‘Panatheist, bruiser and breaker
Of kings and the creatures of kings,
I shouted on Freedom to shake her
Feet loose of the fetter that clings;
Far rolling my ravenous red eye,
And lifting a mutinous lid,
To all monarchs and matrons I said I
Would shock them — and did.
‘O delights of the time of my teething,
Felise, Fragoletta, Yolande!
Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething
On blasted and blithering sand!
Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted
With blossoms that coil and decay,
Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are melted
Like ices in May.
‘Hushed now is the bibulous bubble
Of “lithe and lascivious” throats;
Long stript and extinct is the stubble
Of hoary and harvested oats;
From the sweets that are sour as the sorrel’s
The bees have abortively swarmed;
And Algernon’s earlier morals
Are fairly reformed.
‘I have written a loyal Armada,
And posed in a Jubilee pose;
I have babbled of babies and played a
New tune on the turn of their toes;
Washed white from the stain of Astarte,
My books any virgin may buy;
And I hear I am praised by a party
Called Something Mackay!’
Mr. Swinburne’s most quoted words in this ‘babble of babies’ were that The Golden Age was ‘well-nigh too praiseworthy for praise He confesses that Harold was his favourite of Kenneth’s four dream-children. In this preference he is not original. But he goes on to say briefly that Harold (and, says Mr. Swinburne, a more deliciously life-like child was never begotten of fancy) would have been ‘a good playfellow for Shakespeare’s Mamillius’. The idea is an intriguing one. Harold has an imagination which is his chief charm. Its mission is to cause a creeping of the flesh. Had the small Mamillius been given half a chance his fancy might have caused a creeping of the flesh also, perhaps adding to that a further chattering of the teeth:
Hermione. ‘Pray you, sit by us and tell’s a tale.’ Mamillius. ‘Merry, or sad, shall’t be?’
Hermione. ‘As merry as you will.’
Mamillius. ‘A sad tale’s best for Winter. I have one of sprites and goblins.’
Hermione. ‘Let’s have that, good Sir. Come on, sit down.’
Mamillius. ‘There was a man—’
Hermione. ‘Nay, come, sit down; then on.’
Mamillius. ‘Dwelt by a churchyard; — I will tell it softly; you crickets shall not hear it.’
Hermione. ‘Come on then, and give’t me in mine ear.’
Alas, of course, the entrance of Leontes and others stops the story. But compare Harold’s tale of the burglars with the ‘sprites and goblins’, with the above beginning. I think that I see, with Mr. Swinburne, a brotherly likeness in the two styles.
In the main Mr. Swinburne’s review is quotation and what is not text is not very remarkable. I should say however that, as a selling critique, his must, for ever, rank among the bonanzas — the bonanzas that most writers of books must do without. And that, possibly, is because (though most writers work much harder than Kenneth Grahame worked) a book, in the best sense of the word, is seldom born to them. And The Golden Age was a book in every sense of the word ‘best’. It was good on the counter and good on the knee. And after nearly forty years, it continues to possess these two goodnesses.
I have told of its most famous review — that of Mr. Swinburne. And I have mentioned its worst — not a very bad worst — at the hands of the Saturday Review. Its best I will not attempt to name, for what (as the maidens of the Stepney literature class, it may be remembered, once said to the author) ‘is one among so many’?
But I think that the pleasantest review of all received came from New York. The reviewer mentions his finding of The Golden Age in conjunction with his seeing, shortly before that, of a White Admiral butterfly, the first that he had seen for many years. He treats both events as one and says of them, ‘In the second half of a man’s century he may be thankful for anything that, for the time being, lifts two score of years off his back.’ His thanks therefore go both to the butterfly and to Mr. Grahame. I think that ‘Mr. Grahame’ must have enjoyed these thanks and rejoiced greatly in his co-recipient of them.
