In 1918 Teixeira’s health had so much improved that he was able to
dispense with all violent and disabling cures.
This was the period when he was, socially, in greatest request. I
introduced him, in the spring, to Mr. and Mrs. Asquith, who shewed him
much hospitality and great kindness from this time until his death. His
leaves were now usually spent with them at Sutton Courtney; but, since he
required to take little or no sick-leave, the number of letters exchanged
in this year is small.
At the armistice, he left the Intelligence Section to become secretary
to the department; and, though we worked in the same building for two or
three months more, I naturally saw less of him than when we shared the
same table. The last communication that passed between us as colleagues,
like the first, written three years before, contained an invitation. Its
form must be explained by reference to Stevenson’s and Osborne’s _Wrong
Box_. Rudyard Kipling has mentioned, in _A Diversity of Creatures_, the
sublime brotherhood to whom this book is a second Bible.
“I remembered,” [he writes in _The Vortex_], “a certain Joseph
Finsbury who delighted the Tregonwell Arms ... with nine ...
versions of a single income of two hundred pounds, placing the
imaginary person in—but I could not recall the list of towns
further than ‘London, Paris, Bagdad, and Spitzbergen.’ This
last I must have murmured aloud, for the Agent-General suddenly
became human and went on: ‘Bussoran, Heligoland, and the Scilly
Islands’—‘What?’ growled Penfentenyou. ‘Nothing,’ said the
Agent-General, squeezing my hand affectionately. ‘Only we have
just found out that we are brothers.... I’ve got it. Brighton,
Cincinnati and Nijni-Novgorod!’ God bless R. L. S.[7]...” One
of the greatest living authorities on _The Wrong Box_ was a
member of the Reform Club; and, on joining, Teixeira found it
necessary to his self-protection to study the most aptly-quoted
work in the world.
My invitation was couched in the cryptic terms of the
brotherhood:
_MATTOS. Alexander William de Bent Teixeira,
if this should meet the eye of, he
will hear something to his advantage
by lunching with me to-day at the far
end of Waterloo Station (Departure
Platform) or even at Lincoln’s Inn._
_War Trade Intelligence Department._
_30 December, 1918._
On leaving the department early in 1919, I saw and heard little of
Teixeira until he invited me to collaborate in the translation of _The
Tour_. Occasional divergencies of opinion about translating Latin words
in the English rendering of a Dutch novel had the very desirable result
of making Teixeira set out some few of the principles which he followed.
_Couperus sends me this postcard, ~he writes, 29.4.18~:_
_“Amice,_
_“You are of course at liberty to act according to your taste
and judgement. I do not however understand the thing: in every
novel treating of antiquity the classical word sometimes gives
a nuance to the untranslatable local colour. And every novelist
feels this: See ~Quo Vadis~, in Jeremiah Curtius’ translation.
However, do as you think proper._
_“Yours,_
_“L. C.”_
_He has us on the hip with his Jeremiah Curtius. And I feel
more than ever that you were too drastic in your views and I
too weak in yielding to them...._
_We should always guard ourselves against the bees in our
bonnets. When I produced Zola’s ~Heirs of Rabourdin~, the
stage-manager said his play-actors couldn’t pronounce Monsieur,
Madame and Mademoiselle to his liking: might he try how it
would sound with Mr., Mrs., and Miss Rabourdin? He tried!_
_If your principle were carried to any length, you would
have to call a pagoda a tower, a jinrickshaw a buggy,
a café a coffee-house, a gendarme a policeman (i.e. a
~sergent-de-ville~), a toga a cloak, a gondola a wherry, an
Alpenstock an Alpine stick, a ski a snowshoe: one could go on
for ever!_
_Yet I am ever yours,_
_Tex._
In the spring and summer of 1919 our letters became more frequent.
Though Teixeira spent most of his time in his department, I employed
the first months of liberation in staying with friends. The translation
of _The Tour_ went on apace; and arrangements were made for the English
publication of _Old People and the Things That Pass_. If he had given his
readers no other book by Couperus or by any other writer, he would still
have established two reputations with this.
_It’s a funny thing, ~he writes~, 21.5.19; 4:57 a.m.; but I
find that I can no longer trs. Latin, even with a dictionary.
I suppose it’s because I can’t construe it. Would you mind
putting a line-and-a-bit of Ovid into English for me? Here it
is:_
Materian superabat opus, nam Mulciber illic
Æquora celarat.
_... My intentions are to go down to I. for 5 or 6 days on the
5th of June and to join my wife at Bexhill on or about the 18th
for 3 or 4 weeks._
_“Bexhill-on-Sea_
_Is the haven for me,”_
_sang Clement Scott in a visitors’-book discovered by Max
Beerbohm, who tore him to pieces for it in the ~Saturday~, in
an article signed “Max.” Scott, pretending not to know who Max
was, flew to the ~Era~ and wrote his famous absurdity, “Come
out of your hole, rat!” Gad, how we used to laugh in those
days!..._
My reply began:
_I resent your practice of heading your letters with the
unseemly time at which you leave a warm and comfortable bed.
~And I dated my own~: 22 May, 1919. Cocktail-time. What would
you think of me if I headed my letters with the equally
unseemly time at which I sometimes go to bed? I have been
working so late one or two nights last week and this that the
times would coincide, and you might bid me good-morning as I
bade you good-night...._
_I went ... to a musical party.... I felt that it was incumbent
upon me to see whether you had done anything in the matter of
the Belgian quartette.[8] You will be shocked to hear that the
quartette is not only still in existence, but has added a
supernumerary to turn over the music of the pianist...._
_~On 7.6.19, he wrote from Somersetshire~: You are—it is borne
in upon me that you must be—a secret autograph-hunter. Here am
I, hoping to do nothing but sleep 26 hours out of the 24, to
do nothing ever, to the great ever; and here come you, hoping
for a letter, lest you be pained. A scripsomaniac, my poor
Stephen, a scripsomaniac you will surely be, if you do not
check yourself in time._
_Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! I know that I am Satan rebuking sin;
but was Satan ever better employed? Far rather would I see him
rebuking sin than prompting letters for idle hands to write._
_Well, I know that I am staying in Somersetshire with I., who
is at this moment speeding towards the Hôtel du Vieux Doelen
at the Hague, to nurse a sick friend. Ker pongsay voo der sah?
And I am happy as the day is long, petted and coddled by his
delightful mother, lolling from the morning unto the evening in
the open air and doing not one stroke of work. And utterly at
my ease, not even blushing when my brother cuckoo mocks me from
the tree-top, as he does sixty times to the minute._
_I return on the 12th; on the 13th I go cuckooing at the Wharf,
returning on the 16th; ... on the 18th I join my wife at
Bexhill; how, I ask you, can I come a-cuckooing in Lincoln’s
Inn?_
_Nor do see any chance of touching ~The Tour~ while I am here.
I am really too busy to do aught but play the sedulous cuckoo
in Cockayne. So let my visit to you be a pleasure (to both of
us) postponed...._
_~To this I replied, 14.7.19~: I lunched yesterday with one
Butterworth, who is opening up a publisher’s business. In the
course of conversation I mentioned to him your translation of
~Old People and the Things that Pass~. More than that, I took
upon myself to lend him my copy of the American edition so that
he might have an opportunity of forming his own opinion of it.
