Gilbert

by Michael Coren

  Salvation appeared in the form of a school playground fight, lasting some forty-five minutes, but with an affectionate conclusion. Gilbert was probably fifteen, possibly sixteen, at the time; Edmund Clerihew Bentley was two years younger. “The supreme importance to me of my schooldays lies in the fact that they were the time when I saw most of Gilbert Keith Chesterton,” wrote Bentley in his memoirs. “If this were an autobiography, I should have more to say upon that subject than upon almost any other; and as it is, such account as I can give of G.K.C. must include a reference to his extraordinary power — of which he was and always remained quite unconscious — of inspiring affection and trust in all who had anything to do with him. It is as much a part of his story as of mine that we could form a friendship that was to last quite unchanged through life, even through years when we did not often meet and hardly ever wrote to each other: that was to become, speaking for myself, a part of the permanent background of existence, so that whatever happened to me, there was always somewhere in my mind the thought of the impression that it would make upon him …”

  It was to become one of the greatest of literary friendships. Gilbert had not noticed the younger boy during his time at St Paul’s and Bentley seems to have been unaware of the existence of Gilbert. The conflict which brought them together could never be recalled by Bentley, and Gilbert, always heavily influenced by his readings and imagination, was not beyond elaborating romantically on a quite uneventful meeting. However, his account tells of an energetic struggle, followed the next day by an even more tiring combat. The fisticuffs stopped when one of them quoted a line from Macaulay, the other was familiar with it and continued the quotation; the battle over, they set about becoming allies. Gilbert’s home became a form of retreat for them both, a refreshment point where nourishment of an intellectual as well as a calorific kind could be obtained. Bentley was one of those prodigies which appear every generation or so to enliven schoolboy mythology. While dreaming the day away during the extremely dull chemistry lesson at St Paul’s the vibrant young man began to doodle on the blotting paper in front of him. What he wrote was to edge its way into literary history and begin an entirely new poetic style.

  Sir Humphrey Davy

  Abominated gravy,

  He lived in the odium

  Of having discovered sodium.

  As Bentley’s middle name was Clerihew this distinctive title — which he scrupulously kept to himself all through his schooldays, knowing that years of teasing would follow such a revelation — was awarded to the verses which he was to write. Light-hearted and even absurd at times they may have been, but clerihews have retained their appeal throughout the years, still provoking a wry smile from readers.

  The finest of the breed were to be published in Biography for Beginners, with illustrations from Gilbert Chesterton, and the first thing which was to be learned from the book was that Biography differs from Geography because the latter is about maps, the former about chaps. And did the Spanish people believe Cervantes equal to half-a-dozen Dantes? It was very much the humour of Gilbert and Bentley, ridiculous but heavily tinged with learning and thought. The intimacy of the friendship is indicated by the dedication in Bentley’s most famous work, the immortal detective story Trent’s Last Case. “Dear Gilbert,” he wrote, “… I have been thinking again today of those astonishing times when neither of us ever looked at a newspaper; when we were purely happy in the boundless consumption of paper, pencils, tea, and our elders’ patience; when we embraced the most severe literature and ourselves produced such light reading as was necessary … in short, when we were extremely young.” The friendship was the most influential happening of Bentley’s life, with an importance which surpasses most schoolboy affections. Their bond was deeply emotional, known to the rest of the school and respected as something special rather than sinister. If there was any homosexual aspect to the relationship, as some have alleged, it was of the most innocent kind which is not uncommon amongst adolescent boys; the physical was never hinted at or suggested, they were simply two people involved in healthy, noble love. Platonic partnerships between men during the 1890s were frequent, usually encouraged. Attitudes of the times discerned a masculine quality in the close companionship of males, without any of the homosexual connotations which hold sway today. Until the 1950s, for example, television could present two male friends in the same bed without the physical being considered. External attitudes have altered modern interpretations, and it would be a dangerous anachronism to apply this to Gilbert and Bentley. Gilbert was aware of possible accusations however, and vehemently denied and condemned “the sin of Oscar Wilde.”

