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[Illustration: (signature of author) From a drawing by W. Rothenstein.]
THE ADVENTURE OF LIVING
A Subjective Autobiography (1860-1922)
By John St. Loe Strachey Editor of _The Spectator_
_"We carry with us the wonders we seek without
us; there is all Africa and her prodigies in us; we
are that bold and adventurous piece of Nature, which
he that studies wisely learns in a compendium what
others labour at in a divided piece and endless volume."_
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
TO MY WIFE
You who know something of the irony of life in general, and still more
of it in the present particular, will not be surprised that, having made
two strict rules for my guidance in the writing of this book, I break
them both in the first page! Indeed, I can hear you say, though without
any touch of the satirical, that it was only natural that I should do
so.
The first of my two rules, heartily approved by you, let me add, is that
I should not mention you in my autobiography.--We both deem it foolish
as well as unseemly to violate in print the freemasonry of marriage.--
The second, not unlike the first, is not to write about living people.
And here am I hard at it in both cases!
Yet, after all, I have kept to my resolve in the spirit, if not in the
letter:--and this though it has cost me some very good "copy,"--copy,
too, which would have afforded me the pleasantest of memories. There are
things seen by us together which I much regret to leave unchronicled,
but these must wait for another occasion. Many of them are quite
suitable to be recorded in one's lifetime. For example, I should dearly
like to set forth our ride from Jerusalem to Damascus, together with
some circumstances, as an old-fashioned traveller might have said,
concerning the Garden of the Jews at Jahoni, and the strange and
beautiful creature we found therein.
I count myself happy indeed to have seen half the delightful and notable
things I have seen during my life, in your company. Do you remember the
turbulent magnificence of our winter passage of the Splügen, not in a
snowstorm, but in something much more thrilling--a fierce windstorm in a
great frost? The whirling, stinging, white dust darkened the air and
coated our sledges, our horses, and our faces. We shall neither of us
ever forget how just below the Hospice your sledge was actually blown
over by the mere fury of the blizzard; how we tramped through the
drifts, and how all ended in "the welcome of an inn" on the summit; the
hot soup and the _Côtelettes de Veau_. It was together, too, that
we watched the sunrise from the Citadel at Cairo and saw the Pyramids
tipped with rose and saffron. Ours, too, was the desert mirage that, in
spite of reason and experience, almost betrayed us in our ride to the
Fayum. You shared with me what was certainly an adventure of the spirit,
though not of the body, when for the first time we saw the fateful and
well-loved shores of America. The lights danced like fireflies in the
great towers of New York, while behind them glowed in sombre splendour
the fiery Bastions of a November sunset.
But, of course, none of all this affords the reason why I dedicate my
book to you. That reason will perhaps be fully understood only by me and
by our children. It can also be found in certain wise and cunning little
hearts, inscrutable as those of kings, in a London nursery. Susan,
Charlotte, and Christopher could tell if they would.
If that sounds inconsequent, or, at any rate, incomprehensible, may I
not plead that so do the ineffable Mysteries of Life and Death.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION
It is with great pleasure that I accept Major Putnam's suggestion that I
should write a special preface to the American edition of my
autobiography. Major Putnam, I, and the _Spectator_, are a
triumvirate of old friends, and I should not be likely to refuse a
request made by him, even if its fulfilment was a much less agreeable
task than that of addressing an American audience.
I was born with a mind which might well be described as _Anima
naturaliter Americana_. I have always loved America and the
Americans, and, though I cannot expect them to feel for me as I feel for
them, I cherish the belief that, at any rate, they do not dislike me
instinctively. That many of them regard me as somewhat wild and
injudicious in my praise of their country I am well aware. They hold
that I often praise America not only too much, but that I praise her for
the wrong things,--praise, indeed, where I ought to censure, and so
"spoil" their countrymen. Well, if that is a true bill, all I can say is
that it is too late to expect me to mend my ways.
During my boyhood people here understood America much less than they do
now. Though I should be exaggerating if I said that there was anything
approaching dislike of America or Americans, there were certain
intellectual people in England who were apt to parade a kind of
conscious and supercilious patronage of the wilder products of American
life and literature. I heard exaggerated stories about Americans, and
especially about the Americans of the Far West,--heard them, that is,
represented as semi-barbarians, coarse, rash, and boastful, with bad
manners and no feeling for the reticences of life. Such legends
exasperated me beyond words. I felt as did the author of _Ionica_
on re-reading the play of Ajax.
