Mr. Bennett, of all the men of letters with whom I am acquainted,
not even excluding Mr. Shaw, is the most generous and kindly to
young people. Mr. Wells likes young people, but his interest in them
is curiously impersonal. He likes youth in a lump, so to speak,
rather than youth in the individual, just as he seems to love mankind
more than he likes any man. But Mr. Bennett likes _you_, the youth,
personally. He is happier on the whole with young people than he is
with their elders, and he assiduously seeks their society. He is amused
by their extravagances, but not to the extent of sneering at them. He
likes youth to be dandiacal, to have an air, to be arrogant, but not
to be ill-bred or pretentious or third-rate. In spite of his notable
kindness, he can be merciless to humbugs, and stories are told of
devastating things said by him to presumptuous persons and fools. The
blunt speech of "the Five Towns" is native to his tongue, and he passes
judgment without mincing his words. He has a dry sort of wit which is
remarkably helped by a slight hesitation in his speech, and his general
conversation, without being markedly distinguished, is entertaining
and agreeable in a way that is very elusive when put upon paper. It is
natural, perhaps, that a man who loves youth so much as he does should
have a more potent sense of the present and of the future than
of the past, and this accounts for the fact that his books and
pictures are chiefly modern. I imagine that he has a greater number of
books and pictures by young authors and painters than any other man of
his calibre in England. He loves music, but is not "highbrow" about
it, and he has a passion for dancing which threatens now to keep him
jigging through ballrooms for the rest of his life. He paints quite
charming water-colour pictures, and is so fond of the sea that the
surest way in which any one can lose his friendship is to accompany him
for a trip on his yacht and be sea-sick during it! He is a keen man of
business, and he is full of contempt for the rather sloppy-minded man
of letters who allows himself to be worsted in a bargain. Most men of
quality are lonely men, oddly isolated in spirit, and Mr. Bennett is
not an exception to the rule, but more than his compeers, I think, he
is a companionable person in a small group, chiefly because of that
romantic interest he has in all things, animate and inanimate. He has a
wider knowledge of books than most men of letters. Most men of letters,
indeed, are remarkably ignorant of books. And he has the courage, the
supreme courage, to do what no other literary man I have ever met has
the courage to do: he keeps a gramophone. He likes the savor of life,
and life for him includes the pictures of Corot and the gramophone
and French poetry and the novels of George Moore and newspapers and
motor-cars and Balzac and Bernard Shaw and the right brand of French
beans. How can such a man help being romantic!