by Unknown
MR. BARLOW. Though you are apt pupils you do not perceive that an object itself may be harmless and yet suggestive. I have no quarrel with the province of Aquarius as such, but when an individual is as pure in mind as I am he is so sensitive to impropriety that he sees it where others do not. To you, for instance, in your present incomplete stage of pupildom, a piece of string is inoffensive, but to me it is an article that might be used as a garter, and I blush at sight of it. TOMMY. I never thought of that. HARRY. Nor I.
MR. BARLOW. You have not let your minds dwell on the improper as I have done. Now, as for the sea —
TOMMY. One moment, sir, Harry and I have for so long thoughtlessly regarded the sea with pleasure that before you make us acquainted with its impropriety we should like to take a last look at it.
The two pupils then took a last look at the sea.
HARRY. Now, sir, we shall be beholden to you, as ever, if you will tell us why the sea is improper. MR. BARLOW. I am disappointed in you both. Can you observe that row of bathing machines, and still ask me why it is impossible to look at the sea without a sense of shame?
TOMMY and HARRY (turning their backs to the ocean). Take us away, sir, we beg of you.
(b) Mr. Barlow’s Sense of Citizenship.
In the evening Mr. Barlow’s home with its cosy curtains and bright lamp presented such a picture of domestic bliss that Harry was calling Tommy’s attention to the many advantages enjoyed by them under the roof of their revered preceptor, when the silence of the night was broken suddenly by the cry ‘Another Hor’ble Murder in Whitechapel.’
Mr. Barlow, who had been rotating slowly by the fire (for the night was chilly), bounded to the window.
‘Shockin’ mutilation!’
His pupils followed him.
‘Details more revoltin’ than ever!’ MR. BARLOW. Tommy, get a paper. Quick. The maid, Jane, however, reached the door first. All the doors in the street opened simultaneously as if they had one handle, and there was a general rush toward the newsboy. Mr. Barlow returned to the hearthrug, and after a few moments’ reflection thus addressed his young friends:
MR. BARLOW. This deplorable news fills me with inexpressible sadness. I hoped that we had heard the last of these horrible barbarities in the modern Babylon. TOMMY. When we have regard to the circumstances that have called them forth the words ‘modern Babylon’ are obviously well chosen, and I shall at present merely indicate my cordial sympathy with your remarks, leaving for some future occasion that corroboration which, however desirable, would scarcely be felicitous at a time when we are all — for I may venture to speak for Harry also — more or less prostrated by the crushing intelligence. HARRY. Jane is a long time in getting the paper.
TOMMY. It is conceivable that the amount of money in her possession is not sufficient to appease the rapacity of the newsvendor. If, sir, I had a sixpence —
MR. BARLOW. My beloved pupils, I see with pain that you have acquired an appetite for horrors, and I implore you to kill it. Only a sense of Citizenship induces me reluctantly to read these distressing details which I cannot contemplate with equanimity. Jane is certainly a long time, and if you think that a sixpence —
At this moment a roar of execration filled the street, followed by a clatter as if perhaps of a small humorist pursued by a disappointed public.
Mr. Barlow’s brows contracted. Then the door flung open and Jane entered in tears. ‘There is no murder,’ she wailed, ‘it is all a wicked hoax.’
Tommy brought the window down with a slam. Harry put his knuckles in his eyes. Mr. Barlow glowered at Jane as if she had defrauded him. Gloom settled on the room. There were similar scenes of Citizenship all down the street. Yes, it is high time that Jack the Ripper was caught.”