The world may like, for all I care,
The gentler voice, the cooler head,
That bows a rival to despair,
And cheaply compliments the dead.
That smiles at all that's coarse and rash,
Yet wins the trophies of the fight,
Unscathed in honour's wreck and crash,
Heartless, but always in the right.
* * * * *
There were my superior persons drawn to the life!
When the complaisant judge would not acknowledge the rights of the noble
Ajax, but gave to another what was due to him, the poet touched me even
more nearly:--
Thanked, and self-pleased: ay, let him wear
What to that noble breast was due;
And I, dear passionate Teucer, dare
Go through the homeless world with you.
The poem I admit does not sound very apposite in the year 1922, but it
well reflected my indignation some fifty years ago. The West might then
be regarded as the Ajax of the Nations. Nowadays, not even the youngest
of enthusiasts could think it necessary to show his devotion by wanting
to "go through the homeless world" with the richest and the most
powerful community on the face of the earth.
I am not going to make any show of false modesty by suggesting that
Americans may not care to read about the intimate details of my life and
opinions, or to follow "the adventure of living" of a journalist and a
public writer whose life, judged superficially, has been quite
uneventful. I read with pleasure the lives of American men and women
when they were not people of action, and I daresay people across the
Atlantic will pay me a similar compliment.
Yet--I should like to give a word or two of explanation as to the way in
which I have treated my subject. At first sight I expect that my book
will seem chaotic and bewildering, a mighty maze and quite without a
plan. As a matter of fact, however, the work was very carefully planned.
My sins of omission and of commission were deliberate and, as our
forefathers would have said, matters of art.
My first object was a negative one; that is, to avoid the kind of
autobiography in which the author waddles painfully, diligently, and
conscientiously along an arid path, which he has strewn, not with
flowers and fruits of joy, but with the cinders of the commonplace. My
readers know such autobiographies only too well. They are usually based
upon copious diaries and letters. The author, as soon as he gets to
maturity, spares us nothing. We look down endless vistas of dinners and
luncheon parties and of stories of how he met the celebrated Mr. Jones
at the house of the hardly less celebrated Mr. Smith and how they talked
about Mr. Robinson, the most celebrated of all of them. If I have done
nothing else worthy of gratitude, I have, at any rate, avoided such
predestinated dullness.
What I have made my prime object is the description of the influences
that have affected my life and, for good or evil, made me what I am. The
interesting thing about a human being is not only what he is, but how he
came to be what he is.
The main influence of my life has been _The Spectator_, and,
therefore, as will be seen, I have made _The Spectator_ the pivot
of my book, or, shall I say, the centre from which in telling my story I
have worked backwards and forwards. But this is not all. Though I pay a
certain homage to chronology and let my chapters mainly follow the
years, I am in this matter not too strict. Throughout, I obey the
instinct of the journalist and take good copy wherever I can find it. I
follow the scent while it is hot and do not say to myself or to my
readers that this or that would be out-of-place here, and must be
deferred to such and such a chapter, or to some portion of the book
giving an account of later years, devoted to miscellaneous anecdotes! In
a word, I am discursive not by accident, but by design.
If I am asked why I make this apologia, I shall have no difficulty in
replying. I desire to leave nothing unsaid which may bring me into
intimate touch with the greatest reading public that the world has ever
seen-and, to my mind, a public as worthy as it is great.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
May 5, 1922
POSTSCRIPT TO AMERICAN PREFACE
_While this book and preface is going through the press, I cannot
resist adding a Postscript on a point suggested by my publisher. It is
that I should say something which may inform the new generation as to
"The Spectator's" position during the Civil War.
