SET DOWN IN MALICE
SET DOWN IN MALICE
A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES
BY
GERALD CUMBERLAND
❦
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I
contradict myself.”
Walt Whitman.
BRENTANO’S
NEW YORK
MDCCCCXIX
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED EDINBURGH
UXORI HORAS AMISSAS REDDO
PREFATORY NOTE
Very many of the following pages were written in the trenches and
dug-outs of Greece and Serbia. I added a chapter or two in Port Said,
Alexandria and Marseilles. That is to say, I wrote far away from books
and without reference to documents, and I wrote to refresh a mind
dulled by the conditions of Active Service in the Near East. A few
chapters were written in London and a few in Winchester.
Here and there may be found factual inaccuracies, though if these
exist I am not aware of them. But the spirit of the book is as near
the truth as I can bring it.
Gerald Cumberland
Winchester
_2nd June 1918_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Mr George Bernard Shaw 11
II. Miscellaneous 22
Mrs Annie Besant—Mr Marcus Stone—Mr Lloyd
George—Bishop Welldon—Dr Walford Davies
III. Mr Frank Harris 32
IV. Miscellaneous 47
Madame Yvette Guilbert—Sir Victor Horsley—
Mrs Pankhurst—Mr Jacob Epstein—Madame Aïno
Ackté
V. Mr Stanley Houghton and Mr Harold Brighouse 55
VI. Some Writers 68
Mr Arnold Bennett—Mr G. K. Chesterton—
Mr Lascelles Abercrombie—Mr Harold Monro—
Mr John Masefield—Mr Jerome K. Jerome—Sir
Owen Seaman—Mr A. A. Milne
VII. Sir Edward Elgar 79
VIII. Intellectual Freaks 88
IX. Fleet Street 102
X. Mr Hall Caine 117
XI. More Writers 128
Rev. T. E. Brown—Mr A. R. Orage—Mr Norman
Angell—Mr St John Ervine—Mr Charles Marriott
—Mr Max Beerbohm—Mr Israel Zangwill—Mr
Alphonse Courlander—Mr Ivan Heald—Mr Dixon
Scott—Mr Barry Pain—Mr Cunninghame Graham
XII. Musical Critics 143
XIII. Manchester People 153
XIV. Chelsea and Mr Augustus John 166
XV. Miscellaneous 175
Mr Arthur Henderson, M.P.—Lord Derby—Miss
Elizabeth Robins—Mr Frank Mullings—Mr Harold
Bauer—Mr Emil Sauer—Mr Vladimir de Pachmann
XVI. Cathedral Musical Festivals 187
XVII. People of the Theatre 199
Sir Herbert Tree—Mr Gordon Craig—Mr Henry
Arthur Jones—Mr Temple Thurston—Miss Janet
Achurch—Miss Horniman.
XVIII. Berlin and Some of its People 212
XIX. Some Musicians 226
Edvard Grieg—Sir Frederick H. Cowen—Dr Hans
Richter—Sir Thomas Beecham—Sir Charles
Santley—Mr Landon Ronald—Mr Frederic Austin
XX. Two Chelsea Rags, 1914 and 1918 239
XXI. More Musicians 246
Professor Granville Bantock—Mr Frederick
Delius—Mr Joseph Holbrooke—Dr Walford Davies
—Dr Vaughan Williams—Dr W. G. McNaught—Mr
Julius Harrison—Mr Rutland Boughton—Mr John
Coates—Mr Cyril Scott
XXII. People I would like to meet 263
XXIII. Night Clubs 273
Index 283
CHAPTER I
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
It was when I was a very young man indeed that I caught and succumbed
to my first attack of Shaw-fever. I do not remember how I caught it;
something in the Manchester air, no doubt, was responsible for my
malady, for a handful of “intellectual” Manchester people had most
daringly produced a complete Shaw play, and, though I had not
witnessed the play, I had read it, and it was with delight that I saw
_The Manchester Guardian_ saying about _You Never Can Tell_ just the
very things I had myself already thought. I found that in my suburban
circle of friends I was regarded as harbouring “advanced” ideas. Shaw,
I was told, was “dangerous.” This bucked me up enormously, and I
thereupon wrote a long essay on Ibsen’s _A Doll’s House_ and, desiring
further to astonish and bewilder my friends, got into communication
with Bernard Shaw with a view to having the essay published in
pamphlet form. When it was known in Manchester suburbia that Shaw had
written to me, a boy still at school, my friends could not decide
whether I was cleverer than they had hitherto supposed or Mr Bernard
Shaw more foolish than seemed possible.
