In Good Company - free ebook by Coulson Kernahan

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In Good Company

Coulson Kernahan

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IN GOOD COMPANY

IN GOOD COMPANY

IN GOOD COMPANY SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF SWINBURNE, LORD ROBERTS WATTS-DUNTON, OSCAR WILDE EDWARD WHYMPER, S. J. STONE STEPHEN PHILLIPS BY COULSON KERNAHAN LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVII SECOND EDITION WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND TO THE HON. MRS. ARTHUR HENNIKER My Dear Mrs. Henniker , It is many years since we first met at the house of one whom we both loved, whose memory we both cherish. It was that friend’s hope that

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FOREWORD

FOREWORD

One of the subjects of these studies said in my hearing, that “Recollections” are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memory, or have never, themselves, done anything in life worth remembering. To the second indictment I plead guilty, but my best excuse for the publication of this volume is that I write while the first indictment fails. My memory is still good, and the one thing which seems most worth remembering in my life is my undeservedly fortunate friendships. In

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IN GOOD COMPANY

IN GOOD COMPANY

April 10, 1909. April 10, 1909....

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I

I

Swinburne was furious. I had lunched with him and Watts-Dunton at The Pines, and after I had smoked a cigarette with the latter, the author of Atalanta in Calydon had invited me upstairs to his sanctum, that he might show me the latest acquisition to his library—a big parchment-bound book tied with ribbons—the Kelmscott reprint of one of Caxton’s books. He waxed enthusiastic, I remember, over the Rape of Danae. Then he took up the proofs of an article on John Day which he was contributing to the

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II

II

Of all controversialists (and he dearly loved a verbal encounter) to whom I have ever listened, Swinburne was incomparably the most crushing. He fought with scrupulous and knightly fairness, never stooping to take a mean advantage of an adversary, and listening patiently, punctiliously even, while the other side was making its points. But, when his turn came, he carried everything before him. Vesuvius in eruption could not more effectually overwhelm or consume the rubble around its crater than S

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III

III

Though it was my privilege to count among my friends several personal friends of Swinburne—notably the late Theodore Watts-Dunton, Philip Bourke Marston, and the dearest and closest of all my friends, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton—it was not until the first weeks of 1892 that I met him personally. I was invited to lunch at The Pines, and the first thing that struck me as I entered the dining-room and took the extended hand, which was soft and limp, and had no sturdiness in the grasp, was the sing

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IV

IV

When next I met Swinburne, nearly twelve months had gone by, and, in spite of the eager way in which at our first meeting he had talked of the men and women and things within his own mental horizon, I should not have been in the least surprised to find that he had practically forgotten me. I do not say this in any spirit of mock modesty, but because I remembered that, at that first meeting, I had mentioned, in the course of conversation, a book by a certain author who to my knowledge had been a

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V

V

Perhaps the most treasured possession on my bookshelves is a volume in which Swinburne has inscribed my name and his own. The volume in question is his Studies in Prose and Poetry , and as, among the contents, there is an article devoted entirely to a consideration of the merits and defects of Lyra Elegantiarum , in the editorial work of the last edition of which it was my honour and privilege to collaborate with the original compiler, the late Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson, I may perhaps be pard

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VI

VI

In all my conversations with Swinburne, I cannot recall one instance of his interrupting a speaker. He would, it is true, go off at a conversational tangent, as when, talking of Francis Hinde Groome and Suffolk, he interpolated apparently irrelevant remarks upon the curious names of some Yorkshire villages, having presumably only discovered that morning that one of these villages bore the delightful name of “Beggar my Neighbour.” But, though one could see by his flashing eye that the hounds of u

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VII

VII

“Watts-Dunton writes poetry because he loves writing it,” said Swinburne to me once. “I write poetry, I suppose, to escape from boredom.” There is truth in the statement, but there is more behind the statement than appears at the first glance. New and incoming tides of poetry lapped at his feet each morning, and the incoming of each new tide of poetry was to him as fresh, pure, crystalline-sweet, and free, as is the tide that rolls in upon the shore each day from the vastnesses and the sweetness

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I

I

It was a score or more years ago, and at the Old Vagabond Club (now merged into the Playgoers) that I first met Lord Roberts. When he became the President of the Club, we celebrated the event by a dinner at which he was the guest of honour and Jerome K. Jerome was the Chairman. As one of the original members of the Club and as a member of the Executive Committee, I was introduced to the great soldier. All I expected was a bow, a handshake, and a “How-do-you-do,” but Lord Roberts was as good as t