"The Spectator" was as strong a friend of America in past years as it is
at present, and in those past years its friendship was the more useful
because the need for a true understanding between all parts of the
English-speaking race was not realised by nearly so many people as it is
now. That there was ever any essential bitterness of feeling here or in
America I will not admit for a moment, but that there was ignorance,
pig-headedness, and want of vision, is beyond all doubt. This want of
vision was specially illustrated during the Civil War. "The Spectator,"
however, I am proud to say, without being unjust to the South, or
failing to note its gallantry, and its noble sacrifices even in a wrong
cause, was consistently on the side of the North. Moreover, it realised
that the North was going to win, and ought to win, and so would abolish
slavery. There is a special tradition at the "Spectator" office of which
we are very proud. It is that the military critic of "The Spectator," at
that time Mr. Hooper, a civilian but with an extraordinary flair for
strategy, divined exactly what Sherman was doing when he started on his
famous march. Many years afterwards General Sherman, either in a speech
or on the written page, for I cannot now verify the fact, though I am
perfectly certain of it, said that when he started with the wires cut
behind him, there were only two people in the world who knew what his
objective was. One was himself and the other, as he said, "an anonymous
writer in the London 'Spectator.'" My American readers will understand
why I and all connected with "The Spectator" are intensely proud of this
fact. The fate, not only of America but of the whole English-speaking
race, hung upon the success of Sherman's feat of daring. In turn that
success hung upon the fact that Sherman's objective was the sea. To have
divined that was a notable achievement in the art of publicity._
J. ST. L. S.
CONTENTS
I.--HOW I CAME TO _The Spectator_
II.--HOW I CAME TO _The Spectator (Continued)_
III.--MY PHYSICAL HOME, MY FAMILY, AND MY GOOD FORTUNE THEREIN
IV.--MY FATHER
V.--MY FATHER'S STORIES OF THE STRACHEY FAMILY
VI.--MY CHILDHOOD AND SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL INCIDENTS
VII.--MY CHILDHOOD (_Continued_)
VIII.--THE FAMILY NURSE
IX.--BOYHOOD: POETRY AND METRE
X.--OXFORD
XI.--A CLASSICAL EDUCATION
XII.--AN OXFORD FRIENDSHIP
XIII.--OXFORD MEMORIES
XIV.--PRESS WORK IN LONDON
XV.--THE "CORNHILL"
XVI.--MEREDITH TOWNSEND
XVII.--MEREDITH TOWNSEND (_Continued_)
XVIII.--MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE 'NINETIES
XIX.--MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE 'NINETIES (_Continued_)
XX.--THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM
XXI.--THE PLACE OF THE JOURNALIST IN MODERN LIFE
XXII.--A WAR EPISODE--MY AMERICAN TEA-PARTIES
XXIII.--IDYLLS OF THE WAR
XXIV.--FIVE GREAT MEN
XXV.--FIVE GREAT MEN (Continued)
XXVI.--MY POLITICAL OPINIONS
XXVII.--MY POLITICAL OPINIONS (Continued)
XXVIII.--UNWRITTEN CHAPTERS
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
ST. LOE STRACHEY [Frontispiece] From a drawing by W. Rothenstein.
VIEW OF NORTH FRONT OF SUTTON COURT, IN THE COUNTY OF SOMERSET, THE
FAMILY HOUSE OF THE STRACHEYS
SIR EDWARD STRACHEY IN THE HALL AT SUTTON COURT, WITH HIS FAVOURITE CAT
From a picture by his son Henry Strachey.
JOHN STRACHEY, THE FRIEND OF LOCKE
THE CLOSE, SUTTON COURT, SOMERSET
SUTTON COURT, SOMERSET
SUTTON COURT, SOMERSET
MRS. SALOME LEAKER,--"THE FAMILY NURSE"
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY,--ÆTAT 16 From a photograph done at Cannes, about
1876.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY AS AN OXFORD FRESHMAN, ÆTAT 18 MEREDITH TOWNSEND,
EDITOR OF THE "FRIEND OF INDIA," AND HIS MOONSHEE, THE PUNDIT OOMACANTO
MUKAJI, DOCTOR OF LOGIC IN THE MUDDEH UNIVERSITY Taken at Serampore,
Bengal, in 1849.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY, ÆTAT. 32
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY AT NEWLANDS CORNER, ÆTAT. 45
THE ADVENTURE OF LIVING
CHAPTER I
HOW I CAME TO "THE SPECTATOR"
Sir Thomas Browne gave his son an admirable piece of literary advice.