I have been struck, in my reading of these old press notices, with the multitude of famous authors to which Kenneth Grahame is compared by his critics — generally to his advantage. I tried to keep count of the names but, after making a list of seventeen, I recalled that comparisons were odious, and I stopped counting. But Shakespeare, Dickens and Thackeray are among that seventeen.
And again and again does some obvious person hail Kenneth Grahame wearer of the cloak of Carroll. But the two men are alike in no whit save that each made his reputation in mighty few words. Carroll was, though mathematical, impractical and, though logical, absurd. Kenneth, when he came to build Mole End and Toad Hall, was sound, solid and illogical. Kenneth Grahame was a philosopher. Carroll was a Don.
Lewis Carroll writing to a friend says, ‘The favour I would ask is that you do not tell me any more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which children are said to have made on sacred subjects — remarks which most people would recognize as irreverent, if made by grown-up people but which are assumed to be innocent when made by children.’ The story which gave cause for the complaint, ‘only made after changing my mind several times’, was quoted from a recently published review of The Golden Age in which was repeated the innocent alteration, by a little girl, of a well-known text: ‘Many are cold but few are frozen.’ And I dare say that Kenneth Grahame, reading his review, smiled. Though, at the same time, I am sure that he would not himself have committed the betise of passing on the burlesque, blameless though it was, to a prince of the Church.
Kenneth Grahame and Lewis Carroll were both ‘Great Lovers’ of all things, great and small. Kenneth has been seen concerned over the fate of a fictional camel. And ‘during the first public dramatic representation of Alice in Wonderland at the Polytechnic, the entertainment took the form of a series of tableaux, interspersed with appropriate readings and songs. Mr. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll was, of course, The Rev. Mr. Dodgson) exercised a rigid censorship over all the extraneous matter introduced into the performance, and put his veto upon a verse in one of the songs in which the drowning of kittens was treated from a humorous point of view.’
For my own part I do not know any author to whom I could liken Kenneth Grahame. Unless indeed it were to ‘Syr Thomas Maleore Knyght, of Newbold Revell (the last a name Kenneth would have delighted in), Warwick’.
Sir Thomas, who died in 1470, gave to England the old Arthurian story, rescued for us Lancelot and Guinevere from the French. He gave us the Romance of Knight Errantry and he might almost have written ‘The Reluctant Dragon’. His style was stately and dignified. He was soldier and romanticist, he was a scholar and a poet and, had Kenneth Grahame worn any mantle but his own, I imagine that he may have worn that of Sir Thomas Malory.
It was my own good fortune not to discover Kenneth Grahame piecemeal. The National Observer flourished on a day when I was little likely to be reading it, the Yellow Book cost five shillings a number at a time when my five shillingses were few. So I came on Kenneth Grahame in bulk on the counter of a book-shop in Bedford. I took up a little volume bound in yellow because I liked the name on the cover — The Golden Age. I hoped it was going to be something like The Heroes. I opened it at random and began to read. It was not quite as The Heroes and yet it might well have been made by one who had helped to wake ‘the white-ash breeze’ on the benches of Argo. I didn’t bother to look what that one’s name might be, but I stood and read his book. Folk pushed me and trod on me and at last an assistant asked if he could ‘s
how me anything’. I said, ‘Eh? No — Yes, I mean, I’ll take this.’
I did and walked home among the Saturday evening crowd in the High Street reading as I walked. I bumped into this one and that one bumped into me. Which is, perhaps, the right way to buy a book and read a book, but the book has to be, of course, the right book that you have bought. I did not look to see who had made The Golden Age until I had finished it, even then, seeing that some one had, his name seemed of no particular moment.
Three years later, in 1898, John Lane published a successor and sequel to The Golden Age and proved conclusively that a success can be repeated. Although to Mr. A. A. Milne demanding a sequel to The Wind in the Willows (‘a second wind’ he calls it) Kenneth Grahame replied: ‘Sequels are often traps which the wise author does well to avoid, if he wants to go, like Christian, on his way singing!’
Dream Days, moreover, contained the top note of all Kenneth Grahame’s articles and short stories. For, to me, the tale of ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ marks the apogee of its author’s art.