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II

II

I have heard many noble tributes paid to Lord Roberts, but I remember none which touched him more than that of Sir William Robertson Nicoll at the Whitefriars’ Club. Lord Roberts was the club guest, that brilliant author and journalist Mr. John Foster Fraser being Chairman. I had the honour of being in the Vice-Chair. The toast of Lord Roberts’ health was seconded by Sir William Robertson Nicoll, who was meeting the Field-Marshal for the first time. The Whitefriars’ dinner to Lord Roberts was me

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III

III

Even as an old man—though none of us who knew and loved him could ever bring ourselves to think of Lord Roberts as old—his energy was amazing, and the amount of work he got through was stupendous. His mere correspondence alone would have kept any other man going all day and with no moment to spare for the many great issues with which his name was connected. He accomplished so much because he practised in his own life the organisation, if not indeed the National Service which he preached to the n

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IV

IV

Like most Irishmen, Lord Roberts had a keen sense of humour. At a public dinner at which I was present he had for a near neighbour, at the high table, Lord Willoughby de Broke, who in his after- dinner speech had occasion to refer to the Territorial Army. “If I am asked,” he said, “whether a young man should join the Territorial Army, my answer is invariably ‘Yes,’ and for three reasons. The first reason is that he will, perhaps for the first time in his life, be coming under the salutary influe

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THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON AS THE “OGRE OF THE ‘ATHENÆUM’”

THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON AS THE “OGRE OF THE ‘ATHENÆUM’”

It was, I believe, George Meredith who, when the author of Aylwin changed his name from Theodore Watts to Theodore Watts-Dunton, spoke of him as “Theodore What’s-his-name,” and added that he supposed his friend had made the change lest posterity might confound Watts the poet with Watts the hymn writer. Posterity, unlike Popularity—who plays the wanton at times and cohabits with unlawful mates—keeps chaste her house from generation to generation and needs no hint from us to assist her choice. Her

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WHY THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON PUBLISHED ONLY TWO BOOKS

WHY THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON PUBLISHED ONLY TWO BOOKS

With the exception of a few articles and poems reprinted in brochure form from encyclopædias and periodicals, Watts-Dunton in his lifetime published two books only— Aylwin and The Coming of Love . A successor to the former is in existence, and will shortly be issued by Mr. John Lane. Were Watts-Dunton still alive, the book would, I am convinced, even now be in manuscript. Part definitely with a book, that it might go to press, he would not, so long as a chance remained of holding on to it, to do

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THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON AS AN AMATEUR IN AUTHORSHIP AND AS A GOOD FELLOW TWO SIDES OF HIS MANY-SIDEDNESS

THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON AS AN AMATEUR IN AUTHORSHIP AND AS A GOOD FELLOW TWO SIDES OF HIS MANY-SIDEDNESS

The one thing of all others upon which Watts-Dunton set store was good-fellowship, which he counted as of greater worth even than genius. If ever he went critically astray, if ever intellectually he overrated his man, it was because he allowed his heart to outride his head. Once convince him that this or that young writer was a good fellow, and, born critic though he was, even criticism went by the board in Watts-Dunton’s intellectual estimate. If I illustrate this by a personal experience it is

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ONE ASPECT OF THE MANY-SIDEDNESS OF THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

ONE ASPECT OF THE MANY-SIDEDNESS OF THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

I have often been asked by those who did not know Theodore Watts-Dunton what was the secret of the singular power he appeared to exercise over others and the equally singular affection in which he was held by his friends. My answer was that Watts-Dunton’s hold upon his friends, partly personal as it was and partly intellectual, was chiefly due to his extraordinary loyalty. Of old, certain men and women were supposed to be possessed of the “evil eye.” Upon whom they looked with intent—be it man,

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THE LAST DAYS OF THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

THE LAST DAYS OF THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON

The pathetic side of the last two or three years of Watts-Dunton’s life was that he had outlived nearly every friend of youth and middle age, and, with the one or two old friends of his own generation who survived, he had lost touch. Tennyson, Rossetti, Swinburne, William Morris, Browning, Matthew Arnold, Borrow, William Black, Dr. Gordon Hake, Westland and Philip Marston, Jowett, Louise Chandler Moulton, William Sharp, James Russell Lowell, George Meredith, were gone. Mr. William Rossetti, the

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I

I

One afternoon in the nineties, I called upon my friend Mrs. Chandler Moulton, the American poet. She had taken a first-floor suite of rooms in a large house in the west of London, in which other paying guests were also just then staying. I was shown into the reception room attached to Mrs. Moulton’s suite, and was told that she would be with me in a few minutes. Almost immediately after, another of Mrs. Moulton’s friends, Madame Antoinette Sterling, called, and was shown into the room where I wa