The young son had been travelling in Hungary and proposed to write an
account of what he had seen. His father approved the project, but urged
him strongly not to trouble himself about the methods of extracting iron
and copper from the ores, or with a multitude of facts and statistics.
These were matters in which there was no need to be particular. But, he
added, his son must on no account forget to give a full description of
the "Roman alabaster tomb in the barber's shop at Pesth."
In writing my recollections I mean to keep always before me the
alabaster tomb in the barber's shop rather than a view of life which is
based on high politics, or even high literature. At first sight it may
seem as if the life of an editor is not likely to contain very much of
the alabaster tomb element. In truth, however, every life is an
adventure, and if a sense of this adventure cannot be communicated to
the reader, one may feel sure that it is the fault of the writer, not of
the facts. A dull man might make a dull thing of his autobiography even
if he had lived through the French Revolution; whereas a country curate
might thrill the world with his story, provided that his mind were cast
in the right mould and that he found a quickening interest in its
delineation. Barbellion's _Diary_ provides the proof. The interest
of that supremely interesting book lies in the way of telling.
But how is one to know what will interest one's readers? That is a
difficult question. Clearly it is no use to put up a man of straw, call
him the Public, and then try to play down to him or up to him and his
alleged and purely hypothetical opinions and tastes. Those who attempt
to fawn upon the puppet of their own creation are as likely as not to
end by interesting nobody. At any rate, try and please yourself, then at
least one person's liking is engaged. That is the autobiographer's
simple secret.
All the same there is a better reason than that. Pleasure is contagious.
He who writes with zest will infect his readers. The man who argues,
"This seems stupid and tedious to me, but I expect it is what the public
likes," is certain to make shipwreck of his endeavour.
The pivot of my life has been _The Spectator_, and so _The
Spectator_ must be the pivot of my book--the point upon which it and
I and all that is mine turn. I therefore make no apology for beginning
this book with the story of how I came to _The Spectator_.
My father, a friend of both the joint editors, Mr. Hutton and Mr.
Townsend, was a frequent contributor to the paper. In a sense,
therefore, I was brought up in a "Spectator" atmosphere. Indeed, the
first contributions ever made by me to the press were two sonnets which
appeared in its pages, one in the year 1875 and the other in 1876. I did
not, however, begin serious journalistic work in _The Spectator_,
but, curiously enough, in its rival, _The Saturday Review_. While I
was at Oxford I sent several middle articles to _The Saturday_, got
them accepted, and later, to my great delight, received novels and poems
for review. I also wrote occasionally in _The Pall Mall_, in the
days in which it was edited by Lord Morley, and in _The Academy_.
It was not until I settled down in London to read for the Bar, a year
and a half after I had left Oxford, that I made any attempt to write for
_The Spectator_. In the last few days of 1885 I got my father to
give me a formal introduction to the editors, and went to see them in
Wellington Street. They told me, as in my turn I have had to tell so
many would-be reviewers, what no doubt was perfectly true, namely that
they had already got more outside reviewers than they could possibly
find work for, and that they were sorry to say I must not count upon
their being able to give me books. All the same, they would like me to
take away a couple of volumes to notice,--making it clear, however, that
they did this out of friendship for my father.
I was given my choice of books, and the two I chose were a new edition
of _Gulliver's Travels_, well illustrated in colour by a French
artist, and, if I remember rightly, the _Memoirs of Henry
Greville_, the brother of the great Greville. I will not say that I
departed from the old _Spectator_ offices at 1 Wellington Street--a
building destined to play so great a part in my life--in dudgeon or even
in disappointment. I had not expected very much. Still, no man, young or
old, cares to have it made quite clear that a door at which he wishes to
enter is permanently shut against him.
However, I was not likely to be depressed for long at so small a matter
as this; I was much too full of enjoyment in my new London life. The
wide world affords nothing to equal one's first year in London--at
least, that was my feeling. My first year at Oxford had been delightful,
as were also the three following, but there was to me something in the
throb of the great pulse of London which, as a stimulant, nay, an
excitant, of the mind, even Oxford could not rival.