You may, if you like, call me interfering and presumptuous,
but I have not committed you in any way to anything, and
yesterday’s transaction may be regarded as no more than the
loan of a book from one person to another. I, as you know, feel
it a reproach that that book is still unpublished in England,
and, if Butterworth thinks fit to make you a good offer, no one
will be better pleased than me...._
_~On 26.7.19 he wrote from Bexhill~: If it comes on to rain
as it threatens daily, I shall be returning ~The Tour~ to you
quite soon; and in any case it will go back to you before I
leave here on the 15th of July: I must reduce the weight of my
luggage; I had to run all over the town to find two stalwart
ruffians to carry it to the attic where I sleep._
_You need not look at it before we meet unless you wish; but
you may like to do Cora’s song[9] in your sleep meanwhile; and
my additional comments and queries are few._
_I am leading here that methodical humdrum life which alone
makes time fly. When I return to town you shall see me
occasionally at the opera, but not oftener than twice a
week. You will have to look for me, however, for I shall be
stalking behind pillars, cloaked in black, like Lucien de
What’s-his-name, hiding from my black beast, Lady...._
_P.S. Can you tell me if Beecham intends to do any light operas
at Drury Lane in addition to that tinkly, overrated ~Fille de
Madame Angot~? I am dying to hear the whole Offenbach series
before I die._
A letter from Bexhill, dated 2.7.19, touches on one general principle of
translating:
_... With all deference, a translator’s first duty is not to
translate. His first duty is to love God, honour the king
and hate the Germans. His next duty is to produce a version
corresponding as near as may be with what an English original
writer, if he were writing that particular book, would set
down. His last duty is to translate every blessed word of the
original...._
Next day he wrote:
_~T. B. [Thornton Butterworth]~ is taking “O. P.” ~[Old
People]~ and coming down here to see me on Saturday._
_Ever so many thanks for your generous offices in the
matter...._
On Peace Day, in a letter dated from Finsbury Circus, Teixeira writes:
_Here sit I, putting in four or five hours before a train
leaves to take me to Herbert George and Jane Wells at Easton
Glebe and reading ~Quo Vadis~. Already, in 99 pages, I have
discovered 21 expressions which you would undoubtedly have
condemned in ~The Tour~._
_... This is interesting: ~[the author]~ says that in Nero’s
day it was already becoming a stunt among the Romans to call
the gods by their Greek Names. Tiberius was not so much
earlier—was he?—than Nero that the practice might not have
begun even then. If so, we can let Couperus have his way and
retain those few names. They are very few, I think. I can
remember at the moment only Aphrodite and Zeus and possibly
Eros. It may be that Juno is mentioned as Hera, but I doubt it._
_There is a charming garden, with a most beautifully kept lawn.
The flowers ... consist entirely of the only three that I
dislike: fuchsias, begonias and red geraniums._
_Still ..._
_I hope that you are spending the day as peacefully and that
this will find you well and happy...._
_Two east-end Jews within hail of me are talking Yiddish and
sharing a Daily Snail between them. There is a cat. There is or
am I. And there are those fuchsias._
On 18.8.19, I wrote:
_The North of Ireland seems beating up for a storm, does not
it? I suppose there is no point in my reminding you that a
perfect gentleman would not fail to present himself at Euston
next Friday at 8.10 p.m. to tuck me into my sleeper and see
me safely off? My address in Ireland from Aug. 23rd to 31st
is (in the care of Sir John Leslie, Baronet) Glaslough, Co.
Monaghan...._
_At 8.10 on Friday, ~he replied, 20.8.19~, this perfect
gentleman will be eating his melon at Huntercombe Manor House,
Henley-on-Thames (in the care of Squire Nevile Foster), but
for which he would undoubtedly come to see you oft in the
stilly night. I wish you safely through the war-zone, happy
and interested in this, your first visit to Ireland and
prosperously home again. Now do not write and answer that you
have paid eighteen visits to Ireland before: those eighteen
visits have always been and always will be to my mind as
mythical as the travels of Mungo Park or Mendes Pinto...._
Feeling that I must acquaint Teixeira with my safe arrival in Ireland, I
wrote, 28.8.19:
_Glaslough, Co. Monaghan._
_... I am here; yes, but how did I get here? I am here; yes,
but shall I ever get away? I left London on Friday with my
young and very lovely charge, encountered engine-trouble and
reached Holyhead an hour late. I sat on the boat-deck with
her (but without an overcoat), watching the dawn until I
was chilled to the marrow and any other man would have been
delirious with pneumonia. The breakfast-car train had left, so
we took a later one from Dublin. Being faced with the prospect
of waiting 2½ hours at Clones, I got out at Drogheda to send
a telegram to the Leslies, begging them to meet us there by
car. Unhappily, the train went on without me, bearing away my
young and very lovely charge, my suit-case, my despatch-box, my
umbrella and my hat. I was left with a pair of gloves and my
charge’s ticket.... I bought myself a cap of 4/6 and a clean
collar for /4d, and spent the day writing letters, contriving
epigrams and lunching off scrambled eggs and Irish whiskey._
_I have been taken to the McKenna grave at Donagh and
presented—by Shane—to the clan as its head, which I am
not. The recognition of Odysseus by his old nurse was
eclipsed by the recognition accorded me by an old woman who
remembered—unprompted—my coming to Glaslough twelve years ago
and thanked God that she had been spared to see me again. It is
a very lovely place that the Leslies have taken from us._
_But how to leave it? It is Horse Show week, and every sleeper
has been booked for three weeks. I shall have to cross from
Belfast to Liverpool, I think, and try to get my sleeping done
on the boat. And that means that I shall not be home till
Tuesday. Can’t be helped._
On 31.8.19 Teixeira wrote to greet me on my return from Ireland:
_After your preliminary wanderings, my dear Stephen O’Dysseus,
welcome home again! You were always the worst courier in the
world; I’ve not ever known you to bring one of your young and
very lovely charges to her destination without encountering
cataclysmal adventures on the road.... Still, would that I had
known that you can buy collars, clean and therefore presumably
new collars, at Drogheda for fourpence apiece. Yesterday I paid
fifteen shillings for a dozen...._
On 21.12.19 he writes to offer me good wishes for Christmas:
_The one and only thing that the Fortunate Youth appeared to
me not to possess will reach you in a little registered packet
to-morrow evening.... You are to accept it as a token of the
happiness which I wish you during this Christmas and the whole
of the coming year._
_That was a very jolly party on Wednesday: I enjoyed
everything: the gay and kindly company, the admirable
foodstuffs, even the music; and, if it be true, as I told you,
that Covent Garden has shrunk in size since my young days, I am
compelled to confess that your box was a larger than I ever saw
before._
_At this season of excess, ~he writes on Christmas Day~, I am
allowed to indulge my passion for chocolates, but not to buy
any for myself; and it was most thoughtful of you to pander to
my taste. Thank you ever so much. And thank you also for your
good wishes...._
_I must be off to mass, but not without first begging you to
hand your mother and sister my best wishes for a happy New
Year. As to you, I shall see or talk to you before then.... My
young Sinn Feiner has written a novel[10] which to my mind is
a most remarkable production and which will have to be read by
you at all costs. It is published in Dublin; and it is doubtful
whether a single other copy will find its way to this foreign
land._
In April Teixeira and his wife went to Hove: and on 27.4.20 he writes:
_It is blowing what-you-may-call-it here: ’arf a mo’, ’arf a
brick, half a gale. Apart from that, we are well and send our
love._
Commenting on a house-party which I had described, he adds:
_All we can do, my dear Stephen, is to ask you to remember the
old adage:_
_Birds of a feather flock together;_
_and the modern variants:_
_Birds of a beak meet twice a week;_
_Birds of a voice share a Rolls-Royce;_
_Birds of a kidney are Alf and Sydney;_
_Birds of a tail are hail-fellow-hail;_
_Birds of a crest are twins of the best;_
_Birds of a gizzard are witch and wizzard;_
_Birds of a chirrup are treacle and syrup;_
_The hawk and the owl sit cheek by jowl._
_Yours ever,
Alexander and Lily Tex._
The next letter was from his wife and brought the news that Teixeira’s
health had taken an unexpected turn for the worse. His life was not in
immediate danger, but henceforward he must regard himself as an invalid
and must work under the conditions imposed by his doctor.
