Part 16 (1/2)
n.o.body wanted to read them. They were either futile or patronising, or both. They utterly spoilt the magazine, and so forth and so on. Mr.
Reginald Smith, though kindness itself in the matter, was inclined to yield to the storm and to think that I had perhaps made a mistake in breaking away from the established custom. I appealed to Mr. George Smith, quite certain that he would support me and the innovation. He did so; and I continued, though, perhaps, with a little more reticence, to put up directing-posts for my readers. I am sure I was right. After all, the ordinary man gets very much confused by new writers and is very likely to miss a good thing merely because he is put off by the t.i.tle or the first few sentences. Yet all the time, the essay or short story at which he s.h.i.+es is the very thing he would like to read if only it had been properly introduced to him. In Mr. De La Mare's case, however, there was no fear of being put off by reading the first few sentences.
If you had once read these you were quite certain to finish. I never remember a better opening:
I awoke from a dream of a gruesome fight with a giant geranium. I surveyed, with drowsy satisfaction and complacency, the eccentric jogs and jerks of my aunt's head.
The performance is even better than this promise of strange things strangely told. In the end it is not ”my aunt” but ”my uncle” who sees visions, and visions whose subtlety and originality it would be hard to beat. I will tantalise my readers with a quotation:
My uncle stopped dead upon the gravel, with his face towards the garden.
I seemed to _feel_ the slow revolution of his eyes.
”I see a huge city of granite,” he grunted; ”I see lean spires of metal and hazardous towers, frowning upon the blackness of their shadows.
White lights stare out of narrow window-slits; a black cloud breathes smoke in the streets. There is no wind, yet a wind sits still upon the city. The air smells like copper. Every sound rings as it were upon metal. There is a glow--a glow of outer darkness--a glow imagined by straining eyes. The city is a bubble with clamour and tumult rising thin and yellow in the lean streets like dust in a loam-pit. The city is walled as with a finger-ring. The sky is dumb with listeners. Far down, as the crow sees ears of wheat, I see that _mote_ of a man, in his black clothes, now lit by flaming jets, now hid in thick darkness. Every street breeds creatures. They swarm gabbling, and walk like ants in the sun. Their faces are fierce and wary, with malevolent lips. Each mouths to each, and points and stares. On I walk, imperturbable and stark. But I know, oh, my boy, I know the alphabet of their vile whisperings and gapings and gesticulations. The air quivers with the flight of black winged shapes. Each foot-tap of that sure figure upon the granite is ticking his hour away.” My uncle turned and took my hand. ”And this, Edmond, this is the man of business who purchased his game in the City, and vied with all in the excellence of his claret. The man who courted your aunt, begot hale and whole children, who sits in his pew and is respected. That beneath my skull should lurk such monstrous things! You are my G.o.dchild, Edmond. Actions are mere sediment, and words--froth, froth. Let the thoughts be clean, my boy; the thoughts must be clean; thoughts make the man. You may never at any time be of ill repute, and yet be a blackguard. Every thought, black or white, lives for ever, and to life there is no end.”
”Look here, Uncle,” said I, ”it's serious, you know; you must come to town and see Jenkinson, the brain man. A change of air, sir.” ”Do you smell sulphur?” said my uncle. I t.i.ttered and was alarmed.
Anyone who reads this and knows anything of literature will understand the feelings of a young editor in publis.h.i.+ng such matter, especially in publis.h.i.+ng it in 1896. At the present time the refrain that ”All can raise the flower now, for all have got the seed” is a reality. In the 'nineties work like ”The Mote” was rare. Connoisseurs of style will recognise what I mean when I say that what endeared ”Walter Ramal” to me was that, in spite of the fact that Stevenson at that very time was at his best, and so was Kipling, there was not a trace of either author's influence in Mr. De La Mare's prose. The very occasional appearances of Stevensonianism were in truth only examples of common origin. He at once made me feel that he was destined for great things. When there are two such influences at work, happy is the man who can resist them, and resist them in the proper way, by an alternative of his own, and not by a mere bald and hungry reticence.
Mr. Walter De La Mare's second article was called ”The Village of Old Age.” It was a charming piece of what I simply cannot and will not call ”elfish” writing. The word in me, foolishly, no doubt, produces physical nausea. If, however, someone with a stronger stomach in regard to words called it elfish I should understand what he meant, and agree. But, good as were these two essays, they were nothing compared to De La Mare's marvellous story, ”The Moon's Miracle.” That was a piece of glorious fantasy in which the writer excelled himself, not only as regards the mechanism of his essay-story, but as to its substance, and, most of all, its style. He prefaced it by this quotation from _Paradise Lost_:
As when, to warn proud cities, war appears Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds; before each van p.r.i.c.k forth the faery knights, and couch their spears, Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms From either end of heaven the welkin burns.
The following was his short synopsis of the story:
How the Count saw a city in the sky and men in harness issuing thereout-- Of the encampment of the host of the moons-men-Of how the battle was joined--The Count's great joy thereat and of how the fight sped.
The first sentences were these:
The housekeeper's matronly skirts had sounded upon the staircase. The maids had simpered their timid ”Good-night, sir,” and were to bed.
