arnold bennett—g. k. chesterton—lascelles abercrombie—harold monro—john masefield—jerome k. jerome—sir owen seaman—a. a. milne
of all the famous writers i have met, i have found arnold bennett the most surprising. i do not know what kind of man i expected to see when it was arranged that i should meet him, but i certainly had not anticipated beholding the curiously, wrongly dressed figure that, one spring afternoon some few years ago, walked up the steps leading from the floor of queen’s hall to the foyer of the gallery. i was there by appointment. i was a friend of a friend of his—havergal brian, a young fire-eating genius from the potteries, and brian had planned this curious meeting. it was during the interval of an afternoon concert of a richard strauss festival, and ackté was singing.
bennett was rather short, thin, hollow-eyed, prominent-toothed. he wore a white waistcoat and a billycock hat very much awry, and he had a manner of complete self-assurance. i cannot say that i was unimpressed. we were introduced, and he looked at me drowsily, indifferently, insultingly indifferently. he did not speak and i, nervous, and a little bewildered by the colour of his socks, which i at that moment noticed for the first time, blundered into some futility.
“i don’t see why,” said bennett, in response.
i didn’t either, so far as that went. desperately uncomfortable, i looked round for brian, and saw 69him standing fifteen yards or so away, grinning malignantly.
so i plunged into a new topic—with even more disastrous results.
“i notice,” said i, “that you continue writing for the new age in spite of their violent attacks on you.”
“yes,” he answered laconically, and he looked dizzily over my left shoulder.
then and there i decided that i would not speak again until he had spoken. i had not sought the interview any more than he had. presently:
“i have been working very hard lately,” i heard. i turned quickly to him; he had spoken into space. i showed a polite interest and he thawed a little. he told me something of the number of words and hours he wrote a day, of the work he had planned for the next two years, of the regularity of his methods, of his disbelief in the value of “inspiration.” i seemed to have heard it all before about anthony trollope. he was not exactly loquacious, but he communicated a great deal in spite of a rather unpleasant impediment in his speech....
soon our interview was over, for we heard the orchestra tuning up, and we left each other with just a word of farewell and without a sigh of regret.
his conversational powers never, i believe, reach the point of eloquence. i remember g. h. mair giving me an amusing description of a breakfast he gave to arnold bennett and stanley houghton in his lodgings in manchester. bennett and houghton had not previously met, and the latter was young and inexperienced enough to nurse the expectation that the personality of the famous writer would be as impressive as his work, and impressive in the same way. it is true that very extraordinary circumstances would be necessary to make breakfast in manchester free from dullness, but houghton no doubt thought that his meeting with bennett was an 70extraordinary circumstance. in the event, however, he was disillusioned.
they went in to breakfast, and bennett sat moody and silent, crumbling a piece of bread. it chanced that on being admitted to the house bennett had caught sight of a cabman carrying a particularly large trunk downstairs, and he began to question mair closely about the incident, mair explaining that a fellow-lodger was removing that morning and taking all his luggage with him.
“yes, yes,” said bennett, a little impatiently, “but why should he have such a large trunk? it was enormous. i don’t think i have ever seen so large a trunk before. it was at least twice the usual size.”
he took a mouthful of bacon and spent a minute in mastication. having swallowed:
“absurdly large,” he said challengingly. “i can’t think why anyone should wish to own it. besides, it’s not right to ask any man to carry such an enormous weight. that’s how strangulated hernia is caused. yes, strangulated hernia.”
the topic did not prove fruitful, and i can imagine houghton cudgelling his brains to discover what strangulated hernia really was, and mair saying something witty about it. but with his second cup of coffee and his marmalade and toast bennett once more talked of the cabman, the impossible trunk, and the cabman’s hypothetical hernia.