X
As soon as he was well enough to be moved, Teixeira came up from Hove
and, after a few days in Chelsea, went to a nursing-home in Crowborough
for the summer.
Nothing is more characteristic of him than that the first message he sent
after the beginning of his illness was one of reassurance and optimism:
_Sent you a wire this morning, ~he writes~, lest you be
seriously distressed. Really much better after nine hours’
sleep.... I expect I shall be quite well by Saturday, when we
return but I shall have to be jolly careful...._
_Thanks for your letters, ~he writes, 8.5.20, when we were
arranging to meet~. Nothing you can do for me at present except
converse with me in the form of: Tex. Very short questions:
Stephen. Very long answers. I’m getting plaguily impatient
at the slowness of my recovery: it’s very wrong, wicked and
impatient of me._
_I enclose._
_A. Two lines from your favourite “poet” (save the Mark
Tapley)!_
_B. Some wedding-effusions which remind me that Burne-Jones,
when they told him that marriage was a lottery, said:_
_“Then it ought to be made illegal.”_
While undergoing his rest-cure, he not infrequently communicated with me
by means of annotations to the letters which I wrote him. His comments
are given in parenthesis.
_I ... went to see ~As You Like It~ at the Lyric Theatre,
Hammersmith, ~I wrote, 15.5.20~. It is a good production but
an uncommonly bad play, like so many of that author’s. If any
dramatist of the present day served up that kind of musical
comedy without the music, but with all the existing purple
patches, I wonder what your modern critic would make of it._
_(Laurence Irving used to go about saying, “Teixeira says
that Shakespeare wrote only one decent play: ~Timon of
Athens!~ Wha-art d’ye think of that? The mun’s mud!” Talking
of Shakespeare, if you want to laugh, really to laugh, ~ce
qu’on appelle~ to laugh, read (you will never see it acted) a
stage-play called ~Titus Andronicus~....)_
_(Help! A man waved to me on the lawn y’day: an Ebrew Jew ...
had motored down to see his sister here; told me I’d find her
very “bright.” She’s fifty ~bien sonnés~. Told him I’d feel too
shy to talk to anybody for weeks. But I’m lending her books.
Help!)_
Strictly limited in the amount of work which he was allowed to do,
Teixeira in these weeks read voraciously; and his letters of this period
contain almost the only critical judgements that I was able to extract
from him.
On 25.5.20. he writes:
_Was Pearsall Smith the inventor of the pedigree tracing the
descent of the English from the ten lost tribes of Israel?_
_Isaac_
|
|
_Isaacson_
|
|
_Saxon_
_What was the other famous book, besides ~Erewhon~, which
George Meredith (whom I am beginning to dislike almost as much
as Henry James and Pearl Craigie) caused Smith, Elder & Co. to
reject? Was it ~Treasure Island~ or something quite different?_
_Which Samuel Butlers am I to buy now? I have (in the order of
which I have enjoyed them):_
The Way of all Flesh
Alps and Sanctuaries
The Notebooks
Erewhon Revisited
Erewhon
_The machinery part of the last-named bored me; the philosophy
also; and I fear I missed much of the irony. But the style!
It’s unbeaten. It’s as good as Defoe. It knocks Stevenson silly
because it’s so utterly natural. Hats off to that for style._
_Should I enjoy ~The Humour of Homer~, though knowing nothing
or little about Homer? ~The Authoress of the Odyssey~: would
this be wasted on me? What is ~The Fair Haven~ about? I don’t
want to read Butler’s religious views—all you Britons think
and talk and write much too much about religion—nor his views
on evolution: he is too much in sympathy, I gather, with that
dishonest fellow, Darwin._
_What shall I read of that same Darwin, so that I may do my own
chuckling? Please name the best two or three, in their order
as written._
_Where shall I find the quarrels between Huxley and Darwin?
That accomplished gyurl, my stepdaughter, had read all about
them before she was sixteen but was unable to point me to the
book._
_At your leisure, my dear Stephen, answer me all these
questions. As you see, I’m making progress. I have neither
capacity nor inclination (thank God) for work yet, but I can
read day without end._
_Pearsall Smith’s ~Stories from the Old Testament~ would amuse
you. It’s too dear; but it would amuse you, in parts._
In discussing Darwin’s books, I suggested that Teixeira should find out
whether the members of his church were encouraged to read them.
He replies, 28.5.20:
_... I am very glad that Darwin is on the Index and I hope that
this interferes with his royalties...._
And on 2.6.20:
_Pray bear with a postcard. I noticed that you used “detour” on
two occasions.... I sympathize. There’s no English equivalent
save Tony Lumpkin’s seriocomic “circumbendibus.” But I meant to
tell you of my recent discovery that Chesterton uses “detour,”
~sic~ without an accent or italics. And it’s well worth
considering. I, for my part, have made up my mind to adopt
it in future, by analogy with “depot” and, for that matter,
“tour,” which is never italicized._
_I also intend to adopt your “judgement”...._
_What a lot one can still write for a penny!_
_Tex._
In acknowledging one of his translations, I wrote:
_Two of my worst faults as a reader are that I always finish a
book which I have begun and always begin a book which has been
presented to me by the author or translator._
Teixeira comments:
_(I always thought highly of your brain till now. I regret to
tell you that the only other human being who has ever confessed
that vice to me is J. T. Grein’s mother.... Drop that vice.
Why, I once “began” to read the Bible!...)_
_With most of your criticisms I agree, ~my letter continued.
Teixeira had been reading the manuscript of some short
stories;~ though there are one or two points on which I remain
adamant. If you wish to shorten your life, ask any Coldstreamer
whether he belongs to the Coldstreams. It is always either the
Coldstream Guards or the Coldstream...._[11]
_(I suspected you of being right, but I was not ashamed to ask
you. You may or may not have observed how much less of a snob
I am than most of the people you strike. Cricketing terms,
nautical terms, military terms, Latin quantities, those endless
excuses for the worst forms of British snobbery, all leave me
cold.)_
In discussing methods of work, he writes:
_(... It will interest you to know that Oscar Wilde dropped
all his pleasures when he wrote his plays; retired into rooms
in St. James’ Place, hired ~ad hoc~, to write the first line;
and did not leave them till he had written the last. And one
of them at least, ~The Importance~, was a perfect work of art,
whatever one may think of the others.)_
Though he enjoyed his rest-cure, it gave him—he complained—no news to
communicate:
_You’re not interested in my brown dog and I speak to no one
else._
On my pointing out that I could not be interested in an animal of which I
had hitherto not heard, Teixeira wrote, 4.6.20:
_... It must have been my morbid delicacy that prevented me,
knowing your dislike of dogs, from mentioning the brown dog
before. As a man gains strength, he loses delicacy: that
explains though it does not excuse my late reference to him.
