by Hugh Walpole
H —— with his passion for meticulous accuracy, L —— with his sudden almost maniacal rages, K —— — with his virginal hunger for our success in games — these were good men but about as fitted to interest growing children in the beauty and wonder of life as Miss Bates was to deal with Mrs. Morris!
In fact, during those years I did not wonder. I took my home and my family for granted, my discontent and unpopularity for granted, and, above all, my religion for granted. I was to be a clergyman when I grew up — that was settled. My only two anxieties were whether I should ever be clever enough to pass those examinations that make one a clergyman and, secondly, if I did pass them, whether I should have time among my clerical duties for the writing of stories. My religion, too, was settled. When I was nineteen years of age I still saw quite clearly in my mind’s eye God, exactly like the Bible pictures of Moses, with a long beard and dressed in a kind of nightgown, sitting on a hummocky, billowy cloud listening jealously for any sins committed by me. Behind him and coexistent with him there was a kind of Olympia White City with streets of gold, jeweled doors, crowds of angels, and Jesus Christ on a throne in a wide open courtyard. He was, in my mind, very kindly and understanding as contrasted with the ill tempered Jehovah on the cloud outside, and when I had done something wrong I in a sort of way managed to slip past the hummocky cloud and put my case to Jesus Christ and feel, at once, that I was understood. Indeed the one thing of real value that I got from these un-happy years was a sense of the living beauty and wonder and wisdom of Christ’s character. I got it in the main I think from an old drunken Scotch gardener whom we had for a time, who, in the middle of the most awful indecencies and obscenities, would suddenly, his dirty old hat cocked on one side of his head, his grimy finger pointing, begin to talk of Jesus Christ as though he were just round the corner and might at any moment appear in our disheveled garden and take pity on our barren and sterile little orchard. “Don’t you heed what they tell you, Laddie,” I can hear him saying to me how. ‘ “The Lord Jesus is a sight kinder than the clergy make Him out to be — and He’ll come and have a drink with you any time you ask Him.”
And this is enough of this rather dreary time. Dreary, but in no sort of way hopeless. I had not forgotten Miss Julie’s Crystal Box and, like her, never went up to my room at night without thinking that perhaps it would be there shining on my bed. Wonder was always just round the corner and, although I was uncouth, awkward, selfish and conceited, I loved my family, tried to obey orders, recognized my muddleheadedness and general messiness of mind.
Those years, twelve to eighteen, are the hardest in life perhaps for all boys who are not quite of the normal build. In these days with our Freuds and our Jungs and now our Coués we pay so much more attention to individuality than even ten years ago we did. We are in danger now perhaps of overdoing it. I don’t know. Everyone must have his or her growing time, and a painful time it must be. That cheery proclamation of octogenarians: “Ah there’s no time like youth!” is one of the falsest things in the world. I can say, now at thirty-eight, that every year of my life has been happier than the last. I have a friend of sixty-three who says that the time between sixty and seventy is marvelous, and I have another friend of seventy-eight who says that he never knew what real happiness was until he was over seventy; but I have heard very few defend the years between twelve and eighteen.
Most of my unhappiness at that time was my own fault, but I didn’t know how to change it. I only knew that I was awkward and in the way, like a young calf who has strayed into a ladies’ tea party.
III: SHIPS AND SOULS
I
LIFE is nothing but a long series of self-exposures. When one looks back and recovers something of the supreme confidence with which one started on difficult and complicated businesses — well — if there is virtue in audacity there should also be shame at repeated failure.
I have hitherto failed at everything I have undertaken in life, that is if one takes any kind of high and durable standard. A master of mine once prophesied that the only thing I was ever likely to be successful in was a mayor of a small town. If that had come my way I might have succeeded at it. I can’t tell. But in everything else I have muddled and hurried and confused. The three greatest failures of my life have been my private secretaryship (two years of carelessness and inefficiency with the kindest of friends and masters); my year in Liverpool on the Mersey Mission to Seamen; and my attempt to conduct British propaganda in Russia during the war. With the last of these I was not altogether to blame. The Revolution plumped into the middle of my well meant but helterskelter plans and smashed them to pieces, and it would have smashed quite as completely much better arrangements than mine.