It was natural that, as edition followed edition, both books should begin to appear in illustrated form. Outstanding among the illustrators is Mr. Maxfield Parrish, of U.S.A., who, writing to the publishers, says of his pictures: ‘It surprises me very much to hear that Mr. Grahame likes the illustrations I made for his books; such books, which so thoroughly illustrate themselves, should not have pictures in them; the only reason for illustrating them is that they sell better so — in Texas and Idaho!’
In America Kenneth Grahame and his works boomed. Elsewhere in this book I have shown to what extent they appealed to the American Navy. And other seafarers than American tars appreciated The Golden Age. Mr. Austen Purves, writing to Kenneth Grahame in 1908, says, ‘You will be interested to hear that in the Kaiser’s cabin, on the royal yacht Hohenzollern, there are only two books in the English language. One of them is the Bible and the other is Kenneth Grahame’s Golden Age’
And had the author wished to make money by writing for American publications, or by lecturing in the States, he might have had it by the bushel.
Among a hundred unanswered letters and telegrams, the senders of which literally clamour for the ‘copy’ which never came, I pick one paragraph from one letter which voices the united attitude of all American journalism. The editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, of Philadelphia, finishes an appeal for ‘something reflective of the Christmas spirit’, an appeal of such poignancy that it surely deserved to succeed (willing moreover as the Journal was to ‘purchase this material a year in advance’), thus: ‘Will you simply think of us as figuratively and literally standing with both arms extended in welcome to any Christmas material for next year?’
Furthermore, a friend of President Theodore Roosevelt writes: ‘The President and Mrs. Roosevelt again alluded to your book and Mrs. Roosevelt informed us that she was now engaged in reading The Golden Age and Dream Days, for about the tenth time, to her children. The President requested me to write to you and say that he would esteem it a great privilege and compliment if you would send him an autographed copy of your books and that in return he would be very proud to send you an autograph copy of works of his own. He also requested me to say that if you ever visit the United States during his term as President, he would be delighted to have you spend a week-end with him at the White House in Washington.’
Kenneth thereupon packed up the books asked for and in each he wrote:
‘To President Theodore Roosevelt
with highest respect and in grateful
recognition of his courtesy
from
Kenneth Grahame’
And on receipt of the parcel the President replied:
‘The White House,— ‘Oyster Bay, N.Y.
‘Washington — June 20, 1907
‘Personal ‘MY DEAR MR. GRAHAME, — I am sure that no one to whom you could have sent those two volumes would appreciate them more than Mrs. Roosevelt and I. I think we could both pass competitive examinations in them — especially in the psychology of Harold!
‘Now there are two people from Scotland whom we especially wish to see as guests in the White House while we are still there to be hosts. One is Oliver, who wrote the best life of Alexander Hamilton that has ever been written; and the other is yourself. Isn’t there some chance of your coming over here?
‘With renewed thanks, believe me,
‘Sincerely yours,
‘THEODORE ROOSEVELT
‘Mr. Kenneth Grahame England.’
It is easy to understand, the Kaiser and the President of the United States to set the fashion, that Kenneth Grahame’s ‘fan-mail’ equalled that of a film star. From all over the world felicitations reached John Lane’s. It is interesting to read from this profusion of letters and to note among it the mere handful that, obviously, come with difficulty and from the heart, that are something more than the multitude emotions of the glib. Here is a specimen of the former:
‘Lindsay, California. Jan. 24/15.
