Sargasso #2

by Gafford, Sam

  Hodgson, despite failing to succeed in his entrepreneurial School of Physical Culture, was undeterred in his ambitions; he threw himself into his next career, writing, with the same passion and zeal that he brought to his other interests. He was keen on being a success and making money. Once he figured out he could make money by writing, he pursued that with surprising single-mindedness, despite dozens of rejections. He persevered: he wrote fiction as well as nonfiction; he wrote all night; he gave lantern-slide lectures (for which he charged a fee); he even found a market for his photographs taken at sea—all to be self-supporting. He had a direct, almost confrontational style of delivery in his lectures as well as in his stories, a confident, outgoing manner, which came through in his writing.

  “Just imagine . . .” he says to the audience, in scripts of his lectures, and he would continue this approach in his fiction—”just try to take it all in,” he writes in “The Real Thing: On the Bridge” (Men of the Deep Waters, 1914). He must have loved seeing his name in print, and felt liberated by finally finding his “niche”; he joined the Society of Authors and sought advice and relationships with other writers. He “went all in”: he reworked his stories and adjusting his writing to make sales in different markets, and was jealous in establishing his copyright and keeping track of payments.

  You can see that energetic, enthusiastic, confident personality at work in Hodgson’s first letter to Arthur St. John Adcock, editor of the literary review The Bookman, in which many of the favorable reviews of Hope’s writings first appeared. The letter won Hodgson his first meeting with Adcock, and you can see why:

  Dear Sir

  I don’t know whether you remember a certain “muscular” individual who figured lately in your portrait gallery? Anyway he’s at the other end of these keys, and would be immensely obliged, if you would let him run up to have five minutes talk with you.

  Five minutes: not a second longer.

  You needn’t be afraid that I’ll either bore or keep you. I’d be more likely to kill, than do either.

  Believe me dear Sir, Yours very Faithfully,

  William Hope Hodgson

  Hodgson seems self-centered, shameless in his self-promotion; “pushy” we would say today—although nice about it. Wouldn’t you love to know how long that meeting actually lasted?

  Is this indicative of how others saw him? More or less, yes. Moskowitz (1975) referred to editors who called him “a well-liked eccentric.” An introduction to his short story “Judge Barclay’s Wife” in the London Magazine for July 1912 contains this description (my emphasis):

  In spite of being an author who likes the night hours for working, and in spite of his cadaverous looks and abnormally fluid imagination, Hodgson is terribly muscular and takes as much pride in his biceps as he does in his stories. He is a confirmed egotist, who loves to talk about himself, and he is as argumentative as a Scotchman. He has been, amongst ten thousand other things, a sailor, and is sometimes not unnaturally mistaken for a pugilist. He can write horrors in a way to frighten editors out of their wits, but he also writes effectively of nice things.

  And then there was Arthur St. John Adcock’s introduction to The Calling of the Sea—published after Hodgson’s death:

  He aimed high and, taking his art very seriously, had a frank, unaffected confidence in his powers which was partly the splendid arrogance of youth and partly the heritage of experiences . . . There was something curiously attractive in his breezy, forceful, eager personality; his dark eyes were wonderfully alert and alive; he was wonderfully and restlessly alive and alert in all his mind and body. He was emphatic and unrestrained in his talk, but would take the sting out of an extravagant denunciation of some inartistic popular author, or of some pestilent critic, and the egotism out of some headlong confession of his own belief in himself with the pleasantest boyish laugh that brushed it all aside as the mere spray and froth of a passing thought. His dark, handsome features were extraordinarily expressive; they betrayed his emotions as readily as his lips gave away whatever happened to rise in his mind. Always he had the courage of his opinions and no false modesty; it never seemed to occur to him to practise politic subterfuges; and it was this absolute candour and naturalness that compelled you to like him . . .

