THE PEN AND PENCIL CLUB
THE "Magpie" is, or was, a hotel of the good old-fashioned homely type,
standing in a street off the Strand, in the Adelphi quarter. One must
speak thus indefinitely, since the whole face of the neighbourhood has
been transformed within recent years, and many a memory-laden house
demolished. At the "Magpie" the era of electric bells, elevators,
ostentation, had produced no effect, and within hail of many
_caravanserais_, where the pomp and circumstance of King Money might
have been seen in all its extravagance, the "Magpie" retained its
flavour of old-time cosiness and plainness.
It was a hotel much frequented by the better class of country visitors;
the London man of fashion never strayed within its portals. But here, by
reason of the retired situation of the place, the accommodation of the
rooms, and in some degree (we may suppose) the moderate terms, the
headquarters of the Pen and Pencil Club were situated. Less than three
hundred yards away, the Strand was a turgid stream of noises; here was
a backwater startlingly quiet.
Though certain of the vulgar upstarts, who manage to sneak into every
community of proper men, not excepting literary clubland, complained
that they could not get eatable food at the "Magpie," the members of the
club, as a whole, did eat with some heartiness whenever they assembled
around the board, which was twice a month during autumn and winter. Few
of the members turned up in evening dress; the average author does not
find it necessary to entirely expose his shirt-front when he sits down
to his evening meal. Something of the older Bohemianism hung, like
lavender in an ancient chest, about the Pen and Pencil Club; from which
it will be understood that it was not exactly the Bohemianism of dirty
clothes and stale beer, but rather that brotherliness which enables men
of kindred tastes and interests to dispense with the artificial
ceremonies of society.
Such was the spirit of the company to which Henry was introduced by his
friend at the "Magpie." The buzz of talk in the club-room dazed him a
little at first, and very timidly did he submit to be introduced to this
celebrity and to that. Most of the members and guests assembled were
standing talking familiarly, awaiting the summons to dinner.
"Let me introduce my friend Mr. Charles, of the _Watchman_, Mr. Angus
St. Clair," said Mr. P., thus mentioning the name of a world-famous
Scottish novelist, with whom Henry almost funked shaking hands.
Yet Mr. Sinclair was scarcely so impressive to gaze upon as many a City
clerk; far less so than any young man behind a draper's counter in
Oxford Street. He was below medium height, quite without distinction of
features, and wore a faded brown suit. Withal, his publishers could sell
fifty thousand copies of any book he cared to write, and the Press of
the Anglo-Saxon race resounded with anecdotes about him.
"Ma name's pronounced Sinkler, but they pock-puddens will ca' me St.
Clair, so what can a body do, Mr. Chairles?"
Mr. Charles couldn't enlighten him; but his host suggested that the
Scotch didn't know how to pronounce their own names, and weren't very
particular how they treated English ones. The secretary of the club
dragged Mr. Sinclair off before he could return fire to introduce him to
one craving his hand-shake, and Mr. Puddephatt, who appeared to be known
only as Adrian Grant among the members, said to Henry that whenever he
saw Sinclair he thought of a boiled egg, because the fellow seemed so
small and thin that he felt he could break his skull with a tap of a
spoon.
"Ah, Mr. Grinton, how do you do?... My guest, Mr. Charles, of the
_Watchman_--a coming man, my dear Grinton, a coming man."
Mr. Edward Grinton shook hands with the coming man, who was never in a
more retiring mood.
"I read the _Watchman_," he said, "and like it, but I wish it wouldn't
worry about my literary style. The only test of merit in novels, Mr.
Charles, is sales. Ask at any bookseller if his customers care a straw
for literary style. They want a story, and I give 'em what they--Ah,
Tredgold! Still slogging at that play?" and Mr. Grinton turned abruptly
to another member who had two plays running at London theatres, and, in
Grinton's phrase, "made pots of money."
This Grinton no longer holds the bookstalls in the palm of his hand. His
star has set; but at that time his stories sold enormously, and earned
him a large income. They were common trash, concerned chiefly with
mysterious murders, and each had a startling picture on the cover, which
the publisher alleged was the chief cause of their success. He had curly
hair. That was the only thing about him Henry noticed.
In turn he was next introduced to Henry Davies, the editor of the
_Morning Sun_, the great Radical daily--a man who stuttered strangely,
and had difficulty in saying that he was p--p--pleased to m--m--meet Mr.
Ch--Ch--Charles; Mr. Frederick Fleming, the well-known dramatic critic
of the _Daily Journal_; and other celebrities whom he had long
worshipped from afar. The most ordinary mortals all; not one of them had
the mystic touch of Adrian Grant, who seemed to Henry the most
distinguished man among the company.
"Dinner is served, gentlemen," the waiter called, in rousing tones, and
instantly the babble ceased, and members and guests filed out to the
dining-room.
