A letter came to me the other day from a gentleman of the name of
Blodgett, residing in Chicago. I do not, I regret to say, know Mr.
Blodgett, but he has heard about me and even read my books, and he
has a desire--which I find it difficult to resent--to possess my
autograph. He wants to place it "in the literary shrine in his
library" beside the autographs of "G. K. Chesterton, J. M. Barrie, A.
A. Milne, E. V. Lucas, Lord Northcliffe," and other deities that he
apparently worships in far-away Chicago. I yielded to Mr. Blodgett's
request, for I am not made of the stern stuff that can turn a deaf
ear to flattery. I endeavour to mortify the pride that Mr.
Blodgett's compliment arouses by reflecting that for one person who
wants my autograph there are one million who would wade through blood
and tears for Charlie Chaplin's, or Georges Carpentier's, or Mary
Pickford's, or the late Monsieur Landru's, or the eminent Mr. Horatio
Bottomley's. I recalled the scene I saw at Lord's a few days ago
when at the end of an innings as the teams left the field an enormous
crowd rushed forward and enveloped them like a plague of locusts,
each with an open book in one hand and a pen in the other, and a
prayer on the lips for the autograph of some illustrious player. I
reflected that no mob ever pursued me with these flattering
attentions.
But in vain. The agreeable incense goes to my head. A request for
my autograph makes me swell with pomp. However hard I try to be
humble, I can't do it. The vision of Mr. Blodgett (of Chicago) rises
before me. I see him carrying my illustrious autograph about in his
breast-pocket and stopping his friends on Michigan Avenue to flaunt
my flourishes before their eyes. I see him arriving home in the
evening and shouting the glad tidings that my autograph has come to
Mrs. Blodgett and the young Blodgetts up the staircase. And I sink
to sleep at night with the agreeable vision of my humble signature
resting in the "literary shrine" of Mr. Blodgett beside the august
name of "Northcliffe."
But I refer to Mr. Blodgett's letter not because of his request, but
because of his manner of addressing me. He writes to me as "Reginald
S. Thomson, Esq." I cannot deny that my name (for the purpose of this
article) is Reginald. I wish I could. What possessed my revered
parents--peace to their ashes--to call me Reginald I do not know.
Perhaps it was out of respect for the memory of the saintly Heber,
whose precocious piety was set before me, with not much success, for
my youthful imitation. But whatever its origin, I cannot recall the
time when I did not loathe the name of Reginald. I took the earliest
opportunity of disowning it, and for fifty years I have passed
through the world under the sign of R. S. Thomson. Our English habit
of using initials only for our Christian names was a source of solace
to me. It enabled me to forget all about Reginald, and to leave the
world in darkness about my disgraceful secret. I left it to suppose,
if it supposed at all, that behind the R. there lurked nothing more
offensive than Robert, or Richard, or, at the worst, Rufus.
A visit to America, however, betrayed the wretched truth to the
world. The Americans are as particular about flourishing their front
names as we often are about concealing ours. Mr. Herodotus P. Champ
would be cut to the quick if you addressed him as Mr. H. P. Champ.
He would regard it as a studied affront. And, being a polite people,
the Americans take as much pains to unearth the Christian names of
their visitors as their visitors take to hide them. Nothing will
convince them that we wear initials because we like them. I had no
sooner stepped ashore at New York than I was confronted with Mr.
Reginald S. Thomson. Wherever I went I was haunted by that
objectionable person. He went with me into parlours and on to
platforms. He gibed at me in headlines. He mocked at me with his
Portland slip and his white spats and his eye-glass. It was not
until I had placed the Atlantic between myself and America that I
ceased to be shadowed by Reginald. He is still over there, holding
me up to ridicule with his insufferable elegances.
No doubt others have suffered in the same way. It would not surprise
me to learn that Mr. H. G. Wells is known from Boston to Los Angeles
as Mr. Hannibal G. Wells. Nobody in England knows what lurks behind
"H. G." Mr. Wells keeps the secret from his closest friends, but I
daresay it is babbled all over America, and that there is not an
intelligent schoolboy who does not discuss the latest book of Hector
G. Wells or H. Gascoigne Wells, or Horatio Gordon Wells, as the case
may be. No doubt Mr. Wells has excellent reasons for not publishing
his front names to the world. He may dislike them as much as I
dislike Reginald. Parents who give us our names immediately we
appear in the world are naturally liable to do us an injury. They
have, let us say, been stirred by some royal wedding, and call their
poor infant "Lascelles" in a fervour of loyalty. And perhaps
Lascelles grows up into a fierce Communist who would prefer the L. to
stand for Lenin. What is he to do but to take refuge in initials?
And since he alone is concerned, why should we pry into the secrets
which those initials conceal?
It would be a simple way of relief if our baptismal names were
temporary, and each of us chose the names by which he desired to be
known on coming of age. Then they would fit us more happily than
Reginald fits me or Hannibal--if it is Hannibal--fits Mr. Wells.