activity; it is difficult to see how any man could have done so much of
work involving so much strain. But he had a clear idea in his mind. He
used to say that he did not expect to have a long life. "Many thanks,"
he wrote to a friend in 1905, in reply to a birthday letter. "I
certainly want happy returns; but not very many." He also said that he
was prepared for a break-down in his powers. He intended to do his work
in his own way, and as much as he could while his strength lasted. At
the same time he was anxious to save enough money to enable him to live
quietly on at Hare Street whatever happened. The result was that even
when he came back from his journeys the time at Hare Street was never a
rest. He worked from morning to night at some piece of writing, and
there were very few commissions for articles or books which he refused.
He said latterly, in reply to an entreaty from his dear friend Canon
Sharrock, who helped him to die, that he would take a holiday: "No, I
never take holidays now--they make me feel so self-conscious."
He was very careful to keep up with his home and his family ties. He
used to pay regular visits to Tremans, my mother's house, and was
generally there at Christmas or thereabouts. Latterly he had a Christmas
festival of his own at Hare Street, with special services in the
chapel, with games and medals for the children, and with presents for
all alike--children, tenants, servants, neighbours, and friends. My
sister, who lately spent a Christmas with him, says that it was more
like an ideal Christmas than anything she had ever seen, and that he
himself, full of eagerness and kindness and laughter, was the centre and
mainspring of it all. He used to invite himself over to Cambridge not
infrequently for a night or two; and I used to run over for a day to
Hare Street to see his improvements and to look round. I remember once
going there for an afternoon and suggesting a stroll. We walked to a
hamlet a little way off, but to my surprise he did not know the name of
it, and said he had never been there. I discovered that he hardly ever
left his own little domain, but took all his exercise in gardening or
working with his hands. He had a regular workroom at one time in the
house, where he carved, painted, or stitched tapestries--but it was all
intent work. When he came to Cambridge for a day, he would collect
books from all parts of the house, read them furiously, "tearing the
heart out of them" like Dr. Johnson. Everything was done thus, at top
speed. His correspondence was enormous; he seldom failed to acknowledge
a letter, and if his advice were asked he would write at great length,
quite ungrudgingly; but his constant writing told on his script. Ten
years ago it was a very distinctive, artistic, finely formed hand, very
much like my father's, but latterly it grew cramped and even illegible,
though it always had a peculiar character, and, as is often the case
with very marked hand-writings, it tended to be unconsciously imitated
by his friends.
[Illustration: _Copyright, C. Chichester_
HARE STREET, IN THE GARDEN
JULY 1911
R. H. Benson. Dr. F. L. Sessions.]
I used to wonder, in talk with him, how he found it possible to stay
about so much in all sorts of houses, and see so many strange people.
"Oh, one gets used to it," he said, adding: "besides, I am quite
shameless now--I say that I must have a room to myself where I can work
and smoke, and people are very good about that."
XIV
AUTHORSHIP
As to Hugh's books, I will here say a few words about them, because they
were a marked part of himself; he put much skill and care into making
them, and took fully as much rapture away. When he was writing a book,
he was like a man galloping across country in a fresh sunny morning, and
shouting aloud for joy. But I do not intend to make what is called an
appreciation of them, and indeed am little competent to do so. I do not
know the conventions of the art or the conditions of it. "Oh, I see,"
said a critical friend to me not long ago in much disgust, "you read a
novel for the ideas and the people and the story." "What do you read it
for?" I said. "Why, to see how it is done, of course," he replied.
Personally I have never read a book in my life to see how it is done,
and what interests me, apart from the book, is the person behind it--and
that is very elementary. Moreover, I have a particular dislike of all
historical novels. Fact is interesting and imagination is interesting;
but I do not care for webs of imagination hung on pegs of fact.
Historical novels ought to be like memoirs, and they are never in the
least like memoirs; in fact they are like nothing at all, except each
other.