For once I had plenty of leisure to enjoy the thrilling drama of life--a
drama too often dimmed by the cares, the business, or even the pleasures
of the onlooker. A Bar student is not overworked, and if he is not rich,
or socially sought after, he can find, as I did, plenty of time in which
to look around him and enjoy the scene. That exhilaration, that luxury
of leisurely circumspection may never return, or only, as happily in my
own case, with the grand climacteric. Once more I see and enjoy the
gorgeous drama by the Thames.
To walk every morning to the Temple or to Lincoln's Inn, where I was
reading in Chambers, was a feast. Then there were theatres, balls,
dances, dinners, and a thousand splendid sights to be enjoyed, for I was
then, as I have always been and am now, an indefatigable sightseer. I
would, I confess, to this day go miles to see the least promising of
curiosities or antiquities. "Who knows? it may be one of the wonders of
the world" has always been my order of the day.
I was aware of my good fortune. I remember thinking how much more
delightful it must be to come fresh to London than to be like so many of
my friends, Londoners born and bred. They could not be thrilled as I was
by the sight of St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey, or by the scimitar
curve of the Thames from Blackfriars to Westminster. Through the
National Gallery or the British Museum I paced a king. The vista of the
London River as I went to Greenwich intoxicated me like heady wine. And
Hampton Court in the spring, _Ut vidi ut perii_--"How I saw, how I
perished." It was all a pageant of pure pleasure, and I walked on air,
eating the fruit of the Hesperides.
But though I was so fully convinced that the doors of _The
Spectator_ were shut against me, I was, of course, determined that my
two reviews should, if possible, make the editors feel what a huge
mistake they had made and what a loss they were incurring. But, alas!
here I encountered a great disappointment. When I had written my reviews
they appeared to me to be total failures! I was living at the time in an
"upper part" in South Molton Street, in which I, my younger brother,
Henry Strachey, and two of my greatest friends, the present Sir Bernard
Mallet and his younger brother Stephen Mallet, had set up house. I
remember to this day owning to my brother that though I had intended my
review of _Gulliver's Travels_ to be epoch-making, it had turned
out a horrible fiasco. However, I somehow felt I should only flounder
deeper into the quagmire of my own creation if I rewrote the two
reviews. Accordingly, they were sent off in the usual way. Knowing my
father's experience in such matters, I did not expect to get them back
in type for many weeks. As a matter of fact, they came back quite
quickly. I corrected the proofs and returned them. To my astonishment
the review of Swift appeared almost at once. I supposed, in the luxury
of depression, that they wished to cast the rubbish out of the way as
quickly as possible.
My first intention was not to go again to _The Spectator_ office,
the place where I was so obviously not wanted, but I remembered that my
father had told me that it was always the custom to return books as soon
as the proofs were corrected or the articles had appeared. I determined,
therefore, that I would do the proper thing, though I felt rather shy,
and feared I might be looked upon as "cadging" for work.
With my books under my arm I walked off to Wellington Street, on a
Tuesday morning, and went up to Mr. Hutton's room, where on that day the
two editors used to spend the greater part of the morning discussing the
coming issue of the paper. I had prepared a nice little impromptu
speech, which was to convey in unmistakable terms that I had not come to
ask for more books; "I fully realise and fully acquiesce in your
inability to use my work." When I went in I was most cordially received,
and almost immediately Mr. Hutton asked me to look over a pile of new
books and see if there was anything there I would like. This appeared to
be my cue, and I accordingly proceeded to explain that I had not come to
ask for more books but only to bring back the two books I had already
reviewed and to thank the editors. I quite understood that there was no
more work for me.
Then, to my amazement, Mr. Townsend, with that vividness of expression
which was his, said something to the effect that they had only said that
when they didn't know that I could write. The position, it appeared, had
been entirely changed by the review of _Gulliver's Travels_ and
they hoped very much that I should be able to do regular work for _The
Spectator_. Mr. Hutton chimed in with equally kind and appreciative
words, and I can well remember the pleasant confusion caused in my mind
by the evident satisfaction of my future chiefs. I was actually hailed
as "a writer and critic of the first force."