He is an Irish terrier, endowed with a vast sense of humour,
who runs about on three legs (which is one more than I, who am
eighteen times his age, can boast) and plays with me from ten
till half-past six (when I go to bed). He saves me from all
boredom and I am grateful to him...._
_Little by little I am beginning to itch for work.... I can’t
work yet; but I regard the itching as a good sign. And I no
longer find these longish letters so much of a strain. It takes
a lot to kill a Portugal._[12]
_Bring me to the gentle remembrance of your charming host and
hostess. I wonder if I shall ever meet either of them at one
of your pleasant dinners again. I wonder if I shall ever dine
with you again at all...._
On 8.6.20 he writes:
_... I send you a letter from ... a Beaumont master and
scholastic in minor orders. Apart from its nice misspelling,
its noble, broad-minded casuistry will explain to you why
I love the Church, as it explains to me why you hate it.
~Cependant~ I suppose that I must set to work and read me a
little Darwin._
_I am making fair progress, as my recent letters must have
proved to you. But I do not yet consider myself near enough to
complete recovery to return to town...._
In June Teixeira was created a Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II. My
letter of congratulation was annotated on this and other subjects:
Referring to a criticism of _Kipps_, I had written:
_It is excellent stuff, and I always regard Wells as being one
of the ... greatest ... comedy-writers. But I always feel that
in ~Kipps~ and all the earlier books he is only working up to
~Mr. Polly~, which is the most exquisite thing that he has
done in that line._
_(I have read both down here and prefer ~Kipps~. The phrases
underlined, quoted in the ~Times~ notice (attached) of Wells’
Polly-Kippsian “~History of the World~” reminds me irresistibly
of the old lady who, witnessing a performance of “~Anthony and
Cleopatra~,” by your Mr. Shakespeare or our Mr. Shaw, observed:
“How different from the home life of our dear queen!”)_
_... Let me offer you—a trifle belatedly perhaps—my
congratulations on your new dignity._
_(“Thanks.” A. Kipps)_
_Certainly you should tell the ~[Belgian]~ Ambassador that
it is not only inconvenient but impossible for you to be
invested in person and that he must send you the warrant and
insignia...._
_Did I ever tell you the story of Mr. G.’s search for a
decoration? The Kaiser refused to give him one on any
consideration, and he therefore toured Europe, lending or
giving money to one government after another in the hope of
being ultimately rewarded with the 4th class of the Speckled
Pig. In every court he was promised his decoration, but, when
he presented himself for the investiture, the court officials
turned from him with just that expression of loathing and
nausea which he had formerly observed on the face of the
Kaiser. It was only when he reached Bulgaria that he found the
Czar and his court less squeamish. On payment of a considerable
solatium he was invested with the 19th class of the Expiring
Porpoise and returned in triumph to his native Stettin. Here,
however, his troubles were only beginning, as he was unable to
obtain permission to wear the Expiring Porpoise at any public
function in Germany. Seeing that he had paid one considerable
sum to the Bulgarian Czar and another to the firm of jewellers,
who substituted diamonds for the paste of the jewel he felt,
naturally enough, that he was receiving little value for his
lavish expenditure. Bulgaria, it seemed, was the only country
where the Expiring Porpoise could be worn. Accordingly he
returned to Sofia and paid a further sum to be invited to the
banquet which the burgomaster of Sofia was giving on the Czar’s
birthday. Here he was at length rewarded for so many months of
disappointment and neglect. Before the soup had been served,
the Czar had hurried round to his place and was kissing him on
both cheeks. “My dear old friend!” said he, “No, you are not to
call me ‘sir’; henceforth it is ‘Fritz’ and ‘Ferdinand’ between
us, is it not? How long it is since last I saw you! I have been
waiting to express my heart-felt regret for the unpardonable
carelessness of my Chamberlain. When it was too late and you
had left Sofia (I feared for ever), my Chamberlain discovered
that you had been invested with the 19th Class of the Expiring
Porpoise. You must have thought me mad, for no sane man would
offer the 19th class to a person of your distinction. It was
the 1st class that I intended. This bauble that I am wearing
round my neck to-night. Tell me, my dear Fritz, that it is not
too late for me to repair my error.” With that word the Czar
removed the collar and jewel from his own neck and slipped it
over the head of G. taking in exchange G.’s despised collar and
jewel of the 19th class. It was only when our friend returned
to his hotel that he discovered the new jewel to be of the most
unfinished paste, as cheap or cheaper than the paste which he
had previously removed at such expense from the jewel of the
19th class._
_(This is a splendid story.)_
_I am afraid, ~I added~, that I have no idea who is the
official to whom you apply for leave to wear these things...._
_(My dear Stephen, you had better here and now adopt as your
maxim what I said to Browning soon after he had engaged my
services on behalf of H.M.G.: “I yield to no man living in
my ignorance on every subject under the sun.” You outdo and
outvie me. You never know anything. In other words, you know
nothing. But I’ll wager that these are worn without permission.
What’s the penalty? ~The Morning Post~ to-day names a couple of
dozen to whom it’s been granted.)_
Evidently feeling that I was living too much alone, Teixeira enclosed a
copy of _The Times’_ list of forthcoming dances:
(_Don’t wait for invitations, ~he urged in a postscript~. Ring
the top bell and walk inside._)
The next letter needs to have Teixeira’s use of the word palimpsest
explained. His good-nature in reading his friends’ manuscripts was
inexhaustible. I never intended him to do more than give me a general
opinion; but his critical vision was microscopic, and he filled the
margins with questions and comments. In returning me one manuscript, he
wrote:
_I have made some 800 notes, of which 600 are purely frivolous.
Six are worth serious attention._
While this textual scrutiny was quite invaluable, Teixeira seldom gave
that general opinion of which I always felt in most need at the moment
when I had lately finished a book and was unable to regard it with
detachment. Accordingly, the manuscript, on leaving him, was usually sent
to another friend, who commented not only on the text but also on the
marginalia. As her occasional controversies with Teixeira (expressed in
such minutes as:
“Pull yourself together, Mr. T!”
“You men! One’s as bad as the other, you know.”
“Never mind what Mr. T. says, Stephen: _I_ understand.”
“I _wish_ my brain worked as quickly as that.”)
and with me invited rejoinders, the first version of a manuscript
sometimes took on the appearance of a contentious departmental file. It
was in this form that Teixeira called it a palimpsest.