  In an article in the Spectator shortly after Gilbert’s death Bentley would write, “This friend of all men and respecter of every honest opinion had among his foremost qualities an enormous intellectual pugnacity; for the love of his kind involved, for him, the intolerance of wrong, of error, of the abuse of power or influence.” He continued, “Anyone who shares my memory of 11 Warwick Gardens in his boyhood will agree that vigorous and long-sustained arguments with anyone who would take up the cudgels were the most keenly felt pleasures of G.K.C. — sweeter even than the joy in books, or that collaboration in the producing of oceans of nonsense with pencil and paper which was the favourite amusement in that schoolboy circle.” And concluded with, “The parents made their home a place of happiness for their two boys’ many friends, a place that none of them can ever have forgotten.” Home was still Gilbert’s favourite place, not the school or the library. If a friend became special, if a book became precious, he would endeavour to involve person or object in his family base.

  The next individual to be invited to the endearingly chaotic Chesterton household was to be the missing link in the “three” (“Three is certainly the symbolic number for friendship,” Gilbert stated.) He was Lucian Oldershaw. Oldershaw differed from the other two-thirds of this sparkling triumvirate in many ways; he was from a totally different background, was of a distinct character. The son of an actor, he had travelled widely and lived in various towns and houses. This enforced change in location had meant a wide experience of schools, and when the dark, thin youth with a mature face and tested social manners joined Gilbert and Bentley he stood out as the publicist of the three, the boy who would get things done and also talk about his achievements. Gilbert believed that Oldershaw “brought into our secrets the breath of ambition and the air of a great world,” and with his talent for magic tricks and conjuring he impressed his class-mates with a reputation for being unpredictable, out of the ordinary in an impressive heroic way.

  For all Gilbert’s support of the trio in youthful friendships the maxim of “two’s company, three’s a crowd” did have its sting. Oldershaw wanted Gilbert as his best friend, his personal companion in the new school. He tried hard, but never succeeded. The subsequent tension which this introduced would have strained the pull of friendship in a young man less affectionate and forgiving than Gilbert. Oldershaw’s greatest contribution — apart from later becoming Gilbert’s brother-in-law — was to provide the impetus behind the formation of the Junior Debating Club. Literary, semi-political and debating organisations were being formed all over England at this time, and the venture which the three embarked upon was by no means unique; it was, however, probably the most mature and successful project of its kind anywhere in the country. The St Paul’s School Union Society already existed, but was looked on with some scorn, seen as a means of collaborating with masters and enhancing the prestige of the already bloated senior boys. Nor was the school magazine to be contributed to, regarded in Gilbert’s eyes as beneath the efforts of any serious writer. The boys already met together on an informal basis, and Oldershaw proposed that a regular venue and time be arranged. The first meeting would be held at Oldershaw’s house, in Talgarth Road, and the date would be 1st July 1890. The minutes of that first meeting were taken by Oldershaw, and are quite clear on points of purpose and nature.

  The object of the above Club is
to get a few friends together to amuse one another with a literary or something approaching a literary subject. It was thought best to have someone to manage it, so a Chairman and Secretary have been elected, and the rules given below have been framed. It was thought at first to confine it only to Shakespeare, but it was decided to let it be any literary subject.

  The elected Chairman was to be Gilbert, Oldershaw was made Secretary. The members represented something of an outcast, non-conformist group within St Paul’s, and were to produce some startlingly polished writings and talks.