It is of the Mission to Seamen affair that I am going to write now, because that had a kind of bizarre incongruity about it that gives it something more than a personal private interest.
When I came down from Cambridge it was supposed that I should be a clergyman. I supposed it, my parents supposed it, my friends supposed it. It was suggested that I should have a year’s work with the Mission to Seamen as a preparation and an illuminating experience. An illuminating experience it turned out to be, but not quite as I had expected!
I was quite certain that I should be an astounding success. I had about as much experience of life as a two days old kitten; I was going to deal with some of the toughest and hardest of human material, material that needed for its proper development the utmost tact, knowledge of men and affairs, and nobility of character. That was nothing to me — I was going to be an astounding success. My three years at Cambridge had hardened my conceit (heaven alone knows why, as I did nothing of any distinction there), confirmed my naiveties, and strengthened my optimism. I went up to Liverpool like a general returning from a supremely successful campaign.
Liverpool is not the most beautiful city in the world. The Mersey is a beautiful and wonderful river but, if I may say so without offense, the citizens of Liverpool have not made the most of its wonders. The cities of my heart are London, Petrograd, Munich, and Venice. London and Venice are certainly two of the world’s most lovely cities and Petrograd and Munich are near to my heart for other reasons; when I compare with these Liverpool and’ its vile climate, its detestable slums, its shrieking trams, and its execrable monotonies, it appears horrible indeed.
Nevertheless Liverpool has a life of the finest — crude, raw, eager, pulsing life — and I have as much right to despise it as Martin Tupper had to sneer at Milton. The purpose of the Mission to Seamen was twofold — to make the lives of the sailors and seamen who frequented the waters of the Mersey more happy and comfortable than they had hitherto been, and to bring them closer to God.
I was as sure of God at that time as I was of myself. It seemed to me a very simple thing to make these people sure of Him too.
“Throw yourself into their lives,” my chief buoyantly advised me. “They are splendid fellows and all they want is to feel that you are their friend. Let them talk to you about their troubles; they will talk to you freely if you encourage them.”
It all seemed simple enough. I started in, splendidly optimistic.
II
When I had been in the Mission a week or so we had one of our Happy Family Evenings — I think they occurred every Thursday. Two of the staff were appointed to “run the games” and I can hear now M —— — — ‘s cheery, “Now my men — come along. Make yourselves at home.” And then, as individuals were recognized: “Well, Prentise, how’s the cold?... Wife better, Smith?... That’s good, that’s good.”
I think as I watched the clumsy awkward group hesitating by the door I had my first suspicion that these splendid fellows would not be quite so easy to “catch” as I had anticipated. As the evening advanced my suspicions increased. We played I remember “Musical Chairs” and “French and English” and other children’s games.
M —— was really admirable. He was a little man with fiery red hair, the least possible of a prig, entirely gen
uine and assured in his religion, and with much true worldly wisdom and knowledge of men to help him.
The men liked him and with him almost dropped their reserve — almost but not quite. Those who entered our Mission were of three types. There was the eager, sycophantic, pocketing-what-he-could-get, predatory sailor whose zeal for religion was wonderful and most satisfying to the staff. There was the honest devil-may-care sailor who had come up to the Mission because he had nowhere else to go, had no friends in the port, and wanted a roof under which he might smoke his pipe. And there was the serious, generally elderly seaman who had very deep views on predestination and original sin who came up to us with the hope of catching one “of they parsons” out in some theological folly and utterly crushing him in argument.
We had always too a sprinkling of riotous spirits who had been drinking in the bars at the river side and had come up to see whether they could have a bit of fun.
It was with the theological type that I first met disaster. I had not the slightest idea what Leviticus 6.3 informed us and I had the most immature notion of the origins of Genesis.