“of course,” he remarked meditatively, “the man must have some reason for owning such an incredibly large trunk, but i confess i can’t guess the reason. and, in any case, it is bound to be a selfish one. now, strangulated hernia——”
and that was all that issued during a whole hour from one of the cleverest brains in england.
that arnold bennett is almost painfully conscious of 71his own cleverness there is no manner of doubt. he is stupendously aware of the figure he cuts in contemporary literature. he is for ever standing outside himself and enjoying the spectacle of his own greatness, and he whispers ten times a day: “oh, what a great boy am i!” i was once shown a series of privately printed booklets written by bennett—booklets that he sent to his intimates at christmas time. they consisted of extracts from his diary—a diary that, one feels, would never have been written if the de goncourts had not lived. one self-conscious extract lingers in the mind; the spirit of it, though not the words (and perhaps not the facts) is embodied in the following:—“it is 3 a.m. i have been working fourteen hours at a stretch. in these fourteen hours i have written ten thousand words. my book is finished—finished in excitement, in exaltation. surely not even balzac went one better than this!”
a great writer: no doubt, a very great writer: but you might gaze at him across a railway carriage for hours at a time and never suspect it.
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but if arnold bennett is the least picturesque and literary of figures, g. k. chesterton is the most picturesque and literary. his mere bulk is impressive. on one occasion i saw him emerge from shoe lane, hurry into the middle of fleet street, and abruptly come to a standstill in the centre of the traffic. he stood there for some time, wrapped in thought, while buses, taxis and lorries eddied about him in a whirlpool and while drivers exercised to the full their gentle art of expostulation. having come to the end of his meditations he held up his hand, turned round, cleared a passage through the horses and vehicles and returned up shoe lane. it was just as though he had deliberately chosen the middle of fleet street as the most fruitful place for thought. nobody else in london could have done it with his air of absolute unconsciousness, of 72absent-mindedness. and not even the most stalwart policeman, vested with full authority, could have dammed up london’s stream of traffic more effectively.
the more one sees of chesterton the more difficult it is to discover when he is asleep and when he is awake. he may be talking to you most vivaciously one moment, and the next he will have disappeared: his body will be there, of course, but his mind, his soul, the living spirit within him, will have sunk out of sight.
one friday afternoon i went to the daily herald office to call on a friend. as i entered the building a taxi stopped at the door and i found g. k. c. by my side.
“i have half-an-hour for my article,” said he, rather breathlessly. “wait here till i come back.”
the first sentence was addressed to himself, the second to the taxi-driver, but as we were by now in the office the driver heard nothing. chesterton called for a back file of the daily herald, sat down, lit a cigar and began to read some of his old articles. i watched him. presently, he smiled. then he laughed. then he leaned back in his chair and roared. “good—oh, damned good!” exclaimed he. he turned to another article and frowned a little, but a third pleased him better. after a while he pushed the papers from him and sat a while in thought. “and as in uffish thought he” sat, he wrote his article, rapidly, calmly, drowsily. save that his hand moved, he might have been asleep. nothing disturbed him—neither the noise of the office nor the faint throb of his taxi-cab rapidly ticking off twopences in the street below.... he finished his article and rolled dreamily away.
his brother cecil has the same gift of detachment. he can write anywhere and under any conditions. i have seen him order a mixed grill at the gambrinus in regent street, begin an article before his food was served, and continue writing for an hour while the dishes were placed before him and allowed to go stone cold. like most men 73in fleet street who do a tremendous amount of work, he has always plenty of time for play, and i do not remember ever to have come across him when he was not ready and willing to spend a half-hour in chat in one of the thousand and one little caravanserai that lurk so handily in the strand and fleet street.
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of poets of the younger generation i have met only three—lascelles abercrombie, harold monro, and john masefield. abercrombie i remember as a lean, spectacled man, who used to come to manchester occasionally to hear music and, i think, to converse intellectually with miss horniman. of music he had a sane and temperate appreciation, but was too prone to condemn modern work, of which, by the way, he knew nothing and which by temperament he was incapable of understanding. he struck me as cold and daring—cold, daring and a little calculating. he appeared unexpectedly one day at my house, stayed for lunch, talked all afternoon, and went away in the evening, leaving me a little bewildered by the things he had refrained from saying. really, we had nothing in common. my personality could not touch his genius at any point, and the things he wished to discuss—the technicalities of his craft, philosophy, æsthetics and so on—have no interest for me. if i had not studied his work and admired it whole-heartedly, i should have come to the conclusion that he had written poetry through sheer cleverness and brightness of brain. no man was less of a poet in appearance and conversation. he professed at all times a huge liking for beer, but i never saw him drink more than a modest pint, and his pose of “muscular poet” (a school founded and fed by hilaire belloc) deceived few.
