The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (Valancourt eClassics)

by A. J. A. Symons

  Poor Rolfe! His detractor calls this a ‘quaint experience’, but no doubt it was more miserable than ‘quaint’ to the man who suffered by it. On his ejectment he went to the Bishop, who enabled him to get supper and shelter for the night. Two months later, doubtless in desperation, the wretched outcast asked the House Surgeon at the Royal Infirmary to certify him as insane, in order that he might have free quarters, if only in the asylum. He besought recommendations so that he might try for the post of Librarian to Aberdeen University, but failed again. Then (according to the merciless record of his sufferings) the ‘Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor in Aberdeen’ took him up. The would-be photographer was given chemicals with which to carry out his experiments, and even money. From the 2nd September 1893 to the 16th November he received as gift the total of £5 19s. 0d. This hardly seems an excessive amount spread over ten weeks, more particularly if the circumstance is afterwards to be published (as in this case) that on the 11th September one was handed half-a-crown, and on the 26th, sixpence. Charity seems dearly purchased on such terms. But even so Rolfe was regarded as a ‘hopeless case’, and ‘the Association declined to help him further’. Was there a lower depth for him to plumb? ‘It was on a Saturday afternoon’, continues the disagreeable Recording Angel, ‘when discarded by even the Poor Association, that the Baron found his way to Mr Champion [at that time a well-known Labour leader] . . . Mr Champion and a friend were at dinner when he called – dressed in knickerbocker suit and wearing generally a pretty respectable appearance. He was shown into the dining room, but drew back on seeing that Mr Champion was not alone, and beckoned him out. Mr Champion followed him, and thereupon received a tale of exceeding woe. He did not know very well what to make of his visitor, but, following the advice of the friend, he gave the Baron a hearty dinner to begin with.’ [The anonymous author’s comment on this reasonable action is characteristic: ‘This in itself was an inestimable treat’. Doubtless it was, to a very hungry man.] After this unconventional introduction Rolfe worked as secretary to Champion for some time, and was befriended by him in London as well as in the inhospitable city of Aberdeen until February 1894, when the Labour leader departed for Australia. At that point, more or less, this queer newspaper account of an even queerer man comes to a stop; though its end deserves to be quoted as a pendant to its opening:

  We are not concerned with his fortunes in London [after Champion’s departure]. Sufficient to say that he was soon ‘starving’ in the old way again, with occasional lifts into more fortunate conditions – [though] it may be mentioned that on one occasion at least, in the summer of last year (1897), he revisited Aberdeen [intrepid Rolfe!] in company with a gentleman who is understood to have had in view the purchase of property. But for the present we have done with Baron Corvo. As already mentioned, there is matter at hand with regard to this personage’s proceedings that would amaze the public for weeks on end. But enough has been said, one would imagine, to induce Mr Rolfe to follow the sensible advice of his best friends [among whom the author of the article was assuredly not to be counted] to drop the use of this foreign title and betake himself to some industrious calling. And the Wide World Magazine, which puts forward the Baron and his story, and which declared at the outset of its career that nothing but fact would be admitted to its pages, may see in the story of the Baron a new reading which it never intended, of the motto still displayed on its front page that ‘Truth is stranger than Fiction’.

  [1] This gibe is inaccurate; corvus is raven, not crow; and it was the raven that Baron Corvo took as his emblem.

  CHAPTER 4: THE RELUCTANT BROTHER

  After reading this extraordinary article (of which I have transcribed little more than half) I went for a long walk, to ponder the facts and the character that it revealed. Mr Jackson’s account of the Christchurch affair corroborated it on the one point which I could check; but I could not resist the feeling that the writer had satisfied a long-standing debt by this unfriendly account of Rolfe’s doings. Still, it was useless, I felt, without further knowledge, to attempt to assess the material of the newspaper attack. At least it gave me dates and information to cover the period from 1886 to 1898. Twelve years; in that time Rolfe had changed from an eccentric and curious painter into a writer of challenging gifts and powers. How? There lay the real problem and wonder. I could not forget that the rapscallion so ruthlessly exposed had written Hadrian the Seventh. Save for my knowledge of that circumstance, I might have read the attack, as one reads so many similar accounts in newspapers, with nothing more than a passing smile at a quaint impostor. But the author of Hadrian could not have been a mere landlord-bilking impostor. It seemed undeniable that, even apart from Venice, there were sinister episodes in his life; but he had survived them; the shabby figure that stalked the Aberdeen streets had added to the laurels of English letters. I must learn more. I counted the hours till I could call on Mr Herbert Rolfe.