_The Light Invisible_ always seemed to me a beautiful book. It was in
1902 that Hugh began to write it, at Mirfield. He says that a book of
stories of my own, _The Hill of Trouble_, put the idea into his
head--but his stories have no resemblance to mine. Mine were archaic
little romances, written in a style which a not unfriendly reviewer
called "painfully kind," an epigram which always gave Hugh extreme
amusement. His were modern, semi-mystical tales; he says that he
personally came to dislike the book intensely from the spiritual point
of view, as being feverish and sentimental, and designed unconsciously
to quicken his own spiritual temperature. He adds that he thought the
book mischievous, as laying stress on mystical intuition rather than
Divine authority, and because it substituted the imagination for the
soul. That is a dogmatic objection rather than a literary objection; and
I suppose he really disliked it because it reminded him later on of a
time when he was moving among shadows. But it was the first book in
which he spread his wings, and there is, I think, a fresh and ingenuous
beauty about it, as of a delighted adventure among new faculties and
powers.
I believe that the most beautiful book he ever wrote was _Richard
Raynal, Solitary_; and I know he thought so himself. Of course it is an
archaic book, and written, as musicians say, in a _mode_. It is easier
in some ways to write a book in a style which is not authentically one's
own, and literary imitation is not the highest art; but _Richard Raynal_
has the beauty of a fine tapestry designed on antique lines, yet
replenished and enriched by modern emotion, like Tennyson's _Mort
d'Arthur_. Yet I am sure there is a deep charm of pure beauty in the
book, both of thought and handling, and I believe that he put into it
the best essence of his feeling and imagination.
As to his historical books, I can feel their vigour and vitality, and
their deft use of old hints and fragments. I remember once discussing
one of them with him, and saying that his description of Queen Elizabeth
seemed to me very vivid, but that it reminded me of a not very authentic
picture of that queen, in spangled crimson and lace, which hung in the
hall at Addington. Hugh laughed, and said: "Well, I must confess that
very picture was in my mind!"
With regard to his more modern stories it is impossible not to be
impressed by their lightness and swiftness, their flashes of beauty and
emotion, their quick rippling talk; but it is hard, at times, not to
feel them to be vitiated by their quite unconscious tendency to
represent a point of of view. They were once called by a malign reviewer
"the most detestable kind of tract," and though this is what the French
call a _saugrenu_ criticism, which implies something dull, boorish, and
provincial, yet it is easy to recognise what is meant. It is not unjust
to resent the appearance of the cultivated and sensitive Anglican,
highly bred and graceful, who is sure to turn out hard and
hollow-hearted, or the shabby, trotting, tobacco-scented Roman Catholic
priest, who is going to emerge at a crisis as a man of inspired dignity
and solemnity. Sometimes, undoubtedly, the books are too intent upon
expunging other forms of religious life, rather than in tracing the
movements of the soul. Probably this was inseparable from the position
Hugh had taken up, and there was not the slightest pose, or desire to
improve the situation about his mind. The descriptions, the
lightly-touched details, the naturalness and ease of the talk are
wholly admirable. He must have been a very swift observer, both of
nature and people, because he never gave the least impression of
observing anything. I never saw him stop to look at a view, or go into
raptures over anything beautiful or picturesque; in society he was
either silent and absorbed, or more commonly extremely animated and
expansive. But he never seemed to be on the look-out for any impressions
at all, and still less to be recording them.
I believe that all his books, with the exception, perhaps, of _Richard
Raynal_, can be called brilliant improvisations rather than deliberate
works of art. "I write best," he once said, "when I rely most on
imagination." The time which elapsed from his conception of an idea to
the time when the book was completed was often incredibly short. I
remember his telling me his first swift thought about _The Coward_; and
when I next asked him about it, the book had gone to the publishers and
he was writing another. When he was actually engaged in writing he was
oblivious of all else, and lived in a sort of dream. I have several
sketches of books which he made. He used to make a rough outline, a kind
of _scenario_, indicating the gradual growth of the plot. That was done
rapidly, and he always said that the moment his characters were
conceived, they began to haunt his mind with emphatic vividness; but he
wrote very fast, and a great quantity at a time. His life got fuller and
fuller of engagements, but he would get back to Hare Street for a day or
two, when he would write from morning to night with a brief interval for
gardening or handicraft, and briefer intervals for meals. He was fond of
reading aloud bits of the books, as they grew. He read all his books
aloud to my mother in MS., and paid careful heed to her criticisms,
particularly with reference to his female characters, though it has been
truly said that the women in his novels are mostly regarded either as
indirect obstacles or as direct aids to conversion.
