For some years before his death it was the intention of Theodore
Watts-Dunton to publish in volume form under the title of ‘Old Familiar
Faces,’ the recollections of his friends that he had from time to time
contributed to _The Athenæum_. Had his range of interests been less wide
he might have found the time in which to further this and many other
literary projects he had formed; but he was, unfortunately, very slow to
write, and slower still to publish. His long life produced in published
works a number of critical and biographical essays contributed to
periodicals and encyclopædias, a romance (‘Aylwin’), a sheaf of poems
(‘The Coming of Love’), two of the most stimulating critical
pronouncements that his century produced (‘Poetry’ and ‘The Renascence of
Wonder’), a handful of introductions to classics—and that is all.
Only those who were frequent visitors at “The Pines” can form any idea of
his keen interest in life and affairs, which seemed to grow rather than
to diminish with the passage of each year, even when 81 had passed him
by. At his charmingly situated house at the foot of Putney Hill, he
lived a life of as little seclusion as he would have lived in Fleet
Street. Here he received his friends and acquaintances, and there was
little happening in the world outside with which he was unacquainted.
He was a tremendous worker, and only a few months before his death he
wrote of “the enormous pressure of work” that was upon him, telling his
correspondent that he had “no idea, no one can have any idea, what it is.
I am an early riser and breakfast at seven, and from that hour until
seven in the evening, I am in full swing of my labours with the aid of
two most intelligent secretaries.”
To outlive his generation is, perhaps, the worst fate that can befall a
man; but this cannot truly be said of Theodore Watts-Dunton, who seemed
to be of no generation in particular. His interest in the life of the
twentieth century, a life so different from that of his own youth and
early manhood, was strangely keen and insistent. Sometimes in talking of
his great contemporaries, Tennyson, Meredith, Swinburne, Rossetti,
Morris, Matthew Arnold, Borrow, there would creep into his voice a note
of reminiscent sadness; but it always seemed poetic rather than personal.
It may be said that he never really grew up, that his spirit never tired.
His laugh was as youthful as the hearty “My dear fellow,” with which he
would address his friends.
His most remarkable quality was his youth. His body had aged, his voice
had shrunk; but once launched into the subject of literature, Greek verse
in particular (he regarded the Attic tongue as the peculiar vehicle for
poetic expression), he seemed immediately to become a young man. When
quoting his favourite passage from Keats, his voice would falter with
emotion.
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
These lines he regarded as the finest in English poetry.
He possessed the great gift of conversation. Every subject seemed to
develope quite naturally out of that which had preceded it, and although
in a single hour he would have passed from Æschylus and Sophocles to
twentieth-century publishers, there was never any break or suspicion of a
change of topic. Seated on the sofa in the middle of his study, with
reminders of his friendship with Rossetti gazing down upon him from the
walls, he welcomed his friends with that almost boyish cordiality that so
endeared him to their hearts. If they had been doing anything of which
the world knew, he would be sure to have heard all about it. His mind
was as alert as his memory was remarkable; but above all he was possessed
of a very real charm, a charm that did not vanish before the on-coming
years. It was this quality of interesting himself in the doings of
others that retained for him the friendships that his personality and
cordiality had created.
Few men have been so richly endowed with great friendships as Theodore
Watts-Dunton: Swinburne, the Rossettis, William Morris, Matthew Arnold,
Tennyson, Borrow, Lowell, Latham, men of vastly dissimilar temperaments;
yet he was on terms of intimacy with them all, and as they one by one
passed away, to him was left the sad duty of giving to the world by far
the most intimate picture of their various personalities. There was
obviously some subtle quality in Watts-Dunton’s nature that not only
attracted to him great minds in the world of art and letters; but which
seemed to hold captive their affection for a lifetime. Even an
instinctive recluse such as Borrow, a man almost too sensitive for
friendship, found in Watts-Dunton one whose capacity for friendship was
so great as to override all other considerations. Watts-Dunton was “the
friend of friends” to Rossetti, who wished to make him his heir, and was
dissuaded only when he saw that to do so would pain his friend, who
regarded it as an act of injustice to Rossetti’s own family. During his
lifetime Swinburne desired to make over to him his entire fortune. The
man to whom these tributes were paid was undoubtedly possessed of some
rare and strange gift.