  Need I say that I was prompt in fulfilment of my appointment at Mr Rolfe’s chambers in the Temple? The lawyer proved to be a heavy, ponderous man; amiable, I judged, when not confronted by an unwelcome reminder (such as mine) of events which, I could plainly see, he would have preferred forgotten. As his letter foreshadowed, he was ‘not unwilling’, and equally not eager, to give me information. What did I want to know?

  No great degree of penetration was needed to see that Mr Rolfe was in two minds as to how much to tell me; and I soon discovered the reason for his reluctance. He was furious at the tone and ‘inaccuracies’ of Mr Leslie’s article, and in particular at the statement that his brother’s remains were committed to a pauper’s grave. He himself, he told me, went to Venice on the day that his brother’s death was announced in The Times, and secured decent Christian burial for the remains, paying the ordinary fee. At that time the Municipality refused to grant a grave in perpetuity, and he was therefore obliged to purchase a ten years’ lease. On the expiration of that, he had, after much negotiation, procured a permanent resting place for his brother’s body in the cemetery of the island of San Michele.

  The situation was a delicate one. I was mortally anxious not to offend the man who, above all others, could help me; but with the assertions and insinuations of the Aberdeen Press attack still in my mind, I was afraid that, by some chance remark, I might. However, I set out my questions with all the diplomacy I could contrive; and Mr Rolfe listened with unmarred patience. I summarized his replies.

  Frederick William Rolfe, the eldest of five brothers, was born at 61 Cheapside on 22 July 1860. The Rolfe family had been manufacturers of pianos since the eighteenth century; but, despite being among the pioneers of their trade, had from about 1850 onwards lost ground to their competitors. Frederick was from the first gifted and flighty. He was sent to a sound school in Camden Town (which had long since ceased to exist, Mr Rolfe told me) and made progress when he chose. But drawing and enjoyment counted with him before Latin exercises, though he was well grounded in classical studies, and proved himself a proficient scholar. Much against his father’s wish, Frederick left school in his fifteenth year; I did not discover if there was any reason, beyond ‘waywardness and discontent’, for thus cutting short his schooldays. He idled for a time, worked as an unattached student at Oxford, and then as I already knew) became, first a schoolmaster, then a Catholic, and then a candidate for priesthood. Each of these steps had in turn increased the family disappointment and disapproval, and left a wider gap between the prodigal and his relatives. Mr Rolfe, senior, a firm Dissenter, had hardly known whether to regret or rejoice at the failure of his eldest son to become a Catholic priest. Thereafter, as Fr. (which stood for Frederick, not Father) Rolfe found it more and more difficult to secure himself a livelihood, his letters home became fewer and briefer. He had never lost touch completely; but the Rolfes had necessarily watched his later career from afar, and were not, therefore, able to give me close details. With regard to the Christchurch episode, Mr Rolfe would express no opinion, though he was surprised to hea
r that his brother had ever possessed any freehold houses, mortgaged or otherwise. He could give no further information regarding the Duchess. The Barony he regarded as a bad joke. But on the subject of the Aberdeen Press attack, which had been copied into other newspapers, Mr Rolfe came very near warmth in his contempt. It had been made at a time when his brother, endeavouring to set the past behind him, had started a new career as a writer; and its effect, not only on public opinion, but also on Frederick Rolfe himself, had been disastrous. As a consequence of it, Fr. Rolfe had for years shrunk from notice, morbidly convinced that everyone with whom he was in contact had read and believed its charges. He had never fully recovered from the blow. If I wanted a reply to it, I had only to look at the Pope’s interview with his Cardinals at the end of Hadrian.

  Were there any definite misstatements in the Aberdeen Free Press article, I asked? Mr Rolfe seemed to think not; but circumstances, not in themselves shameful, had been so presented as to give a very wrong impression. He thought that the best answer would be to read to me a testimonial which his brother had received from Dr E. G. Hardy, who after being Rolfe’s headmaster at Grantham School had later become Vice-Principal of Jesus College at Oxford. I listened.

  Applegarth, Bardwell Rd, Oxford

  22 July 1904

  Mr Frederick William Rolfe has been an intimate and valued friend of mine for more than twenty years; and, if anything which I can say, or any testimony which I can give, as to his ability and worth, should prove to be of assistance to him in his present difficult and entirely undeserved position, I shall be more than glad.

  From the time when I first knew him, Mr Rolfe has been a man of many interests and tastes, all of which he cultivated as occasion served, with energy and enthusiasm. Owing to circumstances, however, he has been gradually attracted more and more to literature, for the sake of which, indeed, he has resolutely turned his back for years upon every pleasure and recreation which might distract him from success. As to what measure of this he has already achieved, it would be unfitting for me, as his friend, to give an opinion. What I wish to dwell upon – and I speak with intimate knowledge of the whole of his career – is the unfaltering devotion with which he has given himself up to his work. He has been, as I well know, at every disadvantage throughout. He has had no influential friends to back and encourage him; and he has been almost hopelessly weighed down by want of means. But notwithstanding this, he has never lost heart. In spite of loneliness and poverty and too often, I fear, actual privation, he has year after year continued to struggle. I do not attempt, as I say, to appreciate the value of his work; but I know that it represents an amount of self-denying labour, almost wholly unrewarded, which in almost every other profession could hardly have failed to win success.