I have never completely recovered from that first attack of
Shaw-fever; like ague, it sleeps in my bones and, from time to time,
makes its presence known by little convulsions that are disturbing
enough while they last, but which generally die pretty quickly.
It was in the middle of 1901 that I wrote to Mr Shaw about the
particular brand of socialism from which at that time I was
suffering. It must have been a very raw and crude brand, and my letter
to Bernard Shaw must have amused him considerably. Certainly his reply
was most diverting. Here it is:
“By all means give ‘every penny you can spare to those who are
most in need of monetary help.’ If you will be kind enough to send
it to the Treasurer of the Fabian Society, 3 Clement’s Inn,
London, W.C., you may depend upon its being wanted and well used.
If you prefer relieving needy persons, I can give you the names
and addresses of several fathers of families who can be depended
on to absorb all your superfluous resources, however vast they may
be. By making yourself poor for their sakes you will have the
satisfaction of adding one more poor family to the existing mass
of poverty and contributing your utmost to the ransom which
perpetuates the existing social system. You will go through life
consoled by an inexhaustible sense of moral superiority to bishops
and other inconsistent Christians. And you will never be at a loss
for friends. Where the carcass is there will the eagles be
gathered.
“A world of beggars and almsgivers—beautiful Christian ideal.
“You are not a prig—only a damned fool. A month’s experience will
cure you.”
But though I think this letter amusing now, I am convinced I did not
think so at the time I received it. I know not in what terms of pained
surprise and hurt vanity I replied to it, but a few days later I
received the following short note:—
“Yes: you are an ass; and nothing will help you until you get over
that.
“‘A has money, B is without. If A doesn’t share with B he
is—well, I call him a thief.’ Just what an ass would do. Pray what
do you call B if he accepts A’s bounty?
“I strongly recommend you to become a stockbroker. You believe
that doing good means giving money; and you fancy yourself in the
character of Lord Bountiful with a touch of St Francis.
“Yes, a hopeless ass. No matter; embrace your destiny and become a
philanthropist. It is not a bad life for people who are built that
way.”
That, I think, most effectively closed the correspondence, as, I have
little doubt, it was intended to do.
During the next few months, having approached Messrs Greening & Co.,
the publishers, I was commissioned by them to write a book on Mr Hall
Caine for their _Eminent Writers of To-day_ series. The book being
completed and published before the end of the year, I conceived the
idea of writing another about Mr Bernard Shaw, and communicated with
the dramatist, informing him of my intention and asking him if he
would provide me with biographical details. This he consented to do,
and on 19th December 1901 wrote to me from Piccard’s Cottage,
Guildford, saying: “If you will let me know when you are coming to
London, I will make an appointment with pleasure and give you what
help I can.”
A few weeks later I went to Guildford, but I went there with a guilty
secret hidden in my breast. The secret was this. My publishers did not
care about issuing a complete book devoted to Bernard Shaw and all his
works. I gathered, much to my amazement, that they did not think him
of sufficient importance. The astounding idea was then suggested that
half my book should be concerned with Bernard Shaw and the other half
with Mr George Moore. Now, at the time of my visit to Guildford, I had
not imparted this information to Mr Shaw. I did not anticipate that he
would like the suggestion and I thought it wiser to disclose it to
him by word of mouth rather than by letter.
I came upon Mr Shaw taking photographs in the little front garden of
Piccard’s Cottage. It was a winter’s day and an inch of snow lay upon
the ground; yet he wore no overcoat. He insisted upon taking my
photograph. He took me sitting. He took me standing. And when he had
grown tired of playing with his new toy, he suggested that we should
go into the house.