On 22.6.20 he writes:
_Thanks for your letter and the palimpsest.... I’ve studied it
amid distressing circumstances, in a long-chair, on a lawn,
beneath the sun, surrounded by breezes and patients, who being
forbidden to speak to me, dare not help me to collect the
scattered pages...._
_Lady D. is another of England’s darlings. In the first place,
she nearly always agrees with me and there she’s right: I have
told you time after time that, if only everybody would agree
with me, the world would be an infinitely sweeter place. In
the second place, she dislikes Browning almost as much as I
do. No one can dislike him quite so much; but she certainly
disapproves of your particular taste in extracts from the
burjoice mountebank’s rhymed works._
_I can understand that she sometimes unsettles you by
condemning you for the quite logical behaviour of the male
characters in your trilogy: you might meet this by presenting
her with a copy of ~Thus spake Zarathustra~ in addition to
those pencils which will mark which you already had in mind for
her. On the other hand, I think that you may safely take her
word for it when she says:_
_“Oh, Stephen, women aren’t like this!”_
_Send me more! Send me more!_
In a letter of 22.6.20, he wrote:
_To-morrow I make my way up to Oxford for the House Gaudy but
before leaving I may find a moment to report my movements._
Teixeira comments:
_I have heard of the House Beautiful but never of the House
Gaudy. Now don’t be a British snob but answer like a little
Irish gentleman, as I should answer if you asked me what
“acht-en-tachtig Achtergracht” mean in Dutch. Of course,
working it out in the light of my own intelligence, I feel
that, if “House” is an Oxford sobriquet for Christ Church and
“gaudy” Oxford slang for a merrymaking of sorts, you ought to
have suppressed that capital G and written “the House gaudy,”
in distinction from the Balliol gaudy, the Magdalen gaudy, etc._
_You are not a Hottentot (Loud cheers), but you are as fond of
capital letters as a Hottentot is of glass beads._
_I’m feeling rather full of beans to-day ... (as you
perceive.)..._
The improvement was visibly maintained in his letter of 25.6.20:
_Thanks for your two letters of the 23rd and 24th instant
postum. Don’t start; instant postum is the ridiculous name of
the toothsome beverage which my specialist ordered me to take
instead of tea or coffee...._
_I jump at the chance of playing the schoolmaster in the matter
of those capital letters. It is too utterly jolly finding you
in a compliant mood...._
_My rule and yours might well be to start with a definite
prejudice against capital letters in the middle of a sentence,
combined with a resolve never to use them if it can be
avoided. Having taken up this firm standpoint, we can afford
and we can begin to make concessions. For instance, my heart
leapt with joy, nearly twenty years ago, when the founders of
the ~Burlington Review~ decided to abolish all capitals to
adjectives, to print “french, german, egyptian, persian,” etc.
You have no idea how well this affected the page. But what is
all right in a majestic review (or was it magazine, by the
way?) like the ~Burlington~ may look ultraprecious in a novel.
Therefore I concede French, German, etc. Only remember that it
is a concession, a concession to Anglo-American vulgarity. A
Frenchman writes (and that not invariably: I mean, not every
Frenchman). “Un Français les Anglais,” but (invariably) “L’elan
français, le rosbif anglais”. The Germans and Danes begin all
nouns with a capital (as the English did, in some centuries),
but no adjectives whatever. The Italians, Norwegians and
Swedes have no capitals to their adjectives; the Dutch are
gradually discarding them; they are discarded entirely in
scientists’ Latin: the Narbonne Lycosa (a certain spider of the
Tarantula genus) in Latin becomes ~Lycosa narbonniensis~...._
_Your question about “high mass” is, involuntarily, not quite
fair. Mass quite conceivably comes within the category of such
words as State and a few others, which are spelt with a capital
in one sense and not in another.[13] I write “going to mass”
(no French catholic would write “allant à la Messe!”) and I
see no reason why catholics should write Mass except in a
technical work. They would write “the Host” because of the real
presence; but I see no more reason for the Mass than for Matins
or Compline. Obviously, it is different in a technical work in
translating Fabre, I speak of a Wasp, a Spider, a Beetle; in
translating Couperus, I do not...._
_“The Colonel, the Major, the Vicar,” in a novel; don’t they
set your teeth on edge? As well write about the Postmistress of
the village._
_When in doubt, as I wrote to you on the subject of the
hyphenated nouns, take little Murray[14] for your guide. He
has the sense to begin the vast, the immense majority of his
words with a lower-case letter. And there are doubtful words:
Titanic, Cyclopean. I never know these without turning ’em up
for myself._
_To sum up:_
_(a) take a firm stand against capitals generally;_
_(b) be prepared to make moderate (i.e. grudging,) concessions;_
_(c) have little Murray at your elbow._
After so long a letter, Teixeira contented himself with a few annotations
to one next day.
On my telling him that I had congratulated a common friend of his son’s
“blue”, he interposed:
(_I would write to A. P. if I knew what a “blue” was; but I
really have not the remotest idea. Word of honour, I’m not
conniegilchristing. I presume it has to do with cricket; and
it’s a mere guess._)
_I have studied your exposition of capitals, ~I continued~,
with great interest and, I hope, profit, though there is a
fundamental difficulty which I hasten to put before you.... So
long as proper names intrude their capitals into mid-sentence
you cannot arrive at flat uniformity, and a few capitals more
or less do not offend me...._
_I did not intend to be unfair about High Mass and first
thought of suggesting for your consideration either Holy
Communion or that hideous, hypocritical, pusillanimous
compromise beloved of Anglicans, the “eucharist,” then
substituted the name of a ceremonial in your own church. You, I
see, write of the Real Presence without capitals._
(_Gross knavery and insincerity on my part; rank scoundrelism.
I’d have put caps, on any other occasion._)
_I should give capitals to this and to such words as
Incarnation, Crucifixion and Ascension, when used in a
religious connection. Also to the word Hegira and any similar
words culled from any other religion. As I told you before,
I am without a rule and would let almost any word have its
capital, if I could please it thereby. Words used in a special
sense also have their capitals from me, as for example Hall,
when that means a college dinner served in hall. No, I am
afraid that a capital for colonel, major and vicar leaves my
teeth unmoved, and I could write postmistress with a capital
light-heartedly. On the other hand I should not use a capital
for dustman, as this is not a title or office._
_I am, as you see, quite illogical and inconsistent; and, if
I try to follow your rules, it will be only in the hope of
pleasing you. I cannot rouse myself to any enthusiasm for or
against a liberal use of capitals and I do not think that it is
a matter of great importance. On considerations of comeliness,
I think the French printed page, with its vile type and
vile, fluffy paper, is one of the ugliest things (Nonsense,
nonsense, you unæsthetic Celt! The unsought, natural beauty
and perfection of the page make up for all the inferiority of
the material. Never say that again! Your friend Seymour Leslie
would scratch and claw you for it.) ever allowed to issue from
a printing press, but that may be only insular prejudice...._
_Forgive a boring letter, I beg, but I am in a thoroughly
boring mood. (Grawnted.)..._
A postscript to this controversy came on a postcard dated 28.6.20:
_... Darwin spells “the king” with a small “k.”_
_He is rather good in spelling, bad in punctuation, execrable
in statement, logic, deduction. In ~The Descent of Man~ he
says:_
_“Music arouses in us various emotions, but not the
more terrible ones of horror, fear, rage, etc.”_
_He had never heard of me, though I was 17 when he died._
_Tex._
_Crowborough, 30 June (alas, how time flies!) 1920._
_For your two letters of 28, 29 June, many thanks. I really
can’t write and congratulate H. on ~that~! How awful!_
_And to think that, if Lionel ~[the recipient of the “blue”]~
had been “vowed” to the B.V.M. in his infancy, he’d have worn
nothing but blue and white, anyhow, till he came of age!..._
Objecting to my having enclosed the phrase “honest broker” in inverted
commas, he continues:
_Lady Y., you may remember, said:_
_“Good beobles, we come here for your goots.”_
_“Ay,” they replied, “and for our chattels too!”_
_I don’t want your chattels; but I am convinced that I came
to England for your goots and to save you from degenerating
into a lady novelist. The worst of it is that Lady D. agreed
with you.... Seriously, however: suppose Winston were to use
a perfectly commonplace metaphor, to say, ~e.g.~, that he had
ordered the Gallipoli expedition off his own bat. Would that
for all time raise those four words from the commonplace to
the exceptional? Could you never employ that phrase except in
“quotes”?..._
_Be sensible. Do not fight against your rescuer. Let me, when I
receive the Royal Humane Society’s medal, feel that my gallant
efforts were not in vain, that I succeeded in saving your life
and soul!..._
_P.S. An invitation to the ... Oppenheim wedding has just
arrived. Like the man who answered the big-game-hunter’s
advertisement, I’m not going._[15]
_Trusting that this will find you alive, ~he writes 7.7.20~,
I write to thank you for your letter and to return the book.