‘DEAR MR. GRAHAME, — I ought to say “Dear Sir” seeing that we are strangers perhaps but I feel too friendly for so chilly an expression. Whether this will find you I do not know. You are perhaps several inches deep in Flanders mud or at the bottom of the North Sea? (not however directly resultant upon being an author). Not being an author myself I do not know how it feels; or how one gets treated. And my present proceeding may strike you as a trifle peculiar. However, I can’t help that, I am a queer guy I suppose and have led and am leading a queer life. It is Sunday morning and the deadly hideousness of the California scenery has been, as is often the case, much on my nerves — you see I come from the Wye Valley and from South Devon and from some years spent upon the high seas beneath the old red rag, and after that eleven years in the San Joaquin Valley are as a life in the Bastille. This morning I have happened upon your Golden Age — and the years have rolled away and I have been again a boy in England. — (I was an English public school boy once!) — and I lay in bed and laughed as I haven’t laughed in years — And now, before I return to the existence that is at present my lot, I just want to drop you a line and thank you for having written The Golden Age. It has helped me out a lot. — I have small time for reading and small chance — Please don’t think me impertinent — I am aware that it was not written for my especial benefit — But you have no idea how clearly I see the wind in the trees by the Wye — and one thousand things that are part of the life of a boy in England — May the blessings of the gods be yours; and your princess exceeding fair — And now I’ll lay my course again so so long. —
‘Yrs gratefully—’
This letter is one of the very few of its kind that is docketed as ‘replied to’.
But to a little girl who, having read Dream Days from ‘The Twenty-first of October’ down to ‘A Departure’, writes, of the latter story, to ask ‘could you please explain to me where the “res” is “an-gusta” and what are “weekly books” — i love your books’, Kenneth (a poor correspondent towards most people was punctilious towards Youth) has replied: ‘Res angusta is Latin for a very small income. The “weekly books” are the tradesmen’s account books which are supposed to be paid weekly, and when they aren’t there’s trouble, sooner or later. They are tiresome things and, when you reach that stage, I advise you to have nothing to do with them, but to pay cash. It may be troublesome, but it brings mental ease and peace!’ A counsel of perfection indeed.
The success of The Golden Age and Dream Days caused a second blooming and booming in Pagan Papers. A lady reader of the last writes, concerning ‘Marginalia’: ‘I have been puzzling over a certain passage and I have never met any one yet who seemed able to throw any light on the subject. On p. 78 you quote “By this single battle of Magnesia, Antiochus the Great lost all his conquests in Asia Minor”; of course, as you say, battle can be changed into “bottle”, but what is the substitute for conquests? In the ordinary way of things a small hitch like that would not worry me, but Pagan Pa
pers is one of my much-beloved “bed-books” (as E. V. Lucas would say) and every time I come across that bit I wonder.’
She is probably wondering still, for the author, who might have made several answers to her query, preferred to make none.
But to a lady who sends him, in 1916, a book-plate of her designing the motto of which is taken from the ‘Pagan Paper’
‘Non libri sed liberi’, he writes, ‘Thank you for your beautiful book-plate, the Kelmscott wood-cut adapts itself admirably to its new purpose and — as for the motto — it might almost be classical! Yes, Latin is passing fast away and many another thing with it, and a new world is being born wherein they will tell braver tales than those of tall Troy and Phseacia.’
‘Non libri sed liberi’ being set as the subject of an essay in an American literature class, a school-girl declares that, ‘Kenneth Grahame advocates the purchase of old editions and yet this passion for first bindings often leads mothers to neglect their babies.’ Bibliophiles indeed!
In the year that Dream Days went to press, its author, still under forty, was appointed Secretary to the Bank of England. A high place to have attained to. And one that only merit in Mammon could have enabled him to reach. Small wonder that admirers of his literary genius were confounded if they learnt as they did occasionally, that the creator of Harold, the writer of The Golden Age, was connected, and highly, with anything so near to the apotheosis of top-hatted respectability as The Bank of England. At the Bank the new Secretary was rumoured to be a writer on his afternoons off. A member of the Directorate, hearing of the Secretary’s book, The Golden Age, ordered it under the impression that it dealt with bullion or bi-metalism, then a matter of financial moment. Or, at least, he says that he did in a letter of warm appreciation of the purer metal purchased, which he addresses to ‘My dear Dark Horse’.
Complete Works of Kenneth Grahame Page 81