There a hideous surprise awaited me. Lying upon the sofa of the study
was an open copy of the current week’s _Candid Friend_, a most
brilliant and most ruthless paper edited by Mr Frank Harris.
“There is something there,” said Shaw, nodding in the direction of the
sofa, “that should interest you, I think.”
I sat down, took up the paper and looked at the open pages. To my
horror I saw a most brutal, murderously clever full-page caricature of
Mr Hall Caine on one side, and on the other a long and most hostile
review of my stupid little book on the famous novelist.... Shaw, tall
and erect, stood looking at me a little malignantly, and, on the
instant, I was on my guard.
I read the review word by word and examined the caricature very
closely. The article was amazingly good, but, as I read it, I did so
wish it had been written about a book by somebody else. Frank Harris
himself, I think, had written the article and Frank Richardson had
drawn the caricature. I looked up at Shaw and smiled.
“Awfully good, don’t you think?” I said.
He nodded, and by his manner seemed to express approval of the way in
which I had come through the ordeal. He showed me some photographs he
had taken—not very good photographs. One, taken by his wife, I think,
showed Bernard Shaw with his arm round a female scarecrow; leaning
slightly forward, he was leering at it with narrowed eyes.
During lunch Shaw devoured a large number of vegetarian dishes and
drank water, whilst Mrs Shaw and I ate meat and drank wine. It was, I
think, the mellowing influence of a basin of raisins that loosed his
tongue and set him talking without cessation. He spoke of Karl Marx
and Granville Barker, of Mrs Annie Besant and Janet Achurch, of
Mr Sidney Webb and the Fabian Society, of Morocco and Ancoats, of
Shorthand and Wagner, of _The Manchester Guardian_ and H. G. Wells ...
in a word, of Shakespeare and the musical glasses.
I rather gathered that he had “got over” Karl Marx years ago, and I
inferred that he considered the work of this writer indispensable for
young cubs to sharpen their teeth upon, but that he was by no means
the last word in socialism. I think he thought that Bernard Shaw was
the last word. For Granville Barker he had even then a great regard,
and, speaking of him, he offered me some cider, a bottle of which
Barker had drunk some days previously; as he offered the cider he said
that Barker had “ridden over”—whence, I know not—on his bicycle and
that the cider had made him half tipsy.... The thought of Mrs Annie
Besant appeared to afford him vast amusement, but he spoke in terms of
high regard of Janet Achurch.
“But she uses her voice wrongly. It is quite the finest voice on the
stage and, perhaps because she knows it is so fine, she is always
trying experiments with it. For a Shakespeare passage, for example,
she will plan out what I may call a scheme of sound; sound that will
rise and fall with the passion and decline of the words, that will
intensify and grow dim as the mood waxes and wanes. But the scheme,
the design—for it _is_ a kind of design—is nearly always too
elaborate, too involved. It is full of detail, and the detail is apt
to become more prominent than the general outline. She will start off
most magnificently, lose herself a little, recover herself, lose
herself again, and then abruptly strike a woefully wrong note.
Perhaps her ear is wrong; perhaps excitement betrays her. But, with
all her faults—and even her faults are more interesting than other
people’s excellencies—she remains a superb actress.”
Of Mr Sidney Webb I remember nothing that he said, nor have any of the
loving words he spoke of the Fabian Society remained in my memory. He
spoke of it a great deal, both at lunch and during our subsequent
walk, but somehow or other the Fabian Society has always seemed to me
a bloodless and dull sort of institution, and while he talked about it
my thoughts wandered, and I mused rather sadly over the psychology of
this man whose moral earnestness was so much greater than my own.
But I pricked up my ears when the word “Morocco” fell from his lips,
though in the event he said very little about it. I found he had no
great belief in the value of travel as a means of education, an
expander of the mind. He himself had never travelled; places and
countries so precisely fulfilled all your expectations that, really,
what was the use of going to see them? Facts, people and ideas:
nothing else aroused his curiosity.