Mr. Belloc once said, very wisely and truly, that inertia was the
breeding-ground of inspiration. I think, on the whole, that the total
and entire absence of any species of inertia in Hugh's temperament
reacted in a way unfavourably on his books. I do not think they simmered
in his mind, but were projected, hot and smoking, from the fiery
crucible of thought. There seems to me a breathless quality about them.
Moreover I do not think that there is much trace of the subtle chemistry
of mutual relations about his characters. In life, people undergo
gradual modifications, and other people exert psychological effects upon
them. But in Hugh's books the characters are all fiercely occupied in
being themselves from start to finish; they have exhausted moods, but
they have not dull or vacant moods; they are always typical and
emphatic. This is really to me the most interesting thing about his
books, that they are all projections of his own personality into his
characters. He is behind them all; and writing with Hugh was, like so
many things that he did, a game which he played with all his might. I
have spoken about this elsewhere, because it accounted for much in his
life; and when he was engaged in writing, there was always the delicious
sense of the child, furiously and absorbingly at play, about him.
It is said that no artist is ever really interested in another artist's
work. My brothers, Fred and Hugh, my sister and myself would sometimes
be at home together, and all writing books. Hugh was, I think, always
the first inclined to produce his work for inspection; but we had a
tacit convention which was not in the least unsympathetic, not to feel
bound to be particularly interested in each other's books. My books, I
felt, bored Hugh more than his bored me; but there was this advantage,
that when we read each other's books, as we often did, any critical
praise that we could offer was much more appreciated than if we had
felt bound to proffer conventional admiration. Hugh once told me that he
envied my _sostenuto_; but on another occasion, when I said I had
nothing to write about, and feared I had written too many books, Hugh
said: "Why not write a book about having nothing to write about?" It was
good advice and I took it. I can remember his real and obvious pleasure
when I once praised _Richard Raynal_ to him with all my might. But
though he enjoyed praise, it was always rather because it confirmed his
own belief that his work was worth doing. He did not depend in the
smallest degree either upon applause or sympathy. Indeed, by the time
that a book was out, he had generally got another on the stocks, and did
not care about the previous one at all.
[Illustration: ROBERT HUGH BENSON
IN 1910. AGED 39]
Neither do I think that his books emanated from a high artistic ideal. I
do not believe that he was really much interested in his craft. Rather
he visualised a story very vividly, and then it seemed to him the finest
fun in the world to spin it all as rapidly as he could out of his
brain, to make it all alert with glancing life. It was all a personal
confession; his books bristle with his own dreams, his own dilemmas, his
own social relations; and when he had once firmly realised the Catholic
attitude, it seemed to him the one thing worth writing about.
While I write these pages I have been dipping into _The
Conventionalists_. It is full of glow and drama, even melodrama; but
somehow it does not recall Hugh to my mind. That seems strange to me,
but I think of him as always larger than his books, less peremptory,
more tolerant, more impatient of strain. The book is full of strain; but
then I remember that in the old days, when he played games, he was a
provoking and even derisive antagonist, and did not in the least resent
his adversaries being both; and I come back to my belief in the game,
and the excitement of the game. I do not, after all, believe that his
true nature flowed quite equably into his books, as I think it did into
_The Light Invisible_ and _Richard Raynal_. It was a demonstration, and
he enjoyed using his skill and adroitness; he loved to present the
smouldering and flashing of passions, the thrill and sting of which he
had never known. Saved as he was by his temperament alike from deep
suffering and tense emotion, and from any vital mingling either with the
scum and foam or with the stagnancy and mire of life, the books remain
as a brilliant illusion, with much of the shifting hues and changing
glimmer of his own ardent and restless mind rippling over the surface of
a depth which is always a little mysterious as to the secrets it
actually holds.