  But it is not only the indefatigable industry, perseverance, and thoroughness of his work which has commanded my admiration and respect.

  I should like also to record my thorough belief in Mr Rolfe as a refined and honourable gentleman, whose moral character is without reproach, and of whose genuineness and bona fides in all relations of life I have no doubt whatever. Mr Rolfe has been frequently a visitor in my house and college, both in past years and quite recently: indeed during each of the last five years he has spent several months or weeks with me, assisting me with portions of my work for which defective eyesight has incapacitated me; and, even if I had had no other opportunities, during the many years I have known him, of forming a judgment on his abilities, his social charm, and his moral worth, I should still be justified in bearing what I hope will be considered this emphatic testimony to his deserts.

  As a matter of fact, however, I speak from a much more thorough knowledge of his whole career than probably any other of his friends.

  E. G. Hardy, M.A., D.Litt.

  Vice-Principal and Tutor of Jesus Col. Oxford

  formerly Head Master of Grantham School.

  Once more Fr. Rolfe had astonished me. Who could have supposed that the adventurer who had so signally failed to impress the residents of Aberdeen could have deserved this glowing testimonial from an influential Oxford don? I was lost in surmise, when Mr Rolfe recalled me to the active present by suggesting that, as our interview had already been a long one, I should take away and study certain letters from his brother which he had brought for my inspection, and then consult him again. He emphasized the necessity for discretion in anything that I might write. Frederick Rolfe had made many enemies during his life, not all of whom were dead; and there were incidents which, if I revived them, might bring about a renewal of attacks upon his memory, which the Rolfe family urgently wished to avoid. For that reason he would not at present aid me, even if he could, to a sight of The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole. Later, he would be willing to discuss the whole matter with me again; for the present, I must rest content with the material he offered.

  This last decision was a disappointment; nevertheless I felt profoundly grateful to Mr Rolfe; and after thanking him cordially, I left his chambers with the packet of letters burning under my arm.

  Before reading the letters, I turned again to the refutation which he had reminded me I should find in Hadrian. It takes up most of Chapter XXII in that strange book. When I first read it I had missed its significance, not knowing then of the article in the Aberdeen Free Press. Rose, like his creator, has been grossly attacked by a newspaper; and, assembling his Cardinals, he gives his answer. He asks his audience to understand that

  I tell you what I am about to tell you, not because I have been provoked, abused, calumniated, traduced, assailed with insinuation, innuendo, mispresentation, lies: not because my life has been held up to ridicule, and to most inferior contempt: not because the most preposterous stories to my detriment have been invented, hawked about, believed. No. Please understand that I am not going to speak in my own defence, even to you. I personally and of predilection can be indifferent to opinions. But officially I must correct error.

  He does. He explains his retirement from Grantham as due to his conversion to the Catholic faith, not to disgrace. He gives reasons for the cessation of his Oban employment. His debts at Rome are dismissed as insignificant, and incurred on the advice of the Vice-Rector. On the subject of bilking landlords, he exclaims (in a ‘rictus of rage’):