  Twelve boys made up the original group, all of them agreeing with the Debating Club’s motto of “Hence loathed Melancholy” and accepting the rule that any member failing to read a literary paper to the assembled members when required to do so would be fined sixpence; the same fine was levied on any boy absent from meetings twice in succession without a valid and convincing excuse. Meetings would take place in the members’ houses, after school and sometimes on Saturdays. The founding sons of the Junior Debating Club were an intriguing group. First came Gilbert, Bentley and Oldershaw. Then there was Robert Vernède, a promising and skilled poet of French ancestry who sadly was killed in the First World War. The Solomon brothers, Lawrence and Maurice, were Jewish boys, once described by Gilbert in front of them as “the children of Israel”; Lawrence died in 1940, he was a Senior Tutor at University College, London. His brother, Maurice, became a leading director of the General Electric Company. Lawrence Solomon, a respected Latin don, became a close friend of Gilbert’s, a companion who was to maintain Gilbert’s sense of moderation and tolerance on the issue of anti-Semitism when many around him were indulging in crass Jew-baiting. Edward Fordham was a writer of satiric poetry, and used his caustic wit as a successful barrister. A second pair of brothers, Digby and Waldo d’Avigdor, two young men named Salter (later a Principal in the Treasury and Gilbert’s solicitor) and Bertram (Director of Civil Aviation in the then Air Ministry) and B.N. Langdon-Davies completed the set.

  The club took itself seriously, having photographs taken and feeling itself to be a somewhat exclusive body. In the group photograph of the J.D.C. reproduced here a pyramid has been formed with the aid of a step-ladder. Bentley is on top, an ambiguous expression on his face, possibly due to his having to perch in a precarious position. Gilbert is a few feet down, hands in pockets, bored by the whole thing. The rest of the group pose with arms folded or in positions of affected informality. At the bottom of the picture, almost hidden away is the small Cecil Chesterton, who ran along in the slipstream of the J.D.C., at first in short trousers. Bentley did not like Cecil and was prepared to show it; Cecil was never one to take a hint.

  The good-fellowship and hours of laughter and discussion which centred on these young scholars and the other St Paul’s pupils who would come along was not sufficient for all of the members, particularly Lucian Oldershaw. Always bursting with the urge to create and organise, Oldershaw perceived the need for a magazine in which the members could write and publish their views. Bentley was later to write that Oldershaw was not content with the simple founding of a well-organised and productive school society, “he founded, edited, published and actually sold within the school a J.D.C. magazine, the Debater, which contained, in addition to reports of the club’s proceedings, literary contributions by most of its members. These included the first of Chesterton’s poems to appear in print; poems which, as he declared many years afterwards, he never so much as glanced at again after leaving St Paul’s.”

  Eighteen issues of the Debater were to see the light of day written in studious and laborious longhand by the leading members of the J.D.C. and then transported, sometimes by ludicrous means, to the typewriting studio of Miss Davidson at 13 Charleville Road in West Kensington. The circulation of the magazine was between sixty and one hundred copies, sold at sixpence each. Pale fawn covers held the journal together, and by the end of the first day of circulation the initial issue of the Debater had been completely sold out. “It is patent to an awe-struck universe,” the first issue reported in a delightfully self-mocking manner, “that this paper is the offspring of that illustrious Society, the Junior Debating Club, whose fame has reached so many remote out-posts of the Empire, and whose ranks contain so many of the most able and distinguished men of the day.” The issue contained an article by Gilbert entitled “Dragons,” in which he demonstrated the style and grasp of argument and imagination which was to serve him so well

  The dragon is certainly the most cosmopolitan of impossibilities. His eccentric figure has walked through the romances of all ages and of all nations … this scaly intruder has appeared from the earliest times, and appeared apparently with the sole object of being killed, whether by the lance of St George, the club of Herakles, the sword of Siegfried, or the arrows of Hiawatha. We have even seen a dragon, together with some dubious-looking quadrupeds, in the arabesques of Mohammedans …

  The first line of the piece was used by other members of the J.D.C. as a password, an alternative motto. The first edition also contained contributions by Oldershaw on Chaucer and “Misinterpretation of Design” by Bentley. Gilbert himself recalled many years later that to have his thoughts and words recorded in print was “blood-curdling … I contributed to it turgid poems, in which bad imitations of Swinburne were so exactly balanced with worse imitations of the Lays of Ancient Rome, that many of my simpler friends fell under the illusion that I had a style of my own … But I must admit that, for whatever reason, they attracted a certain amount of attention; and our experiment began to float to the surface of the school life and come within the range of official attention, which was the last thing I had ever desired.”