XV
FAILING HEALTH
Hugh's health on the whole was good up to the year 1912, though he had a
troublesome ailment, long ignored, which gave him a good deal of
malaise. He very much disliked being spoken to about his health, and
accepted no suggestions on the subject. But he determined at the end of
1912, after enduring great pain, to have an operation, which was quite
successful, but the shock of which was considerable. He came down to
Tremans just before, and it was clear that he suffered greatly; but so
far from dreading the operation, he anticipated it with a sense of
immense relief, and after it was over, though he was long unwell, he was
in the highest spirits. But he said after he came back from Rome that he
felt ten years older; and I can recall his coming down to Cambridge not
long after and indulging one evening in an immense series of yawns, for
which he apologised, saying, "I'm tired, I'm tired--not at the top, but
deep down inside, don't you know?"
[Illustration: _Photo by H. Abbott, Lindfield_
AT TREMANS, HORSTED KEYNES
DECEMBER, 1913
A. C. Benson. R. H. Benson. E. F. Benson.
Aged 51. Aged 42. Aged 46.]
But it was not until 1914 that his health really declined. He came over
to Cambridge at the beginning of August, when the war was impending. He
stayed with me over the Sunday; he was tired and overstrained,
complained that he felt unable to fix his mind upon anything, and he was
in considerable depression about the possibility of war. I have never
seen him so little able to throw off an anxiety; but he dined in Hall
with me on the Sunday night, met some old friends, and was full of talk.
He told me later in the evening that he was in much anxiety about some
anonymous menace which he had received. He would not enter into details,
but he spoke very gravely about it. However, later in the month, I went
over with a friend to see him at Hare Street, and found him in cheerful
spirits in spite of everything. He had just got the place, he said,
into perfect order, and now all it wanted was to be left alone. It was a
day of bright hot sunlight, and we lunched out of doors near the chapel
under the shade of the yew trees. He produced a peculiar and pleasant
wine, which he had made on the most scientific principles out of his own
grapes. We went round and looked at everything, and he showed me the
preparation for the last adornment, which was to be a rose garden near
the chapel. We walked into the orchard and stood near the Calvary,
little thinking that he would be laid to rest there hardly two months
later.
The weeks passed on, and at the end of September I went to stay near
Ambleside with some cousins, the Marshalls, in a beautiful house called
Skelwith Fold, among lovely woodlands, with the mountains rising on
every side, and a far-off view down Langdale. Here I found Hugh staying.
He was writing some Collects for time of war, and read many of them
aloud to me for criticism. He was also painting in oils, attempting very
difficult landscapes with considerable success. They stood drying in the
study, and he was much absorbed in them; he also was fishing keenly in a
little trout lake near the house, and walking about with a gun. His
spirits were very equable and good. But he told me that he had gone out
shooting in September over some fields lent him by a neighbour, and had
had to return owing to breathlessness; and he added that he suffered
constantly from breathlessness and pain in the chest and arms, that he
could only walk a few paces at a time, and then had to rest to recover
his breath. He did not seem to be anxious about it, but he went down one
morning to celebrate Mass at Ambleside, refusing the offer of the car,
and found himself in such pain that he then and there went to a doctor,
who said that he believed it to be indigestion.
He sat that morning after breakfast with me, smoking, and complaining
that the pain was very severe. But he did not look ill; and the pain
suddenly left him. "Oh what bliss!" he said. "It's gone, suddenly and
entirely--and now I must go out and finish my sketch."
The only two things that made me feel anxious were that he had given up
smoking to a considerable extent, and that he said he meant to consult
our family doctor; but he was so lively and animated--I remember one
night the immense zest and intensity with which he played a game of
throwing an old pack of cards across the room into the grate--that it
was impossible to think that his condition was serious.
Indeed, I said good-bye to him when he went off, without the least
anticipation of evil. My real hope was that he would be told he had been
overdoing it, and ordered to rest; and a few days later, when I heard
that this was what the doctor advised, I wrote to him suggesting that he
should come and settle at Cambridge for a couple of months, do exactly
what he liked, and see as much or as little of people as he liked. It
seems that he showed this letter to one of the priests at Manchester,
and said, "There, that is what I call a real invitation--that is what I
shall do!"