  Putting all the above descriptive facts together, it becomes tempting to indulge in social stereotyping and conclude that Hodgson had developed—by the time he was in his twenties and well into his writing career—what in common parlance is called a Napoleon complex, or “short man syndrome.” This is a type of psychological phenomenon that is characterized by overly aggressive or domineering social behavior and carries the implication that such behavior is compensatory for the subject’s stature. In this case, the syndrome explains Hodgson’s assertiveness, drive for attention, egotism, confidence, obsession with manliness/strength/physique, and later on, possibly, his late marriage and choice of mate, his need to prove himself by volunteering for the army, extreme patriotism.

  The term, however, is also used more generally to describe people who are driven by a perceived handicap to overcompensate in other aspects of their lives (my emphasis). I emphasize “perceived” here because while Hodgson was “shorter,” he—just like Napoleon—was not really short enough (based on the average height for men during his time period) to explain how his stature led to him be so aggressively ambitious, or to compensate for shortness by pursuing all sorts of “macho” things, like riding horses, daredevil pranks, muscularity, or attraction to a military career.

  My Love, My Love...

  It has been the conventional wisdom that Napoleon compensated for his lack of height by seeking power, war, and conquest. However, Napoleon’s height (it turned out) was actually average: the average eighteenth-century Frenchman stood at 5ʹ 2ʺ, and historians now believe Napoleon was 5ʹ 6ʺ. But Napoleon was often seen with his Imperial Guard, which may have contributed to the perception of his being short because the Imperial Guards were above average height. Similarly, there was no real reason for Hodgson to feel threatened: at 5ʹ 4½ʺ; after all, he was only a little shorter than average for his time. Indeed, the average height of pre-war males (born 1876–1880) in Great Britain was 167.25 cm or 65.85 inches, or approximately 5ʹ 6ʺ (“Long Run Trends in the Heights of European Men, 19th-20th Centuries” see http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~hatton/Tim_height_paper.pdf). Goodness; he would have towered over Houdini . . . who was only 5ʹ 2ʺ!

  So it was the fact that he believed himself to be short, and was certainly short enough to have been the target of bullies, that was the problem. Because, Just as Napoleon surrounded himself with Imperial Guards, Hodgson’s height probably would not have been such a handicap had he not chosen as his first occupation a line of work considered the province of “rough and tough” big guys: the Navy.

  Scientific study has shown that short men, in general, do not have an inclination toward aggressive behavior and that possessing a handicapping trait (perceived or real) will not lead to an inferiority complex, increased aggression, or increased competitiveness except in the specific case of males who are small and overly aggressive toward larger rivals when a contested resource value is high, and the cost of not aggressing is losing the resource with certainty. In birds, this would apply to those males who would lose a breeding territory. In humans, what could be defined as a contested resource whose value is high might apply to social and family status, and one’s livelihood. Hodgson was a man with a sensitive mind, effete good looks, high energy, and a wild imagination. Did he really have any other choice but to compensate for his smaller stature by being bolder, stronger, cockier, more “forceful” and “eager”?

  Looking at his life from that logical angle, one could explain away his “eccentricism” very easily. The habit of writing all night? Just the lingering remains of years spent on a night’s watch, at sea. The agility underlying pranks climbing trees? All advantageous when climbing yardarms. The confidence in storytelling? Shaped by years of regaling younger siblings
with exploits, to gain or maintain status. His late marriage, even his volunteering for the army, at thirty-six—when the average age of recruits was between eighteen and twenty-three—can be explained as a response to life’s events or a reflection of (then extreme) British nationalism.

  But still . . . Waiting until thirty-five to marry, and his choice of mate, are worth pondering. Hodgson was outgoing and gregarious and loved attention—and according to Everts got quite a bit of it “from the ladies.” It is even mentioned in passing that he was engaged at one point, but the engagement was broken off—for unexplained reasons (Everts biography, on Gafford’s site). There are also reports that “Chad” had been ostracized from the family for marrying a divorced woman (probably around 1900), which would have made Hope the male head of the family at a point where his mother’s health would soon be in decline. This may explain, in part, his remaining close to his mother and perhaps delaying marriage so long. But the most obvious reasonable explanation, put forward by Everts, was that he couldn’t afford to marry; he wouldn’t have been able to support a wife until his income from writing had “stabilized” (Everts, “Some Facts in the Case of William Hope Hodgson: Master of Phantasy”—online “Life of William Hope Hodgson, Part 7”). But this does not explain his choice of mate, and his choice was Bessie Farnsworth—a woman he had met when attending technical school on his brief returns from the Merchant Marine, who was, when they married, working for a woman’s magazine . . . and who was “plain-looking” (not just relative to Hodgson, but by the standards of the day).