THE appearance in it of the shadow of Jack the Ripper dates this paper, which was one of a series about the famous Mr. Barlow. It appeared with one or two others that follow in the ‘Scots Observer,’ and so is of a slightly later date than most of our book’s contents. The ‘Scots Observer,’ under W. E. Henley’s editorship, was started in Edinburgh in 1888, and I had a contribution in the first number and in many another. The first one was called ‘The Lost Works of George Meredith,’ and the works were three comparatively short stories (including the lovely ‘Chloe’) and his fine essay on Comedy, which had all been lying forgotten for ten years between the covers of a dead magazine. My article is of no value, save that my howking out of the ‘lost works’ led to their publication in book form, Meredith merely shrugging his consent, though he had a good word to say for ‘Chloe.’ It was at a time of his life when he regarded his lack of readers with a gay equanimity, very different from those early days in which he told me he used to run round Hyde Park three times daily to get away from his troubled self. He read portions of his later works to me in the famous chalet at the top of his garden, and I remember his saying that ‘Richard Feverel’ was the only novel of his that in its youth reached a second edition, some kindly readers having shouted that it was vastly improper. He admitted on one occasion that he thought ‘Beauchamp’s Career’ was his best novel, but that may have only been in a mood of the moment. When I spoke of Rhoda Fleming as among my favourite heroines he said, disappointed, ‘Surely you like Dahlia better,’ and I did from that hour.
The ‘Scots Observer’ (published in Edinburgh by Constable, Walter Blaikie the shining head thereof), afterwards ‘National Observer,’ was the most gaily brilliant weekly of its day, and had the endearing capacity of not being wise in its own interest. Charles Whibley was Henley’s right-hand man and probably the journal’s greatest pride and terror. Charles had the tenderest heart, or thereabout, that I have known, and was extremely testy if you said so. You might read him and conclude that if he got his way he would by violent means reduce the population to a handful. He liked to think he was such a one, but the heart ‘would keep breaking through’ and show him up. He was a scholar and, I think, wrote, when not on the warpath, the best English of his day. He was assistant editor; and the staff, if the contributions can be so called, was sufficiently scintillating to kill any journal. Meredith, if my memory serves, never wrote in it, but our other great one, Hardy (I did not know him in those days, and am now undecided as to which was the greater of the two), found a home in the ‘Scots Observer’ for a chapter of ‘Tess,’ which the paper it appeared in serially was afraid to print. The same paper, I remember, shied at the scene in which Angel Clare carries the dairymaids in his arms through the water, and our immortal had to put them into a wheelbarrow.
I met Henley first in Edinburgh in one of his most delicious moments, often repeated. The stalwart burly man (as he was till he stood up) was sitting at a piano playing impromptu music to his child of three or so, the loveliest of little girls, who sometimes as he played sat on the piano till she fell into his lap, and sometimes danced round the instrument and under it and over me. I got the name of Wendy from her for one of my characters — it was the nearest she could reach to calling me Friend. Henley could not cross a room without his crutch, and he would stand for hours leaning on the back of a chair with his coat off. Such was the glamour of him to young men that you would sometimes find a number of them listening to him, all unaware that they were leaning on the backs of chairs with their coats off. He was a splendidly ironic, bearded man, and John Silver was Stevenson’s idea of Henley taken to piracy. It was Henley’s crutch that Silver threw to clinch an argument, and thus also did Henley throw it, as I have seen. On this occasion the subject of discussion was merely literary, the scene was the steps of a London café, and the opponent was Oscar Wilde, a very courteous opponent too, but he was neatly pinned by that javelin.
Once I went to call on Henley quite prepared to have the javelin cast at me. It was when he had written a magazine article about R. L. S. that caused much talk at the time, and I knew that Henley thought I was the only one of his circle who regretted it. However, as we had to have the matter out or cease to meet, I advanced upon his flat in Battersea p
repared to have the stave dirl in my ribs. He was certainly threatening at first, but contrite by and by, and before I left, without a scar, he was talking as of yore about ‘dear Louis.’ Uproarious discussion, with personalities hurtling about like little staves, was his way of taking physical exercise, this man who should have been a viking, and of whom nigh every part had been opened by the surgeons as one may double back a book. When he thundered a red light came into his eye, which so entranced you that you forgot it might be a danger signal. He thundered at all of us, especially if he loved us, as he usually did. It was Kipling, I think, who presented him with a punching ball, after first writing all our names on it. Meredith said to me of Henley’s criticisms: ‘He puts a crown on my head with one hand and buffets me in the stomach with the other.’ He was like that, this ‘W. G.’ of letters, for thus only could he play rough games, sail ships, climb mountains, lead troops; he had emotions that boiled over, he roared with joy when he found writing to his liking sent in by the young, and every day for the last years of his life he woke to more physical pain than the day before. I never heard him mention it. The lovely child, of whom there is a painting by Charles Furze, died when she was about five; one might call it a sudden idea that came to her in the middle of her romping.