[Picture: Algernon Charles Swinburne]
The greatest among his many great friendships was with Swinburne. For
thirty years they lived together at “The Pines” in the closest unity and
accord. They would take their walks together, discuss the hundred and
one things in which they were both interested, living, not as great men
sometimes live, a frigid existence of intellectual loneliness; but
showing the keenest interest in the affairs of the everyday, as well as
of the literary, world. When death at last severed the link that it had
taken upwards of thirty years to forge, it is not strange that there
should be no reminiscences written of the man who had been to
Watts-Dunton more than a brother.
It was not always easy to get Watts-Dunton to talk of those he had known
so intimately; but when he did so it was frankly and freely. Once when
telling of some characteristic act of generosity on the part of that
strangely composite being, half genius, half schoolboy, William Morris,
he remarked, “Yes, Morris was a very dear friend of mine; but he had
strange limitations. Swinburne had the utmost contempt for the
narrowness of his outlook. It was incredible! Outside his own domain he
was unintelligent in his narrowness, and frequently bored and irritated
his friends.”
As artist, poet, and craftsman, however, Watts-Dunton spoke with
enthusiasm of Morris; but intellectually he regarded him as inferior to
Mrs. Morris. On the day following the announcement of her death, the
present writer happened to be taking tea at “The Pines,” and the
conversation not unnaturally turned upon the Morrises. Watts-Dunton
called attention to the large number of magnificent Rossetti portraits of
her that hung from the walls of his study. “A remarkable woman,” he
said, “a most remarkable woman; superior to Morris intellectually, she
reached a greater mental height than he was capable of, yet few knew it.”
Then he proceeded to tell how she had acquired French and Italian with
the greatest ease and facility. When Morris had met her she possessed
very few educational advantages; yet she very quickly made good her
shortcomings. When reminded that Mr. H. Buxton Forman had recently
written that he had seen beautiful women in all quarters of the globe,
“but never one so strangely lovely and majestic as Mrs. Morris,”
Watts-Dunton remarked, “She was the most lovely woman I have ever known,
her beauty was incredible.”
In answer to a question he went on to say that Rossetti painted her lips
with the utmost faithfulness. In spite of her beauty and her high mental
qualities, she was very shy and retiring, almost fearful, in her attitude
towards others.
In literature and criticism Watts-Dunton stood for enthusiasm. His
gospel as a critic was to seek for the good that is to be found in most
things, literary or otherwise; and what is, perhaps, most remarkable in
one who has known so many great men, he never seemed to draw invidious
comparisons between the writers and artists of to-day and those of the
great Victorian Era.
Life at “The Pines” was as bright as naturally cheerful and bright people
could make it, people who were not only attracted to and interested in
each other; but found the world an exceedingly good place in which to
live. The home circle was composed of Swinburne, Watts-Dunton, his two
sisters, Miss Watts and Mrs. Mason. To these must be added Mr. Thomas
Hake, for many years Watts-Dunton’s friend and secretary, who was in
daily attendance. Later the circle was enlarged by the entry into it of
the young and accomplished bride, the present Mrs. Watts-Dunton.
“The Pines” would have seemed a strange place without “the Colonel,” as
Watts-Dunton always called Mr. Hake, adopting a family name given to him
when a boy on account of his likeness to his cousin, General, then
Colonel, Gordon. Nothing amused Watts-Dunton more than for some caller
to start discussing army matters with the supposed ex-officer. He would
watch with a mischievous glee Mr. Hake’s endeavours to carry on a
conversation in which he had no special interest. Watts-Dunton never
informed callers of their mistake, and to this day there is one friend of
twenty-five years’ standing, a man keenly interested in National Defence,
who regards Mr. Hake as an authority upon army matters.
“No living man knew Borrow so well as Thomas Hake,” Watts-Dunton once
remarked to a friend. To the young Hakes Lavengro was a great joy, and
they would often accompany him part of his way home from Coombe End. On
one occasion Borrow said to the youngest boy, “Do you know how to fight a
man bigger than yourself?” The lad confessed that he did not. “Well,”
said Borrow, “You challenge him to fight, and when he is taking off his
coat, you hit him in the stomach as hard as you can and run for your
life.”