~[The Diary of a Nobody]~. It amused me, though I am not
prepared to go as far as Rosebinger, Birringer or Bellinger.
I could certainly furnish a bedroom without it; in fact, I
hope to die before I read it again; I don’t rank it with Don
Quixote; and I have never seen the statue of St. John the
Baptist, so “can’t say.” I think that Mr. Hardfur Huttle,
towards the end, does much to cheer the reader._
_I have bought pahnds and pahnds’ worth of books; I am
rou-inned; and yet I never have aught to read. Can you lend me
Huxley’s Collected Essays? Can you lend me anything in which
somebody “goes for” somebody else? I yearn to read savage
attacks; you know what I mean: not attaxi-cabri-au lait, but
attacks free from all milk of human kindness._
_Here is a typical quotation from your favourite “poet”, whom,
by the way, Benjamin Beaconsfield disliked as much as I do:_
“Out of the wreck I rise, past Zeus to the P(sic)otency o’er
him.”
_Nice and typical, isn’t it? But you mustn’t use it, as the
first six words form the title of a novel by Beatrice Harraden
which I have been driven to read down here by the dearth of
books._
_My last two purchases have just arrived; series i and ii of
the New Decameron. Shall I enjoy them?..._
_You will want something to read in the train, ~he writes on
10.7.20~. Read this Muddiman’s ~Men of the Nineties~. But
please return it to me; it will serve to keep the child quiet
when she next comes down. And it served to make me feel very
young again (seven years younger than you are now) to read
of all those remarkable men with whom I foregathered in the
nineties._
_They would probably have accepted Squire and Siegfried
Sassoon.[16] None of the other poets; none of the
prose-writers, painters, “blasters” or blighters...._
In acknowledging the book, I objected to what I considered the excessive
importance that is still attached to the men of the nineties and to
their work:
_I doubt, ~I wrote, 12.7.20~, whether the years 1890 to 1900
have produced more permanent literature of the first order
than any other decade of the 19th century—or the twentieth.
Paris was discovered anew in those days and seemed a tremendous
discovery, though its influence was meretricious, and the
imitations from the French were usually of the worst French
models. The discovery of art for art’s sake was, I always feel,
the most meaningless and pretentious of all other shams. Even
Wilde never made clear what he meant by the phrase, though
he and his school interpreted it practically by a wholly
decadent over-elaboration of decoration. The interest of the
period lies in the astounding success achieved by this noisy
and self-sufficient coterie in imposing itself on the easily
startled, and easily shocked and still more easily impressed
middle and upper classes of London society. But that is a thing
that so many people can do and a thing that is so seldom worth
doing._
In a later letter, I added, 15.6.20:
_I believe that the great bubble of the nineties has been
pricked for the present generation. All the work of Max, most
of Beardsley and a little of Wilde have a permanent place;
and, if some one would do for the poets and essayists of the
nineties what Eddie Marsh has done for the Georgian poets, we
might have one volume of moderate size containing the poetry
of interest and good craftsmanship though of little power or
originality...._
_Whether ~[the artistic movement of the nineties]~ effected
any great liberation of spirit or manner from the fetters of
mid-Victorian literature I cannot say, though I am inclined
to doubt it. That liberation was being achieved by individual
writers such as Meredith and Kipling, who never had anything
to do with the domino-room of the Cheshire Cheese. Never, I am
sure, was any artistic group so void of humour as the men of
the nineties._
_Having damned them, their period and work so far, I may
surprise you by conceding that they do still arouse great
interest.... I have been thinking that it is almost your duty
to put on permanent record your own knowledge and opinions
about this school. Max Beerbohm is unlikely to do it, and you
must now be one of the very few men living who were on terms
of intimacy with the leaders of the movement.... Men under
thirty have never heard of John Gray, Grackanthorpe or your
over advertised American friend Peters. Your annotations to
Muddiman’s book go some very little distance towards filling
this gap, but I think you should undertake something more
substantial. For heaven’s sake do not call it ~The History
of the Nineties~, but is there any reason why you should
not—from your memory and without consulting a single work of
reference—compile a little book of ~Notes on the ’Nineties~?
Make it an informal dictionary of biography, put down all the
names of the men associated with that movement at leisure,
record about each everything that has not yet appeared in
print and correct the occasionally incorrect accounts of other
writers. Such a book would be a valuable addition to literary
history, it would be amusing and not difficult for you to
write, it could be turned to the profit of your reputation and
pocket...._
For this criticism Teixeira took me to task in his letter of 14.7.20.
_And now, Stephen, tremble. How often have I not called you
“the wise youth!” How constantly have I not believed you to
be filled with knowledge, either acquired or instinctive
and intuitive, of most things! And now your letter ... has
disappointed me almost to tears._
_Your only excuse would be that you took Oscar Wilde and
Bernard Shaw to be and practically alone to be the men of
the nineties. That is not so. And, if you agree with me that
Oscar was a man of the eighties and that Shaw is a man of the
twentieth century, you have no excuse whatever and 98% of the
first paragraph in your letter is dead wrong._
_I presume that you keep copies of your letters to me: you
should; they will be useful for your ~Memoirs of a Celibate~
(~John Murray: 1950; 105/- net~). Anyhow, here goes:_
_There was no question of either a literary revival or
revolution in the nineties and there was no sham, colossal or
minute._
_The men engaged were not pretentious, not conceited, not
humbugs. They were a group of men, mostly under 30, who just
wrote and drew and painted as well as they could, in all
sincerity and with no view of financial gain. Dowson, Johnson,
Horner, Image, etc., etc., etc., were the humblest, most modest
lot of literary men I ever met._
_Their output was not immense: it was infinitesimal, just
because they were so careful to produce only work that was
“just so.” Think, Stephen. What did Henry Harland, one of the
few to live to over 40, put out? ~The Cardinal’s Snuff Box~,
~My Friend Prospers~, ~Mademoiselle Miss and Other Stories~:
that is all! Ernest Dowson: two slim volumes of verse,
half-a-dozen short stories, a collaborator’s share in two
novels. John Gray: one slim volume of verse. Lionel Johnson:
God knows how little. And so on. Arthur Symns has worked on
steadily, but, though he is getting on for sixty, you cannot
say that his output is immense or contains anything that was
not worth doing._
_Immensely advertised! Where? And by whom?_
_Beardsley’s output was immense, for his years. Ought not the
world to be grateful for it? He told me once that he had an
itch for work; and it looked afterwards as if he knew that he
was doomed to die at 24 or 26 and wanted to throw off all he
could before. When he worked no one knew: no one ever saw him
at work and he was always about and always accessible._
_He was not conceited.... Rickets and Shannon were a little
conceited: they had a way of “coming the Pope” over the rest,
as Will Rothenstein once put it to me. (Will always took “a
proper pride” in his excellent work, but no more). But, Lord,
hadn’t they the right to be? Was ever a book more beautifully