Nevertheless, the Count still sat imperturbable and silent. A silence of frowns, of eloquence on the simmer; a silence that was almost a menace.
This enough for any man of adventure to know that he is in for a good time--in for something big. What he was in for in this case was a great aerial battle seen from Wimbledon Common--an admirable _locale_ for such an event, as I have always thought. I can best prove the depth of the impression made upon me by the fact that twenty years afterwards, when on some summer evening one knew that an air raid had begun, I never failed, when I watched the skies, to think of the little group on Wimbledon Common. It had actually come true. They were scouring the fields of air in the story of fight. No doubt what one saw there was not as exquisite a spectacle as that seen by the Count. Still, there was always something thrilling and so delightful in scanning the vast battle-field of Heaven in order to find a Zeppelin, or, later, an aeroplane squadron. Here is the pa.s.sage describing what the Count and his friends saw, when they discerned a city in the sky, and round it the tents of the moonsmen:
The tents were of divers pale colours, some dove-grey, others saffron and moth-green, and those on the farther side, of the colour of pale violets, and all pitched in a vast circle whose centre was the moon. I handed the mackintosh to the Count and insisted upon his donning of it.
”The dew hangs in the air,” said I, ”and unless the world spin on too quick, we shall pa.s.s some hours in watching.” ”Ay,” said he in a muse, ”but it seems to me the moon-army keeps infamous bad watch. I see not one sentinel. Those wings travel sure as a homing bird; and to be driven back upon their centre would be defeat for the--lunatics. Give _me_ but a handful of such cavalry, I would capture the Southern Cross.
Magnificent! magnificent! I remember, when I was in it--” For, while he was yet deriding, from points a little distant apart, single, winged hors.e.m.e.n dropped from the far sky, whither, I suppose, they had soared to keep more efficient watch; and though we heard no whisper of sound, by some means (inaudible bugle-call, positively maintains the Count) the camp was instantly roused and soon astir like seething broth. Tents were struck and withdrawn to the rear. Arms and harness, bucklers and gemmy helms sparkled and glared. All was orderly confusion.
I could go on for many more pages than I am afraid my readers would approve to chronicle the joys of my editors.h.i.+p, and especially the joys of discovery. I will only, however, mention two or three more names. One is that of the late Mr. Bernard Capes. I think I am right in saying that my story of ”The Moon-stricken,” which was published in the _Cornhill_, was one of his first appearances before the English public. Another author whom, I am glad to say, I and those who helped me ”spotted” as having special qualities of readability was Mr. Hesketh Prichard. In this case my wife did what Mr. Graves had done in the case of Mr. Bullen. After I had charged her, as she valued the peace of the family, to accept nothing, but to return all the MSS. which I gave her, she insisted upon my reading Hesketh Prichard's story. My judgment confirmed hers, and in spite of the difficulties of congestion, which was becoming greater and greater but which, of course, was my proof of success, I accepted the story. There was, of course, nothing novel in this experience. It is what always happens, and must happen, in journalism. An editor is like a great fat trout, who is habitually thoroughly well gorged with flies. It is the business of the young writer who wants to make his way, to put so inviting a fly upon his line and to fling it so deftly in front of the said trout's nose that, though the trout has sworn by all the G.o.ds, Nymphs, and Spirits of River and Stream that he won't eat any more that day, he cannot resist the temptation to rise and bite. You must take the City of Letters by Storm.
It will never yield to a mere summons to surrender.
The _Cornhill_, though so agreeable an experience, did not last long. _The Spectator_ soon claimed me for its own. I had to resign the _Cornhill_ in order, first, to find more time for _The Spectator_, and then, to carry the full weight of editors.h.i.+p which came to me with Mr. Hutton's death. Mr. Hutton's death was quickly followed by Mr. Townsend's retirement. This made me, not only sole Editor, but sole Proprietor, of the paper.
Before I proceed to describe the task I set myself in _The Spectator_ when I obtained a free hand, and to record my journalistic aims and aspirations, I desire to describe Mr. Townsend--a man whose instinctive genius for journalism has, to my mind, never been surpa.s.sed.
CHAPTER XVI
MEREDITH TOWNSEND
Taking _The Spectator_ as the pivot of my life, I began this book by a plunge _in medias res_. This done, I had to go back and tell of my rearing and of my life in something approaching chronological sequence. In so doing, however, I have striven to remain true to Sir Thomas Browne's instructions and to keep the alabaster tomb in the barber's shop always before my eyes. Now, however, that I have reached the time when I became Proprietor and Editor of _The Spectator_, I may fitly return to my chiefs and predecessors.
Unfortunately I can do this only in the case of Mr. Townsend. In regard to any character-drawing or description of Mr. Hutton my pen must refuse to write. Just before he died Mr. Hutton made me promise not to write anything whatever about him in _The Spectator_, and though I am not sure that he meant that promise to extend to what I might wish to write elsewhere, I have always felt myself to be under a general and not merely a particular obligation of silence. Mr. Hutton and I were always the best of friends, and I regarded him with admiration as well as affection. On some points we differed strongly, but on more we were in full agreement.