CHAPTER XVIII
“MR. BARRIE IN THE CHAIR” — OTHER DISCREDITABLE EPISODES — ROOSEVELT
“A BLASTY night it was in Greenock on Thursday last, but we would only let ourselves be blown in one direction for a’ that: into the Town Hall, to wit, where the Burns Dinner was ‘on,’ Mr. J. M. Barrie in the chair. I have not read Mr. Barrie’s books, but I wanted to ask him about that tobacco.
I didn’t.
We, or at least I, had looked to see a jovial Scot, full of merry quirk, rollicking, gay. I can’t quite get the adjective that hits off Mr. Barrie, but I’ll take my oath it is none of these. He fascinated me in a sense, and this is the faithful, though doubtless bold, record of my observations.
I was introduced to him, and we both held out our hands: having shaken his, I let go. His remained in the air, as if the ceremony was new to him. Several others were introduced, and he gave to all his hand to do what they liked with it. This being over he placed it by his side. We then adjourned with unwonted solemnity to the hall where dinner was to be served.
On the way I had time to sum up my impressions. He was evidently anxious to please. The way in which the arm shot out, like a pirate lugger from its hiding-place, was proof of this. The natural solemnity of his face is a little startling to one who has come out to dine, but there is no doubt that he made several gallant efforts to be jolly. I noticed this, not only in the anteroom but throughout the evening. When a joke was made you could see him struggling, not with his face alone, to laugh heartily. It was as if he tugged the strings that work the organs of risibility, but either the strings were broken or he had forgotten to bring the organs. Only once did he manage a genuine smile, but some of us forgot ourselves and cheered, and it fled. So far as I could see he found it beneath the table. He had dived after his programme, I think, and while below must have done something to his face akin to what the lady does when she darts away with a crooked bonnet, and comes back with it straight. Our cheering did not offend him. He took it in the spirit in which it was meant. But he was chiefly engaged in keeping the so-called smile there. My wife has pigeons on which she sets store; when one of them alights on her head, she stands still and calls to me to look at the beautiful sight. So did Mr. Barrie sit hugging his smile. He was even afraid to let it know that he knew it was there. He might, so careful was he, have been balancing something on his head. But as I say, it fled. It was probably some other’s smile that had mistaken its owner.
When he entered the hall they stood up and cheered. He cast a swift glance at the door, and seemed to be meditating flight, but so many were following behind that the way was blocked. Then he affected deafness; at all events he looked before him so stolidly that our palms stole away from each other, ashamed of themselves. On his table was a large epergne full of flowers. I saw him move his chair stealthily, inch by inch, until he was fairly behind this epergne. On the left and right he shut himself in as far as possible with bottles and cruets. He then settled down for a jolly evening.
I was too far away to hear what he said when he engaged in conversation. Obviously he was very anxious to be sociable, for when those near spoke to him he listened with an attention that must have been painful to them if, as is probable, they were only speaking of the weather. Sometimes it seemed to be a good story, for they laughed, and he flung himself back in his chair and waggled his head and slapped his knee and went through all the mechanical business that accompanies a laugh but is as a suit of clothes without a man in them when, as in his case, the laugh itself won’t come. He might have been called at such a time the photograph of a laugh — a laugh with no inside to it.