Swinburne and Watts-Dunton had first met in 1872. In 1879 they went to
live together at “The Pines,” and from that date were never parted until
Swinburne’s death thirty years’ later. In no literary friendship has the
bond been closer. Watts-Dunton’s first act each morning was to visit
Swinburne in his own room, where the poet breakfasted alone with the
morning newspapers. During the morning the two would take their daily
walk together, a practice continued for many years. “There is no time
like the morning for a walk,” Swinburne would say, “The sparkle, the
exhilaration of it. I walk every morning of my life, no matter what the
weather, pelting along all the time as fast as I can go.” His perfect
health he attributed entirely to this habit.
In later years he would take his walks alone. It was during one of these
that he met with an adventure that seemed to cause him some irritation.
A young artist hearing that “the master” walked each day up Putney Hill
lay in wait for him. After several unsuccessful ventures he at length
saw a figure approaching which he instantly recognized. Crossing the
road the youth went boldly up and said:—
“If you are Mr. Swinburne, may I shake hands with you?”
“Eh?” remarked the astonished poet.
The young man repeated his request in a louder voice, remembering
Swinburne’s deafness, adding:—
“It is my ambition to shake hands with you, sir.”
“Oh! very well,” was the response, as Swinburne half-heartedly extended
his hand, “I’m not accustomed to this sort of thing.”
Meal times at “The Pines” were occasions when there was much talk and
laughter; for in both Swinburne and Watts-Dunton the mischievous spirit
of boyhood had not been entirely disciplined by life, and in the other
members of the household the same unconquerable spirit of youth was
manifest. Sometimes there were great discussions and arguments.
Watts-Dunton had more than a passing interest in science, whereas, to
Swinburne it was anathema, although his father was strongly scientific in
his learning. The libraries of the two men clearly showed how different
were their tastes; for that of Watts-Dunton was all-embracing,
Swinburne’s was as exclusive as his circle of personal friends. The one
was the library of a critic, the other that of a poet.
Swinburne enjoyed nothing better than a discussion, and he was a foe who
wielded a stout blade. He fought, however, with scrupulous fairness,
never interrupting an adversary; but listening to him with a deliberate
patience that was almost disconcerting. Then when his turn came he would
overwhelm his opponent and destroy his most weighty arguments in what a
friend once described as “a lava torrent of burning words.” He possessed
many of the qualities necessary to debate: concentration, the power of
pouncing upon the weak spot in his adversary’s argument, and above all a
wonderful memory. What he lacked was that calm and calculating frigidity
so necessary to the successful debater. Instead of freezing his opponent
to silence with deliberate logic, he would strive rather by the
tempestuous quality of his rhetoric to hurl him into the next parish.
There were times when he would work himself up into a passion of
denunciation, when, trembling and quivering in every limb, he would in a
fine frenzy of scorn annihilate those whom he conceived to be his
enemies, and in scathing periods pour ridicule upon their works. But if
he were merciless in his onslaughts upon his foes, he was correspondingly
loyal in the defence of his friends. He seemed as incapable of seeing
the weakness of a friend as of appreciating the strength of an enemy.
The things and the people who did not interest him he had the fortunate
capacity of entirely forgetting. A friend {15} tells of how on one
occasion he happened to mention in the course of conversation a book by a
certain author whom he knew had been a visitor at “The Pines” on several
occasions, and as such was personally known to Swinburne.
“Oh! really,” Swinburne remarked, “Yes, now that you mention it, I
believe someone of that name has been so good as to come and see us. I
seem to recall him, and I seem to remember hearing someone say that he
had written something, though I don’t remember exactly what. So he has
published a book upon the subject of which we are talking. Really? I
did not know.”
All this was said with perfect courtesy and without the least intention
of administering a snub or belittling the writer in question. Swinburne
had merely forgotten because there was nothing in that author’s
personality that had impressed itself upon him. On the other hand, he
would remember the minutest details of conversations in which he had been
interested.
In spite of his capacity for passionate outbursts and inspired invective,
Swinburne was a most attentive listener, provided there were things being
said to which it was worth listening. At meal times when his attention
became engaged he would forget everything but the conversation.