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harold monro i used to see occasionally in the café royal, and i met him a few times at the crab tree club. 74i remember going with him, early one morning in june, 1914, after sitting up all night, to the turkish baths in jermyn street. we swam a little in a tank and were then conducted to a cubicle, where i wished to talk, but monro was heavy with sleep and soon began to breathe stertorously. a few days later he received me rather heavily at his office at the poetry bookshop, read some of my verses, and told me quite frankly that he did not consider me much of a poet. a sound, solid man, monro, and he has written at least one poem—trees—as delicate and as beautiful as anything done in our time.
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but neither monro nor abercrombie, greatly gifted and earnest in their work though they be, fulfils one’s conception of a poetic personality. there is no mystery about them, no glamour; they do not arouse wonder or surprise. john masefield, on the other hand, has an invincible picturesqueness—a picturesqueness that stamps him at once as different from his fellows. he is tall, straight and blue-eyed, with a complexion as clear as a child’s. his eyes are amazingly shy, almost furtive. his manner is shy, almost furtive. he speaks to you as though he suspected you of hostility, as though you had the power to injure him and were on the point of using that power. you feel his sensitiveness and you admire the dignity that is at once its outcome and its protection.
there are many legends about masefield; he is the kind of figure that gives rise to legends. and, as he is curiously reticent about his early life, some of the most extravagant of these legends have persisted and have, for many people, become true. but the bare facts of his life are interesting enough. as a young man he grew sick of life, of the kind of life he was living, and went to sea as a sailor before the mast. he had neither money nor friends; or, if he had, he relinquished both. the necessity to earn a living drove him into many adventures, and 75i am told that for a time he was pot-boy in a new york drink-den. here his work must have been utterly distasteful, but the observing eye and the impressionable brain of the poet were at work the whole time, and one can see clearly in some of masefield’s long narrative poems many evidences of those bitter new york days. how masefield came to london and settled in bloomsbury, becoming the friend of j. m. synge, i do not know. for six months he was in manchester, editing the column entitled miscellany in the manchester guardian, and writing occasional theatrical notices. i have been told by several of his colleagues on that paper that masefield’s reserve was invulnerable; he quickly secured the respect of his fellow-workers, but not one of them became intimate with him. he lived in dingy lodgings, he worked hard and, at the end of six months, withdrew to london on the plea that he found it impossible to do literary work at night.
but if the circumstances of masefield’s life are little known, his spiritual history is more than indicated in his work. here one sees a stricken soul; a nature wounded and a little poisoned; a nervous system agitated and apprehensive. his mind is cast in a tragic mould and his soul takes delight in the contemplation of physical violence. his personality, as i have said, is furtive. he shrinks. his intimate friends may have heard him laugh. i have not.
it must be nearly six years since i visited him at his house in well walk, hampstead. it was a miserably cold afternoon in february, and though it was not yet twilight the blinds of the drawing-room were drawn and the lights already lit. masefield’s conversation was intolerably cautious, intolerably shy. in a rather academic way he deplored the lack of literary critics in england; the art of criticism was dead; the essay was moribund. he expanded this theme perfunctorily, walking up and down the room slowly and never looking me in the eyes 76once. it was only when, at length, he had sat down—not opposite me, but with the side of his face towards me—that, very occasionally, his eyes would seek mine with a rapid dart and turn away instantly, and at such moments it seemed as though he almost winced. such shrinking, such excessive timidity, whilst arousing my curiosity, also made me feel no little discomfort, and i was glad when a spirit kettle was brought in, with cups and saucers, and masefield began to make tea.