The man who got most out of him was the head waiter, to whom (this should go into the minute-book of the club) he said, ‘Clear,’
‘Cod,’
‘Mutton,’
‘Haggis,’
‘Roederer,’
‘No thank you.’ His favourite remark is ‘H’m,’ with which he expresses surprise, thankfulness, indignation, delight, grief. He also asks questions with it, and he has a ‘H’m’ that is final.
I never saw a man more interested in our Burns Dinner programme. It is illustrated, and the artists should be told how he examined their handiwork. Again and again he seized the programme to have another look at it. He tried the pictures at a distance and close to him, and read the letterpress beneath with as much affection as if it cured everything. Round the room his eyes would wander; then back to the programme they scuttled like a mouse to its hole.
He proposed the toast of the Queen in those words.
He had to call upon the various speakers and singers, and as soon as he had uttered their names, he fell back with the recoil.
His own health was proposed, and we sung determinedly that he was a jolly good fellow. When we asked each other who could deny it, he sat and scowled. His speech in reply consisted of fifty words at least, but it was probably intended to be of a confidential nature, for it never crossed the table; and though it has been repeated to me, I scorn to betray a secret.
When it was all over he told some of us that he had not enjoyed himself so much for a long time. He seemed so anxious we should think him a jovial character that we responded heartily. Then he passed round his hand again, and when we had returned it to him, he said ‘H’m’ in his merriest way. That was the finish, for when we were fighting for our coats he slipped away like a burglar. I distinctly heard some one running along the otherwise silent street, but it may — it may — have been a street boy.”
FEW suspected that Mr. Anon wrote this article, which as usual was anonymous, and Henley was upbraided by my well-wishers for its publication in the ‘Scots Observer.’ Some of the Press even took up my defence, and it was the ‘Westminster’ (I think) which said that he had obviously quarrelled with me and this was his characteristic but contemptible revenge. I urged him to name the guilty person, but he enjoyed the situation too much for that. It was true, though, that I had presided at the Greenock dinner referred to. This must have been my first public appearance in any chair, for in the days of Mr. Anon I was so afraid of oratory that rather than make a speech I would have fled the country.
This is not, alas, the only thing of the kind that he who was once Mr. Anon has perpetrated. I was in New York at the beginning of the war on a matter not unconnected with it, and various persons (including Mr. Roosevelt) drew my attention to a severely candid article about me in the ‘New York Times.’ It was called ‘Barrie at Bay,’ and purported to be an interview with my valued servant, Brown. Brown brought me a copy and swore that he had never given any such interview. The thing is much too long to reprint in full, but it had its day, and I still possess that copy. ‘As our reporter entered Sir James Barrie�
�s hotel room by one door,’ it begins, ‘the next door softly closed. “I sprang into the corridor,” the reporter continues, “and had just time to see him fling himself down the elevator. Then I understood what he had meant when he said on the telephone that he would be ready for me at 10.30.” ‘
The reporter apparently found Brown, however, who discussed me in a way that afterwards astounded himself. He showed my pipe, but under pressure explained, ‘That is the interview pipe. When we decided to come to America Sir James said he would have to be interviewed and that it would be wise to bring something with us for the interviewers to take notice of. So he told me to buy the biggest pipe I could find as he was no smoker....’
‘It has the appearance of having been smoked,’ the reporter pointed out. ‘I blackened it for him,’ the faithful fellow replied.
Brown also supplied some interesting details about my works, less inaccurate than may be thought. ‘He forgets them all,’ said Brown. ‘There is this Peter Pan foolishness, for instance. I have heard people talking to him about that play and mentioning parts in it they liked, and he tried to edge them off the subject; they think it is his shyness, but I know it is because he has forgotten the bits they are speaking about. Before strangers call on him I have seen him reading one of his own books hurriedly so as to be able to talk about it if that is their wish. But he gets mixed up, and thinks that the little minister was married to Wendy.’