To say that I returned home elated would not be exactly true. Bewildered
would more accurately describe my state of mind. I had genuinely
believed that my attempt to give the final word of criticism upon
_Gulliver's Travels_--that is what a young man always thinks, and
ought to think, he is doing in the matter of literary criticism--had
been a total failure. Surely I couldn't be wrong about my own work. Yet
_The Spectator_ editors were evidently not mad or pulling my leg or
even flattering me! It was a violent mystery.
Of course I was pleased at heart, but I tried to unload some of my
liabilities to Nemesis by the thought that my new patrons would probably
get tired of my manner of writing before very long. What had captured
them for the moment was merely a certain novelty of style. They would
very soon see through it, as I had done in my poignant self-criticism.
But this prudent view was before long, in a couple of days, to be exact,
knocked on the head by a delightful letter which Mr. Townsend wrote to
my father. In it he expressed himself even more strongly in regard to
the review than he had done in speaking to me.
I honestly think that what I liked best in the whole business was the
element of adventure. There was something thrilling and, so, intensely
delightful to me in the thought, that I had walked down to Wellington
Street, like a character in a novel, prepared for a setback, only to
find that Fate was there, "hid in an auger-hole," ready to rush and
seize me. Somehow or other I felt, though I would not admit it even to
myself, that the incident had been written in the Book of Destiny, and
that it was one which was going to affect my whole life. Of course,
being, like other young men, a creature governed wholly by reason and
good sense, I scouted the notion of a destined day as sentimental and
ridiculous. Still, the facts were "as stated," and could not be
altogether denied.
Looking back at the lucky accident which brought the right book, the
right reviewer, and the properly-tuned editors together, I am bound to
say that I think that the editors were right and that I had produced
good copy. At any rate, their view being what it was, I have no sort of
doubt that they were quite right to express it as plainly and as
generously as they did to me. To have followed the conventional rule of
not puffing up a young man with praise and to have guarded their true
opinion as a kind of guilty secret would have been distinctly unfair to
me, nay, prejudicial. There are, I suppose, a certain number of young
people to whom it would be unsafe to give a full measure of eulogy. But
these are a small minority. The ordinary young man or young woman is
much more likely to be encouraged or sometimes even alarmed by unstinted
praise. Generous encouragement is the necessary mental nourishment of
youth, and those who withhold it from them are not only foolish but
cruel. They are keeping food from the hungry.
If my editors had told me that they thought the review rather a poor
piece of work, I should, by "the law of reversed effort," have been
almost certain to have taken up a combative line and have convinced
myself that it was epoch-making. When a man thinks himself overpraised,
if he has anything in him at all, he begins to get anxious about his
next step. He is put very much on his mettle not to lose what he has
gained.
It may amuse my readers, if I quote a few sentences from the article,
and allow them to see whether their judgment coincides with that of my
chiefs at _The Spectator_ on a matter which was for me fraught with
the decrees of Destiny. This is how I began my review of Swift and his
masterpiece:
"Never anyone living thought like you," said to Swift the woman who
loved him with a passion that had caught some of his own fierceness and
despair. The love which great natures inspire had endowed Vanessa with a
rare inspiration. Half-consciously she has touched the notes that help
us to resolve the discord in Swift's life. Truly, the mind of living man
never worked as Swift's worked. That this is so is visible in every
line, in every word he ever wrote. No phrase of his is like any other
man's; no conception of his is ever cast in the common mould. It is this
that lends something so dreadful and mysterious to all Swift's writings.
From this time I began to get books regularly from _The Spectator_
and to pay periodical visits to the office, where I learned to
understand and to appreciate my chiefs. But more of them later. The year
1886 was one of political convulsion, the year of the great split in the
Liberal Party; the year in which Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain
finally severed themselves from Mr. Gladstone and began that co-
operation with the Conservatives which resulted in the formation of the
Unionist Party. I do not, however, want to deal here with the Unionist
crisis, except so far as it affected me and _The Spectator_. While
my father and my elder brother remained Liberals and followed Mr.
Gladstone, I followed Lord Hartington, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Goschen.
My conversion was not in any way sought by my new friends and chiefs at
_The Spectator_ office, though they at once took the Unionist side.