  Both he and Bessie Farnworth were the same age, born one day apart . . . so that both were also about a decade older than was average for the time period (for women, for men) when they married, at thirty-five. At that point, she would have been, by Victorian standards, considered prime spinster material . . . presumably having no previous offers. But Hodgson? Why pick a woman who was by all accounts, including his own, physically unattractive? Writing to his sister Mary in Canada in 1913, he wrote: “She is not at all good-looking; but we are very happy.”

  Gafford, responding to this letter in an online comment, points out Hodgson’s obvious insensitivity while wondering if this might be “indicative of his attitude towards women?” I am doubtful of this: his powers of observation could not have blinded him to his own good looks, and his writings make clear his awareness that physical beauty holds a powerful attraction to men. Did he really believe that beauty was ‘evil,’ as Sid Birchby suggested in “Sexual Symbolism in W. H. Hodgson” (Riverside Quarterly, November 1964, as reproduced in Gafford’s website)? Or was he simply trying to forestall the inevitable “comments”—warn the family in advance, so to speak—before taking his bride “home to meet the relatives”?

  These are all possibilities. But so are some less flattering ones: that Hodgson married for convenience rather than romance; that he wanted a “partner” and helpmeet who would understand his work and career and be able to proofread, edit, keep records, and even write herself (she did); that he purposefully chose someone whose looks would never threaten his masculinity (there would be no competition with rivals for her affection).

  It is tempting to speculate on his views toward women and sex: his personal logs and journals give no clues. Was there simply social awkwardness, shaped by lack of opportunity, the consequence of months spent at sea, or suppressed desire, the after-effects of a highly religious home? Or was there real aversion? In the only analysis I have found to date that deals with this, Birchby finds passages in The House on the Borderland and The Night Land that he claims suggest a deeply repressed sexuality masked by “courtly romance.” While, on the surface, physical contact is shunned as an “animal thing,” Birchby claims that the “sexual symbols appearing in [Borderland are] like the impassive iceberg, the only visible fraction of a submerged giant.” Similarly, Birchby deconstructs love-scenes in The Night Land to show how Hodgson’s simple “Sir Galahad fantasy” and belief that spiritual love is more important than physical attributes are undercut by “sexual suppression” in the form of fetishisms and obsessions demonstrated by passages in the text.

  While these arguments are entertaining, I am not fully persuaded. Just as Hodgson experiments with several and diverse writing styles in verse and stories, he might have been trying things out in his novel, permitting himself a freedom that he ultimately abandoned once he figured out what audiences, and therefore publishers, wanted. For all we know, he may have been testing the waters, daring to see if publishers picked up on his sexual undertones, or/and readers found them exciting. For all we know, his delaying of marriage was just another swipe at Victorian norms, another way to defy social expectations. As for his nationalism, from sentimental poetry and jingoistic stories dealing with “German spies” to leaving his new wife to join the Royal Field Artillery and go to the front . . . this time period was notable for widespread patriotic fervor—everyone wanted to fight “Jerry.”

  Hodgson was a creature of his time, forced to deal with the transitionary period he was living in; on one hand driven by his intellect to reject the rules (bear in mind that the 1920s were right around the corner) while carrying the emotional baggage that held him back and compelled him to preserve the social order, “do the right thing,” and keep women at a safe, protected, distance. Indeed, in his short ‘potboiler’ stories Hodgson treats none of his characters, male or female, with much depth; readers wanted plot and action, and that’s what he delivered. His writing for the most part is “of the day,” so that the most we can say is that the sexual symbolism in some of his writing is curious and worth further exploration. He was surely in love with the idea of love . . . but whether he experienced that emotion fully, or was conflicted in its expression, is unclear.