  He is referring to the notice given to the Debater by Frederick Walker, the High Master of St Paul’s. Walker was an imposing man, respected by the boys but also capable of instilling fear and some dislike. He had arrived from Manchester Grammar School in 1876 after taking a first from Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His memory and ability to organise were gigantic, his sense of authority over the boys, and their subsequent acceptance of his standing, quite remarkable. His bellowing voice was notorious, his brusque manners ranging between the eccentrically amusing and the downright rude. Gilbert, and others, remembered the occasion when a protective and concerned mother wrote to Walker, anxious about the social standing of the boys at the school. “Madam,” he replied, “so long as your son behaves himself and the fees are paid, no question will be asked about his social standing.”

  It was this daunting figure who came across a copy of the Debater on his table; it had been nervously placed there by one of the boys. He announced in a voice which, according to Gilbert “began like an organ and ended like a penny whistle,” that the magazine “showed some glimmerings of talent”; he also announced on Speech Day that if he had been consulted about the magazine before its launch he may not have been willing to give it his blessing. This was one of the prime reasons why he was not involved in the early stages. The writings of Bentley and Gilbert had particularly impressed him, especially since Gilbert had little intellectual reputation amongst the masters at the school up until then. Walker showed his appreciation one day in Kensington High Street when Gilbert was innocently walking along, his mind centuries and countries away. The High Master positively shouted at the startled and severely embarrassed young man that he had some literary merit and capability, as long as he could “solidify” his potential.

  In May 1891 Gilbert reached the age of seventeen. The J.D.C. noted the event with its usual thoroughness. “The Secretary then rose and in a speech in which he extolled the merits of the Chairman as a chairman, and mentioned the benefits which the Junior Debating Club received on the day of which this was the anniversary, viz., the natal day of Mr Chesterton, proposed that a vote wishing him many happy returns of the day and a long continuance in the Chair of the Club should be passed. This was carried with acclamations. The Chairman replied after restoring order.” Gilbert’s life had improved; he was reco
gnised by his friends as a wit and a good companion, someone to be seen with, to learn from. Wider acknowledgment was still a problem, and the school was only to discern his true worth later. The pupils at St Paul’s knew that Gilbert was an extraordinary peer, but some of the masters still found it difficult to recognise a promising author and poet in the slow, awkward youth who was frequently so difficult to teach, so reluctant to shine in their classes.

  With each article he wrote Gilbert was developing, maturing. The month of his seventeenth birthday he wrote of Milton

  His earliest recollections were of Greene and Marlowe, Fletcher and Shakespeare, and all the crowd of reckless, impoverished, dissolute geniuses who wrote in garrets and taverns the works which are the glory of the Elizabethan age. Their classical learning and their daring imagination he imbibed and carried with him into the narrower and sterner sphere of Puritan piety, and forms, as it were, a link between the two Englands differing in everything but their glory, the England of Elizabeth and the England of Cromwell.

  One year later he took on the character of Shelley

  He was not a bad man; he was not a good man; he was not an ordinary man; he was a sincere philanthropist and Republican; yet he was often as lonely and ill-tempered as a misanthrope; he had far purer feelings towards women than either Burns or Byron, yet he was a far worse husband than they: he was one of those men whose faults and failures seem due, not to the presence of tempting passions or threatening disasters, so much as to a mysterious inner weakness, a certain helplessness in the hands of circumstances.

  At eighteen the completely inexperienced Gilbert was delving deeply into the minds and matters of profoundly complex individuals.

  There was also a political demeanour emerging. Examples of anger against injustice are scattered throughout these early writings, particularly in the context of the Jewish people and their suffering. Four members of the J.D.C. were Jewish and although Gilbert was to sometimes make fun of them in his letters to Bentley his genuine sympathies were undoubtedly with the Jews — “No Jews; that is, if I except the elder tribe coming over on Sunday to take me to see Oldershaw … I tried an experiment with Lawrence on Friday night, to see if he would accept on its real ground of friendliness our Semitic jocularity; so I took the bull by the horns and said that ‘I would walk with him to the gates of the Ghetto’ … I don’t think we need fear the misunderstanding which, I must say, would be imminent in the case of less sensible and well-feeling pagans.”