Indifferent as to what stage of the meal he was at, he would turn to
whoever it might be that had introduced the subject, and would talk or
listen oblivious of the fact that food might be spoiling. Fortunately,
he was a small eater.
On one occasion when lunching at “The Pines” Mr. Coulson Kernahan
happened to remark that he had in his pocket a copy of Christina
Rossetti’s then unpublished poem, ‘The Death of a First-born,’ written in
memory of the Duke of Clarence. Down went knife and fork as Swinburne
half rose from his chair to reach across the table for the manuscript.
“She is as a god to mortals when compared to most other living women
poets,” he exclaimed. Then, in his thin-high-pitched, but exquisitely
modulated voice he half read, half chanted, two stanzas of the poem.
One young life lost, two happy young lives blighted
With earthward eyes we see:
With eyes uplifted, keener, farther sighted
We look, O Lord to thee.
Grief hears a funeral knell: hope hears the ringing
Of birthday bells on high.
Faith, Hope and Love make answer with soft singing,
Half carol and half cry.
He stopped abruptly refusing to read the third and last stanza because it
was unequal, and the poem was stronger and finer by its omission. Then
he said in a hushed voice, “For the happy folk who are able to think as
she thinks, who believe as she believes, the poem is of its kind
perfect.”
With glowing eyes and with hand that marked time to the music, he read
once more the second verse, repeating the line, “half carol and half cry”
three times, lowering his voice with each repetition until it became
little more than a whisper. Laying the manuscript reverently beside him,
he sat perfectly still for a space with brooding eyes, then rising
silently left the room with short swift strides. {17}
Many of Swinburne’s friends have testified to his personal charm and
courtliness of bearing. “Unmistakably an aristocrat, and with all the
ease and polish which one associates with high breeding, there was, even
in the cordiality with which he would rise and come forward to welcome a
visitor a suspicion of the shy nervousness of the introspective man and
of the recluse on first facing a stranger.” Mr. Coulson Kernahan has
said, “I have seen him angry, I have heard him furiously dissent from,
and even denounce the views put forward by others, but never once was
what, for want of a better word, I must call his personal deference to
those others relaxed.
“To no one would he defer quite so graciously and readily, to no one was
he so scrupulously courtly in bearing as to those who constituted his own
household.”
If he felt that he had monopolized the conversation he would turn to
Watts-Dunton and apologize, and for a time become transformed into an
attentive listener.
Lord Ronald Gower writes of Swinburne’s remarkable powers as a talker.
Telling of a luncheon at “The Pines” in 1879, he writes:—“Swinburne’s
talk after luncheon was wonderful . . . What, far beyond the wonderful
flow of words of the poet, struck me, was his real diffidence and
modesty; while fully aware of the divine gifts within him, he is as
simple and unaffected as a child.” {18}
[Picture: Theodore Watts-Dunton]
But conversation at “The Pines” was not always of the serious things of
life. It very frequently partook of the playful, when the hearers would
be kept amused with a humour and whimsicality, cauterized now and then
with some biting touch of satire which showed that neither Swinburne nor
Watts-Dunton had entirely grown up.
Reading aloud was also a greatly favoured form of entertainment.
Swinburne was a sympathetic reader, possessed of a voice of remarkable
quality and power of expression, and he would read for the hour together
from Dickens, Lamb, Charles Reade, and Thackeray. To Mrs. Mason’s little
boy he was a wizard who could open many magic casements. He would carry
off the lad to his own room, and there read to him the stories which
caused the hour of bedtime to be dreaded. When the nurse arrived to
fetch the child to bed he would imperiously wave her away, hoping that
Swinburne would not notice the action and so bring the evening’s
entertainment to a close. On one occasion the child stole down to
Swinburne’s room after he had been safely put to bed, where the
interrupted story was renewed. When eventually discovered both seemed to
regard the incident as a huge joke, and Swinburne carried the child to
the nursery and tucked him up for the night.
A great capacity for friendship involves an equally great meed of sorrow.
At last the hour arrived when the friend who was nearer to him than a
brother followed those who one by one he had mourned, and of the old
familiar faces there were left to him only the two sisters, whose love
and devotion had contributed so much to his domestic happiness, and his
friend, Mr. Thomas Hake, who for seventeen years had acted as
confidential secretary.