  Terrors of the Sea

  What seems certain is that Hodgson, from an early age, had a very active imagination. He started telling stories very early—and just as he liked playing pranks for attention, he also enjoyed getting a ‘rise’ out of people by telling ghost stories. By the time he was in his early twenties and back from the sea, Hodgson had already started enthralling his younger siblings with ‘scary stories.’ He also struck up a friendship with a William Bird Jr., later Lt. Bird, with whose family Hodgson became quite close, especially their young daughter “Scraps” (Wilhelmina) Bird. The source of the relationship between Hodgson and the Bird family remains cloudy, but it surely was a close one, as it led to Hodgson staying with the family at times, dedicating a book to Bird’s wife, and maintaining a long-term affectionate relationship with their daughter.

  Among the more curious Hodgson items that have survived (and are in my possession) are several leaves from a Miss “Scraps” Bird’s small octavo “memory book” (autograph book), with drawings and handwritten sentiments by friends. Hodgson’s contributions comprise two poems, the first being “The Fruit of the Tree of Life” [8 lines, dated 30 November 1906] and the second “Scraps! Scraps! Scrapps!!!” [12 lines of clever wordplay on the little girl’s nickname, dated 2 September 1906]. Additionally, there are a number of fine first editions of his works (also in my possession) which Hodgson gave her on her birthday and for Christmas, from 1907 to 1916, and which also have been inscribed to her (three of the books are not personally inscribed to her due to his marriage and move to the south of France in 1913, and later military service during World War I).

  Hodgson apparently enjoyed the outspoken personality of his friend’s daughter, who (from information gleaned from the 1901 census) we can say was Wilhelmina F. O. Bird (Francis Owens, after her uncle, Francis Owens Edwards). He might have similarly been attracted to his wife, Charlotte L. Bird, because she was American (from Buffalo, New York). But from these inscribed books we know that this young girl was eleven at the time the poems in the autograph book were written, and Hodgson would have been twenty-nine. We also know from the dedications that she was among those whom he tried out his plots and stories: one especially fine inscription, found in (our copy of) The Night
Land (1912), on the front free endpaper, reads: “To Scraps, / That impudent maiden to whom / I first told the ever shaping tale / of The Night Land / From / Hope— / March 22nd / 12 / Do you ‘member how you used / to shiver when the Night-Hounds / bayed; and how quietly it was / needful to go past the House of Silence—eh?”

  Will these sorts of ruminations make Hodgson less of a mystery, or will he remain a distant if romantic Edwardian, tantalizingly out of reach? The closest we’ve gotten might be summed up by E. A. Edkins, in his essay on “The Poetry of William Hope Hodgson.” (Reader and Collector 3, No. 3 [June 1944], issue dedicated to Hodgson). Edkins damned Hodgson’s verse for being “largely derivative, [revealing] pompous allegories that have been demoded since the time of Keats and Shelley,” then added: “In [Hodgson’s] metaphors and symbolisms one detects an aching sense of beauty, a longing to rationalize and synthesize the emotions of a sensitive mind with the inscrutable brutalities of nature, a yearning to understand the baffling mystery of existence.”

  And there you have what I believe is the source of Hodgson’s creativity and, ultimately, influence. Perhaps he was drawn to describing terrors of the unknown, monstrous entities of the deep, and “nameless forces” beyond sight, so as to better understand his own fears and spirituality. Or maybe it was just his way of expressing his deep dissatisfaction with what life had handed him, and he wanted more. As he wrote, “With such length I refused to be content . . .” And if nothing else, Hodgson was a man who wanted more: more power, more answers, more status, more attention, perhaps even more loving affection (despite the puritanical distaste for physical contact in his writing). You might say his talents as a writer rose to the intellectual and emotional challenges posed by his upbringing and society, but only his imagination was able to transcend them. Beyond that, all we can say is that his peculiarities of temperament, his system of values, his motives, almost everything we know about the man is necessarily based on second and even third-hand reports.