I have no doubt, however, that my intercourse with Hutton and Townsend
had its effect, though I also think that my mind was naturally Unionist
in politics. I was already a Lincoln worshipper in American history and
desired closer union with the Dominions, not separation. I was for
concentration, not dispersion, in the Empire. In any case, I took the
plunge, one which might have been painful if my father had not been the
most just, the most fair-minded, and the most kind-hearted of men.
Although he was an intense, nay, a fierce Gladstonian, I never had the
slightest feeling of estrangement from him or he from me. It happened,
however, that the break-up of the Liberal Party affected me greatly at
_The Spectator_. When the election of 1886 took place, I was asked
by a friend and Somersetshire neighbour, Mr. Henry Hobhouse, who had
become, like me, a Liberal Unionist, to act as his election agent. This
I did, though, as a matter of fact, he was unopposed. The moment he was
declared elected I made out my return as election agent and went
straight back to my work in London. Almost at once I received a letter
which surprised me enormously. It was from Mr. Hutton, telling me that
Mr. Townsend had gone away for his usual summer holiday, and that he
wanted someone to come and help him by writing a couple of leaders a
week and some of the notes. I, of course, was delighted at the prospect,
for my mind was full of politics and I was longing to have my say. Here
again, though it did not consciously occur to me that I was in for
anything big, I seem to have had some sort of subconscious premonition.
At any rate, I accepted with delight and well remember my talk at the
office before taking up my duties. My editor explained to me that Mr.
Asquith, who had been up till the end of 1885 the writer of a weekly
leader in _The Spectator_ and also a holiday writer, had now
severed his connection with the paper, owing to his entry into active
politics. It did not occur to me, however, that I was likely to get the
post of regular leader-writer in his stead, though this was what
actually happened.
I left the office, I remember, greatly pleased with the two subjects
upon which I was to write. The first article was to be an exhortation to
the Conservative side of the Unionist Party not to be led into thinking
that they were necessarily a minority in the country and that they could
not expect any but a minute fraction of working-men to be on their side.
With all the daring of twenty-six I set out to teach the Conservative
party their business. This is how I began my article which appeared on
the 24th of July, 1886.
In their hearts the Conservatives cannot really believe that anyone with
less than £100 a year willingly votes on their side. A victory in a
popular constituency always astonishes them. They cannot restrain a
feeling that by all the rules of reason and logic they ought to have
lost. What inducement, they wonder, can the working-men have to vote for
them? Lord Beaconsfield, of course, never shared such notions as
these.... Yet his party never sincerely believed what he told them, and
only followed him because they saw no other escape from their
difficulties. The last extension of the franchise has again shown that
he was right, and that in no conditions of life do Englishmen vote as a
herd.
Here is how I ended it:
Conciliation or Coercion was the cry everywhere. And yet the majority of
the new voters, to their eternal honour, proved their political infancy
so full of sense and patriotism that they let go by unheeded the appeals
to their class-prejudices and to their emotions, and chose, instead, the
harder and seemingly less generous policy, based on reason rather than
on sentiment, on conviction rather than on despair. As the trial was
severe, so is the honour due to the new voters lasting and conspicuous.
The length of the quotation is justified by its effect on--my life. For
me it has another interest. In re-reading it, I note that, right or
wrong, it takes exactly the view of the English democracy which I have
always taken and which I hold today as strongly as I did forty years
ago.
The article had an instant reaction. It delighted Mr. Townsend, who,
though he did not _know_ it was by me, guessed that it was mine,
and wrote at once to ask me whether, when Mr. Hutton went on his
holiday, I could remain at work as his assistant. Very soon after, he
suggested, with a swift generosity that still warms my heart, that if I
liked to give up the Bar, for which I was still supposing myself to be
reading, I could have a permanent place at _The Spectator_, and
even, if I remember rightly, hinted that I might look forward to
succeeding the first of the two partners who died or retired, and so to
becoming joint editor or joint proprietor. That prospect I do admit took
away my breath. With the solemn caution of youth, or at any rate with
youth's delight in irony in action, I almost felt that I should have to
go and make representations to my chief about his juvenile impetuosity
and want of care and prudence. Surely he must see that he had not had
enough experience of me yet to make so large a proposition, that it was
absurd, and so forth. _O sancta simplicitas!_