Of shorthand he said ... well, you don’t particularly want to know
what he said of shorthand, do you? And in _The Perfect Wagnerite_ he
has said all that it is necessary for him to say about Wagner. Last of
all comes H. G. Wells.
Now, I have not the remotest idea what Shaw thinks of Wells in these
days, yet I would give a good deal to know. But sixteen years ago the
older man had for the younger an almost reverential admiration. At the
time of my visit to Shaw one of Wells’ books was appearing serially
in, I think, _The Fortnightly Review_. Wells was busy looking into the
future, and the future that he saw seemed, in some respects, so
disagreeable yet so likely that Shaw was dismayed at the prospect.
“A great man, Wells,” said Shaw; “do you know anything about him?”
I told him the little I knew and, as we had finished lunch, I asked
Mrs Shaw’s permission to light a cigarette.
Almost immediately after, we started on our walk.
Never shall I forget that terrible walk. I believed then, as I believe
now, that Shaw was deliberately pitting his powers of endurance
against my own—the powers of endurance of a middle-aged vegetarian
against those of a young meat-eater. He walked with a long, easy
stride, swinging his arms, breathing deeply through his wide nostrils.
His pace, which never for a moment did he attempt to accommodate to
mine, was at least five miles an hour. He forgot, or he did not choose
to remember, that I had that morning travelled by the slow midnight
train from Manchester, that I had crossed London, that I had reached
Guildford by a weary Sunday train from Waterloo, and that I had just
eaten an enormous lunch. I panted and struggled half a pace behind
him. I became stupendously hot. I made unexpected and unathletic
sounds, like a man who is being smothered. Blissfully unconscious of
all this was Shaw.... I wonder?... No; blissfully conscious of all
this was Shaw.
He talked steadily the whole time, but I was suffering from an
inhibition of all my mental faculties. Yet, at the back of my mind, I
kept saying to myself: “You know, you have not yet told him that he is
to share your book with George Moore.” And each time I told myself
that, I shuddered somewhat.
It was not until we had neared Mr G. F. Watts’ house that Shaw
moderated his pace a little.
“That,” said he, in a curiously low voice—the kind of voice one uses
in churches—“that is where G. F. Watts lives.”
And he pointed to some high chimneys that overtopped a belt of trees,
and stopped and gazed. But I was in no mood of reverence and, though I
have frequently struggled to induce a feeling of rapture when gazing
upon the large canvases of Watts, I have never been able to do so. So
I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped my perspiring forehead.
“Hot?” asked Shaw grimly.
“Of course I’m hot. Aren’t you?”
“Warm. Just nicely warm.”
Presently we came to a tall tower of terra-cotta bricks which, Shaw
told me, had been erected by the villagers under the direction and at
the instigation of Watts himself. We stopped in front of this and, as
it was one of the “sights” of the district, I felt that I was expected
to say something wise or, at all events, something complimentary about
it. I could say neither.
“Which do people imagine it to be—useful or ornamental?” I asked.
“I wonder,” said he.
“For it is neither,” I ventured.
But his thoughts were otherwhere, for he began a long, technical
exposition on the art of making bricks and tiles. His talk became
art-and-crafty. I was carried back to my childhood days, my
kindergarten days. I heard the name of William Morris and I sighed
most profoundly.
Shaw won that walk by a neck. Having reached Piccard’s Cottage, he put
me in a kind of conservatory, gave me a blanket and a deck chair and
told me to go to sleep. But already I _was_ asleep....
When I awoke it was quite dark, and, feeling rather miserable, I
groped my way back to the house. There I found Mr and Mrs Shaw in the
study, she frowning at her desk, he standing on the hearthrug and
looking at her most quizzically.
“Well, how much is it?” she asked. “Four times into two hundred. The
cheque _must_ go by to-night’s post. I’ve done the sum three times,
and on each occasion I’ve got a different answer.”
“Is it two hundred pence or two hundred pounds?”