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II

II

It has been my fortune to know not a few poets. It has been my fate to play listener while they, or most of them, read aloud their verses. To them, presumably, some sort of satisfaction was to be derived from the self-imposed task; otherwise I should not have been thus afflicted. To me the case was one of holding on, directly under the enemy’s artillery and without returning his fire, the casualties in my own moral garrison being heavy. I was in fact for the most part as severely punished as was

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I

I

Though I head this article “Edward Whymper as I Knew Him,” I prefer first to write of Edward Whymper as he was before I knew him—or rather before he knew me. In the town where he and I were then living he had been dubbed “Bradlaugh turned Baedeker” by one resident who insisted on Whymper’s likeness to the late Charles Bradlaugh, and was aware that the Great Mountaineer had written various “Guides.” Another name by which he was known was “The Sphinx,” possibly because of his silence, his aloofnes

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II

II

“In the Memoir of Tennyson by his son, there will be a letter—only one—to myself,” said Whymper to me in 1897. “Except for the fact that it was one of the last, if indeed not the very last letter Tennyson penned, it doesn’t strike me as being important enough for inclusion. But it has a curious history. I had sent Tennyson a copy of one of my books, Travels among the Great Andes of the Equator . Here is his reply. I’ll read it to you: ‘ Dear Sir , ‘Accept my thanks for your most interesting volu

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III

III

If ever a man carried out in practice the precept: “To know yourself is wisdom; not to know your neighbours is genius,” that man was Edward Whymper. He had, it is true, a knack of scraping and continuing acquaintance with neighbours and fellow residents entirely out of his own station. From a barber, a bird stuffer, a boatman or a net-mender he would acquire a lot of out-of-the-way information, and indeed would chat to them by the hour, if not exactly with joviality, at least without the somewha

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IV

IV

Of all the men I have ever known, none so habitually refrained from talking shop as Whymper. Hence of Whymper the mountaineer—and mountaineering was in a sense with him a profession—as well as of Whymper the artist and the lecturer, I have nothing of interest to say. One reason perhaps is that of mountaineering I know comparatively nothing and of art even less. Of Whymper the lecturer I am more competent to speak, as for ten years I was his fellow lecturer, constantly either preceding or followi

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V

V

Edward Whymper was a man of few friends, I had almost written of no friends, for though he was upon what, in the case of another man, would be described as terms of friendship with many of the world’s most distinguished workers, and though he enjoyed their company and their intercourse as they enjoyed his, I should describe the bond which held him and them together as “liking” and interest in each other and in each other’s achievements rather than as friendship in the closer sense of the word. T

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VI

VI

At what I am now about to say of Edward Whymper, he would himself either have hooted with cynical ridicule or else would have heard with a slow and cold smile of amused scorn, but to me his was a sad, gloomy, if not indeed a pathetic figure. I do not say this because he was a lonely man—and in all life I have met no one who was quite as lonely as he—but because he walked always in the shadow of self. I am not implying that he was selfish, for he was not. In his business transactions—albeit not a

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VII

VII

Whymper’s comments upon his contemporaries and their work were always exceedingly penetrative. Of some he spoke very generously but never effusively, of others critically and of a few sarcastically. I well remember the cynical smile with which he called my attention to an inscription in a presentation volume. It had been sent to him by a well-known writer, of whom I say no more than that he had once held a very distinguished position in the Society of Authors. The inscription ran: “To Edward Why

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II

II

My friendship with Wilde was literary in its beginnings. Flattered vanity on my part possibly contributed not a little to it, for when I was a young and—if that be possible—a more obscure man even than I am now, Wilde, already famous, was one of the very first to speak an encouraging word. Here is the first letter I received from him: 16 Tite Street, Chelsea. Dear Mr. Kernahan , If you have nothing to do on Wednesday, will you come and dine at the Hotel de Florence, Rupert Street, at 7.45—mornin

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III

III

Once when Wilde, a novelist and I were lunching together, and when Wilde, after declaring that the wine was so “heavenly” that it should be drunk kneeling, was discoursing learnedly on the pleasures of the table—how the flesh of this or that bird, fish or beast should be cooked and eaten, with what wine and with what sauce, the novelist put in: “If I were to adapt Bunyan, I should say that you ought to have been christened Os-carnalwise Wilde instead of plain Oscar.” “How ridiculous of you to su

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IV

IV

A factor in Wilde’s downfall was, I am sometimes told, evil association, but if so it was a factor on which I can throw no light, as if evil associates he had I saw nothing of them. Louise Chandler Moulton sings of and of the many figures in the literary, artistic, and social world of the day whom I met in Wilde’s company, some have achieved death, some, knighthood (Mr. Stephen Phillips once said in my hearing, he was not sure which was the better—or the worse), and some, distinction. Of the rem