I remember on the very first Happy Evening an old seaman with a white pointed beard, to whom I had fluently talked for some five minutes, going up to Mr. M —— and asking what they were doing to allow in the Mission such an ignorant simpleton. I can see myself now moving restlessly under his cold eye as he watched me with scorn from the other end of the room.
I liked best, at first, of course, the sycophantic ones. They agreed so eagerly with everything that I said. They informed me with tears in their eyes that they would never be able to tell anyone what the Mission had been in their lives. Where they would ultimately have gone to had not the Mission saved them, they shuddered to think. These jolly evenings, the five minutes’ beautiful service in the chapel upstairs at ten o’clock, the friendship and help of such men as myself, these were the things that made them thank God every night before they turned in. They generally added two things — first that although they didn’t wish to criticize they could not but say that M — seemed to them not quite the right man for the job — too hard and unsympathetic. And secondly had I by any chance a spare shirt or two or an old pair of boots about me that I didn’t need and that might be just the thing for themselves these cold winter nights at sea?
On the first Happy Evening I pledged, I remember, nearly all my underclothing, not from any real sense of gratitude but because I felt that the Mission was a success and that I was a success too through the Mission.
My suspicions were once more aroused when at ten o’clock the hearty voice of one of the Missioners was heard on the stairs: “Now my men, we’ve had our fun. What about five minutes now quietly with God?”
There was a sheepish movement toward the stairs but as soon as the Missioner’s back was turned the movement changed and gravitated toward the door. When the service began there were only three or four men in the little chapel. That seemed to me disappointing, but the Missioner assured me, rubbing his hands, that it was most satisfactory. Bill Wallace, one of the hardest cases they had, had attended and enjoyed the service very much.
I recalled a word of my chief’s: “Never allow yourself to be disappointed, Walpole. When things seem at their very worst is the time when they are most surely moving forward.”
III
The Mission to Seamen was, and is, a splendid institution, and has been doing, especially since the war, magnificent work; but it needs men of a certain type to carry it through and I was not of that type.
M —— was precisely right. His little fiery head could be seen, like a torch, mounting ship after ship in the Mersey, flaming here and flaming there, winning always after its visit this encomium: “For a parson that’s a damned good fellow.” But this boarding of the ships was to me an unutterable terror. In the morning I would go into the chief’s office and receive my orders — such and such a liner, such and such a merchant vessel had arrived and must be visited. I was given my list. Down to the docks my trembling legs would carry me. If I was lucky some of my ships would be close at hand, but often enough I must go down the river on a smelly little tug, the property of the Mission, and, after being tossed like a cork on those tempestuous waters, board a gigantic liner and ask in a shaking voice for the captain. My old terror, born in my years at S —— , of meeting someone who quite plainly disliked me, had plenty of reason here for revival. Many of the captains so plainly disliked me that they shouted at once that “they didn’t want any b —— —— y parsons on their craft”. Once I remember I was pushed down a flight of stairs by an obese ship’s officer who afterward apologized elaborately, to the great delight of an observant crew. One of our chief’s principal mottoes was that we were to “know no defeat in well-doing” and therefore, “If at first you don’t succeed try try again.” This returning to vessels that, to put it simply, “did not take to me”, was for me a real agony. How often and often have I walked up and down one of the vast cathedral-like docks plucking up courage to board an unfriendly vessel! M —— would mount it like an invading pirate and be received with cheers, where I — !
Sometimes a ship’s officer would give me permission to hold a service on the ship’s deck if the crew cared to come, and then I would go around from deck to deck trying to persuade. What was it that so immediately sapped my confidence? Any other member of the Mission staff would have been ready in a moment with his “Now my men—”, and M —— —— —— would have chaffed them so happily and been so completely one of themselves that they would have joined him from sheer friendliness. But I was a ludicrous figure. In a ship especially I was out of place and ill at ease. I was not sincere enough in my religion to forget myself. I was thinking of the figure I was cutting whereas M — thought only of being their friend and K —— of bringing more souls to the Lord.