designed than ~Silverpoints~ (cover, page, type, typesetting by
Ricketts)? Place Ricketts’ cover of the ~Pageant~ beside any
other book in your library and tell me how it strikes you. Look
at anything that Charles Shannon condescends to exhibit in the
Academy and see how the quality of it slays everything around
it exactly as a picture by Whistler or Rossetti would do._
_To revert to immensity of output (I have to keep levanting
and tacking about), I call immense the output of Belloc (the
modern Sterne), Chesterton (the modern Swift), E. V. Lucas
(the modern Addison); they themselves would be flattered at
the comparisons. These chaps, though they can and sometimes do
write as well as the men of the nineties, spoil their average
by writing immensely; and they write immensely because they
want a good deal of money. Now the men of the nineties hadn’t
clubs, homes, wives or children; lunched for a shilling; dined
for eighteen pence; and didn’t want a lot of money. They cared
neither for money nor fame; they cared for their own esteem and
that of what you call their coterie and I their set._
_And that (to answer a question which you once asked me) is art
for art’s sake; and I maintain that it is not right to call
this meaningless or pretentious or a sham._
_This coterie, or set, was not noisy: I never met a quieter; it
was self-sufficient only in the best sense; and it in no way
imposed or impressed itself on the middle and upper classes of
London society. How could they? I doubt if any number of the
~Savoy~ ever sold 1,000 copies; certainly no number ever sold
2,000. And they ... were never in society, were never in the
outskirts of society and never wanted to be in either._
_But there! I daresay you were thinking of Oscar all the
time...._
_Enter on the lawn a nurse bearing my dinner-tray. After dinner
I retire to bed...._
_One day, ~Teixeira added, 17.7.20~, I’ll return to those men
of the nineties (I will never write a book about them: really I
was too much outside them)...._
_I trust that some Leonard Merricks are on the way: I’m nigh
starved for books again. Don’t send me Zola or Balzac in
English: I couldn’t stomach the translations. And I expect
you’re right about Balzac’s French style. Those giants were
awful chaps: Balzac, Rubens, the pylon-designing Baines,
brrr!..._
On 22.7.20 he writes:
_I beseech you, if you haven’t it, buy yourself a copy of ~The
Home Life of Herbert Spencer. By “Two.”~ It is the book
praised by “Rozbury” in his letter to Arrowsmith prefacing
~The Diary of a Nobody~. I bought it and began to shake with
laughter at Rosebery’s being such an ass. But, after a few
pages, I began to see what he meant; and then, time after time,
I nearly rolled off my long-chair with laughing not at Rosebery
but with him. I’d lend it you, but it’ll only cost you 3/6; and
I want you to have it as a companion volume to ~The Diary~._
_However, if you will not buy it, I will lend it to you. You’ve
“got” to read it, or I will never write you another letter._
And on 23.7.20:
_Some 32 years ago, “Pearl Hobbes” wrote to me that I ought to
translate Balzac; and I am sorry it is too late for me to do
~Goriot~. I am rereading it all the same with much enjoyment,
though I think that these gala editions should be at least as
well translated as my Lutetian set of six Zola novels._
_Huxley, in his little autobiography, writes:_
_“As Rastignac, in the Père Goriot, says to Paris, I said to
London:_
_“‘A nous deux!’”_
_I remembered that this came at the end of the book, turned to
it and found:_
_“Rastignac ... saw beneath him Paris, ... The glance he darted
on this buzzing hive seemed in advance to drink its honey,
while he said proudly:_
_“‘Now for our turn—hers and mine.’”_
_An epigrammatic tag sadly boshed, I think._
_I find that “leave them nothing but their eyes to weep with”
occurs in this book; so we must absolve poor old Bismark at any
rate from inventing this bloodthirsty phrase._
_And I find the Ukraine mentioned! The Ukraine! The dear old
Ukraine! A sweet land of which I—and you? be honest! had never
heard before the days of the W.T.I.D._
_I have sent for a complete set of Heine from Heinemann; it
just occurred to me that I have read little of this great
man’s. And I am told that the translation is good...._
_Do E. and J., ~he asks, 26.7.20~, ever perpetrate those plays
upon words of which Heine was so fond? They are not exactly
puns; I am not sure that quodlibets isn’t the word for them.
E.G.: Herr von Schnabelowpski smites the heart of a Dutch
hotel-proprietress. Over the real china cups she gazes at him
porcela(i)nguidly._
_That is not a very good example. This one is better: Heine
calls on Rothschild at Frankfurt. Rothschild receives him quite
famillionairly._
_Good-bye. It threatens rain; and I propose to spend the day
in bed, with the proofs of ~The Inevitable~...._
A criticism of Plarr’s Life of Dowson leads Teixeira, 27.7.20, to
annotate the letter that contained it:
_... I was suggesting, I wrote, that the effect ... on the
minds of a generation which knew not Dowson would be to make it
feel that it did not want to know him...._
_(Your cecession from catholicism, he replies, has done you
McKennas a lot of harm. You flout tradition and go in for
rational inference and deduction in its place. Horrible,
horrible! The apostles are not all dead; many of them are your
living contemporaries; you could, if you like, receive at first
hand their memories of their dead fellows; and you prefer to
make up your own mistaken impressions in the light of your own
mistaken intellect. Well, well!_
_And, if you write just that sort of life of me, I’ll wriggle
with pleasure in my coffin.)_
_This evening Henry Arthur Jones is giving a dinner ... to
James M. Beck.... I have been bidden to attend...._
_(Beck is the finest orator I ever heard; and I’ve heard
Gladstone ~inter alios~._
_Those Heine quodlibets about which I wrote y’day are, I
believe, called “split puns,” though I doubt the happiness of
the term. I made one in my sleep this morning: rowdies on the
Brighton road indulging in a charabanquet....)_
_I can never have news, as you may imagine, ~writes Teixeira,
29.7.20~; my letters must be always replies to yours...._
_I like your Cave-Brown-Cave story if it was true; it probably
was, as a family of that name exists._[17]
_I never heard John Redmond, I am sorry to say. He was, so to
speak, after my time. I heard Parnell and, if I were only a
mimic, could give you his curiously contemptuous, high-bred,
high-pitched voice to-day. I heard Randolph; and at the time,
in the eighties, both he and Arthur Balfour used to lisp. Does
A. B. lisp now? Answer this: it interests me; and it has a sort
of bearing on that passing-fashion competition which you were
starting. So essential to birth and breeding was the lisp in
those days that even the English-bred Comte de Paris lisped ...
in French! I was at his silver wedding and well remember his
reception of me._
“Vouth êtes le bienvenu ithi!”
_Incidentally I remember that good King Edward (“then Prince of
Wales,” as the memoir-writers say) glared at me furiously on
that occasion, because I was wearing trousers of the identical
pattern as his: an Urquhart check with a pink line...._
In the course of a dinner-party given at this time, the conversation
turned on those men and women who had won everlasting renown with the
least effort or justification. The United States Ambassador (Mr. Davis)
proposed Eutychus, of whom little is known but that he fell asleep during
a sermon and tumbled from a window: I suggested the uncaring Gallio, who
did less and is better known. Some one else put forward Melchisedec.
Agreeing that every name in the Bible has a certain immortality, we
turned to secular history. At the subsequent instigation of Mr. Davis,
Lord Curzon of Kedleston propounded “the apple-bearing son of William
Tell.” I invited Teixeira to give his opinion.