Henry was seated next to his host, and had on his right Mr. Bone, the
eminent publisher, who happened to be the guest of Grinton, the
novelist. The lion lay down with the lamb in the Pen and Pencil Club.
It was the custom of the fraternity after dining to carry on a
discussion on some literary topic, and to "talk shop" to their heart's
content. The chairman, Mr. Diamond Jones, a highly successful literary
critic, whose profound ignorance of literature's deeper depths was the
standing joke of his fellow-clubmen, mentioned that they did talk shop
there, but contended that "literary shop" was worth talking, as
everybody was interested in it; other "shop" was only "shop," and
therefore contemptible. Your literary worker has a fine disdain for
every branch of life but his own.
The speaking was scarcely enthralling. It happened to turn on the
subject of humour in literature, and a celebrated humorist opened the
discussion with some observations which suggested (unfairly) that he
knew very little of what he was talking about. Apparently he had never
heard that Shakespeare was a humorist, or that Carlyle was not devoid of
the quality, or that Thackeray had some of it, not to mention Dickens.
Even Meredith and Hardy escaped the notice of all the speakers, who
talked about most things but the topic that had been introduced. Henry
concluded that the gifts of writing and oratory are seldom wedded in the
one. The best speaker was a novelist, whose books were as free from
humour as Ireland is from snakes. He thought that humour wasn't a high
quality. Good for him that he had none, as the great reading public
likes a man who is either as serious as an owl or as giddy as a Merry
Andrew. Sinclair was reputedly a humorist, but it was difficult to get
him to open his mouth on the subject, and when he did the company was in
doubt whether to laugh or applaud.
"Humour," he said, in his drawling Scotch accent, "is, according to
Russell Lowell, the great antiseptic of leeterature. For my pairt,
'werna ma heart licht I wad dee.'" And he sat down.
Really these great guns of literature thundered no better than a
twopenny cannon. Henry had heard as good at a church debating society in
Wheelton. At least, the disparity was scarce appreciable, and yet the
men he had listened to were, each of them, capable of great things pen
in hand; most of them would have been a loadstar of interest in any
large provincial city. They were best beheld at a distance and behind
the glamour of their books, he thought.
But he had reason to modify his opinion in the light of the club-room
gossip which followed the dinner and discussion. He was soon tingling
with delight at hearing men whose names were widely known discussing the
affairs of the literary world. He felt that he stood at the very fount
of those streams of gossip which flow far and wide through the channels
of the Press. He knew that many a paragraph he had clipped from a London
journal and printed in his column in the _Laysford Leader_ had
originated in the after-dinner chatter of his club, or some such
coterie. "I am informed that Mr. Blank's next novel will deal with," or
"My readers may be interested to know that Mr. So-and-So, the celebrated
author of this or that, is about to," or again, "Mr. Such-and-Such is
contemplating a holiday in Timbuctoo with a view to local colour for his
next romance, which has been arranged to appear in"--he could now see
that these pleasant pars, with their delightful "behind-the-scenes"
flavour, grew out of meetings like this.
After leaving the "Magpie," Adrian Grant walked with Henry as far as
Long Acre, where the latter could get a 'bus Bloomsburyward.
"An interesting gathering," said the novelist; "how did it impress you?"
"Chiefly that distinguished authors are very like human beings, on the
whole."
"I'm glad of that. Now you're learning. But you'll find much true
camaraderie among them, if you allow for the little eccentricities of
the artistic temperament, which you are sure to notice the more you know
of them. I overheard a very third-rate novelist to-night telling a guest
that his own books were divided into three periods; the middle one being
a bridge that linked the two expressions of his mind together. Heavens!
I don't suppose there's a score of people in the country who are the
least concerned in his work. But he's a good fellow for all his vanity.
We're all of us vain, more or less."
"I was also struck by the number of well-known people--men, I mean,
whose names are discussed throughout the whole country," Henry observed.
"It was difficult to realise the distinguished nature of the company.
You couldn't see the wood for trees, if the simile will hold water."
"Quite so. Should you become as famous as Maister Sinkler, you'll still
find that in any club you enter there will be someone better known than
yourself. That's the best of London. It brings you to your level. Where
life is prolific--look at China--it is least valued. Where geniuses, or
men of talent, most abound, why, it's like Gilbert's era, 'when dukes
were four a penny.' At best, you're only a bit of vegetable in London's
broth-pot. But it's good that it should be so. In the country you are
inclined to esteem yourself too highly, and of all human follies that's
the worst."
Mr. P.'s speech sounded like a literary setting of Flo's opinion:
"You're a somebody here; in London you'd be one of the crowd."
They walked without speaking through the musty-smelling region of Covent
Garden, and had reached Long Acre before Henry broke the silence
suddenly by remarking, as if after much considering of the point:
"You said that one would find some true camaraderie among the literary
set. That scarcely tallies with your rather pessimistic views of human
nature in general."