As the days passed I slipped out of the ship visiting and managed to secure for myself the easier part — visiting old ladies and forsaken wives, holding Mission services on Sunday evenings, running the Seamen’s Library, and so on. But even into my retreats Real Life persisted in obtruding. My simple ideas of making a charming social effect upon the gentle and nice-minded seamen of Liverpool were torn from me ruthlessly. I soon came, I am glad to say, to detest the hypocritical sycophants; I found that I was beginning to have an affection for the heavy drinkers; to sympathize with the desperate need for companionship, warmth, and excitement that accompanied the release from six months at sea and led invariably to the loss of every penny of the six months’ wages, an aching head, and a cold door step in the early morning.
And worse, more finally disastrous to my clerical hopes, were the promptings, tentative but persistent, of religious doubts.
I spoke out my heart to M —— —— .
“The trouble is”, I said, “that I’m beginning to feel that I’m not a bit better than these men and that I’ve got no right to talk to them about their souls at all.”
“Of course you’re no better,” he returned frankly. “Not so good as most of them. But you’ve not got to think of yourself. You think too much of yourself, Walpole, if I may say so. It isn’t whether you’re better or no. The point is that you’ve stumbled on a jolly fine experience and you want them to have the advantage of sharing it.”
“What do you mean by experience?”
I asked. “I’m beginning to realize that I haven’t had any deep experience of life at all.”
“I don’t mean experience of this life,” M — answered impatiently. “I mean the Christian religion. You happen to know what a good thing it is. They don’t. You’re there to prove it to them.”
But did I know? Doubts were assailing me now on every side. I knew that M —— knew and K —— — knew and my father knew. The glorious certainty of those lucky men was visible every minute of the day in their faces.
But God seemed very far away in Liverpool. When, on Sunday evenings, I trotted out my poor little platitudes about peace and good will and self-sacri
fice and making oneself one with God, the hollowness of it all must surely have made itself apparent to everybody. I had had no experience. How could I say I knew that God was love and that it was wicked to drink too much and go with loose women? I had never tested God nor given myself enough to Him to deserve His love — and as to drink and women, how dared I say anything about that until I had been three months at sea in a Congo boat?
My adjurations faltered; I was found one afternoon drinking beer with the cook of a certain steamer and laughing immensely at his not very seemly jokes. I liked the cook, I liked his jokes, and because he was a good fellow with an admirable sense of humor I was forgetting altogether his need of heaven. M —— —— could drink with the cook because he had roughed it again and again and still thought heaven thoroughly worth while. But I had not been tested at all.
And then a further difficulty crept in. I had begun the writing of my first grown up novel and it seemed to me, in spite of myself, in spite of my honest desire to improve the souls of all Liverpool’s seamen, more enthralling, absorbing, devastating, romantic, and marvelous than all the Missions in Europe. I couldn’t help myself. I was proving traitor to my job.
IV
I had begun soon after my coming to Liverpool a novel called “The Abbey”. It was to be a real novel with life of today for its background and grown up people for its characters, and the life and intrigues, of a cathedral town for its subject. I began it, I remember, in a state of extraordinary excitement one evening in my dreary Liverpool lodging. The evening was wretched, rain was bashing the window panes, the fire was almost out and I had not the courage to ask my landlady for more coal, the staring family group on the walls, the red plush sofa, the needle worked mats and pincushions, the curtain of jingling beads across the door — these all depressed me beyond depression. I had had a bad day at the Mission, having “funked” two important ships; I was ashamed of myself, lonely, and hungry after a supper of sardines and potted meat. I saw suddenly before me a cathedral, gigantic, proud, hostile, and beneath it, under its shadow, tiny midgets walking. The bells rang out and the midgets hurriedly crowded together like ants on an anthill. Then a great door opened like a mouth and in they jumbled and were no more seen.