“Don’t be absurd, George. Even you know that you can’t get a furnished
house like this for two hundred pence a year.”
“Four times into two hundred—let me see—fifty. Yes, fifty. You can
safely write down fifty pounds.”
That little incident safely over, we turned to tea.
I induced Shaw to talk about his own work, and I quickly discovered
that, unlike most authors, he had no feeling of bitterness that he had
had to spend years in hard work before he won public recognition.
“A writer of originality must expect to have to wait. If a writer is
acclaimed immediately—I mean a writer on social and artistic
subjects—he may be pretty sure that he is saying things that have been
said before. He may be saying them better than anybody else;
nevertheless, they are the same things. My own success has been
gained, and is very largely maintained, by the force of my personality
and by the tradition about myself that has gradually grown up in the
mind of the public. For example, if I were to write an article and
give it to you to copy out and offer to editors in your own name, you
being the professional author, I doubt very much if a single editor
would look at it twice. A good deal, you see, _is_ in a name.”
It was when Mrs Shaw, having sipped her tea, had left the room, that I
broached the subject of my book.
“Publishers are curious people,” I remarked meditatively.
He sat silent.
“My own publishers in particular. They are now fighting shy of a book
solely about you.”
I paused and glanced at him. But he was gazing at me with eyes of a
mild malice and he was very silent.
“Yes,” I continued. “To put it bluntly, they think that a book solely
about you would not be a success. So that they propose the first half
of the book should be concerned with you and the second half with
George Moore.”
“And the title?” he asked gently.
“Why? What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t you think _The Two Mad Irishmen_ would go rather well?”
I floundered. If he was going to be witty or sarcastic, or anything
horrid of that kind, I should be nowhere at all. To cover my
confusion—and, as it chanced, to make that confusion worse—I began to
talk very rapidly.
“I know their suggestion is awfully stupid, but then publishers do
make stupid suggestions. That, I suppose, is why they are so
successful. Of course, George Moore and yourself——”
“Oh, George has worked awfully hard,” said Shaw reasonably. “I don’t
suppose there is a more conscientious artist living. He has dug out of
himself everything there was to be got. No one could have tried more.
As a worker, George is magnificent. But, really, when you suggest a
book——”
“No! No! I don’t suggest it for one moment,” I interrupted.
“Then what are we discussing?”
“Well, in the first instance, my publishers suggested——”
“Ha! ‘In the first instance!’ No; it really cannot be done. If you
wish to write the book nobody, of course, can stop you, but if you do
you must not expect me to countenance it. I shall wash my hands of the
whole business.”
And, in spite of some further conversation, that remained his
unshakable attitude.
An hour later he walked with me down to the station, I resolving all
the way that I would persuade my publisher to accept two books. Shaw
droned on about Sidney Webb and the Fabian Society.... So many people
have talked to me of Sidney Webb. I wonder why. I have heard Sidney
Webb speak; he knows all about figures and dates and money and wages,
and so on.... But of human nature he knows nothing; he knows less than
a child, for a child has at least intuition. Figures don’t go very
far, do they? Of course, by manipulation, you can make them go all the
way....
But, as I was saying, Shaw talked about Fabianism and Webbism all the
way to the station.
He was good enough to wait till the train started, and the last I saw
of him as I leant through the window was a long, lean figure standing
under a lamp. The figure wore no overcoat, but I noticed, even when a
hundred yards separated us, a pair of thick, home-knitted woollen
gloves....
* * * * *
_P.S._—The book was never written, for my publishers could not be
persuaded to take G.B.S. at his own or my estimate.
Mr George Moore, on being approached, wrote me from Dublin, saying,
inconsequently enough, that he had never asked anybody to write about
him nor had he ever asked anybody to refrain from doing so. On the
whole, he thought it better that if A (myself) wished to write about B
(Mr George Moore), it would be an excellent arrangement, provided
that:
(1) A was an intimate friend of B’s, or
(2) A was a complete stranger to B.
I was left, most courteously, to infer that I (A), being a complete
stranger, had better remain so.
I did.
I have done.