Dr. Ross-Todd saw him, and told him that it was a neuralgic affection,
"false angina," and that his heart was sound, but that he must diminish
his work. He pleaded to be allowed to finish his imminent engagements;
the doctor said that he might do that, if he would put off all
subsequent ones. This was wisely done, in order to reassure him, as he
was an excitable though not a timid patient. He was at Hare Street for a
day or two, and his trusted servant, Mr. Reeman, tells me that he seemed
ill and out of spirits. The last words he said as he drove away, looking
round the lime-encircled lawn, were, "Ah! the leaves will all be gone
when I come home again."
He preached at Salford on October 4, and went to Ulverston on October 5,
where he conducted a mission. On October 10 he returned, and Canon
Sharrock says that he arrived in great pain, and had to move very
slowly. But he preached again on October 11, though he used none of the
familiar gestures, but stood still in the pulpit. He suffered much after
the sermon, and rested long in a chair in the sacristy. He started to go
to London on the Monday morning, but had to return in the taxi, feeling
too ill to travel. Then followed days of acute pain, during which he no
doubt caught a severe chill. He could not sleep, and he could only
obtain relief by standing up. He wandered restlessly one night about the
corridors, very lightly clad, and even went out into the court. He stood
for two or three hours leaning on the mantelpiece of his room, with
Father Gorman sitting near him, and trying in vain to persuade him to
retire to bed.
When he was not suffering he was full of life, and even of gaiety. He
went one of these afternoons, at his own suggestion, to a cinema show
with one of the priests, but though he enjoyed it, and even laughed
heartily, he said later that it had exhausted him.
He wrote some letters, putting off many of his autumn and winter
engagements. But he grew worse; a specialist was called in, and, though
the diagnosis was entirely confirmed, it was found that pneumonia had
set in.
XVI
THE END
I had spent a long day in London at a business meeting, where we
discussed a complicated educational problem. I came away alone; I was
anxious to have news of my sister, who had that morning undergone a
slight operation; but I was not gravely disquieted, because no serious
complications were expected.
When I reached my house there were two telegrams awaiting me, one to say
that the operation had gone well, the other from Canon Sharrock, of
Salford, to say that my brother was dangerously ill of pneumonia. I
wired at once for a further report, and before it arrived made up my
mind that I must go to him. I waited till the reply came--it was a
little more favourable--went up to London, and caught a midnight train
for Manchester.
The news had the effect which a sudden shock is apt to have, of inducing
a sense of curious unreality. I neither read nor slept, nor even thought
coherently. I was just aware of disaster and fear. I was alone in my
compartment. Sometimes we passed through great, silent, deserted
stations, or stopped outside a junction for an express to pass. At one
or two places there was a crowd of people, seeing off a party of
soldiers, with songs and cheers. Further north I was aware at one time
that the train was labouring up a long incline, and I had a faint sense
of relief when suddenly the strain relaxed, and the train began to run
swiftly and smoothly downwards; I had just one thought, the desire to
reach my brother, and over and over again the dread of what I might
hear.
It was still dark and chilly when I arrived at Manchester. The great
station was nearly empty. I drove hurriedly through dimly-lit streets.
Sometimes great factories towered up, or dark house-fronts shuttered
close. Here there were high steel networks of viaducts overhead, or
parapets of bridges over hidden waterways. At last I came to where a
great church towered up, and an iron-studded door in a blank wall
appeared. I was told this was the place, and pushing it open I went up a
stone-flagged path, among beds of soot-stained shrubs, to where a
lantern shone in the porch of a sombre house. There was a window high up
on the left, where a shaded lamp was burning and a fire flickered on the
ceiling, and I knew instinctively that this was my brother's room. I
rang, and presently a weary-eyed, kindly priest, in a hastily-donned
cassock, appeared. He said at once that my brother was a little better
and was asleep. The doctors were to see him at nine. I asked where I
could go, and he advised a hotel hard by. "We did not expect you," he
said, "or we would have had a room ready, but now I fear we could hardly
make you comfortable."