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V

V

Was it not Mr. Stead who defined paradox as a truth standing on its head? Wilde’s aim in paradox was so to manipulate truth and falsehood as to make the result startle one by appearing to reverse the existing standard. A paradox by him was sometimes a lie and a truth trotting side by side together in double harness like a pair of horses, but each so cleverly disguised that one was not quite sure which horse was which. More often a paradox by Wilde was a lie (or a seeming lie) and a truth (or a s

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VI

VI

As one who knew Wilde personally, I am sometimes asked whether I was not instinctively aware that the man was bad. Frankly I was not. Possibly because scandal does not interest me, and other things do, I had not heard the rumours which I now understand were even then prevalent, and so I took him as I found him, an agreeable companion, a brilliant conversationalist, a versatile and accomplished man of letters. On the crime of which he has since been committed, I make no comment, if only for the r

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I

I

The Rev. S. J. Stone, M.A. , was the author of two hymns that are known wherever the English tongue is spoken, one the beautiful Lenten litany of love, trust and repentance, “Weary of earth and laden with my sin”; the other that soul-stirring triumph-song, “The Church’s One Foundation,” which—set as it is to majestic battle-march music that fires the imagination—has become, as it were, the Marseillaise of the Church militant and victorious. When Stone died, and where he wished to die, in the Cha

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II

II

Ever since Stone died my intention has been, before laying down my own pen, some day and so far as I am able, to picture him as I knew him. It seemed to me a duty, no less than a trust, that some of us should put on record what manner of man it was who wrote these noble hymns, and how nobly he lived and died. My reason for delaying thus long about what to me is a labour of love, was the difficulty of picturing Stone as he was, without seeming to exaggerate. Fortunately it has not been left only

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III

III

In the fact that Stone was at heart intensely human lay the secret of his hold upon the hearts of others. I have claimed high place for him and have called him by high name, but a “saint” at least I have never called him nor claimed him to be. We have been told that it is impossible to be heroic in a high hat, nor is it easy to picture a “saint” in a very pepper of a temper (to say nothing of a boating sweater) at loggerheads, and more than half minded to knock down, a foul-mouthed bargee. Stone

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IV

IV

His unfailing sense of humour, his boyish and buoyant love of fun, like the cork jacket by means of which a swimmer rides an incoming wave, carried Stone through difficulties which would have depressed another. Let me put one such instance on record. To brighten in any way the drab days of the poorest folks in his East End parish, he counted a privilege as well as a happiness, and he was constantly devising means for bringing some new gladness to their lives—the gift of a sorely needed bit of fu

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V

V

At Oxford Stone had been an athlete, and an athlete and sportsman—oarsman, skater, fisherman and first-class shot—he remained almost to his life’s end. He was captain of the Pembroke boat, and stroked the college eight. Legend has it that he was chosen for his “Blue”—but did not have the honour of rowing against Cambridge for the following reason. Between his merits as an oarsman and those of another candidate, there was absolutely nothing to choose. The other man was as good as, but no better t

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VI

VI

In politics Stone was the stoutest of old-fashioned Tories, and by every instinct and sympathy an aristocrat. Like a certain courtier of high birth who expressed pleasure at receiving the Garter because “there is no pretence of damned merit about it,” he believed whole-heartedly in the hereditary principle. I am not sure, indeed, that he would not have thought it well that spiritual as well as temporal rank should go by inheritance. An archbishop who came of a long line of archbishops and was tr

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VII

VII

Upon one incident in my long friendship with Stone I look back with pain and sorrow. He came in late one night, just as the last post had brought me the news—I would not write of such things here except in so far as it bears upon my friend—that the whole edition of my first little book had been sold out. To-day the writing of a book, if only because it may be the means of bringing influence to bear upon others, is, I am of opinion, an occupation to be followed diligently, conscientiously, and wi

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SOME OPINIONS OF MR. KERNAHAN’S PUBLISHED WORK

SOME OPINIONS OF MR. KERNAHAN’S PUBLISHED WORK

Saturday Review. —“There is a touch of genius, perhaps even more than a touch, about this brilliant and original booklet.” Times. —“A writer of much insight and originality.” Spectator. —“Truly as well as finely said.” Contemporary Review. —“A brilliantly versatile novelist and a charming essayist.” Sir J. M. Barrie , in the British Weekly .—“The vigour of this book is great, and the author has an uncommon gift of intensity. On many readers, it may be guessed, the book will have a mesmeric effec

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