_I can’t compete with Curzon, ~he replied on 6.8.20~, though
I’ve tried. After all, he was one of the Souls! I did think
of Alfred and the cakes; but that monarch owes only 5/6 of
his immortality to those cakes and young Tell owed all his to
the apple. But stay! Many hold Tell and his offspring to be
mythical persons. If so, what about the good wife who scolded
Alfred? I should like you to find some one who will say that I
have beaten Curzon...._
_I shall be in town from 8 September to a few days later.
If you want to see me, you must arrange your engagements
accordingly. I am the colour which we can never get our brown
shoes to assume till just before the moment when they drop off
our feet. But I am as weak as ten thousand rats...._
On 7.8.20 he writes:
_You will remember that ... I declined to join your Passing
Fashion Research Society, or whatever you decided to call it.
But I have no objection to being an honorary corresponding
member. And I will set you a subject._
_To establish the year in which it first became the vogue for
smart British males to don a deliberately dowdy attire._
_The dowdiness all burst upon my astonished eyes at once: the
up-and-down collar worn with a top hat and a morning coat;
permanently turned trousers worn with Oxford shoes, so as to
display an inch or so of sock; tie usually to match the socks
and often “self-coloured” and patternless. There are three
items of sheer deliberate dowdiness for you. Another dowdy item
was even a little earlier, I believe: the one-buttoned glove,
showing a bit of bare wrist between it and the shirt-cuff. But
the soft-fronted dress-shirt, also a piece of dowdy dandyism,
came in much at the same time as the three specimens cited
above._
_I should guess the year to be either 1907 or 1908, but I am
not quite sure. You, with your wonderful memory, may be able to
place it, for 1907-8 marks the period when you burst upon the
London firmament._
_I—who can remember witnessing a departure for Cremorne—I, I
need hardly tell you, remember much older and almost as strange
things. I remember peg-top trowsers, skin-tight trowsers,
bell-shaped trowsers, though I can’t fix the epoch of any of
these phenomena; and I can remember when we deliberately wore
our trowsers so long that we trod upon them with our heels and
frayed them; and that was in 1880-1._
_But all I ask that you should fix is the date of the
deliberately dowdy well-dressed man...._
_I think, ~he writes, 9.8.20~, that the time has come for you
to write ... a big political novel, a big, serious, flippant,
earnest, sarcastic, political novel.... Your book should be
quite Disraelian in scope; it should be a ~roman a clef~ to
this extent, that it would contain half—or quarter-portraits;
and you ought to concentrate on it very thoroughly. I am
convinced that the world is waiting for it._
_Do you observe the comparative sweetness of my mood. It is
doomed entirely to this glorious weather. For the rest, I hope
and believe that you never resent those whacks with which, when
the sky is overcast, I am apt to belabour my correspondents
like an elderly Mr. Punch on his hustings._
_My good, kind Brighton doctor—good because he is clever, kind
because he charges me no fee—was over here from Brighton y’day
to see me. He tells me that this peculiar susceptibility of
mine to atmospheric influence is a symptom of convalescence
rather than ill-health. He is much pleased with the improvement
in my condition; and he approves of my winter plans, though he
would rather have dispatched me to San Remo or even Egypt had
either been feasible._
_Read Max on Swinburne in the ~Fortnightly Review~ when you get
the chance and contrast it with George Moore’s account of his
visit to Swinburne, in which he can only tell us that he found
the poet naked in bed. I forget where it occurs...._
In answering this letter I pointed out that Disraeli avoided the great
political issues of the days in which he was writing and that any author,
such as H. G. Wells in _The New Machiavelli_, Granville Barker in
_Waste_ and H. M. Harwood in the _Grain of Mustard Seed_, who attempts a
political theme is almost bound to impale himself on one or other horn of
a dilemma; if his novel or play revolve round a living controversy such
as the right to strike in war-time or the justice of ordering reprisals
in Ireland, the theatre may become the scene of a nightly riot and the
critics will consider their own political preferences more earnestly than
the literary merits of the book; if the action of play or novel be based
on a dead or unborn controversy, it will fail to arouse the faintest
interest. I was sure that the other admirers of the three works which I
quoted were unmoved by the endowment of motherhood, by educational reform
and by housing schemes.
In reply, Teixeira wrote, 11.8.20:
_... Don’t slay the suggestions of the big political novel
off-hand or outright. I mean a bigger thing than you do; a
thing that not Wells nor Barker nor Harwood ... could write,
whereas you, I think, could; a thing as big as ~Coningsby~; a
thing called ~The Secretary of State~ or ~The First Lord of the
Treasury~, or some such frank affair as that._
_You have kept up a “very average” logical position in life.
You know a number of statesmen, but you know only those
whom you like and you like only those whom you esteem. Your
portraits of those whom you esteem could not offend them; your
sketch even of a genial rogue ... could not offend him; and you
don’t or ought not to care if your daguerreotypes of S., M. and
B. offended them or not...._
_Incidentally you might do no little good, to Ireland, which
should have been your native land, to England, which by your
own choice remains your home, and to the world in general, to
which I hope that you bear no ill-will...._
In his next letter, 14.8.20, he returns to the same subject:
_Your letter ... pretty well convinces me, at any rate about
the Coningsby novel. Dizzy never wrote about the period in
which he was just then living. All his novels are antedated a
good many years. This by way of defending him against any idea
that he ever offended by betraying private or official secrets
in his novels...._
One of Teixeira’s last letters (19.8.20) from Crowborough contained a
translation of the terms (already quoted) in which Couperus congratulated
him on his version of _The Tour_:
Couperus writes:
_“Your last envoi has given me a most delightful day. What a
magnificent translation. ~The Tour~ is; what a most charming
little book it has become! I am in raptures over it and read
and reread it all day and have had tears in my eyes and have
laughed over it. You may think it silly of me to say all this;
but it has become an exquisitely beautiful work in its English
form. My warmest congratulations!..._
_“Thank McKenna for his assistance: the hymn has become very
fine. For that matter the whole book is a gem, if I may say so
myself.”_
_So I’ve had one appreciative reader at any rate!..._
On 27.8.20 he adds:
_Tell Norman ~[Major Holden, then liberal candidate for the
Isle of Wight]~ that, should there be an election in “the
island” before I leave Ventnor, he’ll find me both able and
ready to impersonate the oldest inhabitant and gallop to the
polling-station, in my bath-chair, and vote for him...._
And, finally, in praise of toleration:
_31 August 1920 (being the birthday of Her
Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands)._
_It won’t do to insist on this racial aspect of things. I
was never of those who called L. G. a damned little Welsh
solicitor. He would have been just the same had he been Scotch
or English or Irish. After all, our friend R. is little and
Welsh and was a solicitor and will as likely as not be damned
if he doesn’t join his wife’s church. And there is the converse
case, when you hear men describing an outrage committed by
Englishmen as “unenglish.” How can the things be unenglish
which the English do?_
_Like yourself, the late W. H. Smith was shocked when Parnell
stood up and told the House of Commons ... that he had lied to
them in the interests of his country. I like to think of you as
occupying a subtler and more philosophical standpoint than the
late W. H. Smith...._
_I continue to feel better; and the arrival of two very pretty
women patients has loosed my tongue and given me an outlet for
many a childish and innocent jest. I excuse these jests by
saying that they’re due to Minerva._
_“Who’s Minerva?”_
_“Mi-nervous breakdown. By the way, I hope you like your Alf?”_
_“Our Alf? What do you mean?”_
_“Your al-f-resco meals.”_
_Just like that!..._