It is now some years ago since I was sitting in Mr. Caliban’s
study, writing in his name upon the Balance of Power in Europe. I
had just completed my article, and passed it to him to sign, when
I noticed that he was too much absorbed in a book which he was
reading to pay attention to my gesture.
Men of his stamp enforce courtesy in others by their mere presence.
It would have been impossible to have disturbed him. I turned to
a somewhat more lengthy composition, which was also to appear
above his signature, entitled, “The Effect of Greek Philosophy
upon European Thought.” When I had completed my analysis of this
profound historical influence, I thought that my master and guide
would have freed himself from the net of the author who thus
entranced him. I was mistaken. I had, however, but just begun a
third article, of which the subject escapes me, when he turned to
me and said, closing the book between his hands:
“Will you go and interview someone for me?”
I fear my sudden change of expression betrayed the fact that the
idea was repugnant to one familiar rather with foreign politics and
with the Classics than with the reporters’ side of the paper.
Mr. Caliban looked at my collar with his kindly eyes, and kept them
fixed upon it for some seconds. He then smiled (if such a man could
be said to smile) and continued:
“I want to tell you something....”
There was profound silence for a little while, during which a
number of thoughts passed through my mind. I remembered that
Dr. Caliban was Editor at that moment of the _Sunday Herald_.
I remembered that I was his right hand, and that without me
the enormous labour he weekly undertook could never have been
accomplished without trespassing upon the sanctity of the Sabbath.
After a little hesitation, he pulled down his waistcoat, hitched
his trousers at the knees, crossed his legs, made a half-turn
towards me (for his study-chair was mounted upon a swivel), and
said:
“It’s like this:-- ...”
I assured him that I would do what he wished, for I knew, whenever
he spoke in this tone, that there was something to be done for
England.
“It’s like this,” he went on, “I have found a man here who should
_count_, who should _tell_. It is a fearful thought that such a
mind can have remained so long hidden. Here is a man with something
in him quite peculiar and apart--and he is unknown! It is England
through and through, and the best of England; it is more than that.
Even where I disagree with him, I find something like a living
voice. He gets right at one, as it were ... yet I never heard his
name!”
Here Mr. Caliban, having stopped for a moment, as though seeking
something in his memory, declaimed in a rich monotone:
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
There was a little silence. Then he said abruptly:
“Do you know Wordsworth’s definition of a poet? Take it down. I
should like you to use it.”
I pulled out my note-book and wrote in shorthand from his dictation
a sublime phrase, which was new to me: “_A Poet is a_ MAN _speaking
to_ MEN.”
“This man,” said Dr. Caliban simply, “is a man speaking to men.”
He put the book into my hands; two or three of the leaves were
turned down, and on each page so marked was a passage scored in
pencil. The lines would have arrested my eye even, had a greater
mind than my own not selected them.
“_A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke._”
“_Tied wrist to bar for their red iniquitee._”
“_To do butcher work_” (he is speaking of war) “_yer don’t want
genlemen, ’cept to lead._”
“_I got the gun-barrels red-hot and fetched the whipcord out of the
cupboard, while the other man held the screaming, writhing thing
down upon the floor._”
“_Under whose_ (speaking of God) _awful hand we hold dominion over
palm and pine._”
I have no space to quote a longer passage of verse, evidently
intended to be sung to a banjo, and describing the emotions of
the author in a fit of delirium tremens when he suffered from the
hallucination that a red-hot brass monkey was himself attempting
song. The poet showed no jealousy of the animal. There was the
full, hearty Anglo-Saxon friendship for a comrade and even for a
rival, and I met the same tone again on a further page in the line:
“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”