this making of tea, a most solemn business, reminded me of cranford. the poet walked to a corner of the room, took therefrom a long narrow box divided into a number of compartments and proceeded, most delicately, to measure out and mix two or three different kinds of tea. the teapot was next heated, the blended tea thrown in, and boiling water immediately poured on it. and then the tea was timed, masefield holding his watch in his hand and pouring out the fluid into the cups at the psychological second.... he ought, i think, to have taken a little silver key from his waistcoat pocket and locked up the tea-box. he ought to have taken his knitting from a work-box. he ought to have asked me if i had yet spoken to the new curate. but he did none of these things....
though for an hour he continued talking, he said nothing—at least, he said nothing i have remembered. the extraordinary thing about him was that, in spite of his timidity, his seeming apprehensiveness, he left on my mind a deep impression of adventure—not of a man who sought physical, but spiritual, risks. i think he is a poet who cannot refrain from exacerbating his own soul, who must at all costs place his mind in danger and escape only at the last moment. i believe he is intensely morbid, delighting to brood over dark things, seeing no humour in life, but full of a baffled chivalry, a nobility thwarted at every turn.
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77a man of a very different type is jerome k. jerome, whom i met at the national liberal club and elsewhere in the early days of the war. like all humorists, he is an inveterate sentimentalist; his belief in human nature is as wide-eyed and innocent as that of a child. he is an untidy, prosperous, middle-aged man—very kindly, but a little intolerant. his mental attitude is that of a man sitting a little apart from life, alternately amused and saddened by the things he sees. in the drawing-room of his flat at chelsea he seemed a little out of place; he did not harmonise with his surroundings. but in the club he was easy, natural, at home. more than twenty years ago i heard him lecture in manchester; the jerome of to-day is the jerome of those far-off years, a little mellower perhaps, a little quieter, a little more sentimental, but essentially the same in appearance, in manner and in his attitude towards life.
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i have met other humorists, but of a type very different from that represented by jerome. sir owen seaman i met at a little dinner given by the critics’ circle at gatti’s to a colleague of ours who was on the point of leaving for the front, and who, alas! is now no more. sir owen was made both by nature and training for a squarson—that useful but fast-dying gentleman who combines the duties and responsibilities of squire and parson. his personality, rather beefy and john bullish, confirms one’s expectations. he made an excellent chairman at this particular dinner.
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his very brilliant assistant, a. a. milne, i once interviewed for a now defunct labour paper. i was invited to the office of punch, and met a tall, slim, yellow-haired and blue-eyed youth, who was so inordinately shy that, after half-an-hour’s perfunctory conversation, i discovered that i had not sufficient material for a paragraph, 78whereas i had orders to make a column article of the interview. i knew instinctively that milne must find, as i do, a good deal in w. s. gilbert’s writings that is in deplorable taste, and i did my utmost to induce him to say something very rude about sullivan’s collaborator. but he would not “bite.” he nodded and smiled at, and appeared to agree with, all the savage things i said of gilbert, but he would say very little—and certainly not enough for my purpose—on his own account. i tried other subjects, but without success; finally, i got up in despair, thanked him for the time he had given me and prepared to depart.
“but,” said milne, eyeing me, a little distrustfully, “i must see a copy of your article before it is printed.”
“why, certainly,” said i, and that evening posted it to him, expecting to see it back with perhaps one or two minor alterations.
but when my poor article arrived back (really, i thought it an excellent piece of work) i could scarcely recognise it, so heavily was it scored out, so numerous were the alterations. and milne’s accompanying letter was scathing. i remember one or two sentences. “i cannot tell you how thankful i am,” he wrote, “that i insisted on seeing your article before it was printed. it does not represent my views in the least; your talent for misrepresentation is remarkably resourceful.”
when the article was finally passed for publication at least seventy-five per cent. of it was from milne’s pen. he wrote one or two other stabbing sentences to me, from which it appeared that, however numerous his virtues may be, he is unable to suffer fools gladly.
