an astounding difference of technique was demonstrated when, in +detail, he played over the first dozen bars. The fingering had been +entirely changed, not only in the right hand but in the left. + +‘That,’ he cried triumphantly, ‘is the greatest effort of my life. +Nobody but Pachmann could have done that.’ + +He certainly spoke the truth, for nobody but Pachmann could, at his +advanced age, have sat down and unlearnt all they had previously +learnt, and undertaken the colossal labour of refingering the works of +Chopin. It is always more difficult to revise than to attack a thing +for the first time, and after sixty, most men would have shuddered at +the very thought of it. + +Dear Pachmann! I don’t think he was very happy in London, although +he adored English audiences. London fogs and London smoke stifled +him. ‘I look out of the window in the morning,’ he said, as I bade +him good-bye, ‘and I weep. And the sky weeps too. And we both weep +together. And then, I go and play Chopin, and I weep no more, and the +sun shines.’ + + * * * * * + +What dragons they do give the young men of Fleet Street to slay! I +heard of one rather timid and bespectacled youth (not in Carmelite +House) who had had literary leanings at Cambridge and decided that he +would be a writer. He got a job as a reporter on one of the big papers, +and the first thing they sent him to do was to ask as many members of +the House of Lords as possible what they thought of kissing under the +mistletoe. Sick at heart, he departed on his ignoble task, and after +sitting for nearly two hours in the corridor that leads to the House of +Lords, he summoned up the courage to approach a gentleman who looked +harmless enough but who turned out to be the Marquess of Salisbury. He +did not get the answer he expected, but the answer he did get sent him +rushing down the corridor, terrified, into the open street. + +But one does have to ask such very peculiar questions. I once, right at +the beginning, was told to go and ask Carpentier if he found it a bore +to be so good-looking. A very delicate subject, because it meant asking +the complementary question, Would he have liked to be ugly? And one was +hearing a great deal, at that time, of Carpentier’s straight left. + +Fortunately I knew one of Carpentier’s best friends, so I routed him +out, and he very kindly gave me a letter, in which he first asked +‘Georges’ to lunch, and then, as a pendant, told him what the bearer of +the note desired. + +Carpentier was acting in some film or other, and I had to go out to +North London to catch him at the studio. After waiting for nearly half +an hour in a superbly gilt room, I was led through various passages +into the main studio, which rather resembled a huge barn, with a pond +in the centre, from which Carpentier had just rescued some maiden who +was dripping by the fire. He himself was sitting, an agreeable-looking +giant, on the edge of the pond, clad in one of those dressing-gowns +which tempt young men in the Burlington Arcade, of purple silk shot +with yellow flowers. All round about were supers, and men with lamps, +and men with megaphones, and everybody seemed in a very bad temper. +Carpentier beckoned me to sit by his side. + +As soon as I did so, and presented my note, I was acutely conscious +that I was about to ask the heavyweight champion of Europe a very +delicate question, and that I was sitting on the edge of a cold and +damp pond, into which a comparatively gentle push would easily have +precipitated me. The pond looked so exceedingly wet that I was on the +point of changing the interview altogether, and asking him some dull +question about his views on boxing when he turned and, speaking in +French, asked me what I wanted. + +I told him. Very badly, too. + +‘Comment?’ + +Edging slightly away, I repeated the question. ‘Did he think good looks +were a blessing?’ + +‘Comprends pas,’ said Carpentier. + +This was terrible. In a very loud voice I said, ‘Would he rather have +been born “vilain”?’ + +Now ‘vilain’ was quite the wrong word to use, because it applies more +to the character than to the face. I knew that perfectly well, and as +soon as I had said it, realized my mistake. Now, I thought, for the +pond! Let’s get it over. + +‘Vilain?’ said Carpentier. And then he laughed. Laughed loud and long. +So did I. And when he had finished, I at last managed to convey to him +exactly what I really did want. + +He was extraordinarily amusing. He told me that he was bored silly by +the number of females who fell in love with him. As soon as he arrived +in England, showers of letters, literally hundreds by each mail, +descended on him, some with photographs, some without, some written +in terms of passionate adoration, some phrased more discreetly. They +did not stop at letters, they spoke to him in the street, they lined +up outside the studio. ‘Dames de société,’ he said, had implored Mr. +Stuart Blackton, the producer, that they should be allowed even the +smallest walking-on part in the film in order that they might be near +their god. All of which, he said, with a charming little shrug of the +shoulders, was most tiresome. + +‘You see,’ he said, ‘I am married. I have my wife and I have my little +daughter. Such things do not amuse me as perhaps--once--’ and he smiled +in a manner which Noel Coward would describe as winsome. + +‘But ugly? Oh no. I do not wish to be ugly.’ + +He drew in a deep breath, and stretched out his arms--so that the +dressing-gown slipped down, revealing the figure which had been the +cause of all the trouble. A very beautiful creature, I thought. Bodily, +not facially. His face is really, when you see it close to, rather +coarse. A very thick nose, caused, I suppose, by a bash on it, and a +not very imposing forehead. (You see, I am a long way from the pond at +the time of writing.) The time he looks best is when he smiles--and +that is very often. + +I think that Carpentier was quite flattered by his social success, +in fact I am sure he was, for he mentioned, rather ingenuously, some +places where he had been to parties. It would be interesting to know +who was responsible for this, but after all, it was only natural, for +everybody wanted him. But he was not always easy to get. For instance, +a certain good lady who lives in Arlington Street was giving a party, +and was threatened with high blood pressure because she could not get +Carpentier. There arrived on the scene an old friend (older than he +would like to be thought), who said that he would arrange it. I cannot +tell you his name, but he is the original of Mr. Cherrey-Marvel in +Michael Arlen’s _The Green Hat_. He rushed round London, first to the +studio, then to an hotel, then to another hotel, and finally routed out +Carpentier just as he was on the point of going to bed. Carpentier +said he would not come, because he did not want to dress. ‘Don’t dress +then,’ said Cherrey-Marvel, ‘but come.’ + +‘Would it be _comme il faut_ to come, without even putting on a +smoking?’ + +‘Anything would be _comme il faut_ that you did,’ said Cherrey-Marvel. + +And so he went to the party in a lounge suit, and was an enormous +success. ‘He gives one such a thrill, doesn’t he, my dear?’ they all +said. I expect he would have given them an even greater thrill if he +had come in his little blue shorts. + +A very charming, unspoilt, simple creature--that was my impression of +Carpentier on my first talk with him, and I have not had occasion to +alter it since. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +Hanged by the Neck + + +In February, 1923, I attended the famous trial of Edith Thompson and +Fred Bywaters, which created a sensation in England keener than any +which had been felt since the Crippen case. + +The first part I had to play in it was to go out, one wet, dreary +evening, to North London, to try to persuade Grayson, the father of the +murderess on trial, to give me the story of her life. All the other +newspapers were on the same job, and it was with a feeling of dismay +and depression that I walked down the long sad crescent that led to the +Graysons’ house, pushed open the rusty little gate, and rang the bell. + +The door opened, and the pale face of a little oldish man appeared. He +was crying. + +‘Mr. Nichols?’ he said in a voice that was half a whisper. + +I nodded. + +With a weary gesture he motioned me in. I found myself in a little +parlour, neatly kept. It was lit by incandescent gas, which bubbled and +fizzled, and cast green shadows in the corners. A little china sparkled +on the mantelpiece. There was no fire and the room was very cold. + +We sat down. It was all like a nightmare. I could say nothing. He +could say nothing. And then his son appeared in the doorway--pale and +distracted. Somehow the presence of a third person made it easier, and, +rousing myself, I tried to put, as gently as I could, the nature of my +request. + +He shook his head. It was impossible. All the papers had been there. +They had not had a minute’s peace. They could tell them nothing. I +passed that over, talking, talking--anything to prevent him again +giving way to his grief. And, by and by, he seemed to cheer up a little. + +Then, suddenly, without any warning, he threw out his hands, and cried +in a broken voice ... ‘To think that this should happen to _us_!’ + +It was the universal cry of humanity. Why should it happen to _us_? +There were five hundred little houses, all exactly alike, in this +desolate crescent. There were five thousand equally desolate crescents +in London. Why had God picked out _this_ one little house out of so +many? + +The scene passes to the Old Bailey, on which the eyes of all England at +this time were centred. + +The first sight one has of the Principal Court of Justice at the Old +Bailey is not awe-inspiring. It is, of course, a completely modern +building, with an air about it which makes it look as though it were +designed for a cheerful lecture room at Cambridge. The light wood +and plaster, the glass roof, the sunlight that floods the whole +place--nothing here to promote any morbid speculation. + +But as the court fills, as one by one the barristers take their places +at the long tables, as the back benches are occupied by the usual array +of stupid women hung with false pearls, as the Judge and jury file +into place, and as, finally, the prisoner is led into the dock, then +all this cheerfulness, this matter-of-fact atmosphere, this clean, +modern feeling, becomes far more horrible than if the trial were +conducted in a vault by black inquisitors under candlelight. For in +this place, tragedy is made ridiculous. The mask of pain is moulded +into a grotesque. It is almost as though an operation for life or death +were taking place before one’s eyes, without any anæsthetic. Rather be +tried before a howling mob, and bundled straight off in a tumbril to +the guillotine, than be brought up to this clean, wholesome room, like +a young man undergoing a _viva voce_, in which failure means hanging by +the neck. + +The court was already packed to suffocation, and I sat down. Five +minutes to ten. In a few moments the curtain would rise on the biggest +tragedy of 1922. And yet, what was the mood of the audience? Pleasant, +amused expectation apparently. From behind me came a whiff of cheap +scent and the light chatter of many tongues. Looking up into the +gallery one could see the fatuous faces of young girls, wearing the +sort of expression you see before the lights go down at a cinema. One +of them had a box of chocolates laid on the ledge in front of her, +and from time to time she pushed it towards a young man by her side. +Standing in the group by the door was a very bad and very popular +actor, bowing ceremoniously to the scented ladies. The only people who +looked at all serious were the police, and one felt that they were +serious only because they had duties to perform. + +Ten o’clock. The curtain rises. I shut my eyes. There is a mumble of +voices, a shuffling of feet, a rustle of papers. Silence. I open my +eyes again to find that the ‘female prisoner’ is already in the dock, +and that the play has begun. + +Look at her, this ‘female prisoner.’ Look at her, this Edith Thompson, +_née_ Grayson, who has spent twenty-eight passionate, unhappy years on +this earth, and is now being sent to eternal darkness. (I am drifting +irresistibly into the style of Carlyle, but I can’t help it.) A lovely +creature, one would say. A neck like the stem of a flower, and a face +equally flower-like. So very white, with the pallor of old lilies +carved in ivory. So very tired, as though no longer could that one head +support the burden of so much pain. + +Oh yes. I know that she is a murderess. I know that she is an +adulteress. That foully, and with felonious intent, she did, on divers +occasions attempt to do to death an honest and an upright man. I know +all that, and a good deal more besides. But I also know that my heart +is wrung with pity. + +A man with a red face is cross-examining her. He leans forward, +and reads from a letter in his hand. It is one of those amazing +love-letters which this strange creature had sent from her dingy suburb +to her boy lover. + + _Your love to me Is new, it is something different, it is my life, and + if things should go badly with us, I shall always have this past year + to look back upon and feel that ‘then I lived.’ I never did before and + never shall again._ + + _Darlingest lover, what happened last night? I don’t know myself, + I only know how I felt--no, not really how I felt, but how I could + feel--if time and place or circumstances were different._ + + _It seems like a great welling up of love, of feeling, of inertia, + just as if I am wax in your hands to do with as you will, and I feel + that if you do as you wish I shall be happy. I can’t really describe + it--but you will understand, darlint, won’t you? You said you knew + it would be like this one day--if it hadn’t would you have been + disappointed?_ + +And again, when he was far away: + + _I’ve nothing to talk about, darlint, not a tiny little thing. + Life--the life I and we lead is gradually drawing near. Soon, I’ll + be like the Sahara--just a desert ‘Shulamite.’ You must read that + book--it’s interesting, absorbing. Aren’t books a consolation and a + solace? We ourselves die and live in the books we read while we are + reading them, and when we have finished, the books die and we live or + exist. Just drag on thro’ years and years until when? Who knows? I’m + beginning to think no one does--not even you and I. We are not the + shapers of our destiny. I will always love you, darlint._ + +I found myself longing for their escape, planning for it, wondering if +by some miracle it could not be brought about. The main well of the +court is surmounted by a glass roof. If only, I thought, some friend +could land on that roof in an aeroplane, shatter the glass with a +single blow, throw down a rope to the two tortured creatures in the +dock, and pull them up, up, out of this hell into the clean air above. +If only there would be an earthquake to rend the walls, so that this +gloating crowd would rush away affrighted, and leave the lovers to +themselves. If only there would be an utter darkness, to cover all +this shame, and set us free. Bad reasoning of course, on my part. Bad +sociology. Bad law. Justice has to be done, and all that sort of +thing. But I defy any sensitive person to sit through a long trial +of this description, to see a beautiful woman and a strong young man +slowly done to death, without siding, heart and soul, with the accused. + +During the whole of that tragic trial, through gloom to deepening +gloom, I was in constant touch with the Grayson family. As I saw more +of them, I marvelled that so utterly commonplace and kindly a group +of individuals should have, as one of their members, the complex, +passionate character of Edith Thompson. The mother I hardly recollect, +save as a little, broken woman in black, whose hand was always to +her eyes and who walked with uncertain steps, as though stumbling in +darkness. But there was a sister whom I often saw. She seemed to have +more control over herself than any other member of the family. She was +cool, almost dominating, in the witness-box, and in her own home she +was the one who assumed the chief burden of work and responsibility. A +brother, too, I remember, with a face drained of all colour and eyes +red with secret weeping. As for Grayson himself, he was just stunned. +There is no other word which adequately describes his slow, mumbling +speech, his downcast eyes, his dumb look of pain. + +At three o’clock on Saturday afternoon during the trial, I used to meet +Grayson as he came out of Holloway Prison. Do you know Holloway Prison? +It is of all places the most dreary and forlorn. It lies at the end of +the long and dismal Caledonian Road in North London. It has no colour +save the faded advertisement hoardings which peel from the dirty +walls, no animation but for the noisy trams that rattle down the end of +the street, and the cries of pale children playing in the gutter. + +The prison itself is built of grey stone, like a fortress. It has +narrow windows and high walls. Over the whole pile broods an air of +monstrous cruelty and strength, from the rusted spikes that guard the +outer wall’s summits to the heavy gates that shut out its inmates +from the world. I would stand watching these gates for five minutes, +ten minutes, half an hour, and then they would swing slowly open and +through them would emerge the little sombre procession, Grayson, the +brother--sometimes the sister and the mother as well. + +Silently I would join them and walk with them down the road, while +the trams rattled by, and the newsboys shouted out the latest +details of the case, and lovers jostled us, arm-in-arm. And then the +cross-examination would begin. + +‘How was she?’ + +‘She was better. Brighter.’ + +‘Were you allowed to go into her room?’ + +‘No. They put a table across the door. We spoke to her over that. We +stood in the corridor. There was a warder by her side.’ + +‘What was she wearing?’ + +‘A dressing-gown. You see, she’s been in bed. Ill. Very ill. Exhausted, +they say. Still, she was better, and she has been reading.’ + +‘What books has she been reading?’ + +‘Dickens, she told us. She said that she wanted life and comedy, and +Dickens gave her that. Full-blooded life--that was the word she used.’ + +‘Did she say anything about--him?’ + +‘Him?’ + +‘Yes. Bywaters?’ + +‘No. His name never crossed her lips. She asked about her appeal, and +she seemed quite hopeful about it. And then--she began to remember +things.’ + +‘Remember things?’ + +‘Yes. Last Christmas for example. She said, “Do you remember the party +we had last Christmas? And all the presents I had? And the crackers? +And the Christmas tree?”’ + +And then I would shake them by the hand, and wish them good cheer, +and say that I was sure the appeal would turn out right--anything to +take away that look of tragedy from their eyes. They would brighten, +perhaps, for a moment, and then the mask would fall over their faces +again, as they turned away, and went down the windy street. + +The most horrible meeting of all, as far as I was concerned, was on +the day after she had been hanged. I was in the office, writing some +ridiculous account of an agricultural exhibition, when word was brought +that Grayson wished to see me. + +It was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. I found him +sitting in the waiting-room, under a glaring electric light. Standing +by his side, with one hand on his shoulder, was the son. We looked at +each other in silence. What was there to say? What language was ever +invented which could possibly be fitted to an occasion so forlorn? + +Eventually we did speak--or rather, I spoke. ‘Bit knocked up,’ was all +he could say. ‘Bit knocked up.’ Over and over again, like a child +repeating a lesson it had learnt and did not understand. I told him +that they must all go away to the country, to the sea, anywhere, as +long as they were away from prying eyes, from the memory of the dead. + +He went out. ‘Bit knocked up,’ he said again, and that was the last I +heard of him. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +Two Plain and One Coloured + + +Quite the most amusing person I met at about this time was H. L. +Mencken, whose books _Prejudices_ so perfectly describe the particular +standpoint in art which he has adopted. We met, as far as I remember, +at some party or other at the Café Royal, but as it was impossible +to talk in that establishment, under the distracting influence of +Epsteins, Augustus Johns, Laverys and successive glasses of absinthe, +we arranged to meet the next morning at his hotel. ‘And then I’ll give +you something that’ll wake you up.’ + +He did. And it did. When I called on him he was tramping backwards and +forwards in his rooms, making a strange spluttering noise with his lips +that suggested a large and angry bird stalking round its cage. After +refusing the inevitable double whisky which Americans apparently seem +to consider an hourly necessity for Englishmen, I asked him what was +the matter. + +‘Matter?’ Again the spluttering noise, this time a little louder. ‘I’ve +just been looking at London. What the devil are you doing to it? Do you +want to make it another New York? A filthy sky-scraper in the Strand, +half the most exquisite buildings being scrapped and thrown on to the +muck heap, and obscene advertising signs that are as bad as anything +we’ve got on Broadway.’ + +Splutter, splutter, splutter. + +I thought it would be a good idea to ask him what he would do if he +were suddenly given despotic powers over the reconstruction of London. + +‘The first thing I’d do,’ he said, lighting a cigar with a sort of +aggressive courage that reminded one of firing a torpedo, ‘would be to +hang every mother’s son of an architect who was polluting one of the +world’s best cities. And when they were dangling high and dry, I’d go +out with a packet of dynamite, blow up all the monstrosities in Regent +Street, get hold of Nash’s old plans, and slave-drive a few thousand +British navvies until we’d got the thing back as it used to be--superb +crescent, full of grace and beauty.’ + +Splutter, splutter, splutter. + +He resumed his perambulation round the room. ‘Then I’d invent a whole +lot of brand-new tortures for any hulking Philistine of a manufacturer +who started writing his blasted name on God’s sky at night. Piccadilly +Circus nowadays is an eyesore. It’s bad enough in Broadway. But you can +at least say there that the vast scale on which the signs are put up, +the enormous size of the whole thing, does at least leave a certain +feeling of awe on one’s mind. Disgust too, but at least, _big_. Whereas +in Piccadilly you’ve got a lot of footling little electric squares and +circles, a yellow baby spitting fire, an undersized motor squiggling +its wheels, a God-forsaken bottle pouring red liquid into a glass so +damned small that it wouldn’t make me tight if I drank out of it all +night. Take ’em away!’ (Splutter, splutter.) ‘Take ’em away! You’re +killing London!’ + +I think I have got in most of his adjectives. His conversation was also +scattered with a good many examples of that word which Bernard Shaw +employed with such effect in _Pygmalion_. These I have omitted. + +He went on for some time in this strain, until I felt it time to point +out to him that at least we were putting up a few new buildings that +were quite worthy to stand by the old ones. + +‘Show ’em to me!’ (Splutter, splutter.) ‘Take me along to see ’em. I’ll +stand you drinks for a month if what you say is true.’ + +‘Well, there’s the new L.C.C. building on the other side of the Thames. +Knott’s the architect. One of the biggest buildings of its kind in the +world, and one of the most beautiful.’ + +He looked at me despairingly. ‘Oh, you ought to have been an American +if you say a monstrosity like that’s beautiful. I looked at it +yesterday, and I spat in the Thames to show my contempt of it.’ + +‘But the line of it is perfect--the proportions are admirable....’ + +‘Perfect rot. For one thing, what on earth induced the fool who built +it to stick a hulking great red roof on top of it? All down that side +of the Thames is grey. Grey old buildings, peering out of the mist, +like veiled faces, tumble-down old ruins, wharfs, docks, bridges, grey, +all grey. And then this fool comes along and sticks up a blasted Noah’s +Ark, covered with pillars and crowned with this futile roof. What’s the +good of that?’ + +I told him that if he were a real Londoner, he might not be so angry at +the sight of an occasional touch of colour. He might not be so keen on +his universal touch of grey if he had to live in it for ever. He might, +if he had to cross the Thames day by day, year by year, come to welcome +that red roof, sparkling across the grey water, and bringing even into +the dullest days a glow of cheerfulness, as of reflected sunshine. + +But he would have none of it. The roof should have been grey, and that +was an end to the matter. I understood then why he had written three +books called _Prejudices_. + +None the less, a charming man, who is more American than he would care +to think, for all his constant nagging at his own country. I said +something vaguely derogatory of a certain section of American opinion, +and he was down on me like a shot. I liked him best at that moment. + + * * * * * + +One of the most tiresome things I ever had to do was--Rudolf Valentino. + +It was only after hours of ringing up and fixing appointments, over +which more trouble was spent than if he had been an Arch-Duchess, that +I eventually was told I could see him one morning at ten o’clock at the +Carlton Hotel. The Carlton Hotel, in fact any hotel, is sufficiently +depressing at ten o’clock in the morning, and when I discovered that +Valentino, instead of giving a private appointment, was standing in the +centre of a circle of admiring females, telling them, I should imagine, +a lot of nonsense, I felt like going straight away and leaving him to +his own devices. + +However, after a time, I got him into a corner, and by carrying on +the conversation in atrocious French, kept the subject of most our +remarks a secret from 50 per cent of the said females. Unfortunately +there proved to be nothing to keep secret. ‘Did he get many letters?’ +‘Yes, he got three thousand a week.’ ‘Were there many letters from +adorers?’ ‘They all adored him.’ ‘What sort of letters?’ ‘He never read +them.’ And so on. He could say nothing as to whether he was elated by +his success, he had no sort of theories, not even bad ones, on the +film as a medium of art, and he was without a spark of humour in his +composition. This is the most adored man throughout two continents. + +The only subjects in which he seemed to be at all interested were, +firstly, his own photographs, and secondly, clothes. Of photographs +there were literally hundreds, lying scattered all over the room. He +pointed to a pile and said, ‘These go off by the next mail.’ Surely he +saw some romance in that? I tried to get him to understand the thrill +that most people would have at the thought of their own faces smiling +down from ten thousand London mantelpieces and bringing, presumably, a +disturbing ecstasy into the hearts of ten thousand maidens. He merely +looked blankly at me and said he supposed it was good publicity. + +But when it came to discussing the photographs themselves it was a very +different matter. Did I like this one looking down, or did I prefer the +one looking up? Would the chin be a little better if it were switched +round more to the right, and did I not think that the eyes had come out +beautifully in that one? Yes, I said, the chin _was_ nicely switched, +and the eyes _had_ come out beautifully. Upon which he brightened +considerably, and offered me a photograph for myself, which I declined. + +The only thing we had in common appeared to be a tailor. He asked me +if I had heard of any good tailors (not if I _went_ to a good one, a +rather intriguing difference) and I told him that I always went to a +certain place, which made clothes that appeared to fit, and also gave +one as much credit as anybody could reasonably desire. ‘Why, that’s +where I’m going myself,’ he said. ‘How extraordinary.’ + +He certainly did know a great deal about clothes, as I discovered later +when a man from the firm in question called on me one morning with some +new and demoralizing stuffs from Paris. He had just finished cutting +three new double-breasted grey flannel suits for Valentino, and had +evidently met a kindred spirit. + +I should imagine that half Valentino’s success (once one has +acknowledged the purely sensual attraction of his face and his shapely +limbs) came from his wife. A very beautiful creature, I thought her, +with a vivacity and a sparkle that Valentino will never have. + + * * * * * + +Of caricaturists there are legion, but I never met one even vaguely +resembling the genius that is ‘Sem.’ Sem is, of course, famous all over +France, and in a good many other countries as well. Queens of every +description have screamed when they opened his portfolio, and they tell +me that as soon as the Aga Khan heard that he was one of Sem’s victims, +his knees clattered together in soft and mutual sympathy. For some +reason, however, he is not so well known in England, though, naturally +enough, many lovely ladies have unsuccessfully offered enormous sums, +if only Sem would make them sufficiently ridiculous. + +You would not think, when you met him, that Sem ‘had it in him’ to be +so very naughty. Such a tiny little man, rather like an amiable monkey, +with a small wizened face, and eyes that blink perpetually in a sort of +mild surprise at the fantastic comedy of life. It is only when his face +suddenly sets, and his neck cranes forward, that you realize that here +is a man who sees more than you would even imagine there was to be seen. + +It was just after the publication of one of his most sensational +folios that we met. I wanted to know how he did it--a sufficiently +comprehensive question to ask any artist. + +‘Do you go about with a pencil and paper, looking for monstrosities?’ I +asked him. ‘Getting a nose here, a neck there, a double chin somewhere +else?’ + +He shook his head emphatically. ‘Never do I draw a line from life,’ he +asserted. ‘I look at people when they do not know that they are being +watched. At Deauville, when they are plunging into the water, in the +theatre, when they are excited by the stage, at dinner, when they are +excited by the soup. At times like that they forget that they must make +the best of themselves. The large women forget to hide their chins, the +large men forget to be dignified. That is the time for me. But I do not +_draw_, then. Oh no! I wait a week, a month, six months. And suddenly I +think, that woman, she was like a horse, or that fellow, he resemble a +camel. Then I draw.’ + +One of his caricatures which had struck me as most delightful was that +of Lady Idina Gordon, whom he saw as a heron, and whom everybody will +see as a heron for the rest of her natural life. + +‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I say, that is a heron, as soon as she comes. Very +English. Head so. Neck so. And the voice. Just like I draw. And the Aga +Khan? You see him like a fish too, like me? All of a fishiness, I see +him, with the large eyes and the mouth.’ He made an exquisite little +grimace to illustrate his meaning. + +‘And the King of Spain? They say I am rude to draw him so, but it is +not rudeness. It is only Truth. I draw them as I see them. I do not +make a monkey of a lion, nor a peacock of a sparrow.’ + +And yet, Sem can be kind as well as cruel. He dips his pen alternately +in poison and soothing syrup, and draws, first with a knife and then +with a caress. His curly, twisting nib worms right into the heart of +his subject, dragging out the most astonishing intimacies. A twist +of the lip and he has condemned not only an individual but a whole +class. A swelling of the stomach and the whole monstrous regiment of +profiteers stands shameless before you. + +He didn’t seem much impressed by English caricaturists. Even after his +second Bronx, the mention of Max Beerbohm merely drew a sigh from his +lips and a little flick of the monkey fingers. ‘There is nothing much +about him,’ he said. ‘He is not a caricaturist. He is a commentator. +His drawing is not strong enough to stand alone, and so he must put +little bubbles into the mouths of his characters, and make them speak +for him. That is amusing’ (and here he nibbled his moist cherry much as +monkeys nibble peanuts at the Zoo) ‘but it is not caricature.’ + +He swallowed the cherry and, leaning forward, burst into French. +‘Caricature,’ he said, ‘must stand by itself. It must have a line that +shatters, a cut that kills. There must be no mists, no legends, no +little sentences stuck here and there to say “this is a fool.” You must +_draw_ him as a fool, and your very _line_ must be foolish, it must +wriggle with absurdity, it must twist itself remorselessly into the +grotesque. There is only one man in England who can do that to-day.’ + +‘And who is that?’ I asked. + +‘Bateman. Mr. H. M. Bateman. Now he has no need to put balloons into +the mouths of his characters. They speak for themselves. They laugh out +loud. He is a great caricaturist, that man. He could kill a man with a +single drop of ink.’ + +He leant back and closed his eyes. Poor Sem has bad eyes, and he +blinks, not through astonishment, as I first surmised, but because a +strong light hurts him. All round us surged the highly coloured and +slightly ridiculous set of people who are always to be seen drifting +through the lounges of London’s three hotels at cocktail time. Women +whose complexions all come out of the same sort of bottle, men whose +clothes all come from the same sort of tailor. The same tired voices, +the same overfed stomachs, the same underfed intelligences. Immediately +in front of us was a much _soignée_ lady in black--dress by Molyneux, +diamonds by Cartier, furs by Reville, perfume, I should imagine, by +request. I wished that Sem would look at her. + +But he was already looking at her. ‘I shall draw her,’ he said, ‘as a +cat.’ + +And he did. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +A Lamb in Wolf’s Clothing + + +I now retired to a nursing home for an operation. The operation +had nothing to do with my visit to Valentino, for it was only +‘tonsils’--and I spent my few days of rest in reading _Main Street_, +which had a very cheering effect by making one remember how many +disagreeable people there were in the world with whom it was not +necessary to live. + +One afternoon I was deep in the atmosphere of the Middle West when I +looked up and saw, standing in the doorway, a youth with fair hair, +agreeable features, quizzical smile, and appalling clothes. + +‘Who are you?’ I said. + +‘I’m Oliver Baldwin,’ replied the apparition. + +Now, Oliver Baldwin is, to the best of one’s knowledge, a figure unique +in English history, and as biographies will certainly be written about +him when he is old and respectable there seems every reason for writing +something about him while he is young and--Oliver. + +Oliver’s father is, of course, Prime Minister. But Oliver himself was +and is the most violent revolutionary, with a considerable flair for +public speaking, a complete independence of thought, and an absolute +loathing for his father’s Party. + +England was therefore presented with the engaging spectacle of a young +man filling the bookshelves of Number 11 Downing Street with treatises +on the best way to blow up Cabinet Ministers. In fairness to Oliver +it should be observed that he only did this while his father was +Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the more exalted days of the present +he avoids Downing Street like the plague. + +In spite of the discouragement of tonsils we were very soon talking +with gusto. + +‘Does your father mind your wanting to be the President of the First +English Republic?’ I asked him. + +‘I don’t know. Never asked him.’ + +‘But isn’t it--don’t you think it’s rather ... I mean....’ (Impossible +to finish this sentence.) + +Oliver smiled. ‘You mean, don’t I think it’s bad form to attack my own +papa in public? No. The only things which are bad form are the things +which are not sincere. I am terribly sincere. And I’m not attacking +_him_, I’m attacking the programme he stands for.’ + +More talk, Oliver departed, and it was arranged that we should meet +again. + +In the meanwhile I found out a little more about Master Baldwin which +made me realize that he was a person with whom, one day, we should be +forced to reckon. Before his exploits the adventures of Huckleberry +Finn pale into insignificance. After a cloistered youth in the shadow +of Eton, he suddenly, at the outbreak of war, enlisted in the Second +Cambridge Cadet Corps, became a sergeant-instructor, an officer in the +Irish Guards, went through France, and was a seasoned warrior before he +was out of his teens. The war over, he departed to Russia to fight the +Bolsheviks, was imprisoned by these gentlemen for months under sentence +of death, escaped, got into Armenia, avoided meeting Mr. Michael Arlen, +grew (with infinite pains) a beard, joined the Armenian army, became +in rapid succession a Captain, Major, Colonel, General, bought a white +horse, and led, like a new Joan of Arc, the army of the Armenians +against the Bolsheviks. All these things--even the beard--probably had +singularly little effect on the course of events, but they showed the +stuff of which Oliver was made. + +Oliver is not in the least the vulgar tub-thumper of popular +imagination. He is almost absurdly sensitive about his position. I +remember motoring down from London to Oxford with him once, coming +within a few miles of Chequers, and demanding firmly to be driven there +at once. ‘Do you think we ought to?’ he said. ‘Why not?’ said I. ‘There +won’t be any Cabinet Ministers there, and even if there are, they can’t +bite us. I rather wish they could. It would be fun to be bitten by the +Chancellor of the Exchequer.’ + +So we went to Chequers, simply because I shamelessly insisted. + +We arrived when it was still early morning, with the mist of an English +autumn drifting down the lanes and lying, like a caress, over the +little green fields. What a paradise! When the Lees left it to the +Prime Ministers of England, they must have been thinking of future +Labour governments, because this old place is so peaceful, so mellow, +so typical of all that is gracious and lovely in English history (as +we fondly imagine it to have been), that nobody could dwell within its +walls for more than a few hours without wishing to preserve the spirit +which had created it. + +I won’t give a catalogue of the treasures of Chequers, because they +would fill a whole volume, from the magnificent Rembrandt which dreams +in the dusk of the tall entrance hall to the marvellous collection of +unique volumes which line the shelves of the long, quiet library. What +most appealed to one was the entire absence of any ‘museum’ feeling, +all the more remarkable when one remembers that Chequers belongs to the +nation, and is only a temporary resting-place for successive ministers. + +Nothing is locked up under glass cases. Looking back on it, I think +that it might be just as well if some of the things were protected. For +example, when Oliver was not looking, I put a ring of Queen Elizabeth +on my finger (she must have had very large fingers), clasped a sword +of Oliver Cromwell’s in my hand and read aloud the original Cromwell +letter in which he describes the rout of the Cavaliers as ‘God made +them as stubble to our swords.’ The combined effect of all these +actions gave one a feeling that was a cross between a museum and the +worst type of tourist. + +At Chequers there is a very charming lady who occupies the post of +châtelaine, and who could probably tell more secrets than any other +woman in Europe, for she has seen all the Prime Ministers in their +moments of play and rest, when they have been most likely to tell the +truth. However, she is discretion itself, and when one asked if Lloyd +George ever said what he really thought about Asquith, or if any of +the Prime Ministers ever got drunk, one was met with an evasive smile. +However, I did learn later, from another source, that they were all +passionately devoted to Chequers itself. In fact, as soon as the news +of Lloyd George’s downfall came through, Megan Lloyd George, who was +in the entrance hall at the time, walked disconsolately to the window, +looked out over the moonlit garden, and said, ‘Oh dear! This means that +we shall have to leave Chequers.’ The thought of that, you see, had +eclipsed even the disaster which had befallen her father. + +Another thing which one realized while at Chequers was the insatiable +passion of British Prime Ministers for music. In the great banqueting +hall (where nobody banquets now) is a pianola. The first thing which +harassed Premiers always did was to rush to this pianola, switch it +on, and lie back, forgetting the trials of office. Lloyd George, +whose natural taste would seem, to the uninitiated, to be for marches +and military music, found himself most soothed by Chopin nocturnes. +Baldwin, on the other hand, invariably played, as his first number, +some Schubert variations on a theme by (I believe) Mozart. Winston +Churchill had the best taste of the lot. He confined himself rigorously +to Beethoven. + +The surroundings of Chequers are ideally beautiful. On one side, level +meadows, on the other, rising hills, thickly wooded. As soon as we had +‘done’ Chequers, we motored away, got out again, and went for a walk in +these woods. And there, under the yellowing leaves of immemorial elms, +like the two thoroughly shameless young men that we were, improvised a +debate in which Oliver was the President of the First English Republic, +and I was the leader of the fast vanishing and decadent English +aristocracy--rôles of singular charm for both of us. The subject was a +fantastic one, being concerned with a Bill brought in by the government +to requisition all the sticks and leaves in the country for the purpose +of burning the House of Lords. Still, it gave us endless opportunities +for rhetoric, and as our words floated out into the valley, I wondered +if there would ever come a time when the scene would be transferred to +the realms of reality. I should imagine that it is most unlikely. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +Two Big Men and One Medium + + +Rudyard Kipling is a fine example of a great man who will forgive +almost everything to Youth. He certainly forgave me as charmingly as it +was possible to do so. + +It happened during lunch. I felt very guilty when they said that +Rudyard Kipling was coming, because two years before, when still at +Oxford, I had written a letter to the _Morning Post_ on the subject +of ‘Our Modern Youth,’ in which there were a great many violent (and +rather silly) remarks levelled against anybody who had the misfortune +to be over forty. The letter attacked, with sublime indifference, such +diverse subjects as militarism, old age, imperialism, prime ministers +and incidentally Kipling, whom I had never read, but who seemed to +sum up a great many aggressive tendencies. ‘Where,’ I asked, in the +peroration, ‘will you find the spirit of the age? Not in the flamboyant +insolence of Rudyard Kipling, not in the ... etc.’ + +Not one of my best works, that letter. But it was written in a hammock, +on a hot summer’s day, with flies buzzing round, and certainly without +the thought that perhaps, one day, the writer would meet the man whom +he had attacked. + +However, when Kipling was announced, he came straight up to me (where I +was hiding in a corner) and said: + +‘You’re the young man who was so rude to me in the _Morning Post_, +aren’t you?’ + +I admitted that this was so. ‘I’m awfully sorry ...’ I began. + +‘Sorry? What for?’ said Kipling. ‘I used to be much ruder to people +when I was your age. The only thing that I should be sorry for was that +you didn’t make it worse.’ + +I heaved a sigh of relief. + +‘Besides,’ said Kipling, ‘that was a jolly good phrase--flamboyant +insolence--I liked it.’ + +And then he began to talk about literary style with a gusto that is +more often found in amateurs than in celebrities. + +Kipling did not strike one, in the very least, as ‘literary.’ If one +had not seen his face caricatured in a hundred newspapers, one would +gather that he was a successful surgeon or a prosperous architect. +Especially does he convey the surgeon, with his keen bright eyes, his +more-than-bedside manner, and the strong, capable hands, that push +out eagerly from the white cuffs as though they were about to carve +something. + +Carving, too, is a phrase that might be applied to his prose. He hacks +out his sentences, cuts up his paragraphs, snips at his descriptions. + +I was struck, even at the beginning, with his positively encyclopædic +knowledge of subjects about which he might well have pleaded +justifiable ignorance. Drugs, for example. Somebody mentioned +anæsthetics, and that led to a wider discussion of all drugs that +partially or wholly remove consciousness. Kipling suddenly broke into +the conversation, held it and dominated it, illustrating everything +he said with the most apposite examples. He told me that when he was +in India, as a young man, he had experimented in taking a very potent +drug which even the natives can only imbibe in small quantities. ‘It +laid me out completely,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t dream a bit, as I had +hoped. I woke up, with a splitting headache, but fortunately I knew +the cure--hot milk, as much of it as you can drink. If ever you find +yourself in that condition in India, you put your last dollar on hot +milk. It’s the only thing that will pull you round.’ + +It was an amusing luncheon party, for everybody talked about the things +that most interested them. I remember Princess Alice,[1] for example, +talking about Bolshevism with an authority and an understanding that +came to me as rather a surprise. + +[1] Countess of Athlone. + +‘How do you know so much about these things?’ I asked. + +‘I think it’s my duty to know about them,’ she said. And then ... ‘I +_must_ tell you the story of when I went down to speak at a meeting at +Poplar. Poplar at the time was seething with Bolshevism, and everybody +said it was madness for me to go. To make matters worse, just before +the meeting I received a message to say that the whole audience were +going to wear red rosettes to show their revolutionary sympathies. Very +well, said I, I’ll wear a red rosette too. So I got my maid to make me +a beautiful scarlet rosette, and pinned it to my dress, where it looked +charming. It quite took the wind out of their sails when they saw me +get up on the platform wearing exactly the same emblem as themselves. +And there wasn’t any Red Flag sung that night--only God Save the King, +rather out of time, but with a great deal of fervour, all the same.’ + +Another rare type I met just then was Sir Thomas Lipton, whose yachts +have floated all over the sea, and whose tea has floated into every +interior. He wanted me to do a job of work for him, and though I had +a shrewd suspicion that there would never be time to do it, I kept my +appointment, simply in order to see what he was like. + +Lipton himself was charming. And I admired his courage in decorating +his house in a manner which some might find disturbing, but which he +liked. There was no compromise with modernity. It was frankly Victorian. + +From the outside the house looked quite innocuous. It was one of +those roomy, squarely built mansions, that stand in respectable +gardens on the outskirts of North London. But the porch showed a true +individuality. It contained two highly glazed yellow pots, filled with +aspidistras, standing on a floor of coloured tiles. + +As soon as one entered the hall the fun began. There were black china +negresses, ‘nice bright’ wallpapers, heads of healthy animals, glazed +oleographs, and at every turn, photographs of some royalty in a large +silver frame. One object in the billiard-room I particularly admired. +This was a sofa, covered with cushions of really inspiring colours. +One cushion, which was placed between a blue and orange stripe and a +form of black check, had for its main design the Star-spangled Banner, +worked in blue and crimson wools. + +Conversation amid such surroundings was bound to be exciting. Lipton +got under way, and let flow an apparently inexhaustible stream of +reminiscences. There was something very appealing in listening to the +candid confessions of an entirely self-made multi-millionaire, who +gloried in the fact that he _was_ self-made. + +Lipton told me that he was the first English tradesman who really +understood advertising. + +‘When I got my first little shop,’ he said, speaking with a beautiful +Scottish burr, ‘I realized two things: first, that if you wanted to +sell more goods than the man next door, you had to sell better goods. +Secondly, that if you wanted to sell a _great many_ more goods, you had +to make people look at ’em, whether they wanted to or not. + +‘D’you know what I did?’ And here he slapped his thigh and chuckled to +himself, ‘I got hold of two fat pigs, painted “Lipton’s Orphans” on +their backs, and used to lead ’em home from the market-place every day. +That was good advertising, wasn’t it?’ + +I agreed. + +‘But even better’s to come, even better’s to come!’ (Here the secretary +departed, and I had a suspicion that he had heard the story before.) ‘I +trained those pigs to lie down in the middle of the road just opposite +my wee shop! Think of it. Two braw pigs lying down like that. They +stopped the traffic. When we got a crowd round, somebody would say +“Why! _There’s_ the wee shop!” And they’d all trot along and look at my +window. What d’you think of that?’ + +And then he told me the story of Lipton’s Bank Notes--almost the best +piece of publicity that can ever have been invented. One of his chief +slogans was: ‘Lipton gives £1 value for 15_s._,’ something to that +effect, and in order to spread this slogan all over England he had £1 +notes issued with a note in very small type at the bottom that goods +to the value of £1 could be bought for only 15_s._ at any of Lipton’s +stores. So beautifully were these notes engraved that occasionally they +would be used, by canny and dishonest persons, in place of the real +article. The authorities learnt this and Lipton had to stop his notes. +But not before several little comedies had occurred. + +‘D’you know,’ said Sir Thomas, with a sparkle in his eye, ‘that a man +in an hotel at Edinburgh actually gave me one of my own notes as part +of my change? Did I what? No, I didn’t. He was a clever fellow, and I +let him keep it. + +‘_And_ ...’ here he leant back in a sudden paroxysm of mirth, ‘I was +travelling in the train once with two elders and they were talking of +the collection at the Kirk the Sabbath before. + +‘“Five pounds seventeen and elevenpence,” said one of ’em. + +‘“Aye,” said the other, “but three of the notes were Liptons.”’ + +Lipton has, of course, a real veneration for Kings and Queens. He +adores them with a fervour that at times almost becomes poetical, +and he can never quite rid himself of the shy wonder that he, the +ex-factory boy who started life on 2_s._ 6_d._ a week, should have +risen to such heights. + +He took me into his drawing-room (which I believe he called a parlour) +and showed me some of his collection of royal photographs, with the +remark that: + +‘No other commoner in the United Kingdom has ever entertained the same +number of crowned heads.’ + +Looking at the photographs, I could quite believe it. Royal photographs +are all very well in small numbers, but in quantities they become a +little oppressive. There were several rows of them on the piano, all +in heavy silver frames, there were pictures of Queen Victoria on the +wall, slightly fly-blown, there were portraits of King Edward, stout +and urbane, on the mantelpiece, and every table had on it a photograph +of some high-busted lady or be-whiskered gentleman, signed Augusta +or Charles or Emelia or John, or some such name, with the signature +written in that curious scrawl which denotes either a royal origin, +success behind the footlights, or delirium tremens. + +And yet--Lipton himself was still simple and charming. His pride was so +naïve that one could not possibly object to it. ‘The Kaiser said to me +...’ ‘Her Majesty remarked ...’ ‘The Prince of Wales and I ...’--they +were all only little pats on the back of the ex-factory boy. + +Even when he said to me: + +‘I’ve the largest collection of Press cuttings in the whole world,’ the +remark seemed, by the way in which it was said, to be in the best of +taste. + +The quality which I found most lovable about Sir Thomas Lipton was his +intense devotion to his mother. That was the only time when he was +really serious. He told me that all his life he had worked for her and +for her alone, and that he had never found any other woman in the world +who could make him forget her. And his very last words to me were: + +‘You stick to your mother, laddie, as you would stick to life. As long +as you do that, you won’t go far wrong.’ + + * * * * * + +I don’t know what it is about Hugh Walpole that I find, no doubt +wrongly, a little worrying, unless it is his appearance of complacency. +He _is_ so successful, isn’t he? I have really no right to mention him +at all, for I only met him once, and that was at a station, when we +were both ‘seeing off’ a mutual friend to America--a situation which +was sufficient to make enemies of us for life. But I had heard--oh, +a great deal about him from the friend in question, who was a very +delightful American woman who has been fairy godmother to a great many +young authors and artists. + +We were in Venice together (the very delightful American woman and I) +and one day she said, ‘Let’s go and get some lemons for Hugh Walpole.’ + +‘Lemons? They’ll go bad long before we get home.’ + +‘Not real lemons. Glass apples. Venetian glass. Hugh has taken a new +house in London and I want to give him a present.’ + +So we entered a gondola, pushed off across the silver water, and were +soon in Salvati’s, buying beautiful glass lemons for Hugh. + +If this is to be a history of my life, as it is rapidly appearing to +become, I had better get the subject of Venetian glass off my chest +at once. It used to drive me quite mad with excitement, and still +does--in Venice. On the morning in which the very delightful American +woman and I went in search of the lemons, a new and most divine set +of glass had just come in fresh from the factory. There were pieces +of yellow glass that were like frozen sunlight, shadowy goblets that +seemed to be bubbles poised on a puff of smoke, dim bowls that might +just have been taken dripping from the green depths of the sea, pots +of plain, clean glass with tiny fruits in sharp colours on the tops, +little twinkling plums and vivid sour green apples. There were rich +goblets engraved with golden dragons, and tall slim cups of grey glass, +like pale ladies coming out of a mist. + +We chose our lemons, entered the gondola, and drifted down the grand +canal. I did not particularly want to hear about Hugh Walpole, but he +was apparently ‘in the air,’ so I asked why he was so great a success +in America. + +‘Because they think he’s typically English. They also think he’s +exceeding clever,’ said the very delightful American woman (who may be +referred to as the V.D.A.W.). + +‘But he’s neither.’ + +‘How do you know? You’ve never met him’ (which was perfectly true). ‘He +_is_ typically English. His face is like an old English squire’s. And +he is very clever. Or at least we think so.’ + +And then the V.D.A.W. delivered herself of a very good piece of +literary criticism. + +‘You’ll find Hugh Walpole’s books in every best bedroom in the United +States, except possibly, in the very best ones, where you will not +find works in English but in French, to show that we have travelled. +Way out in the Middle West, there will be a copy of _The Dark Forest_ +or _The Prelude to Adventure_ carefully placed on a table near the +radiator. It will probably never have been read, but it will be there. +That’s culture.’ + +An extraordinary idea. ‘How does one get this reputation for culture?’ +I said. ‘My books have just as nice covers as Hugh Walpole’s, and there +is no reason why they should not also have the benefit of steam heat.’ + +‘You’re too young,’ was the only answer I got. + +However, I learnt more about Hugh Walpole, and at least discovered that +he had this very admirable quality--the capacity to plod. Right at the +beginning, apparently, Henry James had told him that if he went on, and +on, and on, he would eventually get there. It seems to me that he _has_ +gone on, and on, and on, but that he has not got there. Still, the +going is good. + +Then I met him. The scene was Victoria Station on a raw morning in +winter, with little wisps of yellow fog lurking under the high roof. +The V.D.A.W. was ensconced in her carriage behind a large bouquet of +roses which he had given to her. In her lap was an American magazine +which he had also given her. I noticed with a slight amusement that it +was ‘featuring’ a story by Hugh Walpole himself. + +When the train bearing the V.D.A.W. had departed into the fog, we +walked out of the station together. + +‘I hate seeing people off,’ he said. + +‘So do I. Especially people I like.’ + +‘Quite.’ + +He paused in the middle of the station and scratched his head. + +‘I should like to write a guide,’ he said, ‘on how to see people off. +It would be done in several moods. Grave and gay. Topics to be avoided. +Time-limits.’ + +‘The chief thing,’ I suggested, ‘would be to strictly limit’ (I noticed +that the split infinitive made him blink, genteel man of letters +that he was) ‘to strictly limit the number of times one said, “Well, +good-bye.” We must have said it at least sixteen times this morning. +Every whistle made us say it.’ + +‘I don’t remember saying it more than once,’ he remarked. + +Then we entered the Tube, and endeavoured to converse by shouting +feverishly into each other’s ears. (Oh! There is no doubt that we were +meant to be enemies for life.) + +‘I hear you’re doing dramatic criticism and book-reviewing,’ he +screamed. + +‘No, I’m not,’ I bellowed. ‘I’m only a reporter.’ + +Bang, bang, bang. + +‘Well,’ he shrieked, ‘that’s not as bad as the other.’ + +‘What is not as bad as which?’ I howled. + +‘I mean that book-reviewing’ (and here the train suddenly came to a +halt so that his voice boomed out like a sergeant-major’s) ‘is far more +soul-destroying than reporting.’ + +I should like to see Hugh Walpole battering at East End doors on +windy nights in winter, trying to gain admission to a house where a +murder has just been committed, and see which he thought was more +‘soul-destroying.’ + +‘I did book-reviewing for a long time on the _Evening Standard_,’ he +confided, in a hoarse whisper, ‘and’ (here the train started, so he +again had to yell) ‘it nearly killed me.’ + +Bang, bang, bang. + +‘And what about the dramatic criticism?’ I howled. + +He gathered all the remaining wind that was in his lungs and shrieked, +‘Don’t know so much about it. But I should think that would rot your +brain before long.’ + +He got out at Charing Cross, and as I hurtled along towards the +unaristocratic destination of Blackfriars, I pondered on the type of +mind that thought dramatic criticism would rot the brain. To see, night +after night, the curtain rise on the flash and light of the drama. To +feel, as every daylight faded, that some new pageant was gathering +to spread itself out before one’s eyes. To sit in the warm, scented +darkness and analyse the motives, the construction, the technique of +the play, even if it is a bad play. To have always the hope, sometimes +justified, that one would be caught up in the sudden rapture that +comes from great acting. Is that ‘rotting the brain’? Not, I think, +to a young man. However, Hugh Walpole is not a young man. He was born +middle-aged. But he is rapidly achieving his first childhood. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +A Memory--And Some Songs + + +One of the most wonderful evenings of my life was when, in the heart of +the Australian Bush, Melba sang for me alone. + +I ought, if I had a tidy mind, to describe how I got to the Australian +Bush, and how so divine a person as Melba should be singing to me +at all. But that can come in due course. For the moment I want to +recapture that scene as I lived it. + +There is a long room, panelled in green, lit only by the misty glow +from outside the windows, fragrant with the scent of yellow roses. +There are wonderful old mirrors that catch the dying sparkle of a Marie +Antoinette Chandelier. In the half-light so many lovely things shine +dimly ... a picture of dark, closely-clustered flowers, a case of fans, +delicate as the world of fairies.... + +I am standing at the window. There is a long veranda, and in the +distance I can see, faintly outlined, the pillars of the loggia that +leads to an Italian garden. Mountains, fabulously blue, rise on the +horizon and everything is very quiet. Only a few hours ago the air +had been rent with the shrill cries of parrots, flying to their +resting-place in the forests. Even while we had dined we could hear the +liquid warbling of magpies, that strange noise, like water gurgling +from a flask, which brings all Australia before me as I write. And +after dinner, while we had taken our coffee, the whole of the fields +around had echoed with the chirping of crickets. But now ... silence. + +And then, like a moonbeam stealing into an empty room, that voice, +which is as no other has ever been... + + _Dans ton cœur dort un clair de lune..._ + +The notes die away and there is silence again. I go on looking at the +blue mountains. Then, from the other end of the room, a sudden laugh, +the sort of laugh that people may make in Heaven, and-- + +‘Well, did you like me?’ + +I laugh too. It seems so utterly fantastic to attempt to appreciate in +words an art like this. Nobody ought ever to clap Melba. They ought to +remain silent. The greatest things in art are above applause. + +It was in, I believe, 1923, that I first had the delight of meeting +her, but it was not till the season had really begun, and I found +myself in Covent Garden, listening to the first opening bars of ‘_Mi +Chiamano Mimi_,’ that I really came under her spell. It was not the +first time I had heard her sing. As a small boy of nine I had been +taken to one of her concerts by my mother, and had greatly irritated my +family by informing them, when I returned home, that I thought she sang +exactly like myself. + +In a sense, there was truth as well as youthful complacency in that +criticism. Her voice _is_ like a choirboy’s, as crystalline, as utterly +removed from things of the earth. + +One day she said to me, with characteristic directness, ‘You’re not +well. You’re poisoned. You’ve been working too hard. You ought to come +out to Australia and help me with my Opera Season.’ + +I denied indignantly that I was poisoned. (My doctor afterwards +confirmed her diagnosis.) I said that I knew nothing about Opera. But +all the same, though it was some six months later, I went out to join +her in Australia--that was in the beginning of 1924. + +Melba is so great a woman--I use the word ‘great’ in the fullest +sense--that one cannot possibly attempt a full-length portrait of her +in a few pages. But, from the notebook of my imagination, I may perhaps +draw out a few pages, roughly scribbled over with thumbnail sketches, +that may make you feel you know her a little. + +I shall take the sketches simply as they occur, without attempting +to put them in order. The first one is labelled ‘energy.’ The +face of Melba appears, rising calmly over a heavy _chaise-longue_ +which, unassisted, she is pushing across the room. It is one of her +furniture-moving days. The whole of her boudoir is upside down. +Pictures stand in rows against the walls, china is ranged along the +floor, and over the chairs and sofas are scattered quantities of +bibelots--pieces of jade, little mother-of-pearl boxes bearing the +words _Souvenir_ and _Je pense à toi_, crystal clocks, a tiny gold case +containing a singing bird with emerald eyes. + +The furniture-moving goes on. I endeavour to help, and am told with +great frankness that I am far more bother than I am worth, and that I +had better content myself with watching. And so I watch, amazed. Little +by little the room takes shape. At one moment she is standing on a +chair, and the next she is kneeling on the floor, doing the work of six +British labourers. _Voilà._ It is done. And she is at the piano again, +trilling like a newly fed thrush. + +If Melba had had no voice she might have made a fortune as an art +connoisseur. I have been driving with her sometimes, and have seen, +on the other side of the street, a window full of antiques. ‘Look,’ I +have said. ‘Don’t you think there might be some fascinating things in +there?’ She looks. In the space of ten seconds her eye has taken in the +entire contents of the window, and she either says ‘All fake,’ or she +stops the car. I have never known her wrong. It is as inexplicable to +me as the feat of the eagle which can see a mouse hidden in a field of +corn a mile beneath. + +So many people who like to pretend that they are artistic will tell you +that they cannot bear to live with ugly things. They will say this with +pained expressions, even when they are sitting, apparently unmoved, +beneath a Landseer stag, on a Victorian settee. With Melba it really +is pain. Whenever I see her in an ugly room I know the exact feeling +of the Oyster who is irritated by a piece of sand. She is restless. +Her eyes dart hither and thither. She bites her lips. For two pins she +would get up and hurl things out of the window. + +I shall never forget once when she was singing three times a week in +the Opera at one of the great Australian cities, and was staying in +an hotel in order to be near the theatre. She came down at about ten +o’clock to go for a drive. I met her in the hall. As we were going out +she paused in the entrance way and said: + +‘Those pots. Look at them. They’re hideous enough in all conscience, +but they’re made ten times worse by being pushed out in that ridiculous +position. Let’s push them back against the wall.’ + +Now wherever Melba goes in Australia there is always a little crowd in +her wake, as though she were the Queen of the Continent, which indeed +she is. And the prospect of moving pots in the entrance of an hotel +struck me as alarming in the extreme. + +I mumbled something about ‘waiting.’ She looked at me scornfully. +‘Wait?’ she said. ‘What for? Come on.’ + +Without the faintest interest in the sensation she was making, she +bent over and began to move the first pot into position. I shall never +forget the sparkling look of satisfaction on her face, the slight flush +that the effort caused, the waving ospreys in her hat, and the cry of +‘There--isn’t that better?’ when the first pot was placed in position. + +I saw a tall red-faced individual glowering down on us. + +‘Excuse me,’ he said. + +‘I’m Melba,’ she said. ‘I’m doing some furniture-moving for you.’ + +He was quite speechless for a moment. Then, after a gulp he managed to +say, ‘But, Madame....’ + +‘Oh, I shan’t charge you anything,’ she remarked. + +Those pots are as she placed them to this day. + +The next sketch is labelled ‘The Singing Lesson.’ There are the +outlines of a long bare room, a platform, some seats in front, occupied +by professor and pupils. Melba sits by herself in a corner, biting a +pencil. A pupil steps on to the platform and begins to sing. Suddenly +the voice rings out, ‘Stop!’ + +As though she had been shot, the pupil stops dead. Melba gets up from +her seat, goes to the platform, says to the accompanist, ‘Let me sit +down a minute,’ and then turns to the girl. + +‘I’m not going to eat you,’ she says. Her own smile brings an answering +smile to the face of the girl. + +‘Sing me “Ah.”’ + +‘Ah.’ + +‘No--“Ah”--’ up here, in the front of the mouth. + +‘Ah!’ + +‘No. You’re still swallowing it. Listen. Sing mah. Close your lips, +hum, and then open them suddenly. Mah, mah, mah.’ + +‘Mah, mah, mah.’ + +‘That’s better. Now higher. Right. Higher.’ + +She takes her up the scale. At F sharp she stops. ‘Piano. Please, +please, _pianissimo_! You’ll ruin your voice if you sing top notes so +loud. Better, but still too loud. _Pianissimo!_’ She leans forward, one +finger to her lips. + +Somewhere about the top B flat the girl cracks. She blushes and turns +appealingly to Melba. Melba takes no notice and strikes a note higher. + +‘I don’t think I can....’ + +‘I don’t care what you think,’ says Melba. ‘Sing it.’ + +‘But I shall crack.’ + +‘That doesn’t matter, I don’t mind what sort of noise you make. I just +want to hear it.’ + +The girl attempts it again, the note is pure and round. + +Melba rises from the piano and steps briskly from the platform. ‘She’s +got a lovely voice,’ she says. ‘A lyric soprano. She’s taking her chest +notes too high, that’s all. Send her up to me and I’ll make that all +right.’ + +I wonder how many other prima donnas there are in this world who would +do that, who would put themselves to endless pains and expense, simply +for the love of song. + +I have yet to be informed of their names and addresses. + +The third sketch is labelled--the artist. The scene is a rehearsal of +_Othello_. For three hours she has been singing, directing, talking +at one moment to the orchestra, at the next, to the stage hands, to +anybody and everybody. The scene is set for the last act, and with +her meticulous sense of detail she has been busying herself with +the crimson draperies that overhang the bed. Now she is standing in +mid-stage, sending her voice up to the men who work the lights. ‘More +yellow,’ she is crying, ‘more yellow. This isn’t a surgery. You’re +blinding me. That’s better. Wait a minute. Not so much of that spot +light on the bed. I am not a music-hall artist.’ Then, _sotto voce_, +‘How on earth does the poor man think that Desdemona could go to sleep +with a light like that in her eyes?’ + +She is almost the only woman I have ever known who has an absolute +horror of the slip-shod. Study her day when she is singing in opera. +She is up with the lark. After breakfast she is in her boudoir, +‘warming’ her voice, studying her rôle from start to finish. She +lunches frugally, drinking only water. After lunch she drives or walks. +At five there is the pretence of a meal--an omelette or a little fish. +From now onwards she eats nothing till after the performance. + +She is in her dressing-room from an hour and a half to two hours +before the performance. Her make-up is scrupulous. She describes in +her autobiography the importance which she attaches to the minutest +details of make-up, but I don’t think that even her own description +quite makes one realize the perfection of it. From her wig to her +shoes, everything is as it should be. I have seen her reject fifty +shawls for the part of Mimi, simply because they were not in keeping +with her idea of the character. + +Sketch four might be named Courage. I remember a day when we were +driving together, and, as she stepped from the car, the chauffeur +slammed the door full on to her fingers, crushing them cruelly. She +cried--‘Oh, my hand!’ and the door was feverishly dragged open again. +She bit her lip, walked into the theatre, sat down and closed her eyes. +That was all. There was no hysterics, no ‘Vapours,’ not even a tear. + +It is not only in physical courage that she excels. She has the sort +of gay fearlessness which allows her to motor late at night through +the Australian Bush with only a single chauffeur, and jewels of more +value than I should care to estimate. One night she was motoring home +with Lady Stradbroke, who is the wife of the Governor of Victoria. The +car broke down in the middle of a forest. The chauffeur had to run off +into the darkness, leaving the women alone. There they sat for a full +hour. Any tramp, any of the roving, husky ‘sun-downers’ with whom the +Bush abounds, might have come along and taken all they wanted. Lady +Stradbroke told me that though she herself was shaking in her shoes, +Melba kept up a perpetual babble of chatter. I asked her when at two +o’clock in the morning they arrived, if she had not been fearfully +agitated. She laughed her unforgettable laugh. ‘Agitated? Me? They +wouldn’t hurt _me_. I’m Melba.’ + +‘I’m Melba.’ It is something to be able to say that. Something to be +able to go up to an old woman selling roses in the streets of Paris +and say ‘_C’est_ Melba’ and to have the roses pressed into your hands +in a sort of homage. Something to know that wherever music is played +or songs are sung all over the world, the artist who is playing before +you is giving his utmost. Something to be able to lean back in the +theatre stalls at a first night, and to say to Bernard Shaw, as I once +observed, ‘I know who _you_ are’ and to receive the answer: ‘You don’t +know me nearly as well as I know you.’ + +And to remain, at the end of it all, so simple that you are never +happier than when eating macaroni in a restaurant where you may have +your fill for two shilling, so humble that you will kiss the cheek of +the youngest débutante whom, you feel, has in her something of the +divine fire. + +Melba, I salute you. It is not my fault that this sketch of you is so +inadequate. It is yours. I cannot paint landscapes on threepenny bits. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +Hicks--Hicks--and Nothing but Hicks + + +It is a matter of very small importance either to Seymour Hicks or +to anybody else that I regard him as capable of the finest acting on +our stage. It merely gives a keynote to what is written below, if you +should be kind enough to read it. + +I never really knew Seymour until we went to Australia on the same +ship, and if you want to know anybody well, go through that very +disagreeable experience, and nothing will be hidden from you. I had of +course met him in London, we had eaten together, drunk together, and +had feverish conversations in his dressing-room when he had arrived +late for his Act and was endeavouring to put on grease paint at the +rate of greased lightning. + +But all that goes for nothing. Wait till you have eaten stale fish +and bottled cream at the same table for six weeks, till you have been +bitten by mosquitoes at Colombo and rolled together in the Australian +Bight, till you have been bored silly by the ship’s wits and driven +almost crazy by the ship’s sopranos--wait till you have done all those +things, and somehow managed to come through them smiling, and then you +can certainly call a man a friend. + +Admiration is never a bad basis on which to start a friendship, and +I passionately admired the artistry of Seymour Hicks. Only recently +I had seen his performance in _The Love Habit_, and my eyes were +still dazzled by his performance. The accomplishment of the man! The +tricks! The diabolical cleverness! Watch him _listen_, for example. +There is no more difficult or less understood art on the stage than +this one of listening, and when you have seen Seymour listening, you +have seen the whole thing, inside out, upside down, backwards. The +head slightly forward, the eyes fixed on the speaker, the whole body +set in a poise which seems to suggest a question mark that gradually +straightens itself out as the question is resolved, to end as a mark +of exclamation. And the face! As each sentence is uttered, he seems +to hear it for the first time. A tiny flicker at the mouth, a faint +narrowing of the eyes, an almost imperceptible wrinkling of the +forehead ... if I were an actor I should go and hide my head in shame +after such an example of virtuosity. + +And yet, with the exception of _The Man in Dress Clothes_, things seem +to have gone wrong with him lately, while mediocre artists have made +messes of plays which he might have transfigured with his genius. + +One of the first things he ever told me was the truth about _The Man +in Dress Clothes_--the play which was changed, in one night, from a +failure to a success owing to the intervention of Northcliffe. + +‘Funny thing, isn’t it, what the Press can do for a man?’ he said +to me one day. We were gliding silently one evening down the long, +straight reaches of the Suez Canal, and the atmosphere of desert and +clean-washed sky seemed to lend itself to conversation. ‘Take _The Man +in Dress Clothes_, for example. It had been running for three weeks +when Northcliffe saw it, and up till then it had been an absolute +failure.’ + +‘Why did Northcliffe come at all?’ I asked. + +‘Max Pemberton. He told him about it, and Northcliffe wrote me a +letter saying, “Dear Mr. Hicks, I don’t usually like plays, but I will +come to yours.” He came to a matinée. After the first Act he sent a +special messenger down to Carmelite House to order some of his staff up +to the theatre at once, and when I went to see him after the second Act +he said to me: + +‘“These gentlemen have just been instructed to boom your play, Mr. +Hicks. It’s the best play I’ve ever seen. There will be a photograph +of it in every edition of the _Daily Mail_ for the next month, and a +paragraph in the _Evening News_ telling London that London has got to +come and see it.” + +‘And, by Jove, they did come to see it. On the next day, in the +_Evening News_ appeared an article about my play headed “The best play +in London,” and the same night the receipts were multiplied five times +over. It became almost embarrassing. I used to get almost afraid of +opening the Northcliffe papers to see what they had written next. All +the same, it kept that play running for a year, and I am eternally +grateful to Northcliffe for that.’ + +One of the most interesting conversations I ever had with him was, of +all places, at the Sydney Zoo. Not that the Sydney Zoo is like ordinary +zoos. It is very superior, in fact almost beautiful. It lies above the +eternal blue of Sydney harbour, looking over the waves to where the +white houses and red roofs glitter in the sunshine. There are wattle +trees to give you a touch of yellow (how I wish Australians would call +wattle by its proper name--mimosa) and there are flame trees to give +you a touch of scarlet. And the animals in this particular zoo do not +seem to be in the zoo at all, for there are not cages, but pits. So +that there is a fine thrill waiting for anybody who does not know +this, for all the animals look as though they are about to leap out to +devour. + +The zoo had nothing to do with our conversation, but I cannot +dissociate it from its surroundings. Seymour was standing in front +of a paddock containing a number of kangaroos, which leapt about, +disdainfully regarding the stale monkey-nuts which were thrown to them +by sticky children. The kangaroo does not eat stale monkey-nuts. I have +no idea what he does eat, but he does not eat that. + +He gazed absently at the kangaroo for a moment, threw it a peppermint +drop, and said: + +‘Of course the only critic who’s going to be of any use to the English +Theatre to-day is the man who talks about the _acting_.’ + +‘You mean the acting before the play?’ I said. ‘I love talking to you, +because you agree with everything I say. You may say that the star +system is overdone, but no star, if he _was_ a star, has ever done +anything but good to the theatre. He ennobles everything he touches.’ + +Seymour nodded. ‘Look at Edmund Kean. Columns and columns of Press +cuttings I’ve got about him. They really criticized in those days. +They watched every movement, every gesture, they listened to every +intonation of the voice. They put him through a third degree of +criticism.’ + +‘And he came out triumphant?’ + +‘Not always. Pretty often. Anyway, what I mean is, they concentrated on +the _acting_, and they set tremendously high standards. Look at half +the critics to-day. They don’t care a damn. They spend half their time +in an analysis of the play itself, which interests nobody, and then +they say that somebody or other was “brilliant.” It’s wrong. A critic +ought to have two ink-pots, vitriol and gold. And he ought to be jolly +sparing with the gold one.’ + +‘The very first thing that struck me about the theatre,’ I said (I +wanted, you see, to encourage him to talk), ‘when I began criticism, +was that we were too afraid of being theatrical. Now, I like a theatre +to look like a theatre, to smell like a theatre, to feel like a +theatre. I don’t like a theatre that looks like a church or a town +hall. I like....’ + +This conversation is beginning to sound like a dialogue in the deceased +_Pall Mall Gazette_, but I really don’t mind. Seymour agreed with me, +and said: + +‘I’d far rather see somebody come on and say, “Gadsooks. My mistress +has forsaken me,” and say it as though he meant it, than see a young +man in a beautiful dinner-jacket light a cigarette, and mumble, “Oh +really, Flora seems to have gone off with Rupert,” as though he were +saying, “It’s a rather cold morning, isn’t it?” The last thing an actor +should fear is to be thought theatrical. When a really good actor of +the old school came on he struck an attitude. He bounced. He filled the +stage. You said, “By God, here’s an actor,” and you jolly well watched +what he did. Irving for example. + +‘Irving realized the enormous importance of a first entrance. Look at +his King Lear. Heralds approach. A train of soldiers. More heralds. The +suspense increasing every moment. You can almost feel him coming. You +lean forward in your seat, awake, expectant. And then--enter Irving, +slowly, with a falcon on his wrist. Now that’s _acting_. That isn’t +any nonsense about being life-like or trying to look as though you +weren’t an actor. As soon as a man does that, he _doesn’t_ look like an +actor, because he isn’t one, and never will be, and his place is in the +thirtieth row of a cinema, watching glycerine run down Mary Pickford’s +cheeks.’ + +There is more sound sense--I _could_ call it profound wisdom, but I +won’t--in those remarks than in half the nonsense that is written +to-day about ‘realistic’ plays and ‘realistic’ acting. You might as +well talk about ‘realistic’ music and praise a composer who sits down +at the piano and tries to imitate a waterfall. + +One night I was dining with Ellaline Terris and him, and it suddenly +occurred to me to tell them the plot of a rather gruesome short story +which had come into my head a few days before. When I had finished +Seymour said, ‘My word, what a play!’ In fact, everybody said, ‘My +word, what a play!’ And there and then we hunched ourselves round the +table and began to talk it out. + +Of course, we never did talk it out. That is why it is so charming a +memory. But Seymour can teach one more about play-making in a few hours +than most of the books (or, indeed, the plays) in the world. And people +seem to be interested in play-making. They like to know ‘how it is +done.’ So here goes. + +The first thing that he talked about was the absolute necessity of +deciding exactly who the characters _were_. It sounds obvious enough, +but if you have ever thought of writing a play you will probably +remember that you thought of a woman in a certain situation, and +beyond the fact that you knew she was good, bad, or merely improper, +you did not know the first thing about her. + +But, before we decided on a single line, we had to make those people +real people. We had to know not only what their lives were, but what +they had been, and why. In other words, we had to delve deep back into +the past (long before the period of my short story), into the drama of +the past, in order that we might approach the drama of the present with +minds forewarned. + +And then, when we had decided who the people were, we had to decide +exactly what the story was. All this sounds fantastically obvious, +but I assure you, it is not so obvious as it sounds. Take again your +own case, if you are an amateur playwright, as I feel convinced you +are, you have probably thought of it all in _Acts_. You have said +the first Act will be set in an attic, and will end with the arrest +of Joseph on a charge of some vice--(naming your own favourite one). +The second Act will be in a ballroom, in which Joseph’s fiancée will +spurn the Duke. And the third Act will be in a court of justice, where +Joseph is declared innocent. It is all wrong. You mustn’t do that. You +mustn’t even think of the theatre at all. You must think of life, of +what is happening to these people in the open air, in bed, when they +are asleep, when they are in their baths. Think of them as real human +beings. And then, when you have decided what they are doing, what they +have done, and what they are going to do, then go at it for all you’re +worth, and be as theatrical as a Christmas fairy, and good luck to you. + +And the other thing I learnt during those hours after midnight in +which we sat conspiring together, was that not a line must be written +before the construction is absolutely water-tight. You have to build +a play--a good play--like a jigsaw puzzle. Every little bit must fit. +There must be so much this, and so much that. There must be a place for +everything, and everything in its place. If you dribble into dialogue +too soon, you are done. God help you, for you will be like a ship +without a rudder, and you will lose your way in a sea of talk, blown by +the winds of every passing mood. + +It sounds prosaic. There is nothing of the thrill, which comes to +those who dash to their tables at midnight, and write out passionate +speeches in which perfect ladies declare their innocence and imperfect +women their guilt. But, after all, the greatest fun, I should think, is +seeing your play _played_. And the impromptu, passionate sort of play +doesn’t usually get beyond the paper on which it is scrawled. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + +Showing how a Genius worshipped Devils in the Mountains + + +All young men love paying pilgrimages, especially when the pilgrimage +is to some rather exotic and remote hermit who happens to be in the +vogue. Incidentally, I am quite convinced that the hermits like it +too. How often has one read, in memoirs, of the humble, too humble, +delight of some wild musician who is visited, in his retreat in the +Northern Hebrides, by young things from Oxford, who group themselves +in decorative attitudes round his carpet slippers. ‘To me, living in +the realm of art,’ he writes, ‘these visits from fellow-spirits in the +outer world are infinitely sweet, infinitely welcome. Mr. Bernard Bank, +of Brasenose, arrived to-day at dawn, praying that I might come down, +so that he should throw himself at my feet. I did. And he did. I feel +“remarkably refreshed.”’ + +I rather wish that I had gone to see Norman Lindsay in this way. He has +all the qualifications for a really good hermit scene. He lives in the +heart of the Blue Mountains beyond Sydney, he is an utterly isolated +figure in an immense continent, and his finely erotic designs have +given a great many dull people fits. + +But my visit to him, though picturesque, was sophisticated. I went out +to see him with Melba in an exceedingly comfortable car, and after +three hours of speeding along under tall white gum-trees, with the +flash of green parrots in the branches, we arrived at the broken, +tumble-down road which leads to the house where Norman Lindsay lives +with his wife and children. + +The instant I had passed through the wooden gate, which was blistered +by the eternal blaze of sunshine, I had a feeling of stepping on to +enchanted ground. (You observe, the hermit complex was already at +work.) From some bushes over in the corner a fawn’s head leered at +me through the shadows, and on the grass leading up to the house a +concrete lady with an enormous chest stared haughtily in front of her. +Advancing to the veranda one had a glimpse of the same lady, flying in +haste from presumably the same fawn--a really beautiful piece of rough +statuary which Lindsay afterwards informed me had been roughly ‘thrown +together’ in the space of a single afternoon. + +As for Lindsay himself--he did not walk towards us--he fluttered to us, +like a bird. So like a bird is he that I had a feeling, all the time, +that I must catch hold of the end of his jacket in order that he should +not fly up to a gum-tree and pipe his distracting arguments from the +topmost branch. He was so thin, so fluttering, his eyes were so bright, +his nose so like a beak, perched on top of the tiny neck. + +As for his talk--that, too, was bird-like--the words pouring out one +after the other, making one think of when the swallows homeward fly. +As difficult to follow, too, as a bird. In the first half-hour of +our conversation--(I say ‘our,’ although my contribution was limited +to negatives and affirmatives)--he had smashed the whole Christian +philosophy, set Nietzsche on a pedestal, made at least a hundred +genuflexions to him, pulled a long nose at Rubens, kicked Chopin out of +the house, and invited me three times to have a drink without doing +anything more about it. + +We went for a walk in the garden, Lindsay still talking. A child +appeared--a rosy cheeked thing with cherries embroidered round its +collar. It was clasping a doll firmly in its arms. + +‘The maternal instinct developed already, you see,’ he said. + +Odd, I thought. I felt that Freud had dropped something which Lindsay +had picked up, taken to a looking-glass, and read backwards. + +Somebody again suggested a glass of white wine. This time his eyes +sparkled. We went back into the house and drank. I watched him. He +talked of the wine as though he were a Bacchanalian. One had the +impression that he was only five minutes off a bout of drunkenness. +Yet, he sipped only a mouthful, and even that was taken with pursed +lips, as an old lady takes her tea. + +Odd, again. It was the _idea_ of intoxication, you see, that appealed +to him. The gesture was the important thing, not the reality. I +honestly believe that Lindsay could get quite drunk on coloured water, +if he were persuaded the water was wine. + +And then we went into lunch. I remember a room with huge windows and +sunshine blazing in. I remember an enormous plate of chicken and some +very red carrots. And most of all I remember Lindsay’s sudden pæan of +praise in favour of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata. + +‘He’s my god,’ he said excitedly, digging his fork into a particularly +beautiful carrot and waving it wildly about. ‘My god. The Appassionata +Sonata contains everything of life that life has to give. In its +rhythm you can find the secret of the entire universe.’ He ran from the +room and returned bearing a mask of Beethoven which he triumphantly +placed beside him. + +I cannot give you much of Norman Lindsay’s talk because I simply did +not understand it. He talks at such an immense speed, dragging so +many tattered philosophies in his wake, that one could only follow, +exceedingly faint, but pursuing. + +However, I did not give up the attempt. I tried to keep him strictly +to facts, and after lunch I led him to one of his concrete ladies and +asked him how he did it. + +His thin hand stroked the concrete lady’s chin with a lingering +affection. But he took not the faintest notice of my question, and +started off on a different tack. + +‘There are only two people whom I want to meet in England,’ he said. ‘I +wonder if you can guess who they are?’ + +Now, I never guess when asked. It is too dangerous. Do you know the +sort of people who have a face massage, arrange the lights, hold their +chins very high, and say, ‘You won’t guess _my_ age, I’m sure.’ They +are quite right. I won’t. + +Norman Lindsay relieved the suspense. ‘Aldous Huxley and Dennis +Bradley,’ he said. + +‘_What?_’ + +There must have been something a little tactless in my tone of voice, +for he frowned and said, ‘Well, I don’t see why you should be so +surprised.’ + +I was surprised, however, because it seemed such an odd couple to +choose. Lytton Strachey I could have imagined. Shaw, at a pinch. +Augustus John more than most. But Aldous Huxley and Dennis Bradley.... + +I still do not know, from the whirl of words with which he defended +his two idols, exactly what he meant. But from out of the chaos +there did eventually emerge something--that he considered them both +anti-Christian. Perhaps, after the psychic experiments of Dennis +Bradley, his ardour may have abated. I don’t know. + +Lindsay hates Christ. He hates him as one man hates another. It is in +no way the feeble sort of dislike which so many modern anti-Christians +entertain--the dislike which is explained merely by the fact that +Christ makes them feel uncomfortable, as though he were a skeleton +at the feast of life. It is a militant, violent hatred, the clash of +one philosophy against another. He ranges himself, a solitary figure, +against the angels, his whole mind and body tense with rage, his hand +gripped grimly round an unsheathed sword. + +It was not till I went with him to his studio, which is a sort of +wooden shack at the end of the garden, that I began to understand this +dislike. He danced round with portfolio after portfolio, producing +drawings which were a riot of pagan beauty, a miracle of design. But +the beauty and the art he seemed to pass by. It was the satire--the +anti-Christian satire--which he was longing to show me. + +‘Look,’ he said. I looked. He was holding up an immense engraving +crowded with figures. I have a dim memory of light shining through +pillars, of an endless staircase, of a conglomeration of strange, +dishevelled shapes, darkly etched in the foreground. + +‘Amazing,’ I said. + +‘Yes--yes--but don’t you see him?’ + +‘Him?’ + +‘Jesus Christ, man. Look.’ + +He put his finger on to the design. It touched a pale face--sickly, +anæmic, almost half-witted. It was like a patch of fever in the riotous +health and brutality which crowded it in on all sides. + +He laughed loud and long. I could not laugh. I felt absurdly, +desolatingly shocked. Not, I think, by what Lindsay had shown me of +Christ. But by something which he had shown me of--myself. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE + +A Defence of Dramatic Critics + + +A little while ago Mr. Philip Guedalla (that squib who never stops +fizzing) annoyed me very much by making rude remarks about dramatic +critics. He said that they looked like waiters or conjurers. I should +not in the least mind looking like some waiters I have seen, but he +was not referring to face or figure. He was being sartorial. And when +Guedalla is sartorial, God alone knows what will happen. + +He referred to the ‘dingy uniform’ of this ‘Sad Guild.’ It struck me as +slightly vulgar and entirely inaccurate. I would match my own exquisite +waistcoats (you know the sort--nothing at the back and a broad pique in +front) with Mr. Guedalla’s any day. It would be rather an entertaining +match. I can imagine our respective laundresses panting for days +beforehand, and I can see us strutting round and round, examining each +other for the faintest sign of a wrinkle. + +But it is not of clothes that I would write, but of dramatic +criticism, and the only excuse I have for holding up an imaginary +Guedalla by the scruff of his neck is because of that phrase ‘Sad +Guild.’ It is a childish, facile, meaningless phrase. It calls up the +stale conventional vision of rows of gloomy faces, ‘like Micawbers +waiting for something to turn down.’ It is the sort of phrase that +an unsuccessful playwright might use, to excuse his failure. As if +critics, by some Satanic grace, were gifted with power to fool _all_ +the public, in _all_ the theatres, _all_ the time. + +I am a dramatic critic. I know of no sad guild. I have yet to wear a +dingy uniform. Every time that I go to a theatre it is with a heart +beating high in hope. Every time that I open a programme and read that +‘the curtain will be lowered for thirty seconds in Act II to denote the +passing of a hundred years,’ I tremble with the satisfaction that only +make-belief can give. Every time I read that Mr. Clarkson has sold a +few more wigs, my being trembles with delight. To be a dramatic critic +does not imply that one must be old and shrivelled and pessimistic. + +I was absurdly young when I began. And I didn’t care a damn. If love of +the theatre was any qualification for criticism, then I was qualified +with the highest degrees. My first toy was a toy theatre. In the misty +days of the late King Edward VII I have laid for whole seasons on my +small stomach putting pink heroines and black villains in their proper +places. I have burnt candles for footlights as ardently as any human +saint burnt candles for sacrifice. I have drawn thunder from a tin can +and lightning from a piece of tinsel. And at school, when I should +have been engaged on more orthodox matters, I have routed out ancient +books on the theatre--as Æschylus knew it in Greece, as Goldoni knew +it in Italy, and, in dreams, have fought my youthful battles on those +vanished stages, made mock love with adolescent passion, closed my +eyes, and been, in rapid succession, hero, heroine, cynic, clown, every +emotion tearing my young heart to tatters. + +If you please, therefore, Mr. Guedalla, protrude your pink tongue, +apply your blue pencil to it, and erase that phrase about the sad guild +in its dingy uniform. It is unworthy of you, for you can fizz very +prettily, at times. + +I forget the name of the first play which I was ever called upon to +criticize, except that it was a worthless ‘comedy’ in the West End by +somebody who was evidently not fit to produce even a one-act sketch. +But with what infinite conscientiousness I attacked my task! I went +armed with pencils, one of which I produced from time to time in order +to scribble furtively on the back of the programme, trying not to be +seen and yet half hoping that somebody would see me, and realize that +I really was a dramatic critic. However, it was exceedingly difficult +to work under such conditions. One had rather to bend down and crumple +one’s waistcoat (which would bring one perilously near the condition of +‘sad uniform’), or else content oneself with a few desultory scrawls +which were usually illegible at the end of the performance. + +From such scraps, at first, was the criticism written, late at night, +while the echo of the drama still seemed to hover in the air. But +after a time I learnt that far the best criticisms were written +entirely from memory, at least a day after the play. Sometimes, if +there was a première on the night in which we were going to press, it +would be necessary to dash into the office and write half a column in +twenty minutes, surrounded by the buzz and clash of great machines +printing late editions. But criticizing in those circumstances +was dangerous--very dangerous. So elating, so intoxicating is the +atmosphere of the theatre, that a good actress seems transfigured, for +the moment, into a great genius. Not until the morning comes do we +realize only too often that she is just--good. + +For every capable play I saw--not great, but well-constructed and +interesting--I must have seen, at a very charitable estimate, twenty +bad ones. A mysterious thing the theatre. Entirely incalculable, one +would imagine, for the average run of men. I have asked myself time and +again, during the last year or so, by what dark process certain plays +have ever been born at all. I have sat back in my stall, in wide-eyed +innocence, listening to the sort of dialogue that, one imagines, takes +place during the meat-teas of our lesser lunatic asylums, endeavouring +to be interested in situations that contain nothing new, nothing +dramatic, nothing vital in any way whatever. And I say why? Why? + +I ask myself the same question during the _entr’acte_ in the bar, +with its warm humanity, its grotesque barmaids, its sparkling taps +and glasses. Here, where life is throbbing and intense, where the +presumably evil passions of those who have not drunk are offset by +the soft desires of those who have, the drama which one has just been +observing seems infinitely petty--the _dramatis personæ_ as ghosts +blown willy-nilly across a desolate stage by the winds of nonsense. +Again I wonder why? + +Before I endeavour to answer that question let me say that when I see +a real play I do not go to the bar. I either remain attached to my +seat in a state of trance, or else I go out by myself into the street, +collide violently with the stomachs of large fat men, get splashed by +motor-buses, and creep back, like a worshipper, just as the lights are +being turned down. + +We have still not answered the question, Why do such bad plays get +produced at all? The chief reason, I believe, is that one of the most +important people in the theatre is still paid rather less than the +ladies who sweep the carpets. That person is the play-reader. Mr. +Edward Knoblock was a play-reader before he wrote _Kismet_, and told +me that he used to read something like three thousand plays a year, +working all day and a good deal of the night, for some fantastically +small sum, like two pounds a week. Yet, on his decision (and very often +on his extra work in re-writing them), depended the expenditure of +thousands of pounds, and the making or losing of a small fortune. + +We have recently had a very illuminating illustration of the mentality +of the play-reader. A woman who for twenty years has been reading plays +for London managers (who, presumably, have been guided by her advice), +suddenly wrote a play herself, in collaboration with a man whose name I +forget. + +The play was duly produced, and it ran, by a miracle, for a week. +It was a farce, in both senses of the word. No adjective in any +language can describe its dreariness. (I believe there is a word in +Russian, which deals with a particular mental disease known only among +grave-diggers, but I have forgotten it.) If a nonconformist father and +a Baptist mother had produced a daughter of the lowest intelligence, +who had sedulously been kept from entering the theatre until she was +thirty, at which date she had been to a pierrot performance on a small +sea-side pier on a rainy day at the end of the season, and had then +returned with a splitting headache to record her impressions, that was +the sort of play she would write. Ten sentences of it, in typescript, +would have given the average reader a feeling of desolate despair that +the human brain could conceive such banalities. + +And yet, the author, for twenty years, has been (and to the best of +my knowledge, still is) a form of despot before whom all aspiring +young playwrights must make obeisance. She is the gate through which +they must pass, the play-doctor who must pronounce them sound. It is +all wrong. She may be a good mother, a brave woman, with a positive +passion for dumb animals. But she never has, never will, and never can, +be qualified to judge of any matter even remotely connected with the +theatre. + +With one notable exception--I need not name him--we know practically +nothing about ‘scene’ in the sense that Mr. Gordon Craig uses the word. +We use a lighting system as casually as we switch on a light in our +own bathrooms. We stick chairs higgledy-piggledy all over the room, +not realizing that in a play a chair is a perpetual _note_, a monotone +perhaps, but still playing its part in the general harmony or discord. +We have had one or two attempts at significant scenery in England +lately, but the scenery was so significant that it entirely dwarfed the +actors, who themselves were none too strong that they should be robbed +of even a little of their personality. One had a sense of infinite +sideboards, one was caught in the rapture that belongs to a really +seductive sofa. And the play went to pot. + +It has needed an American to show us what scenery can be. Need I +say that I refer to Mr. Robert Jones’s designs for John Barrymore’s +production of _Hamlet_? It is the most superb scenery I have seen in +any part of the world--the soaring arch, lost in gloom, brooding, +sometimes outlined in a sudden fretted splendour, tremendously aloof, +like the gesture of some genius who alone fully comprehended the +recessed mysteries of Hamlet’s soul. If I know the smallest thing about +the theatre, that was great scenery--as great, in its way, as the play +itself. + +Writing of Robert Jones--who, as one of the most important men in the +modern theatre, ought to be as well known in this country as Bernard +Shaw is in America--makes me want to ‘have you meet him,’ because +hardly anybody over here seems even to have heard of him at all. He +is exquisitely erratic. I have spoken of the marvellous arch which he +made for _Hamlet_, but I did not betray the secret of its inspiration. +That came from Mont St. Michel. And this was Robert Jones’s method of +getting to Mont St. Michel. + +He was going to Paris with an old friend. By some strange freak they +entered a train which was continually stopping at stations. After an +hour or so it stopped at a tiny station, surrounded by fields of blue +flowers, with hills beckoning in the distance. + +‘Let’s get out,’ said Robert. + +‘Let’s,’ replied the friend, who, with geniuses, always acquiesced. + +They got out, seized their luggage. Outside was an old Ford car. The +luggage was placed upon it. + +Robert took out a map. ‘It is only a few hundred miles from here,’ +he said, ‘to the sea. If we go straight across country we shall +reach Mont St. Michel.’ He made a rapid calculation. ‘We should +arrive at dawn. The towers will be rising out of the mist.’ (To the +coachman)--‘Drive to Mont St. Michel.’ + +And by that fiery spirit was created the scene which, to me, is the +only setting worthy of _Hamlet_. + +It would be interesting to know the extent to which the censor has +contributed to the present state of affairs. I think he is more +objectionable as a distasteful symbol than as a functioning official. +The obvious and natural idea that censorship in any form whatever is +more immoral than the most indecent work that can come from a human +brain has not yet penetrated our still medieval intelligences, but it +is gradually becoming evident. + +Professor A. M. Low, that brilliant young inventor, once said to me +that in a few hundred years an umbrella will seem as monstrously +absurd to our descendants as witch-burning seems to-day. The idea +of censorship will, I believe, share the fate of the umbrella. If a +dramatist wishes to express an idea by filling his stage with naked and +debased creatures, it seems to me amazing that anybody should have the +impudence to stop him. You are not forced into a theatre, any more than +you are forced to observe the antics of dogs in the streets. You can +stay away. You can.... + +But there. This is not 2125. It is 1925. One must wait--like the +witches. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR + +In which William Somerset Maugham makes a Delicate Grimace + + +William Somerset Maugham has no public personality. Although _Lady +Frederick_ has been prancing about the stages of the world for nearly +twenty years--dear thing--although the ‘leaves’ still ‘tremble,’ and +although ‘Rain’ is apparently never going to cease showering golden +drops into the pocket of its creator, William Somerset Maugham remains +William Somerset Maugham. He does not, like other successful authors, +suddenly develop piercing eyes, or a villa in Capri, or a pony, or a +rose garden, or any of the usual accompaniments of fame. + +Why there are so few tales about him, I can’t imagine, for his life +abounds in the sort of ‘copy’ which would bring a flush to the cheeks +of even the weariest Press agent. The story of his early struggles, for +example. He told it to me on one evening full of hope, when the first +adolescent strawberries had been discovered in the Café Royal, and were +blushing at the last oysters, the like of which they would never see +again, it being the last of April’s days. + +I can see him now, one cheek pink by the light of the red lamp by his +side, the other pale by the light of nature. His black eyes sparkled +like sloes dipped in wine, and, had a hundred others not forestalled +me, I should have said that ‘the eyelids were a little weary, as +though this were the head upon which all the ends of the world were +come.’ Maugham’s eyelids always are a little weary, but his mouth is +invariably on the verge of a smile. + +‘When I came to London,’ he said, ‘I had £3,000. I was twenty years +old, and I made up my mind that I should write for a living. For ten +years I wrote, but I hardly lived. Nobody would put on my plays, and +though my novels were published, nobody appeared anxious to read them. + +‘When I was thirty I had reached my last hundred pounds. I was mildly +desperate. And then, somebody suddenly decided, in a moment of +aberration, that they would produce a play of mine. The play was _Lady +Frederick_. + +‘I knew that if _Lady Frederick_ was a failure I should have to give +up the idea of writing any more, and should spend the rest of my days +in an office. I had no particular hope that it would be anything but a +failure, especially as the producer came to me, a few days before the +first night, and told me that there weren’t enough epigrams. “We want +at least two dozen more epigrams,” he said. I blinked at him, went away +to have a cup of tea, and put in the epigrams with a trembling hand, +rather as though I were a new cook sticking almonds on to the top of +her first cake. + +‘Well, I arrived at the theatre on the first night, knowing that I +should leave it either as an accomplished dramatist or an embryo bank +clerk. I left it as the former. I knew, from the very beginning that +the play was a success, because they began to laugh almost as soon as +the curtain had risen. I think it’s a great thing to get a laugh in +one’s first few lines.’ + +The adjective which is always used as a sort of sign-post when Maugham +is under discussion is the one word in the English language which I +thoroughly detest. I mean, of course, ‘cynical.’ It is the sort of +word that is used by speckled young women at tennis parties, when +one attempts to vary the monotony of the game by making a few gentle +reflections to one’s partner on the futility of existence. I once met +somebody (this is terrible, but true), who said to me the meaningless, +damning words, ‘I’m an awful cynic, you know.’ That person went to +prison. I understand the warders were so kind to him that he is now a +raving sentimentalist. + +We will, therefore, if you please, rule out this epicene adjective +from our discussion of William Somerset Maugham. Let us say, rather, +that he has the honesty to admit that he finds life quite meaningless, +seeing it merely as a procession of grotesque, painted figures winding +out of the darkness into a momentary patch of light, and then drifting +into a deeper darkness still. But he does not beat his breast, in the +manner of Thomas Hardy, and rend the clouds over Bryanston Square with +blasphemies. He lies back, lights a cigarette, beckons to a few of +the more ridiculous persons in the procession, and sets them dancing +on the stage of his own imagination. And I can quite believe that the +substantial royalties which result are far more satisfactory than any +misty philosophies. + +I am not speaking without the book. He summed it all up once by saying +to me, ‘I think that life has a great deal of rhyme and absolutely no +reason. I entirely fail to see that it means anything whatever. It +justifies itself only by the amusement it gives one.’ + +The occasion on which these bold and bad words issued from his +lips was, if I remember rightly, at a party where he, in the velvet +smoking-jacket which he wears on all possible occasions, was lying +gracefully against the back of a sofa. H. G. Wells was sitting bolt +upright in an arm-chair, while I sat most appropriately on the floor. +Thus I was at the feet of two masters at the same time. A sensation +which, had I been an American tourist, would probably have resulted +in apoplexy. H. G. Wells had admitted to a completely open mind on +the whole problem of existence, which, I presume, was the cause of +Maugham’s confession. + +But I don’t wish to give the impression that he strikes one merely as +a facile, elegant figure, skating on the surface of things, cutting +arabesques on the ice. His polished agnosticism is the result of a +deeper thought than the hearty optimism of many tiresome philosophers. +He told me once of the lasting emotion he experienced when, in a +remote cave in Java, he discovered frescoes, a thousand years old, of +peasants, using almost precisely the same instruments as were used in +the fields of Devonshire and Cornwall to-day. + +For a moment he looked entirely serious. ‘It gave me an overwhelming +realization of the changelessness of man,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t so much +the fact that they were using the same sorts of spades and hoes. One +saw beyond that into the essential sameness of their personalities. +Nothing is ever altered.’ And then the smile came back again. ‘I can’t +make out whether it depresses me or not.’ + +His style, in the same way, is no airy stringing of words, no naïve and +unstudied grouping of language. Like his philosophy, it has emerged +from many experiments. ‘I think I have at last got down to the bare +bones of style,’ he said. ‘I try to say what I have to say with the +greatest possible economy of language. I used to be terribly elaborate +and ornate. Now I write as though I were writing telegrams. And when I +have finished, I go over it all again to see what can be deleted.’ + +Maugham, I think, is eternally surprised that people find him shocking. +It is odd, but not so odd as the fact that _The Circle_ (which was +regarded in London as so innocent that hardly a single bishop fell +out of his pulpit about it) was found so hideously immoral in Paris +that the great majority of managers refused to take the responsibility +of putting it on. I was even more amazed when he told me that _Lady +Frederick_, which the Edwardians so genteelly applauded, caused a +great many heads to be shaken in Germany, and apparently provided the +Teutonic race with an excellent proof of the decadence of English +society. + +Speaking of the translations of his plays reminds me of a good story. I +once asked him what sort of sensation one had when one heard one’s work +played in a foreign language; if it made the author’s breast swell with +pride, or if it was merely irritating. + +‘I once found myself in Petrograd,’ he said, ‘and I was excessively +bored. I hardly understood Russian at all, but I decided that the only +way in which to cheer myself up was to go to the theatre. I went to the +theatre, choosing the largest and cleanest-looking one I could find, +and sat down to watch the play. + +‘It was a comedy, and, as far as one could judge, the audience seemed +to find it amusing. It did not amuse me in the least, because I +couldn’t understand a single word of what it was about. But towards the +end of the first Act it seemed to me that there was something vaguely +familiar about the situation on the stage. I had a sense of listening +to something I had heard in a dream. I looked down at the programme to +discover who had written it. The author’s name was Mum. And the name of +the play was _Jack Straw_.’ + +It was at Wembley, strangely enough, that he made the most provocative +statement which I have ever heard him make--the sort of statement +which sticks uncomfortably in one’s mind, like a burr. It was really +my fault, because Wembley, as usual, had depressed me to distraction. +To wander through halls of bottled gooseberries, called ‘Canada,’ and +bottled peaches, called ‘Australia’; to drag one’s feet past hideous +engines, labelled ‘Industry,’ and to listen to the indecent shrieks of +young women on toboggans, called ‘Amusement,’ strikes me as one of the +grimmest jests which life has to offer. + +There was only one thing to do in this sort of environment, and that +was, to talk about love. To talk at it, rather. I began to mutter +platitudes about love being a condition impossible of attainment, an +alchemy that had never been discovered. That no two people ever loved +each other with an equal fire. That the only possible love implied the +most rigid and exacting fidelity, in thought as well as in deed. And +that nobody (except bores and half-wits) ever achieved this condition. + +Then suddenly Maugham cut through these gloomy clouds with one +shattering sentence. ‘_I don’t see why one shouldn’t love people +flippantly_,’ he said. + +‘Flippantly!’ + +There danced before my eyes the ghosts of light ladies on broad +terraces, terraces which only knew the moonlight and were always +mysterious with the heady scent of dark roses. Flippantly! So many +difficulties solved, so many problems blown, like a puff of smoke, over +the thick forest in which I was wandering. If only one could recapture +the age in which those remarks really expressed a mode of life. +Here, in the British Empire Exhibition, the idea of ‘loving anybody +flippantly’ sounded almost like treason, as though one had stolen into +the Australian pavilion by night, and had extracted one of the bottled +gooseberries to see if they really tasted as nasty as they looked. + +And yet, I believe it is the right attitude.--No, I don’t. I believe it +is the most comfortable attitude. It is neither right nor wrong, it is +simply a matter of temperament. If, however, there were a little more +flippancy in the world, there might be a few less wars. Swords cannot +be unsheathed flippantly. Poison cannot be made with an airy gesture. +Notes cannot be flicked across the Channel from one ambassador to +another, like blowing kisses. If they could, they might not cause so +much trouble. + +That is, I think, the tremendously important function that Maugham +plays in the world to-day. He says to the world, ‘I know no more +about things than you. I have not the faintest idea where I came +from, whither I am going. Yes, I quite agree that we are in a very +distressful condition. But, just a moment ...’ (and here he takes one +by the arm), ‘if you look over in that direction, you will see a man +with an extraordinarily amusing face. He is talking to a woman who is +pretending to be in love with him. How tragic? Not in the least. If you +only realized, it is exceptionally amusing. Now listen, and I will tell +you a story....’ + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE + +In which Michael Arlen Disdains Pink Chestnuts + + +In 1870, had you chanced to be walking over one of the rough and +alarming roads that stretched across the Balkans, from Roustchouk to +Constantinople, you might have met a young man driving a bullock cart. +He would have been tall and dark, with a certain weariness round his +black eyes, and what might be described as ‘a grim determination’ round +his lips. (Yes--we will get to Michael Arlen in a moment.) + +The young man was setting out to make his fortune. And he made it. Not +all at once, it is true, for the road from Roustchouk to Constantinople +is long, and I should imagine, in 1870 it was even longer. And one +cannot make a great fortune quickly when one has only £20 with which +to buy Turkish delights, even when one sells them at double the money. +Bandits, too, who emerged from the forlorn countryside and attacked +one in the rear, were apt to make great inroads into one’s fortune. +However, in time, the young man had saved £50, at the age of 19. (Yes, +Michael Arlen is getting nearer and nearer.) + +When the young man had made his £50 he bought a beautiful coat of blue +velvet, with a scarf of coloured wool, and he was the beau of the +village. All the Armenian girls cast their black eyes in his direction. +His weariness, in consequence, was slightly alleviated. (I can hear +Michael Arlen chafing in the next paragraph.) + +One Sunday, this fine young man put on his velvet suit and went for a +drive round the town in an open cab. Apart from the open cab, it was +perhaps the greatest day in his life. For as he was passing under a +certain high window, he looked up and saw a girl who was fairer than +any girl he had ever seen. Their eyes met, and they were in love. She +drew back from the window, and cried, as all true lovers should. He +frowned, told the cab to drive him home, and went in his blue velvet +coat to demand her hand from her father. And as soon as her father had +said ‘yes,’ the first line, one might say, was written of _The Green +Hat_. For the young man was Michael Arlen’s father. + +I have introduced Michael Arlen in this manner because it seems in some +way to heighten the romance of his career. They had a great deal in +common, his father and he. They both treated life as an adventure, and +doing so, gained a rich reward. The only difference being that Arlen +senior went into business, whereas Arlen junior kept out of it. Arlen +senior lost his money in the war. Arlen junior made his money in the +peace. + +A very dainty young man I thought him, when we first drank wine +together at an hour when the last silk hat has drifted shamelessly +home in the Mayfair dawn--(which is as no other dawn). I use the word +‘dainty,’ not to indicate effeminacy, but to convey a certain nicety of +manner, a delicacy of tact. A very charming young man, it seemed, after +the third glass of wine. A very brilliant young man, I was convinced, +after the sixth. And I keep to the latter opinion, now that I am sober. + +So few people know him. He has such a tiresome legend attached to +him--a gilt-edged legend. He has been dehumanized in the popular +imagination by his success. I hate writing biographies of anybody but +myself and so, if I scrawl down a few disjointed lines, it is all the +information that you will get. But it is more than most people will +give you. + +Eleven years ago--a pound a week--alone in London. ‘So lonely I was,’ +he told me once, ‘I had nobody to speak to but my landlady. And even +landladies, after a time, lose their charm. They are the last people +who do, but still, it is inevitable.’ + +‘The New Age’--essays for two years--one friend. The friend, oddly +enough, was young Frank Henderson, whose delightful old father ties a +red tie better than any other Socialist in London, and runs ‘The Bomb +Shop,’ where one may buy the sweetest seditious literature on this side +of the English Channel. ‘I used to sit at the back of the shop, without +a bob, talking to Frank,’ he said. ‘I still do. We roar with laughter +as we see people coming in to buy _Mayfair_.’ + +_The London Venture_--£30 profit--a visit to Bruce Ingram, the Editor +of _The Sketch_--a commission to do twelve short stories of 1,500 words +each, at a remuneration of £8 apiece. ‘And now,’ he tells me, ‘I have +a contract for the rest of my life, which brings me in £900 for every +short story I write, whether it is published or not. Isn’t it silly?’ + +I liked that remark, ‘Isn’t it silly?’ It is the sort of remark that +any young man, with his pockets full of unexpected dollars, might make. +He sits down and writes. His stories are sent drifting round the world. +They come drifting back. Then, one day, they do not drift back. They +are published. They create a sensation. And he is ‘made.’ + +‘I have never met anybody who liked my books.’ Now that I have put it +down, that seems to me the most extraordinary sentence I have ever +written. ‘Never met anybody who liked my books.’ I can see him now, +as he said it, propped up against a pile of cushions in his flat in +Charles Street. The flat in question is at the extreme end of the +street, rather crowded out by its richer relatives, like a raw recruit +who has just shuffled hastily into line, and tries to look as though he +had been there from the beginning. + +‘You see,’ he went on, ‘I’m not really a fashion. I’m a disease. An +international disease. Nobody likes me. Most of the people who read me +say, “How horrid, or how silly, or how tiresome.” And yet they read me. +They’ve _got_ to, don’t you see? That’s really the cleverest thing I +did. I saw the rather feverish state of the body politic and social. +And I disseminated my poisonous prose right and left. They did not +catch it at first. A few people who have been thoroughly inoculated by +a habit of taking Wordsworth neat have not caught it even yet. But the +great majority have fallen by the wayside. And how they hate it!’ + + * * * * * + +I don’t like people who do not adore their mothers. It seems a strange +thing to say, just like that, in the middle of this little caper with +Michael Arlen, but it is not quite so irrelevant as you think. Michael +Arlen is a nice young man, and he adores his mother. The first proceeds +of _The Green Hat_ may now be seen round Mrs. Arlen’s neck, in the +shape of a chain of glistening pearls. + +‘She reads _The Green Hat_ serially in an Armenian paper published in +Constantinople, which is sent to her in Cheshire,’ he told me. ‘You +see, she hardly speaks a word of English. But,’--and here he looked +almost earnest for a moment--‘I defy anybody to tell me that I write +English like a foreigner.’ + +He doesn’t. He analysed his style to me as ‘influenced by an early +study of de Quincey, with a side glance at the eighteenth century.’ +I think it a very beautiful style. A liqueur style, of course, to be +sipped with discretion. But one does not sneer at yellow chartreuse +because one cannot turn it on from a tap. There is a lingering cadence +about it, a lazy passion, as though he were lying on a sofa by a bowl +of roses and picking them to pieces one by one. I shudder at that awful +simile. But it shall stand. It vaguely expresses what I mean. + +I mentioned yellow chartreuse. Immediately it brought into my mind’s +eye the huge yellow Rolls-Royce which he suddenly bought, and equally +suddenly gave away--(to his mother). Somehow that car seemed to help +me to understand him. It was luxurious, and he adores luxury. It was +six inches longer than any other car in London, and who would not, in +their heart of hearts, delight in that distinction? And it had, on the +number plate, M.A. He had taken the car all the way to Manchester to +be registered, in order to have that mark put on it. ‘It is exactly +the sort of car that my sort of success demands,’ he said, a little +wistfully. It was. + +I remember driving round and round Hyde Park in this car, on one of +those early summer evenings when one feels one’s whole life has been +devoted to the consumption of strawberries. We drove round until I felt +slightly dizzy. But in spite of the dizziness I remember a great many +things we said, for we were in good form just then, and Michael had +been lying in bed all day, ‘from fatigue.’ + +‘One day,’ he said, and his eyes were half closed, ‘there will be a +house in a square--fountains and silky animals--women....’ + +I wondered. Silky animals? Women? Which was which? Or was each, +neither? If you understand me.... + +‘And,’ he said, ‘I shall go away, sell everything, go right away.’ The +car whirled round a corner. ‘With two innovation trunks.’ + +We were on a straight piece of road, and my head was clearer. + +‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘about _The Green Hat_.’ + +‘There is nothing to tell.’ + +‘There is everything to tell about something which makes one a +millionaire.’ + +‘Ah!’ The Albert Memorial hove in sight, and we were both silent, and +a little awed. Then, ‘It was written in two months. At a place called +Southport, in Lancashire. I wrote solidly every day for ten hours. Lots +of drink and no friends. I would write all the morning. Then, in the +afternoon, I would read what I had written. Then in the evening I would +re-write it again.’ + +The Albert Memorial had vanished into the distance, as even Albert +Memorials do (which is the consolation of life), and he told me more. + +‘And on each new morning,’ he said, ‘I would begin by writing the last +two pages over again, to get me into the mood of the thing. There are a +hundred thousand words in _The Green Hat_.’ + +‘It makes me feel exceedingly hearty,’ I said, ‘to think that “we +authors”’ (you see, the Albert Memorial was still with us in spirit), +‘are capable of such a physical strain.’ + +The car whizzed once more round a bend. ‘Look quickly,’ I said. ‘Over +there. A pink chestnut has forgotten the time of year. It ought to have +been over long ago. And look at it now. _Please_....’ I was becoming +agonized. + +‘I never look at views,’ he said, examining his small hands with +intense interest. + +‘A pink chestnut is not a view. It is an emotion.’ + +He flicked his fingers, and sighed. ‘Only people,’ he said. ‘And +streets, of course. But I hate views. Going across America I never +looked out of the window. I was too excited by the people inside. Trees +and hills and valleys say nothing to me. Weather says very little to +me. Environment leaves me cold.’ + +We had whizzed far enough. I called a halt, and I got out. And Michael +Arlen waved his hand with an eighteenth-century grace, the pink +chestnut outlining his head like a halo that has missed its way. + +_Au revoir_--you charming person! I seem to see you wandering away from +me, rather inconsequently, down one of the grey, misty streets of the +Mayfair which you love. You make, in some vague way, romance even of +Berkeley Square. I had always regarded it as dull. But to you, it has +a beauty. It tells you so many secrets. And though, in the morning, I +feel that I know the answer to those secrets, at night you touch them +with magic, you colour them with something of your own subtle spirit. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX + +Containing the Hideous Truth about Noel Coward + + +I should like to draw Noel Coward rather than to talk about him--to +take up my pen and trace, with infinite subtlety, the rather bumpy +forehead, the keen nose, the darting eyes--the mouth, especially the +mouth, which seems constantly on the point of uttering delicious +impudences. + +But when I draw people, they are always Queen Victoria. They have +invariably the same dejected eyelids, the same flaccid lips. Even +the addition of a moustache fails to conceal the resemblance. And +though Queen Victoria and Noel Coward have much in common--(e.g., an +invincible determination, and a well-founded conviction that they are +typical of their age)--I must content myself with words, and not with +lines. + +I first really began to know him one evening before the production of +_London Calling_. It was a cold night, there had been a party, and, as +far as I remember, a number of us found ourselves in a long, golden +room, faintly fragrant with something of Coty’s. It was late, but +nobody minded, for there was a feeling about the room which was neither +of night nor of day, but of that exquisite indetermination which lulls +the senses into a lazy oblivion. To complete the picture, you must add +an immense couch, covered with green cushions and purple women, and one +of those sleek, black pianos that simply demand to be played upon. + +It was played upon, by Noel Coward. I wish I could recapture that +scene--his curious, agile fingers, the husky voice in which he half +sang, half spoke, his lyrics--rather insolently tossing us an +occasional spark of wit, drifting with complete indifference, into a +line of baroque poetry: + + ‘_Parisian pierrot, society’s hero_....’ + +And all the time, propped up against the piano, a languid French doll +was regarding him with painted eyes, as though it were saying, ‘_You_ +are the only person who understands me here.’ + +But it wasn’t. I think I understood him, too, rather better than the +purple women. For he was outside this curious and typical scene, as +a spectator, not as a participator. Even though he was the centre +of attraction, he was, in a sense, hovering on the edge of it all, +intensely interested, entirely detached. Somebody would say to him, +‘Isn’t that marvellous?’ And though he replied, ‘_too_ marvellous,’ +with exactly the intonation that was required of him, there was a look +in his eyes which suggested that he really meant, ‘It is not marvellous +at all. And you, my dear, are an empty-headed fool for calling it so.’ + + ‘_Parisian pierrot, society’s hero_....’ + +There is more in those four words than most of the amiable young ladies +who play it in the wrong key would imagine. Something of a sneer, I +believe. I have an imaginary picture in my mind which illustrates the +phrase. The party is over, the last cigarette has burnt itself into an +obscene mess in the ash tray, the roses have drooped their expensive +and artificial heads in a despairing gesture. Only the doll remains +alert, staring in front of it with the same painted eyes. This is the +doll’s hour. And Noel goes up to it, smiling--(I should like to say +‘sardonically,’ but it sounds too like a tailor’s advertisement), and +negligently twitches its hand, and fingers its ruff, and probably, as a +final gesture of contempt, flicks his finger on its stumpy nose. + +As a matter of fact, no such touching scene was enacted after this +particular party, for we walked back to my flat together, and there, in +an atmosphere devoid of dolls, in front of one of those gas fires which +look like skulls roasting in hell, I learnt a great deal about Noel +which I had never hitherto suspected. + +I learnt, for example, that his first trip to the United States, which +was announced with so harmonious a flourish of trumpets, had been +accomplished on the sum of £50. ‘Nobody would put on any of my plays,’ +he said. ‘There was nothing for me to do in England. So I sold some +songs and went to America. I published a book which nobody read. I was +a failure. But--oh--how successful I pretended to be.’ + +That was typical of Noel. His conceit he reserves only for his public. +For himself and for his friends he has none at all. That bold and +impudent mask with which he covers his real feelings when attacked by +the Press is gently lowered as soon as the last reporter has vanished +through the front door, and with a sigh he returns to the abnormal, +weary of misrepresenting himself to mediocre minds. He is not in the +least affected by the numerous women who powder their noses at his +newly erected shrine. He demands criticism. + +One picture of him will always remain in my mind. It was behind the +stage at the Everyman Theatre after the first night of _The Vortex_. +Noel was hunched up in a chair in front of a fire, on which a kettle +was making pleasant domestic noises. His face was still haggard from +the ghastly make-up which he wears in the third Act, and he flaunted +a dressing-gown of flowered silk which I have never ceased to covet. +We were in semi-darkness. As the firelight flickered, so did our +conversation--staccato, a little taut and weary. + +‘You’re terribly kind,’ he said. ‘And now please tell me the truth.’ + +‘I’ve told you nothing but the truth.’ + +‘The whole truth?’ + +I laughed. ‘Well--the last Act--the very last few minutes....’ + +The flowered silk rustled. He was sitting upright. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘I thought it too indeterminate. You plunged us into that terrible +swamp of emotion and you left us there, sticking. I wanted some sort of +sign-post. I didn’t know whether I was going to sink or swim.’ + +‘I know. You’re absolutely right. I muddled that to-night.’ + +I thought to myself how infuriated I should have been if anybody in +that triumphant moment had dared to suggest imperfections, especially +if I had asked them to do so. + +‘There _is_ a sign-post,’ he went on. ‘Just the words, “we’ll both +try.” I meant to say them very clearly. I always shall in future.’ + +It is the habit among many dreary young men, whose failure in life may +be measured by the faultless fit of their waistcoats, to croon to each +other: ‘Noel, twenty-five? My dear, he’s at least thirty.’ One has the +impression that their pockets are stuffed with the birth certificates +of their enemies. It is not on the tedious evidence of a birth +certificate that I should accept the evidence of Noel’s youth. There +have been moments when I have felt, although we are about the same age, +that I was old enough to be his grandfather. + +One such moment was when we were lunching together and he suddenly +said, ‘I’ve got a secretary!’ He said it with such gusto, such a ring +of glee, that I felt exactly as though some pink and perfect child had +approached me, saying, “Look what _I’ve_ got! And if you wind it up it +will run right across to the fender.’ I am sure that Noel’s secretary +does not need to be wound up. + +On another occasion--(I do trust that I am not being impertinent. I am +only trying to put before you the real Noel. If he wished to pose as +a rich dilettante whose first epigrams had echoed under expensive and +ancestral roofs, it would be different). On another occasion, I met +him in the street, strangely enough, opposite a toy shop, and he said, +in an awed whisper, ‘I almost bought a manor house the other day.’ +There was something magnificent in that remark. I stood quite still, +slightly pale at the thought, and looked fixedly at one of the most +beautiful golliwogs I have ever seen. ‘I almost bought a manor house.’ +That wasn’t the remark of a depraved, doped genius. ‘I almost bought +a golliwog.’ Almost, you note. I knew, and he knew, in that rare and +transient moment, that he could not really mean what he said. It was +only bluff. It was a doll’s house that he was talking about. + +That last paragraph is involved, but it is meant to convey to you the +spirit for which nobody ever gives him any credit--the spirit of gay +adventure which is perhaps the most attractive thing about him. + +I wish I could be a Boswell, but I am quite sure that I couldn’t. I +should always be writing down my own remarks instead of those of other +people, which is probably what Boswell really did. And so, out of all +the delicious flow of impudences which has sparkled through Noel’s +lips, I can gather up not one single drop. + +But at least one thing I must say--that if Noel Coward could fall in +love, he would certainly write a greater play than _The Vortex_, in +the truest sense of that much-abused word. It may sound foolish, but I +should imagine that he found it exceedingly difficult to fall in love. +Love, in the accepted sense of the word, demands quite a great deal +of stupidity on the part of both concerned. Most of us have it. Noel +hasn’t. In the firm contours of his mind there appear none of those +unsuspected cracks through which occasionally the divine foolishness +may escape. It is as though his brain were like a perfect emerald +without a flaw in it, which is a paradox, for as Monsieur Cartier +will tell you, no emerald which does not possess a flaw is perfect. +One day, I believe, he _will_ fall in love, and the prospect is so +intriguing that I could close my eyes and allow my pen to scrawl +ahead indefinitely at the delicious prospect of Noel singing lyrics +(‘as clean as a whistle’) in the scented darkness outside many magic +casements. + +And when he does, something amazing is going to happen. For he writes +as a bird flies, swiftly, without looking back. With a bird’s-eye +view, too, of the theatre, which seems to give to his work a poise and +a dexterity which is almost uncanny. He showed me once the original +manuscript of _The Vortex_. The words, lightly written in pencil, +darted down the pages like a flight of swallows. They were eloquent of +the ordered frenzy which produced them. + +Finally, when anybody tells me that Noel Coward is ‘decadent,’ I feel +like hitting them across the mouth. Do you realize, you outraged +mothers and fathers of England, who sit back in your stalls deploring +the depravity of the author of _Fallen Angels_, that you are watching +a young man who for sheer pluck can give you all the points in the +game? Is it decadent to go on the stage as a little boy, and fight, +and fight, and fight, when your own sons are learning to be fools in +the numerous academies for English gentlemen which still mysteriously +flourish in our midst? + +Is it decadent to go on writing, without money, without encouragement, +with very few friends, always in the dim hope that one day, perhaps, +a play may be produced? And when that play is produced, to see it a +commercial failure--and the next play too? And when success comes, at +the age of twenty-five, to work harder than ever, to stand up to the +critics and to say, ‘I don’t care a damn’? Is that decadent? Or are you +merely being slightly more silly than usual? + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN + +In which I allow Myself to be entirely Sentimental + + +And thus, abruptly, I end. A line drawn, a cigarette thrown out of an +open window, a pile of manuscript pushed into the corner of one’s desk, +waiting to be sent to the typist. + +And thus, I suppose, youth ends. A line drawn under one’s eyes, a +sudden realization, as one is laughing or drinking, that the ‘stuff +which will not endure’ has worn itself threadbare. To what purpose? God +alone knows. Not I. + +I have enjoyed the writing of this book far too much to indulge in +any sudden moralizations. But I know my generation, this post-war +generation which has so baffled the middle-aged onlookers, who, from +the gallery, have watched the dance whirling beneath. And I know that +the one thing of which we are always accused--that we live for the +moment only--is the one thing of which we are disastrously innocent. + +We are none of us living for the moment. We are far too self-conscious +for that. We have formulated a creed of which the first principle is +that happiness, as an actual emotion, does not exist. ‘Happiness,’ we +proclaim, ‘consists either in looking forward to things which will +never happen or in remembering things which never have happened.’ We +are therefore young only as long as we can cheat ourselves, as long +as we can go on dressing the future in bright garments, and spinning +a web of illusion over the past. But in both cases the kind stuff of +imagination has to be produced out of our innermost cells, like spiders +forced every day to spin two webs. The process is apt to be exhausting. + +And yet--we are constantly forgetting our philosophy. A bright summer +morning will do it. An apple tree in fluffy and adorable bloom will do +it. Sometimes (for those of us who are most depraved), pink foie gras +will do it. But even then, we will not allow that we are happy. We only +admit the possibility of happiness--i.e., that there may be some form +of heaven, or even a mildly exhilarating hell. + +Again--I have done. Twelve o’clock strikes. There should really be +slow music playing outside my window, so that I might work myself into +a frenzy of pathos at the thought that another day has arrived to +carry me on to middle-age. I should rather like to stay, just a little +longer. But then--better not. Accept the joke of life for what it is +worth. It is not such a very brilliant one, after all. And was there +not a man, called Browning, who wrote: + + ‘Grow old along with me, + The best is yet to be.’? + + +_The End_ + + + + + Transcriber's Notes: + + Italics are shown thus: _sloping_. + + Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained. + + Perceived typographical errors have been changed. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76494 *** |