  Do you suppose that a man of my description goes about bilking landlords for the sake of the fun of the thing? It’s no such deliriously jolly work, I can tell you. However, I’ve never bilked any landlords, if that’s what you want to know. Never. They saw that I worked like nineteen galley-slaves; and they offered to trust me. I voluminously explained my exact position and prospects to them. I was foolish enough to believe that you Catholics would keep your promises. . . . So I accepted credit. I wish I had died. . . . When I was defrauded of my wages, my landlords lost patience (poor things – I don’t blame them), harried me, reproached me, at length turned me out, and so prevented me from paying them. I dug myself out of the gutter with these bare hands again and again; and started anew to earn enough to pay my debts. Debts! They never were off my chest for twenty years, no matter what these vile liars say. . . . They say that I gorged myself with sumptuous banquets at grand hotels. Once, after several days’ absolute starvation, I got a long-earned guinea; and I went and had an omelette and a bed at a place which called itself a grand hotel. It wasn’t particularly grand in the ordinary sense of the term; and my entertainment there cost me no more than it would have cost me elsewhere, and it was infinitely cheaper and tastier. They say that I ate daintily, and had elaborate dishes made from a cookery book of my own. The recipes (there may have been a score of them) were cut-out of a penny weekly current among the working classes. The dishes were lentils, carrots, anything that was cheapest, cleanest, easiest and most filling – nourishing – at the price. Each dish cost something under a penny; and I sometimes had one each day. That’s the story of my luxurious living. Let me add though that I was extravagant, in proportion to my means, in one thing. Whenever I earned a littl
e bit, I reserved some of it for apparatus conducing to personal cleanliness, soap, baths, tooth-things, and so on. I’m not a bit ashamed of that. Why did I use credit? Because it was offered; because I hoped. . . . I never was idle. I worked at one thing after another. . . . I courted semi-starvation and starvation, I scrupulously avoided drink, I hardly ever even spoke civilly to a woman; and I laboured like a driven slave. No: I never was idle. But I was a most abject fool. I used to think that this diligent ascetic life would pay me best. I made the mistake of omitting to give its due importance to the word ‘own’ in the adage ‘Virtue is its own reward’. I had no other reward except my unwillingly cultivated but altogether undeniable virtue. . . . I repeat, I never was idle. I did work after work. I delineated saints and seraphim, and sinners, chiefly the former: a series of rather interesting and polyonomous devils in a period of desperate revolt. I slaved as a professional photographer, making (from French prints) a set of negatives for lantern-slides of the Holy Land which were advertised as being ‘from original negatives’ . . . I did journalism, reported inquests for eighteenpence. I wrote for magazines, I wrote books. I invented a score of things. Experts used to tell me that there was a fortune waiting for me in these inventions: that any capitalist would help me to exploit them. They were small people themselves, these experts, – small, in that they were not obliged to pay income tax: they had no capital to invest: but they recommended me, and advised me, to apply to lots of people who had: – gave me their names and addresses, dictated the letters of application which I wrote. I trusted them, for they were ‘business men’, and I knew that I was not of that species. I quieted my repugnance; and I laid invention after invention, scheme after scheme, work after work, before capitalist after capitalist. I was assured that it was correct to do so. I despised and detested myself for doing it. I scoured the round world for a ‘patron’. These were my begging letters. . . . I knew that I had done such and such a new thing: that I had exhausted myself and my resources in doing it: that my deed was approved by specialists who thoroughly knew the subject. I was very ashamed to ask for help to make my inventions profitable: but I was quite honest – generous: I always offered a share in the profits – always. I did not ask for, and I did not expect, something for nothing. I had done so much; and I wanted so little: but I did want that little, – for my creditors, for giving ease to some slaves of my acquaintance. I was a fool, a sanguine ignorant abject fool! I never learned by experience. I still kept on. A haggard shabby shy priestly-visaged individual, such as I was, could not hope to win the confidence of men who daily were approached by splendid plausible cadgers. My requests were too diffident, too modest. I made the mistake of appealing to brains rather than to bowels, to reason rather than to sentiment. . . . By degrees I had the mortification of seeing others arrive at the discovery which I had made years before. They contrived to turn it into gold and fame. That way, one after another of my inventions became nulled to me. . . . When I think of all the violently fatuous frantic excellent things I’ve done in the course of my struggles for an honest living – ouf! It makes me sick! . . . Oh yes, I have been helped. God forgive me for bedaubing myself with that indelible blur. A brute once said that he supposed that I looked upon the world as mine oyster. I did not. I worked; and I wanted my wages. When they were withheld, people encouraged me to hope on; and offered me a guinea for the present. I took the filthy guinea. God forgive me for becoming so degraded. Not because I wanted to take it: but because they said that they would be so pained at my refusal. But one can’t pay all one’s debt, and lead a godly righteous sober life for ever after on a guinea. I was offered help: but help in teaspoonfuls: just enough to keep me alive and chained in the mire: never enough to enable me to raise myself out of it. I asked for work, and they gave me a guinea, – and a tacit request to go and agonize elsewhere. . . . Regarding my pseudonyms – my numerous pseudonyms – think of this: I was a tonsured clerk, intending to persist in my Divine Vocation, but forced for a time to engage in secular pursuits both to earn my living and to pay my debts. I had a shuddering repugnance from associating my name, the name by which I . . . should some day be known in the priesthood, with these secular pursuits. I think that was rather absurd: but I am quite sure that it was not dishonourable. However, for that reason I adopted pseudonyms. . . . In fact, I split up my personality. As Rose [Rolfe] I was a tonsured clerk: as King Clement [Baron Corvo] I wrote and painted and photographed: as Austin White I designed decorations: as Francis Engle I did journalism. There were four of me at least. . . . And of course my pseudonymity has been misunderstood by the stupid, as well as mispresented by the invidious. Most people have only half developed their single personalities. That a man should split his into four and more, and should develop each separately and perfectly, was so abnormal that many normals failed to understand it. So when ‘false pretences’ and similar shibboleths were shrieked, they also took alarm and howled. But there were no false pretences.