"Well, after all, it's difficult to be consistent--and speak your mind.
My views of human nature remain unchanged, and though, as you have said,
authors are very like folk, they do have a touch of brotherliness which
you will find in no other profession; certainly not in the musical, of
which I know something. There may appear to be a good deal of
back-biting and jealousy among literary men; but they are always ready
to encourage the new man, to applaud the conscientious worker. Remember
that most authors of genius have first been proclaimed by their fellows
of the pen. In the nature of things it must be so. The asinine public
has to be told who are the writers worth reading. Mind you, the duffer
will get never a leg up, and before any one gets a lift he has to show
himself worthy of it. But I suppose the same might be said of the
business world as well."
"Do you think I'm going the right way for a leg up, then?--if I may bore
you with my own petty affairs."
"Not yet; but you'll soon be shaping that way. This I realise:
journalism will give any moderately clever fellow a living, but even a
genius will scarcely win a reputation that way. Billy Ricketts writes a
book, and even if it's a bad one, Billy is for a week or two more
noticed in the papers than the editor of the _Times_ will be in five
years. The journalist who gives his best to his paper is a pathetic
figure--from the British or Henry Charles point of view, I mean, as I'm
looking at the situation with your ideas to direct me, your view of
success. He is probably our nearest approach to the Greek sculptors I
seem to remember quoting to you once. Anonymity is essential to the true
artist, I hold; and strangely, it is the newspaper man--none less
artistic--who conforms to this law in England, perhaps unwillingly."
"Of course, we'll never agree on that point," said Henry, "as I'm all
for personality."
"So; that's what I know, and hence my line of reasoning. Play up your
personality for all it's worth, and be happy. It's not my way; but no
matter. And to do so, journalism is at best only a training school. What
you must do is a book. Once you make a moderate success with a book,
your precious personality has become a marketable thing in modern
Philistia."
"You mean a novel, I suppose?"
"I mean a book. You're not a poet, or the song within would have rilled
out long ago. _Ergo_, it's not a book of poetry. You have a literary
touch, and might do well in the essay; but essays are 'off' just now,
says the Ass-in-Chief of the great B. P. You haven't gone round the
world on your hands and knees, or walked from Charing Cross to St.
Paul's on your head--either of which achievements would have given you
copy for a sensational book hot with personality, and made you the most
sought-after lecturer of the day. So there remains only the novel, and
the B. P. shouts for more novel, like the whimpering infant it is. Give
it novel, my lad. You, as well as anybody. That the novel has become a
contemptible convention of the publishing trade is not its fault. Always
remember we have Meredith and Hardy and Stevenson writing novels, and
you will think well of that vehicle of expression."
"But I have no great impulse to write fiction. I'd rather write about
the men who write it," Henry said.
"A pity that; for little of real value is done without the impulse. But
one never knows. Try and see. The impulse may follow in the same sense
that certain psychologists believe the simulation of an emotion produces
its effect. I like the idea; but am not quite ready to accept it.
Reproduce the muscular expressions of sorrow or joy, and you will after
a time be sorrowful or glad, says Nordau. There's something in the
thought, perhaps. Similarly, determine to write a novel, and the mood
for novel-writing will be induced. I don't say I agree with the theory.
But it's worth a trial, and anyhow a novel is the easiest form in which
to make a public appeal, to make merchandise of your personality."
Adrian Grant's face wore its half-cynical smile as he said this, and
extending his hand to Henry, he added abruptly, as his manner was: "This
is your 'bus, I think; I must make for Kensington."
Henry shook hands at once with a hurried expression of thanks for his
friend's kindness, and jumped on the 'bus, while Mr. P. hailed a passing
hansom, and set out for his rooms in Gloucester Road.
Vague and confused were the thoughts of Henry as the 'bus lumbered its
way by historic Drury Lane and across Holborn, to his door in
Bloomsbury. A 'bus ride was still full of romance to him, and the
glimmering lamps of London were dearer to his mind than "the swing of
Pleiades"; every jingling cab that passed, every lighted window, was
touched with romance in his eyes. To make this wondrous City listen to
him--how the dream thrilled him! That the unknown thousands who flitted
through these world-famous streets, and lived behind these lighted
windows, might read what he wrote and know him for the writer--it was
worth trying for. Already he had seen his book brave in bright gilt,
shouldering the best of them in the book-shops of Holborn and the
Strand; he could read the reviews distinctly: noticed even the size and
style of the type they were set in, was gratified to find them so
remarkably favourable, and--"Wob'n Plice!" shouted the conductor.
Henry descended to asphalt, and was presently putting on his slippers in
his small sitting-room in a Bloomsbury boarding-house.